Colonialism and imperialism Books

Book SynopsisThe profound effects of the British Empire's actions in the Arab World during the First World War can be seen echoing through the history of the 20th century. The uprising sparked by the Husayn-McMahon correspondence and led by 'Lawrence of Arabia'; the Sykes-Picot agreement which undermined that rebellion; and memoranda such as the Balfour Declaration all have shaped the Middle East into forms which would have been unrecognizable to the diplomats of the 19th century. Undertaken during the First 'World' War, these actions were not part of a coordinated British strategy, but in fact directed by several overlapping and competing departments, some imperfectly referred to as the 'Arab Bureau'. The British and the Middle East is unique in its comprehensive treatment of how and why the British generals and diplomats acted as they did. By taking as his starting point the voluminous, contradictory and revealing records of the policy-makers in the British government, Robert H. Lieshout shows convincingly that many concerned with foreign policy making were quite oblivious to the history and complexities of the Islamic World.Covering the full sweep of British involvement in Arabia, Lieshout makes a lasting contribution to our understanding of the period in which the British Empire changed the world, and shows how shallow and confused the understanding of those that shaped the future of the Middle East really was.

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Book SynopsisIn January of 1788 the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales and a thousand British men and women encountered the people who will be their new neighbours; the beach nomads of Australia. "These people mixed with ours," wrote a British observer soon after the landfall, "and all hands danced together." What followed would determine relations between the peoples for the next two hundred years.Drawing skilfully on first-hand accounts and historical records, Inga Clendinnen reconstructs the complex dance of curiosity, attraction and mistrust performed by the protagonists of either side. She brings this key chapter in British colonial history brilliantly alive. Then we discover why the dancing stopped . . .Trade ReviewIn a voice that is always careful, thoughtful, deliberate, she teases out the story from what is not said, from ironic or obtuse turns of phrases in sentences constrained by professional formality or egotistical defensiveness . . . (Clendinnen) is above all a skilled interpreter of human behaviour. It is this psychologically astute . . . approach that sets her apart as a thoroughly 21st-century historian. -- Susan Elderkin * * Guardian * *Clendinnen revitalises out interest . . . Her glimpses are less conclusive but more truthful. They leave us with the feeling that we have not got it right, and that in itself is a spring-board back into investigation. -- Nicholas Shakespeare * * Daily Telegraph * *The story evoked is one of mystery, excitement and tension. Clendinnen's obvious passion for the subject transfers brilliantly onto the page as people and places are brought vividly to life. * * Big Issue * *A moving, often surprising story. * * Scotsman * *Clendinnen writes so well, with an eye for detail and character that make her a pleasure to read . . . Her words dance across the page. * * New York Times * *An extraordinary achievement. -- Robert MainFascinating. Transforms our understanding of history from something static into something lived. -- James Bredley * * Sydney Morning Herald * *

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Book Synopsis‘I was born as part of a monstrous structure — the grotesque, hideous, ugly, ghastly, gruesome, horrible relations of power that constituted colonial Britain. A structure that shaped me, that shapes the very language that I speak and use and love. I am the daughter of an empire that declared itself the natural order of the world.’ From award-winning writer and critic Alison Croggon, Monsters takes as its point of departure the painful breakdown of a relationship between two sisters. It explores how our attitudes are shaped by the persisting myths that underpin colonialism and patriarchy, how the structures we are raised within splinter and distort the possibilities of our lives. Monsters asks how we maintain the fictions that we create about ourselves, what we will sacrifice to maintain these fictions — and what we have to gain by confronting them.Trade Review‘A marvel of a book … Croggon spares no one, least of all herself, as she unearths colonial history and family complicity to scrutinise those demons that both torment and shape us. This is exactly the kind of book I have longed to see white authors write, and I love it for its refusal to provide easy answers to the dilemma at the heart of the modern human condition.’ -- Ruby Hamad, author of White Tears/Brown Scars‘Refreshing … admirable.’ -- Josephine Fenton * Irish Examiner *‘Croggon is an autodidact and digs deepest into issues which interest her most. Her writing on femaleness and the patriarchy is excellent and follows her own feminist evolution … This is a unique blend of memoir and critical theory.’ -- Bob Moore * Good Reading *‘Croggon’s background as a poet is tangible, and her language in Monsters is flavoursome … she is witty, self-reflective, raw.’ -- Anna Westbrook * ArtsHub, starred review *‘What makes Monsters distinct, from opening bars to melancholy coda, is the nature of the pain it describes. Not the physical kind which holds at least the potential for relief, but the emotional distress emerging from a breakdown in the author’s relationship with one of her two younger sisters: a connection that has grown increasingly poisonous over time … Monsters becomes the effort to draw a global map of human hurt using the fractal experience of one woman’s domestic discord.’ -- Geordie Williamson * The Weekend Australian *‘Monsters is a hybrid memoir about family, colonialism and how external forces invisibly shape us, by renowned critic and impressive brain Alison Croggon.’ -- Jo Case * InDaily *‘Steady and acute self-scrutiny such as Croggon’s is necessary to a widening interrogation of privilege that underpins the illumination and refusal of racism and sexism and promised a historical pivot away from overt and covert violence … Monsters is full of gloriously expressed insights, such as the image of the internet as ‘a trauma machine, recording and reproducing millions of psychic wounds’ and, on the subject of #MeToo, the way an accumulation of incidents can contribute to a ‘deformation fo self’ … stylistically, the rhythms and sonic patterns of Croggon’s prose are a poet’s.’ -- Felicity Plunkett * The Age *‘Sometimes it is in the gulf between what we value and how we act that we are truly revealed … Croggon cares deeply about this idea, of sitting with complexity … in every scorching appraisal of hierarchy and patriarchy, there is a central thought: there must be some explanation … For Croggon, the legacy of British colonialism is the notion that you can take someone’s story away from them. Monsters fights to reclaim the narrative.’ -- Sarah Walker * Australian Book Review *‘In language at once fiery and elegant, [Croggon] reckons with the collective failures of her imperialist ancestors and the personal shame of their legacy. It’s a book I will return to often for its power and its truths.’ -- Marina Benjamin, author of Insomnia‘The searing opening spares no one, least of all Croggon as she details a toxic relationship with her sister … Woven in and out of all this are other ugly but very differently scaled relationships, from colonialism through which she details her own history, to the patriarchy and how it distorts the way we see even ourselves. Croggon is a talented writer, librettist, playwright and thinker, and her focus here is to understand and, in some ways, reconcile with all this dysfunction.’ -- Penelope Debelle * SA Weekend, starred review *‘Monsters brings up interesting insights on trauma, power relations and the pathology of families.’ -- Alastair Mabbott * The Herald *‘Young Adult author Croggon grapples with both personal and historical demons … [she] asks probing questions about self-perception and trauma … The monsters of the title are plentiful: throughout the essays she addresses her British colonialist ancestors, her abusive mother, the “traumatic tedium” of her relationship to her sister, and herself … Lyrically rendered, this reckoning will leave readers with plenty to think about.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘With Monsters, [Croggon] tackles one of contemporary literature’s most electric (and eclectic) forms — a kind of glorious literary mutant that braids socio-cultural contemplation and memoir; anchoring high-theory with visceral intimacy. She joins a sorority of glittering thinkers … whose work mimics what it feels like to stretch an idea out in your brain. True to type, Monsters is digressive, kaleidoscopic, and alive with questions.’ -- Beejay Silcox * The Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA year after the Crimean War ended, an uprising broke out in India which was to have equal impact on the balance of world power and the British Empire's role in world affairs.

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Book Synopsis‘Free as they want to be’: Artists Committed to Memory is the companion publication to the FotoFocus biennial exhibition that is scheduled for Fall 2022 and will run at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center until Spring 2023. This project considers the historic and contemporary role that photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath while examining the social lives of Black Americans within various places including the land, at home, in photographic albums, at historic sites, and in public memory. This exhibition acknowledges artists’ constant involvement with efforts to explore the possibilities of freedom and their relationship to it. Their quest to be ‘as free as they want to be’ is envisioned in the subject matter they explore as well as in their persistent drive to innovate aesthetic practices in photographic media. The publication presents some 20 artists working in photography, video, silkscreen, projection, and mixed media installation. Free as they want to be is inspired by the words of James Baldwin and the timely theme of FotoFocus, World Record, as well as events of late that have shaped the world as we know it. The artists selected for this publication are on the frontlines, creating, documenting, and writing. The works they have conceived reflect defining moments in the struggle for racial justice and equality. Free as they want to be presents an occasion to reflect upon the past, to mark significant defining moments – both triumphs and tragedies – that characterize a people and their experiences in the present – and to propose future possibilities. The artists offer images that advance a different sense of empowerment. Their images thus play an integral part in casting resilient narratives as they commemorate endurance, longevity, and accomplishment. The timing of a publication like this could not be more urgent given the human toll of the pandemic, widening economic disparities, the threat of war, voting rights, global migration crises, and quotidian violence. Proposed Artists: Terry Adkins; Radcliffe Bailey; J.P. Ball Studio; Sadie Barnett; Dawoud Bey; Sheila Pree Bright; Bisa Butler; Omar Victor Diop; Nona Faustine; Adama Delphine Fawundu; Daesha Devon Harris; Isaac Julien; Cathy Opie; Hank Willis Thomas; Lava Thomas; Carrie Mae Weems; Wendel White; William Earle Williams; anonymous tintype photographer – photo album

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Book Synopsis***THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER*** In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift' from the railways to the rule of law was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India s deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.Trade Review'In Inglorious Empire, Shashi Tharoor documents the realities of the British empire in India and makes a compelling case for the need to acknowledge, and, atone for, these realities.' -- Book Riot, ’14 Must-Read Indian History Books’

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Book Synopsis*** Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize*** In 1903 a Brahmin woman sailed from India to Guyana as a 'coolie', the name the British gave to the million indentured labourers they recruited for sugar plantations worldwide after slavery ended. The woman, who claimed no husband, was pregnant and travelling alone. A century later, her great-granddaughter embarks on a journey into the past, hoping to solve a mystery: what made her leave her country? And had she also left behind a man? Gaiutra Bahadur, an American journalist, pursues traces of her great-grandmother over three continents. She also excavates the repressed history of some quarter of a million female coolies. Disparaged as fallen, many were runaways, widows or outcasts, and many migrated alone. Coolie Woman chronicles their epic passage from Calcutta to the Caribbean, from departures akin either to kidnap or escape, through sea voyages rife with sexploitation, to new worlds where women were in short supply. When they exercised the power this gave them, some fell victim to the machete, in brutal attacks, often fatal, by men whom they spurned. Sex with overseers both empowered and imperiled other women, in equal measure.It also precipitated uprisings, as a struggle between Indian men and their women intersected with one between coolies and their overlords.Trade Review'With Coolie Woman, Bahadur lifts the veil of anonymity. She combines her journalistic eye for detail and story-telling gifts with probing questions, relentlessly pursuing leads to create a haunting portrait of the life of a subaltern. 'Can the subaltern speak?' the theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak had asked rhetorically. Yes, she can. Through the story of Sheojari, Bahadur shows how.' * The Independent *'Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture is a genealogical page-turner interwoven with a compelling, radical history of empire told from the perspective of indentured women. The collective voice of the jehaji behen (ship sisters) has been barely audible across the centuries, until now ... Bahadur grants us rare imaginative access to the odyssey through the experience of women's stories she finds in the archives.' * The Guardian *'Gaiutra Bahadur has produced an intricate, thoroughly researched and beautifully written book that evokes the experience of emigrant Indians and their descendants.' * Times Literary Supplement *'In her remarkable book, Gaiutra Bahadur chronicles the extraordinary but neglected saga of indentured labour that evolved when the British began to replace slavery on their sugar plantations worldwide. But the book is more than this: it is also a highly personal account that traces the history of the author s maternal line to the present day. As Bahadur clambers down the generations, she provides the reader with a meticulous and lushly detailed family memoir. ...This is a fascinating story, which will have resonance for millions of others who are swept up and transformed by history and have to find a new way to create 'home'.' * Literary Review *' …an epic and remarkably revealing account of love, intrigue, betrayal, and murder on the sugar plantations … Bahadur has shed unexpected light on the origins of sexual violence in many a dislocated community.' * The Philadelphia Inquirer *'In this fine book, Gaiutra Bahadur probes the hidden world of these indentured women. … Bahadur' s research (conducted in Guyana, India, and the United Kingdom) is deep and meticulous in both primary and secondary literature, and the story is told with the novelist's practiced eye for the telling detail. Good history here is a good read as well. And along the way, we catch glimpses of the sordid world of servitude and suffering on the colonial plantations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries across the world.' * The Journal of Asian Studies *'An astonishing document… both a historical rescue mission and a profound meditation on family and womanhood, Bahadur's Coolie Woman spans continents and centuries, the private and national, to bring to light the extraordinary lives of the author's great-grandmother and the other quarter of a million kuli women that came to the New World as indentured laborers. Bahadur's meticulous research and tireless perseverance have restored an important chapter in our histories — outstanding work.' * Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her *'I thought I knew something about slavery and forced labour, having written two books on the subject. And I thought I knew something about immigration to the New World. But Gaiutra Bahadur's book made me realise how the experience of a whole generation of women like her great-grandmother profoundly challenges the various stereotypes we have. This is a highly original combination of careful scholarship and well-told personal journey.' * Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains: the British Struggle to Abolish Slavery *'With the exhilarating meticulousness of a period film, Coolie Woman recreates a vanished world and casts a personal searchlight on the saga of indenture. Gaiutra Bahadur rescues her great-grandmother Sujaria and other 'coolie' women from the archives by means of a narrative that is both scholarly and soulful. In detailing the bitter journeys of her forebears, in making their astonishing experiences real and sympathetic, and in registering the complexities of their lives -- not least the extent to which they made choices where one might have expected helplessness -- Bahadur honours their memories and shows herself their worthy descendant.' * Teju Cole, author of Open City *'Coolie Woman is an important, unmissable account. From colonialism to labour in India, immigrant narratives to the hidden lives of women, Ms Bahadur excavates a rich and unforgettable set of stories that will permanently change our view of the past.' * Business Standard *'At one level this is a family history, as the author…searches for her roots. At a deeper level, it explores the social history of indentured labour and the imperial policies by which it was governed… It is a colourful story, well told.' * Asian Affairs *'…a moving, foundational book, investigating the experience of indentured Indian women in the Caribbean. It is solidly researched and as such it reveals the difficulty of understanding the human lives concealed within documents. Bahadur delicately reconstructs these women's lives, seen only through a glass darkly, piecing them together with respect and even admiration. This is a book that will both be of great use to scholars and a compelling text for non-specialists.' * Women's Review of Books *'Bahadur's passion shines through … Its real success is to balance Bahadur's personal tale of discovery with the broader story of the 250,000 other “coolie women” who fled sometimes tricky personal circumstances in India only to find their new lives were another battle for survival.' * The National *

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Book Synopsis'The product of many years of detailed archival research, Wilson’s book is without question the best one-volume history of the Raj currently in print.' - William Dalrymple, The Guardian‘The core of the book is a virtuoso takedown of cherished shibboleths of Raj mythology’ Financial Times ‘A forceful reminder that Britain has its own messy past to come to terms with’ Guardian  In the nineteenth century, imperial India was at the centre of Britain’s global power. But since its partition between India and Pakistan in 1947, the Raj has divided opinion: some celebrate its supposed role in creating much that is good in the modern world; others condemn it as the cause of continuing poverty. Today, the Raj lives on in faded images of Britain’s former glory, a notion used now to sell goods in India as well as Europe. But its real character has been poorly Trade Review‘This is an inspirational book, a challenging source of controversy and an invaluable corrective to the many histories of British India that have scarcely escaped the self-reverential platitudes of imperial rule’ * Times Literary Supplement *‘Wilson understands the complexities of India, illuminating the cultures of the courts, the rivalries of the Marathas, the emergence and destinies of Pindari gangs of peasant-warriors.’ * Literary Review *‘The core of the book is a virtuoso takedown of cherished shibboleths of Raj mythology.’ * Financial Times *‘Conquest comes in many forms and Jon Wilson’s polemical India Conquered is a forceful reminder that Britain has its own messy past to come to terms with.’ * Guardian *‘He delves into every aspect of Indian life, from law to religion, the economy to education, to show how the interaction between rulers and the ruled played out in unexpected and often calamitous ways’ * Guardian *‘It’s a neat and modern telling that feels as necessary as a bucket of water in the face after a dizzying trip to the bazaar.’ * The Times *

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Book SynopsisAllan Quatermain leads an expedition in search of a missing man and the fabled King Solomon's mines in deepest Africa. His exciting adventures captivated readers, and this new edition looks at Haggard's own African experiences and colonial attitudes to native tribes and the ravages of the British Empire.Trade ReviewMy grandfather used to tell me about King Solomon's Mines; how he repeatedly gave up on the book before he waseventually won over by this tale of Allan Quatermain, a hunter who leads an expedition in search of a vanished English explorer in the African jungle ... And my grandfather was right: the narrative has all the unstoppable momentum of a charging rhinoceros. * David Evans, Independent on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisHe knew nothing of celestial navigation or of the existence of the Pacific Ocean. He was a self-promoting and ambitious entrepreneur. His maps were a hybrid of fantasy and delusion. When he did make land, he enslaved the populace he found, encouraged genocide, and polluted relations between peoples. He ended his career in near lunacy.But Columbus had one asset that made all the difference, an inborn sense of the sea, of wind and weather, and of selecting the optimal course to get from A to B. Laurence Bergreen''s energetic and bracing book gives the whole Columbus and most importantly, the whole of his career, not just the highlight of 1492. Columbus undertook three more voyages between 1494 and 1504, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. By their conclusion, Columbus was broken in body and spirit, a hero undone by the tragic flaw of pride. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, this book shows how the subsequent voyages illustrate the costs - political, moral, and economic.Trade Review"Laurence Bergreen's Columbus was brillliant, audacious, volatile, paranoid and ruthless. What emerges in this biography, a worthy addition to the literature on Columbus is a surprising and revealing portrait of a man who might have been the title charcater in a Shakespearan tradegy." — The New York Times"Laurence Bergreen's ambitious new biography, Columbus: The Four Voyages [is] a spellbinding epic that's simultaneiously a profoundly private portrait of the most complex, compelling, controversial creature ever to board a boat. This scrupulously researched, unbiased account of four death-defying journeys to The New World reveals the Admiral's paradoxical personality." — USA Today"A compelling new book [that] details the explorer's trips to the New World, including three you haven't heard about." — Salon"Once you have read this superb acount of Columbus' four voyages, you will never be content with the cliche about the Italian-born explorer's sailing the ocean blue in 1492. Author of many prize-winning popular history books on topics as diverse as Marco Polo and Al Capone. Laurence Bergreen is a New York-based scholar whose portrayal of the life and times of Christopher Columbus is a tour de force." — Winnipeg Free Press"Laurence Bergreen's new book, refreshingly, is fluid in style in its style and comprehensive in its research. Richly illustrated and enhanced with maps that are as legible as they are relevant. Columbus: The Four Voyages is complex in its themes, intriguing in its substance and sparkling with suprises." — The Washington Times"In this scrupulously fair and often thrilling account of his four vorages to the "New World," Bergreen reveals Columbus as brilliant, brave, adventurous, and deeply flawed . . . A superb reexamination of the character and career of a still controversial historical agent." — Booklist

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Book SynopsisOffering a history of travel, tourism and Egyptology, Tea on the terrace follows Egyptologists between home and field sites, revealing how their activities in hotels and on dahabeahs impacted the development of the discipline. -- .

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Book SynopsisNow fully updated to 2009, this acclaimed history of Latin America tells its turbulent story from Columbus to Chavez. Beginning with the Spanish and Portugese conquests of the New World, it takes in centuries of upheaval, revolution and modernization up to the present day, looking in detail at Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Cuba, and gives an overview of the cultural developments that have made Latin America a source of fascination for the world. 'A first-rate work of history ... His cool, scholarly gaze and synthesizing intelligence demystify a part of the world peculiarly prone to myth-making ... This book covers an enormous amount of ground, geographically and culturally' Tony Gould, Independent on SundayTable of ContentsThe Penguin History of Latin AmericaPrefacePart One: The Age of Empire1. Discovery and Conquest2. Indians and Iberians3. Spain in America4. The Spanish Indies5. Colonial BrazilPart Two: The Challenge of the Modern World6. Reform, Crisis and Independence7. The Quest for Order: Conservatives and Liberals in the Nineteenth Century8. 'Civilization and Barbarism': Literary and Cultural Developments IPart Three: The Twentieth Century9. Nationalism and Development: An Overview10. Mexico: Revolution and Stability11. Brazil: Order and Progress12. Cuba: Dependency, Nationalism and Revolution13. Argentina: The Long Decline14. Chile: Democracy, Revolution and Dictatorship15. Identity and Modernity: Literary and Cultural Developments IIPart Four: Towards a New Era16. Globalization and Reform: An OverviewStatistical AppendixFurther ReadingMapsGlossary of Key TermsIndex of SubjectsIndex of Names

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.'When Charles Marlow agrees to captain a steamer up the Congo in search of the elusive ivory trader Mr Kurtz, it becomes a terrifying journey into both the unknown and his own subconscious. As he travels deeper and deeper into the dense jungle, he begins to sense the presence of this extraordinary and terrible man, and to question the horrifying realities of European imperialism and of human nature itself.Originally published as a three-part story in 1899, Conrad's masterpiece has inspired many further works, including Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and remains a thought-provoking text to this day.

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Book SynopsisConcise, elegant and lucid A very useful primer on the delusions of an English mentality' GuardianWhat do we get wrong about Britain's history and its place in the world? In a brilliant, big-picture history, bestselling author David Reynolds moves beyond the Brexit debate to trace and reassess the defining narratives of Britain's past. From fluctuating engagement with Europe to the legacies of Empire. From the Acts of Union that forged the United Kingdom to the slave trade, immigration and the special relationship. This is a vital guide to how Britain's identity was really formed, and what long-held and often-damaging illusions we should be shaking off.Trade Review‘Splendid… a clear, well­written and highly stimulating account of the flaws in our understanding of Britain's past that bedevilled the great debate over the country's relations with the EU and helped produce the result it did. We could have done with it two or three years ago. But then real history, based on extensive reading, research and the wisdom of a true historian, takes a while to write.’ Literary Review ‘[A] concise, elegant and lucid revisiting of key themes in British history … There is here not history but histories … Reynolds provides a very useful primer on the delusions of an English mentality.’ Guardian ‘Incisive … Reynolds provides a useful summary of the scholarship that has examined the relationship between the four nations in the British Isles … Reynolds is at his best when the narrative of Europe as antagonist is concerned … On the basis of Reynolds’ compelling account, Britain’s future outside the EU ought to begin with an honest assessment of its past.’ Financial Times ‘History is essential to political awareness, and the Brexit debate was certainly shaped by historical narratives. Reynolds subjects these narratives to brisk, witty and often acerbic appraisal … His commentary on how these stories have shaped postwar British politics is compelling.’ TLS ‘Lively, slender and timely’ Foreign Affairs

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Book SynopsisExam board: Edexcel Level & Subject: AS and A Level English Literature First teaching: September 2015 Next exams: 2025Trade Review“The new Collins Classroom Classic editions are perfect for schools – clear text, bright covers, a good size for pockets and bags, and a great price that makes buying new class or cohort sets very attractive in these budget-conscious times.” de Stafford School

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Book SynopsisSaul David''s Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 is a fascinating look at the most controversial and brutal British imperial conflict of the nineteenth century.The real story of the Anglo-Zulu war was one of deception, dishonour, incompetence and dereliction of duty by Lord Chelmsford who invaded Zululand without the knowledge of the British Government. But it did not go to plan and there were many political repercussions. Using new material from archives in Britain and South Africa, Saul David blows the lid on this most sordid of imperial wars and comes to a number of startling new conclusions.''Saul David''s brilliant and magisterial account must now be regarded as the definitive history of the Zulu War'' Frank McLynn, Literary Review''This meticulously detailed book...give[s] a fully rounded and judicious account of this dismal conflict Guardian''Fascinating, thrilling, convincing... reads like a novel'' E

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORYSHORTLISTED FOR THE GILDER LEHRMAN PRIZE FOR MILITARY HISTORY''A masterpiece. It puts all previous single-volume works of the conflict in the shade'' Saul David, The TimesA bold new approach to the Second World War from one of Britain''s foremost military historiansRichard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins to recast the way in which we view the Second World War and its origins and aftermath. He argues that this was the ''great imperial war'', a violent end to almost a century of global imperial expansion which reached its peak in the ambitions of Italy, Germany and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s, before descending into the largest and costliest war in human history and the end, after 1945, of all territorial empires.How war on a huge scale was fought, supplied, paid for, supported by mass mobilization and mTrade ReviewMajestic and original ... Overy has written many fine books, but Blood and Ruins is his masterpiece. At almost 1,000 pages, it puts all previous single-volume works of the conflict in the shade. -- Saul David * The Times *This book is Richard Overy's magnum opus (in every sense of the phrase) ... It would be difficult to overstate the brilliance with which argument and insight are interwoven in a fast-paced narrative ... Extraordinarily compelling, and written with remarkable fluency. -- John Darwin * Times Literary Supplement *Monumental... [A] vast and detailed study that is surely the finest single-volume history of World War Two. * Wall Street Journal *This is a magnificent book that reflects the deep scholarship and humane judgment of a magisterial historian. * The Economist *Let's praise Overy's stupendous achievement. Anybody interested in the why and how of boundless violence in the 20th century should make space for Blood and Ruins on his or her shelf. It will help you to grasp and revisit the carnage of 1931-45 as the largest event in human history. This book is not Eurocentric, but truly geocentric ... it is history at its best. -- Josef Joffe * New York Times *Richard Overy has produced one of the most stunning accounts of the Second World War and the events that led up to it. -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph Books of the Year 2021 *A magisterial new history ... remarkable in span, depth and scholarship, impressive in sweep and vision, that rightly sees WW2 as starting in China in 1931 and recasts the conflict as a distorted sequel to an earlier epoch. -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * Aspects of History *A truly global view of World War II ... perhaps the single most comprehensive account of the Second World War yet to appear in one volume. You might think that by reading extensively, you could construct a book like this one. You could not ... Richard Overy has done a signal service with this compellingly written, impressively researched book. -- Rana Mitter * The Critic *Recasting World War Two as the logical continuation of decades of imperial growth and territorial ambition, this new exploration of the conflict is expansive in its geographical and chronological scope. Yet it never loses sight of the very human cost of that ambition ... A weighty, important take from a leading author in the field. * History Revealed *His masterly synthesis of the war's vast literature and sources has never been bettered. ... it is unflagging and consistently illuminating. -- Geoffrey Roberts * Irish Times *Dazzling ... Overy's reframing of WWII as the last gasp of imperialism is astute and incisive. WWII buffs should consider this a must-read. * Publishers Weekly *A whopping, fact-packed grand overview. * The Times *In this impressively detailed and innovative account of the 1930s and the Second World War, Overy frames the events leading up to the conflict as a last-ditch attempt to shore up or remake empires. * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisYour life online is their product.In the past, colonialism was a landgrab of natural resources, exploitative labour and private property from countries around the world. It promised to modernise and civilise, but actually sought to control. It stole from native populations and made them sign contracts they didn't understand. It took resources just because they were there.Colonialism has not disappeared it has taken on a new form.In the new world order, data is the new oil. Big Tech companies are grabbing our most basic natural resources our data exploiting our labour and connections, and repackaging our information to control our views, track our movements, record our conversations and discriminate against us. Every time we unthinkingly click Accept' on Terms and Conditions, we allow our most personal information to kept indefinitely, repackaged by big Tech companies to control and exploit us for their own profit.In this searinTrade ReviewI wish that Data Grab was required reading when I was a graduate student working in the field of AI. Perspectives like these are crucial if we are to break the colonial paradigm that pervades computing disciplines -- Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research InstituteA blistering, vital exposure of the predatory world of data colonialism. In this vivid and passionately written book, Mejias and Couldry urge us to wake up to the invasive and extractive world of today’s Big Tech -- Mike Savage, author of 'Social Class in the 21st Century'Remarkable... Data Grab helps us understand that the historical and ongoing relations of power have extended to the realm of data, a new raw material of digital capitalism. Mejias and Couldry place us on a path to recognise, resist, and challenge these forces -- Dr Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor at the UCLA Department of Information Studies and Director of UC Digital Cultures LabAs in their previous work, Mejias and Couldry show how important it is to take the perspective of the colonized, not the colonizer, in explaining how the digital world is governed. Data Grab offers important insights into how we should analyse power and counter-power in terms of data control. I particularly recommend this book for providing examples of local and vocal initiatives across various continents. A true eye-opener -- José van Dijck, Distinguished Professor of Media and Digital Society, Utrecht UniversityIn this essential and original work, Mejias and Couldry lay out a powerful and persuasive analysis of the logical continuity between modern colonialism and the extraction of data by Big Tech and its platforms. Their call to resist data colonialism could not be more urgent or more timely -- Jeremy Gilbert, author of 'Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World' and 'Twenty-First Century Socialism'

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Book SynopsisNiru is a young Bengali woman married to an English colonial bureaucrat Tom.Tom loves Niru, exoticising her as a frivolous plaything to be admired and kept; but Niru has a long-kept secret, and just as she thinks she is almost free of it, it threatens to bring her life crashing down around her.Tanika Gupta reimagines Ibsen's classic play of gender politics through the lens of British colonialism, offering a bold, female perspective exploring themes of ownership and race.

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Book SynopsisThe book explores British art in relation to British India. It examines the aesthetic interactions initiated by the Anglo-Indian colonial encounter across the disciplines of painting, print-making, design, photography and architecture. It also considers the display of Indian artefacts at exhibitions in Britain and in India and presents the art of urban elites alongside popular arts and artefacts.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Renate Dohmen1 Painting in British India – Renate Dohmen2 Indian crafts and empire – Renate Dohmen3 Photography in colonial India – Steve Edwards4 Architecture, empire and India – Elizabeth McKellarConclusion – Renate DohmenIndex

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Book SynopsisA forensic study of war, imperial history and international relations, following the Second World War and leading into the Cold War and defeat of Western imperialism in Asia. And above all, the story of the pivotal battle and French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. It shows France's revanchist attempt to regain imperial 'glory' in her former Asian empire following humiliation in the Second World War - defeat and Vichy. The effort was spurred by de Galle's chauvinism and desire to recover France’s honour and reputation, after so many humiliations by friend and foe. The Communist led Vietminh, were guided to victory by ruthless revolutionary Ho Chi Min - far from the attractive 'Uncle Ho' who is revered as a communist saint in contrast to louche playboy emperor Bao Dai – and the very able General Giap. Communist strength in rural Vietnam society - the Vietminh represented a nation in arms – was backed by supplies from Communist China and the Soviet Union. It was an existential struggle on the French side - the end of cafe society, and the gravy train for planters, officials, the military, and politicians. Military matters including General Giap’s strategy and tactics are analysed in detail,l but it was a 'soldiers' war', told at ground-level, and readers will feel the heat and fear of battle, be shocked at war crimes, and intrigued by the tales of Graham Greene et al. The global importance was not lost on the powers following exhaustion from world war and in the shadow of the Cold War. All great leaders were involved, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Khruschev, Chou En-Lai and Mao Zedong, Under the shadow of the A bomb, a negotiated peace and first detent of the Cold War would end in the sumptuous salons of Geneva.

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Book SynopsisDiscover how the campaign to end slavery divided Britain and was almost thwarted by some of the most powerful and famous figures of the era.**SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING**In 1807, Parliament outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire. But for the next 25 years more than 700,000 people remained enslaved, due to the immensely powerful pro-slavery group the 'West India Interest'.This ground-breaking history discloses the extent to which the 'Interest' were supported by nearly every figure of the British establishment - fighting, not to abolish slavery, but to maintain it for profit. Gripping and unflinching, The Interest is the long-overdue exposé of one of Britain's darkest, most turbulent times.A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR'Scintillating . . . compulsively readable' Guardian'A magnificent book . . . riveting' Evening Standard'A critical piece of history and a devastating exposé' Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire'Thoroughly researched and potent' David Lammy MP'Essential reading' Simon Sebag MontefioreTrade ReviewAn outstanding and gripping revelation ... essential reading -- Simon Sebag MontefioreImpressively researched and engagingly written -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *A magnificent book ... riveting -- Ian Thomson * Evening Standard *Powerful ... engrossing ... Taylor's potent book shows why slavery took root as an essential part of British national life -- Martin Chilton * Independent *Taylor can tell a story superbly and has a fine eye for detail ... His argument is a potent and necessary corrective to a cosy national myth * Economist *Michael Taylor's well-researched The Interest is ... about abolition, but it focuses on the grandees who fought against it, mostly for reasons of greed ... those seeking a catalogue of the country's old iniquities need look no further -- Simon Heffer * Telegraph Books of the Year *A thoroughly researched and potent historical account, The Interest exposes the truth behind the longstanding narrative of Britain as a leading abolitionist force and makes a powerful case for reparations -- Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Shadow Secretary of State for JusticeScintillating ... In twenty brisk, gripping chapters, Taylor charts the course from the foundation of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1823 to the final passage of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Part of what makes this a compulsively readable book is his skill in cross-cutting between three groups of protagonists. On one track, we follow the abolitionist campaigners on their lengthy, uphill battle ... This well-known story is reanimated by some brilliant pen-portraits ... A second strand illuminates the fears and bigotries of white British West Indians ... The main focus of the book, however, is on the colonists' powerful domestic allies, the so-called West India Interest ... Taylor paints a vivid picture of their outlook, organisation and superior political connections ... As this timely, sobering book reminds us, British abolition cannot be celebrated as an inevitable or precocious national triumph. It was not the end, but only the beginning -- Fara Dabhoiwala * Guardian *One achievement of Taylor's fascinating book is that, for the first time in a book about abolition, it gives equal weight to the force of pro-slavery ... Taylor's political analysis is first-rate and riveting ... He argues that emancipation was neither inevitable nor altruistic; party politics in Westminster and rebellion from the West Indies played as much a role as moral outrage. Taylor's achievement [is to] show that, thanks to the power of the Interest, being pro-slavery was seen as a respectable, even popular, position in British politics until the day of its demise. Above all, he reminds us of the role of those who have been unsung in this story - of Mary Prince, Samuel Sharpe and Quamina -- Ben Wilson * The Times *Taylor superbly brings to life all the intrigue, machinations, heavy-lifting, rigmarole and chance of the tortuous path to abolition -- H Kumarasingham * Literary Review *Impressive ... Taylor tells a compelling story, graced with anecdotes but driven by argument, that moves the reader to and fro between London and the Caribbean, and between aristocratic houses and anti-slavery rallies ... with fierce moral passion ... Taylor vividly evokes the slave revolts ... reveals some of the atrocities perpetrated by slave-owners ... Yet the book's primary focus is political because, as Taylor emphasises, the abolition of slavery turned to a large extent on events at Westminster ... Yet votes were not enough; bribery was also vital ... The writing of British history must encompass slave-power, not just sea-power - as Taylor's scorching book makes clear -- David Reynolds * New Statesman *Skilfully written with a powerful and passionate narrative, this is a seminal work that carries the burden of phenomenal relevance. It shows how the enslavers' battle to protect their trophy became the most dramatic public affair in early 19th century Britain -- Sir Hilary Beckles, Chair of the Caribbean Community Reparations CommitteeAs Michael Taylor demonstrates in this highly original, passionate, deeply researched and beautifully written book, opposition to slavery abolition was rooted deeply in British culture and values, which permeated the thinking of many contemporary radicals as well as conservatives. A disturbing story but a very important one -- Boyd Hilton, Professor of Modern British History, University of CambridgeOffer[s] [a] fresh perspective on the story of reform and challenge[s] many of the prevailing, at times self-congratulatory, narratives of abolition ... Taylor assesses how far earnings from slavery permeated British society. He names the banks, universities and industries that all benefited directly from the trade ... lessons for today -- Kofi Adjepong-Boateng * Financial Times *This fascinating history of Britain's approach to slavery makes short work of the argument that Britain's main role in the atrocities of the slave trade was to abolish it. In debunking this argument, Taylor writes with vivid clarity about one of history's greatest crimes, introducing us to people and places that have long since been consigned to the past and yet loom over the present. Meticulously researched and timely, The Interest is a critical piece of history and a devastating exposé of a misleading colonial narrative -- Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious EmpireTaylor skillfully weaves careful research, astute judgements and elegant writing into a vital new interpretation of the efforts to prevent emancipation in the British Caribbean. In doing so, he shows just how the defence of slavery was pursued as a national interest before its abolition was claimed as a national achievement -- Dr Richard Huzzey, Durham UniversityMichael Taylor's The Interest is an absorbing and unsparing account of a wilfully distorted episode in British history and a vital antidote to the Rees-Moggification of the national past. As readable as it is timely, the book will appeal to the academic and the lay reader alike in contributing significantly to current reappraisals of Britain's relationship with its colonial past -- Simon Skinner, Associate Professor, University of OxfordOne of the pleasures of teaching modern historians about ancient Rome is that they go on to write great books like this -- Mary BeardReads like a murder mystery ... Taylor challenges nostalgic politicians' desire to resurrect a sanitised, 'civilizing mission' version of our imperial past, perpetuating the myth of Britain as an anti-slavery nation -- Colin Grant * Writers Mosaic *[An] excellent new book... The scale of what the abolitionists were up against is only now becoming clear ... Taylor's book is one of the few studies to give it equal time * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisWith the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the 19thCentury, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduced. The authors show that they are a main driver of the ecological crisis and economic and political instability.The Imperial Mode of Living implies that people's everyday practices, including individual and societal orientations, as well as identities, rely heavily on the unlimited appropriation of resources; a disproportionate claim on global and local ecosystems and sinks; and cheap labour from elsewhere. This availability of commodities is largely organised through the world market, backed by military force and/or the asymmetric relations of forces as they have been inscribed in international institutions. Moreover, the Imperial Mode of Living implies asymmetrical social relations along class, gender and race within the respective countries. Here too, it is driven by the capitalist accumulation imperative, growth-oriented state policies and status consumption. The concrete production conditions of commodities are rendered invisible in the places where the commodities are consumed. The imperialist world order is normalized through the mode of production and living.Trade ReviewThe highly readable book by Brand and Wissen exposes an internal contradiction fraught with consequences: the imperial mode of living undermines its own operating conditions. Currently, the dominant reaction to this fact consists of desperate attempts to secure the exclusivity of this mode of living even under altered conditions. -- Stephan Lessenich * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung *The facts of the "imperial mode of living" are nothing new. The merit of the authors lies in showing its related problems broadly, well founded in theory and substantiated by empirical material. -- Joachim Hirsch * Frankfurter Rundschau *To fight the ecological crisis, the realm of political economics ought to be included as well, because it would clearly show the problems with the global North's globalised norms of production and consumption. -- Jutta Bichl, Paolo Freire Zentrum, AustriaDeveloping a counter-hegemony to the imperial mode of living would mean articulating both structural and everyday alternatives. Brand and Wissen call for seeking out confrontation with the elites in contested societal (nature) relations and countering the imperial mode of living with a solidary one. -- Evelyn Linde * analyse & kritik *Empathy for the worries of people who are situated well above average on a global scale, but are increasingly unsettled in their sphere of life, would be needed for the transformation-oriented left, if it were to take a hegemonic project seriously. -- Andreas Novy * Austrian Journal of Political Science *An explosive book that not only helps in understanding the multiple crises of our times, but also shows approaches for overcoming them. -- Knut Henkel * die tageszeitung *The book shows that a sound analysis of society is not an academic end it itself but has a high relevance for the political discourse. -- Bernd Sommer * GAIA *Using the term "mode of living", the authors succeed in defining the embedding of global power relations in the everyday actions of people in the North without raising moral accusations. [.] The imperial mode of living has the hallmarks of compulsion, but at the same time enables, creates conveniences and expands scopes of action. While it can be sustained only for the price of intensifying economic and ecological crises, it contributes to the stabilization of the societies of the North, including their injustices, and remains attractive for those excluded, whose hope is not pinned on overcoming the imperial conditions, but on participating in the exclusive privileges. -- Gerd Schoppengerd * express *Brand/Wissen conceive the term "mode of living" [...] as a category of systematic connections between action and structure. The term connects the analysis of the everyday practices people use to reproduce social conditions to a critique of social structures that make just these practices appear to be the conditions for a good life [...]. Norms for modes of production and consumption are embedded in these practices just as much as are forms of state regulation that arose from social conflicts. In other words, the imperial mode of living forms part of a hegemonic combination that does not confront the social actors as something external but constitutes them as subjects and conveys a capacity for action to them, which they adopt and reproduce in their everyday practices. -- Jörg Reitzig * Politikum *With their effort to start with the daily normality of the imperial mode of living, Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen managed an important strike, especially in the political realm. -- Klaus Dörre * Sozialismus *If you want to understand the multiple crises of our times and are searching for answers, you must read this book. It is an exceptional proof of the practical value of political science. -- Gerhard Klas * Südwestrundfunk. Die Buchkritik *An essential political read for our times. Spelling out the brutal contradictions of the 'imperial mode of living' and its 'green economy', Brand and Wissen invite the reader to consider a 'solidary mode of living'. Here, sociability and sustainability can be joined, and hopefully celebrate the rich plurality of global cultures. -- Ariel SallehThis lucid articulation of 'the imperial mode of living' as a pathbreaking concept, helps us to better understand the continuing neo-colonial relations of production and consumption between the Global North and South. It shows their devastating social and ecological consequences, and why 'green economy' like approaches will not save us and the planet. Rather, systemic, fundamental alternatives are needed, and this book brilliantly demonstrates why. -- Ashish KothariProudly wearing the cloaks of what they call revolutionary Realpolitik and radical reformism, Brand and Wissen offer both a bracing and radical assessment of the current ecological crisis and a roadmap of the pathways from fossil capitalism. The imperial model of living saturates everyday life resting upon the unlimited appropriation of resources, a disproportionate claim to global and local ecosystems and sinks and cheap labor from elsewhere. Yet the concrete production conditions of consumed commodities and their environmental destructiveness in the Global North and South alike are typically invisible, rarely crossing into critical reflection. The Imperial Mode of Living offers a brilliant analysis of how and why this sense of normality is produced in a time of multiple and overlapping crises, and how such a mode of living simultaneously creates these crises and stabilizes social relations in the countries where its benefits are concentrated. A tour de force. -- Michael Watts, University of California, BerkeleyThe Imperial Mode of Living introduces a much needed addition to our understanding of imperialism by looking at the ways in which global structures of imperial domination, extraction, and production have created consuming classes with imperial lifestyles that threaten the ecological survival of the planet. It also helps make sense of the new phase of imperial domination and extraction of the global South through engendering consuming classes in both the global North and South. By making visible the taken-for-granted daily practices of consumption and production and linking them to imperial structures, Brand and Wissen have produced an indispensable contribution. -- Michelle Williams, Professor of Sociology and Chairperson of the Global Labour University Programme, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South AfricaBrand and Wissen assert that it will only be possible to overcome the destructive global imperial mode of living by changing the current ways of working and of consumption, and by putting solidarity into practice across society. The German-language publication of the book garnered a discussion that was both broad and intensive, precisely because the authors insist on the need to rethink social transformation beyond hitherto concepts of reform or revolution. -- Joachim Hirsch, Goethe University, Frankfurt/M.The Imperial Mode of Living is a very enlightening and also useful conceptual tool to connect the mainstream essentialist criticism of capitalism and a critical analysis of the everyday life of people within it. With the help of it, we can have a better understanding of the political and economic dynamics of contemporary capitalism, a globalized as well as 'universalized' system or hegemonic mode of living, which constitutes a great challenge for the emerging global Green-left politics. -- Qingzhi Huan, Beijing UniversityThis book vividly illuminates what imperialism means today, elucidating the deep structures of social and ecological injustice on which prosperity is currently premised. Eschewing simple moral appeals, the book superbly threads together the cultural and economic forces that make the richer parts of the world feel comfortable with the status quo. Brand and Wissen lay the groundwork for a much-needed shift in the cross-border conversation over alternatives. -- Emma Dowling, author of The Care Crisis (2021)The Imperial Mode of Living is a powerful contribution to the Left's strategic debates worldwide. Its bold and controversial thesis on the everyday implications of global economic and ecological inequality deserves to be discussed widely. -- Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, AmsterdamA pathbreaking thesis - and a truly essential reading for making sense of the 'global constellations of power' that shape the world we live in. Looking at the socio-ecological contradictions of Western societies from the perspective of their manufactured elsewhere, and the normalized violence of extractive relations - this book magisterially complements the tradition of anti-imperialist, 'revolutionary Realpolitik' (Rosa Luxemburg). -- Stefania Barca, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, PortugalComing out of the Corona virus crisis, there has to be a radical transformation in the way that we live. This book is an excellent way into the discussion of the mode of living that is destroying the earth. A solidary mode of living or authoritarian neo-liberal corona capitalism: that, the authors suggest, is the choice we face. No debate could be more important. -- John HollowayIn the tradition of debates about imperialism, this book emphasizes its effects on the crucial level of everyday life and, more broadly, interrogates what constitutes our modes of living today. Bringing together consumption, extractivism and production, Brand and Wissen provide an updated reading and multilevel map not only of capitalist exploitation, but also of the underlying political elements behind migration, the rise of the right and the urgent need to rethink class and ecology from the point of view of social reproduction. Through the notion of themode of living as a constellation of elements, this book is a renewal of anti-imperialist theory. -- Verónica Gago, Universidad de Buenos AiresAn accessible and deep examination of imperialism's historical and present construction of a global economy designed to not only dominate the peoples and nations outside the capitalist core, but also to keep that economy's ecological destructiveness in those nations, too. -- Ron Jacobs * CounterPunch *In her great work of 1913, Rosa Luxemburg had shown that the accumulation of capital is only possible if there is an outside that enables the preservation and development of the inner core of the capitalist mode of production. Inevitably capitalism is an imperial order. Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen link this insight of Luxemburg to the fact that the mode of living, including desires, everyday production and consumption patterns such as mobility in the centers of modern capitalism are also imperial. They describe the strategy for an alternative of a solidary mode of living, the emergence of which requires nothing less than a new Great Transformation beyond capitalism. -- Michael Brie, Head of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Rosa-Luxemburg-StiftungThis book is a must read, particularly poignant for scholar working on consumption and sustainability. The concept of an 'imperial mode of living' captures the idea that power relations permeate both everyday life, and political as well as economic spheres. Mundane and routine practices, performed without much reflexivity - such as driving a car or preparing a meal - reveal broader social inequalities and forms of environmental deterioration that become normalized, accepted, even respected, and thus difficult to change. From describing the problem and introducing the concept, the authors then lead us down a promising avenue: that of solidarity and social learning. Such measures are not the sole remit of heroic individuals, however, they require multiple and perhaps messy collective action. Because...Ya basta! -- Marlyne Sahakian, University of GenevaA book for these times ... The Imperial Mode of Living not only offers a novel grasp of the links of everyday life to crises and inequalities on a global scale, but it also takes a stand for the necessity of politics from below. -- Stefan Schoppengerd * LSE Review of Books *

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Book Synopsis'An ambitious, riveting and essential book that has much to teach us about the recent history of this region, and about the human impulse towards populism that continues to shape the world' Ben Rhodes, bestselling author of The World As It Is 'A REVOLUTION IS A STRUGGLE TO THE DEATH BETWEEN THE FUTURE AND THE PAST.' FIDEL CASTRO For more than six decades, Fidel Castro's words have echoed through the politics of Latin America. His towering political influence still looms over the region today. The swing to the Left in Latin America, known as the 'Pink Tide', was the most important political movement in the Western Hemisphere in the 21st century. It involved some of the biggest, most colourful and most controversial characters in Latin America for decades, leaders who would leave an indelible mark on their nations and who were adored and reviled in equal measure. Parties became secondary to individual leaders and populism reigned from Venezuela to Brazil, from Central America to the Caribbean, financed by a spike in commodity prices and the oil-backed largesse of Venezuela's charismatic socialist president, Hugo Chávez. Yet within a decade and a half, it was all over. Today, this wave of populism has left the Americas in the hands of some of the most authoritarian and dangerous leaders since the military dictatorships of the 1970s.Trade Review¡Populista! is action-packed with a large cast of characters, but Grant's lively style never sags under the weight of the detail he manages to pack into the book * Guardian *This is an astute account of how the left in Latin America gained and then lost power * The Times *Grant's reporting is detailed and enlightening. He puts the leaders and their reigns in their historical context while asking the movements they fronted worked * Spectator *A tour-de-force of reportage and analysis that makes sense of historic, complex forces that shook Latin America... A lucid, important book' -- Rory Carroll, author of ComandanteAn ambitious, riveting and essential book that has much to teach us about the recent history of this region, and about the human impulse towards populism that continues to shape the world -- Ben Rhodes, New York Times bestselling author of The World As It IsA valuable and timely guide... Grant's ¡Populista! describes how the playbook of charismatic autocrats and chronic cronyism can unfold anywhere' -- John Paul Rathbone, author of The Sugar King of HavanaWill Grant moves deftly from palaces where he heard presidents claiming they embodied the will of the people to the barrios where their policies had most impact -- Maurice Walsh, former BBC Latin America correspondentWill Grant writes with close knowledge, admirable balance, and the verve of a natural storyteller. A must-read for today's volatile world -- Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary LifeWill Grant is one of the BBC's great scholar-correspondents, and without peer when it comes to explaining Latin America. In Populista, he marries the depth of knowledge of a fine historian, with the elegant storytelling of a gifted journalist -- Nick Bryant, BBC New York CorrespondentThe best piece of non-fiction writing on Latin America that I have read in a long time. Will Grant meets everyone from presidents to the impoverished, and explains it all beautifully -- Giles Tremlett, author of Ghosts of SpainWill Grant has written an elegant and vivid account of Latin America's strongmen that radiates from the pages like bursts of Cuban sunshine. He skilfully weaves together reportage, startling modern history, and his own personal testimony, to chart the rise to power of some of the most brutal, but fascinating, authoritarian leaders of modern times. He invites us into a world of dripping jungle hideouts, dusty urban warfare. At times, it is as if the reader has slipped into the pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- Paul Kenyon, author of DictatorlandGrant expertly traces how the actions and views of his subjects played out on ordinary lives, for better or worse, from women like Cristina Chuquijanca de Soria, 'Maduro diet' of inflation and food shortages under the country's current president * ArtReview *The portraits of each character (which Grant calls 'Shakespearean' and 'colorful') are very interesting, with a lot of historical and personal information... It provides tools which allow the reader to accept or refute the author's positions in the preface and in the epilogue with numerous arguments and good information... An enjoyable read and highly recommended for those who wish to understand Latin America' * The Sentinel *

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Book SynopsisMaristow House in West Devon has a rich, remarkable yet little-known history. In the seventeenth century two sons from a family of Exeter merchants helped establish the sugar plantations of Jamaica and the resulting trade in African slaves. One became the island's governor while the other married the daughter of a Civil War hero and one of the first owners of the house. His Jamaican grandson took over the estate in the 1730s and produced an heir who rebuilt the mansion to reflect the style and architecture of Georgian England. These changes were paid for largely by the proceeds of slave plantations, even though this family never visited the source of their wealth. Instead, they frequented he fashionable salons of Bath and London arranging the marriages of their four daughters. The eldest, Sophia, married off against her will to an immensely rich but boring husband, spent all her adult life in the fashion-conscious court of the Prince of Wales. Another sister helped to save the life of a distant member of the family indicted as a mutineer on the infamous HMS Bounty. Finally, the house and its thousands of acres were bought by another West Indian, this time from a family of successful financiers and traders. Their Jewish heritage placed obstacles in their path but despite widespread antisemitism the buyer created an astonishing political career in the House of Commons and played an important role in the career of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. Equally remarkably, Manasseh Lopes, despite having no children of his own, founded a dynasty of successful men and women who to this day are close to Britain's royal family. Slave-generated wealth impacted both urban and rural areas of Britain. Many of the country's finest country houses owe their origins to this wellspring of money. What this book reveals is that even in one house, this wealth fuelled an extraordinary range of political and cultural activity. Maristow House, as Malcolm Cross explains, remains a portal through which to appreciate economic and social change on a much larger canvas.

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Book SynopsisFrom the 1920s until the Second World War, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand filled British shop windows, newspapers, and cinema screens with 'British to the core' Canadian apples, 'British to the backbone' New Zealand lamb, and 'All British' Australian butter. Selling Britishness explores the role of commodity marketing in creating "Britishness."Trade Review‘Felicity Barnes covers new ground in her study of the construction of dominion Britishness by emphasising trade and focusing the interwar period – still neglected in the historiography – as well as by bringing gender and race to the fore. The book is an invaluable contribution to debates about the British world.’ Andrew Dilley, University of Aberdeen and author of Finance, Politics, and Imperialism: Australia, Canada, and the City of London, c.1896–1914“This is a colourful account of how, from the mid-1920s, the Western world embraced the consumer society and how three settler colonies of the British Empire marketed their goods in the ‘Home’ country. While [the book’s] academic framework is an essential part of scholarship today, the rich detail and anecdotes from the past are a valuable contribution to wider knowledge of how New Zealand earned a living from exporting food.” *National Business Review *“Barnes takes a welcome alternative approach [and] convincingly argues that the Dominions played a leading role in developing commodity Marketing. Through a series of engaging case studies, Selling Britishness [challenges] the metropolitan focus of much of the literature that has explored the popular culture of imperial trade.” *Journal of British Studies *“Barnes provides useful insights into how commodities were implanted within the daily lives of British people. [Selling Britishness] is a significant contribution to the history of commodities in the twentieth century [and] contributes to understanding national identity in an era when high imperialism had arguably waned but had by no means completely evaporated.” New Zealand Journal of History“This is a major addition to the history of interwar British imperial marketing.” British Journal of Canadian Studies“Selling Britishness explores the advertising campaigns of the three major British Dominions [and] places Dominion commodity marketing as a significant cultural force. Barnes delivers a compelling and enjoyable book.” Journal of Australian, Canadian, and Aotearoa New Zealand Studies

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Book SynopsisFocuses instead on the concept of identity to reveal a Roman society made up of far-flung populations whose experience of empire varied enormously. This title examines the nature of power in Rome and the means by which the Roman state exploited the natural, mercantile, and human resources within its frontiers.Trade Review"Imperialism, Power, and Identity is an ambitious attempt to map the transformation of lifestyles and experience among Rome's provincial subjects in the first three centuries AD... This is 'history from below' at its best."--Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement "Essential."--Current Archaeology "Although appealingly and sometimes passionately written, this is a substantial and technically detailed book... An advanced and theoretically sophisticated approach, it will shift the centre of debate over the merits of Roman imperialism for many years to come."--Edith Hall, History Today "[T]his volume is provocative, passionate and personal. It ranges widely across time, space and categories of evidence. Importantly, it is a contribution which does not unquestioningly import and impose concepts such as post-colonial theory, but rather it critically examines their value, refines them and contributes back to wider contemporary debates."--Robert Witcher, Classical Review "Imperialism, Power, and Identity provides an excellent summation of both Roman imperialism and Mattingly's unique perspective on the relationship between empires and local peoples. His writing style, engrossing case studies, and distinctive interpretations are welcome additions to the study of Roman imperial encounters. The book should be of great interest to specialists and postgraduates, as well as anyone interested in understanding Roman imperialism from a vantage other than the traditional one."--Anna Lucille Boozer, British Archaeology "The title of Mattingly's book is no false advertising. His treatment of what empire and imperialism are; how power permeated all relationships and transactions--personal social, political, sexual and economic--throughout the Empire; in what ways the inexhaustible appetite for resources in Roman imperial times wasted human lives and did lasting damage to natural landscapes; and how individuals and groups conceived of their identities under Roman imperial rule, all make us experience what it was like to be part of its power system."--Tom Palaima, Times Higher Education Supplement "For a serious academic treatment--this is no light read--his conclusions can be surprisingly uncomfortable, especially for those who prefer to see the artistic fruits of Roman civilization without the human suffering that accompanied them. This latest volume is essential for anyone wishing to keep up with the debate."--Current Archaelogy "Mattingly presents a personal reflection on Roman imperialism in which he rejects the essentially static concept of Romanization in favor of a more dynamic model."--Choice "Mattingly's presentation of many cogent and well-supported arguments ... should be considered by all serious scholars of the Roman Empire."--Adam Kemezis, Journal of the Classical Association of Canada "The text is very well structured, with ample definitions, introductions, subtitling and conclusions reiterating the main points. Mattingly is a good writer and his prose makes good reading, regardless of whether or not one is willing fully to share his new readings of the issues involved. The scholarship of this book is admirable and the points well argued. Mattingly may not be such a lonely front line soldier defending a new paradigm as he sometimes implies, but there is no denying that he is a central figure in the discussion that more and more pervades archaeological studies dealing with the understanding of the implications of Roman imperialism... This book is a passionate, thought-provoking and necessary statement in this debate."--Pirjo Hamari, ARCTOS "Mattingly is one of the leading archaeologists of the Roman provinces, both in the quality of his fieldwork and his interpretive thinking. This book demonstrates why that position is fully deserved."--Louise Revell, Journal of Roman StudiesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations ix List of Tables xiii Foreword by R. Bruce Hitchner xv Preface: My Roman Empire xvii Preface to the Paperback Edition xxv Part One: Imperialisms and Colonialisms Chapter 1: From Imperium to Imperialism: Writing the Roman Empire 3 Chapter 2: From One Colonialism to Another: Imperialism and the Maghreb 43 Part Two: Power Chapter 3: Regime Change, Resistance, and Reconstruction: Imperialism Ancient and Modern 75 Chapter 4: Power, Sex, and Empire 94 Part Three: Resources Chapter 5: Ruling Regions, Exploiting Resources 125 Chapter 6: Landscapes of Imperialism. Africa: A Landscape of Opportunity? 146 Chapter 7: Metals and Metalla: A Roman Copper-Mining Landscape in the Wadi Faynan, Jordan 167 Part Four: Identity Chapter 8: Identity and Discrepancy 203 Chapter 9: Family Values: Art and Power at Ghirza in the Libyan Pre-desert 246 Afterword: Empire Experienced 269 References 277 Index 325

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Book SynopsisAn innovative theory of state intelligenceTrade Review'Raises a fascinating question: what if the biggest failures of intelligence are not the factual errors, but the inbuilt biases that shape what types of information is deemed useful, or even legible, to the state?' -- Lisa Stampnitzky, Lecturer of Politics at the University of Sheffield, UK, and author of 'Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented “Terrorism”''A ground-breaking contribution to the field. Elegantly written, the book decodes a plethora of declassified documents showing the racialised assumptions underlying the use and abuse of intelligence in contemporary Western politics. This is a must-read for anyone interested in democratic politics, recent armed conflicts in the Middle East or asymmetrical global power relations' -- Dr. Elisabeth Schweiger, Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of York, UK'Your jaw will drop and your heart will break. We urgently need this reckoning with the role of race-thinking in international politics. Lives depend on it' -- Gargi Bhattacharyya'A ground-breaking analysis revealing how Western intelligence failures are not isolated incidents but symptomatic of a racialised imagination of other societies as 'ignorant, emotional, and illogical', ultimately threatening peace and maintaining inequality. Essential reading for anyone interested in how intelligence is made, (mis)used and underpins international relations' -- Owen David Thomas, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Exeter and founding member of the Secrecy Power and Ignorance Network (SPIN)Table of ContentsList of figures Acronyms and Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction: Ukraine, Iraq, and the failure of intelligence failure 1. Whispering geopolitics in a decolonising world 2. Dragons and tigers and bears, oh my: The invention of the mirror-image problem Part Two 3. Getting to know Saddam Hussein 4. 'They buried things in the sand': The threat of Iraq and the secret of race Conclusion: Libya, the Arab Spring, and the success of intelligence failure Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBy long convention, American history began during the early seventeenth century along the Atlantic Seaboard with the English colonies at Jamestown in Virginia and Plymouth in New England. From that eastern origin, America supposedly expanded westward, reaching only the Appalachian mountains by the end of the colonial period. In this version of history, earlier Spanish and contemporary French settlements seemed irrelevant except as enemies that brought out the best in the English as they remade themselves into Americans. Indians appeared only as wild and primitive peoples engaged in an ultimately futile resistance to American destiny. And historians formerly treated African slaves in passing as unfortunate aberrations in a fundamentally upbeat story of Englishmen becoming freer and more prosperous by colonizing an abundant continent of free land. During the past generation, however, historians have broadened our understanding of colonial America by adopting both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-continental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flows of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas. In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents the current scholarly understanding of colonial America to a broader audience.American colonization derived from a global expansion of European exploration and commerce, beginning in the fifteenth century. In an Atlantic and global perspective, the English had to share the stage with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russians, each of whom created alternative Americas. By comparing the diverse colonies of rival empires, Taylor aims to recover what was truly distinctive about the English enterprise in North America. In particular, he intends to pay greater attention to slavery as central to the economy, culture, and political thought of the colonists and, by taking a Continental approach, to restore the importance of native peoples to the colonial story. To adapt to the new land, the colonists needed the expertise, guidance, alliance, and trade of the Indians who dominated the interior. The new historical approach emphasizes the ability of the diverse natives to adapt to the newcomers and to compel concessions from them.In sum, colonial America produced an unprecedented mixing of radically diverse peoples--African, European, and Indian--under stressful circumstances for all. The colonial intermingling of peoples,microbes, plants, and animals from different continents was unparalleled in speed and volume in global history. Everyone had to adjust to a new world of unpredictable social and cultural hybrids that compromised and complicated the ambitious plans of empire-builders.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of ContentsList of illustrations ; Introduction ; Chapter 1: Encounters ; Chapter 2: New Spain ; Chapter 3: New France ; Chapter 4: Chesapeake colonies ; Chapter 5: New England ; Chapter 6: West Indies and Carolina ; Chapter 7: British America ; Chapter 8: Empires ; Timeline ; Further reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisIn this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences.Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasised the possibility of progress while trying to destroy what came before, and voraciously sought out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums.By practising what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Léopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions - an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums - to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics.Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as "past" and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.Trade ReviewAriella Azoulay takes on the seemingly impossible task of teaching us how to unlearn: unlearning imperialism, unlearning the archive, unlearning our complicity with regimes of violence, domination and exploitation, and most importantly for this ambitious volume, unlearning photography and its capacity to foreclose 'potential histories' that must urgently be realized and reclaimed. The monumental implications of unlearning are revealed with dizzying effect through her rigorous analysis, lucid writing, and vivid examples. In Potential History, she once again delivers a work of breathtaking scope that challenges us to reconfigure both what constitutes history, as well as what it means to learn from and unlearn toward its radical potential for living otherwise. -- Tina Campt, author of Listening to ImagesA magisterial call to reorient our relations to objects, archives, art, and plunder. * Protocols *A remarkably rich and evocative history on the problem of violence and the importance of engaging aesthetics. -- Brad Evans * Los Angeles Review of Books *Azoulay has produced a unique handbook for the 2020s that details how, why, when and where to say no in the affirmative. Her greatest achievement is that, against the foreshortened horizons of a despoiling barbarism, she makes all our tomorrows thinkable. -- Guy Mannes-Abbott * Third Text *Offers revitalising approaches to imperialism and to photography as a cultural phenomenon, grounded in the re-cognition of the figures 'leaning against the edge' of photographs. -- Louis Rogers * review31 *Azoulay has produced a unique handbook for the 2020s that details how, why, when and where to say no in the affirmative. Her greatest achievement is that, against the foreshortened horizons of a despoiling barbarism, she makes all our tomorrows thinkable. -- Guy Mannes-Abbott * Notes From a Fruitstore *Across some six-hundred pages, Azoulay accomplishes that rare thing wherein her call becomes more urgent and acutely resonant even as the contours and magnitude become less perceivable and more outsized.3 By the book's end, she has thoroughly denaturalized the terms of political classification and made the claim for a worldly sovereignty beyond the nation-state. -- Luke Urbain, University of Wisconsin-Madison * InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture *By creating a "potential history," Azoulay questions the imperialist construction of time, space, and politics through objects and experiences of struggles around the world, from the original peoples in the Americas, to the Congo under King Leopold II. * The Architect's Newspaper *A political call to arms that argues the need for critical examination of archive material...provocative and stimulating. -- Sean Sheehan * The Prisma *Much of Potential History's 500 pages bear particular relevance to this moment of racial reckoning and faltering of neoliberal capitalism. As mass movements mobilize in the streets against anti-Black police brutality, white supremacy, and systemic, structural racism, her call for reconceptualizing "the strike" to include historians, artists, photographers, museum workers, and "the governed" seems poignant. -- Stephen Sheehi * Hyperallergic *To acknowledge the violence inherently embedded in archives-particularly in cultural archives that the neutral we understand as our cultural commons-and to then envision new ways of being with these cultural objects so as to allow them to speak their own futures are essential components of [Azoulay's] urgent project of unlearning imperialism. -- Rachel Stevens * World Records Journal *Building from Azoulay's argument that our actually existing commons-whether they are water systems or cultural archives-are constituted by imperial violence, we should ask how to transform imperial public spheres and institutions into worldly spaces of care and interdependence. -- Kareem Estefan * World Records *To acknowledge the violence inherently embedded in archives-particularly in cultural archives that the neutral we understand as our cultural commons-and to then envision new ways of being with these cultural objects so as to allow them to speak their own futures are essential components of [Azoulay's] urgent project of unlearning imperialism. -- Rachel Stevens * World Records *A codependent politics of appearance.manifests as superficial investment in others' problems, often to satisfy the emotional needs of the voyeur. This mode of despotic empathy has displaced the sharing of a world-in-common-precisely what, in Ariella Aïsha Azoulay's wording 'was destroyed and should be restored'-with ubiquitous spectacles of privation and racialized violence. -- Irmgard Emmelhainz * World Records *According to Azoulay, an initial problem with unlearning imperialism is that for most of us, our thinking and acting-indeed, our very being-in-theworld-is conditioned by imperialism. Unlearning imperialism is a paradoxical task because we must first learn how imperialism works by rendering its working explicit so that we might unlearn it. -- Corey McCall * Contemporary Political Theory *The book reads as though it were composed by Walter Benjamin's "Angel of History," who backs, horrified into the future while in front of him the ruins pile up. The angel, in this case, is the citizen, forced into the position of a perpetrator and trying to unwind history, to undo it not to return to a "golden age," but to do away with traditional chronological thinking altogether. -- Margaret Olin * Political Theology *

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Book SynopsisThe Age of Discovery was a time of exploration and developing new ideas, when Europeans first travelled across the seas to other lands. In his warm and expressive style, Charles Kovacs tells stories of key European historical figures, from the Crusades to the Renaissance, including Saladin, Joan of Arc, Columbus, Magellan, Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Drake, and draws out the interrelation of world events.This revised edition of a classic text is an engaging resource for teachers and home-schooling parents. This historical period is traditionally covered in Class 7 (age 13-14) of the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum.Trade Review'An excellent overview of world history, compiled from Charles Kovacs' copious lesson notes. Throughout, Kovacs is keen to convey to the reader the notion of cause and effect and the inter-relatedness of world events. Any teacher of the 13-year-old age group will find this book an excellent resource.'-- New View

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Book Synopsis'Where are you from?' was the question hounding Hazel Carby as a girl in post-World War II London. One of the so-called brown babies of the Windrush generation, born to a Jamaican father and Welsh mother, Carby's place in her home, her neighbourhood, and her country of birth was always in doubt. Emerging from this setting, Carby untangles the threads connecting members of her family to each other in a web woven by the British Empire across the Atlantic. We meet Carby's working-class grandmother Beatrice, a seamstress challenged by poverty and disease. In England, she was thrilled by the cosmopolitan fantasies of empire, by cities built with slave-trade profits, and by street peddlers selling fashionable Jamaican delicacies. In Jamaica, we follow the lives of both the 'white Carbys' and the 'black Carbys', as Mary Ivey, a free woman of colour, whose children are fathered by Lilly Carby, a British soldier who arrived in Jamaica in 1789 to be absorbed into the plantation aristocracy. And we discover the hidden stories of Bridget and Nancy, two women owned by Lilly who survived the Middle Passage from Africa to the Caribbean.Moving between the Jamaican plantations, the hills of Devon, the port cities of Bristol, Cardiff, and Kingston, and the working-class estates of South London, Carby's family story is at once an intimate personal history and a sweeping summation of the violent entanglement of two islands. In charting British empire's interweaving of capital and bodies, public language and private feeling, Carby will find herself reckoning with what she can tell, what she can remember, and what she can bear to know.Trade ReviewAn elegant memoir which pivots beautifully around those twin imposters, 'belonging' and 'home'. Richly suffused with a love of people and place, Carby's familiar intellectual rigor never lets us drift off course towards nostalgia. -- Caryl Phillips, author of A View of the Empire at SunsetA heartbreaking and beautiful account of growing-up in the impossible space between mutually exclusive terms-Black and British. The history of empire, slavery and colonialism unfolds in the exquisite and painful details of this unflinching auto-portrait. Carby deftly captures the ways that relations of power are lived, intimately, quietly, destructively, and profoundly. What an achievement. -- Saidiya Hartman, author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful ExperimentsThis beautifully written book raises the bar for political life-writing. Hazel Carby invites readers to follow a reconstructive quest propelled by memory, archive and imagination. It is a journey of discovery that forcefully contextualises the injustice dished out by British governments to the 'Windrush generation' and their rebel offspring. Carby disrupts fixed notions of racial identity that contort our understanding of Britain's colonial and postcolonial history. -- Paul Gilroy, author of Darker Than Blue and The Black AtlanticHazel Carby is a foundational scholar of race, class, and empire as critical lenses for understanding culture. In Imperial Intimacies she shares the way that stories-often difficult to mine and face-are at the core of how her indispensable world view was formed. Imperial Intimacies is an epic, generous book that illuminates black Britain as never before and shows us how a great thinker and educator was formed. It is beautifully told, a treasured look into how a girl came to believe that reading and critical thinking could help mend a broken world and give us tools not only for living in it, but for understanding it. I'll treasure this book forever. * Elizabeth Alexander, author of The Light of the World and American Sublime *Hazel Carby assembles a sprawling account of how imperialism--a web of social relations, labor markets, and trade networks-conditions private feeling. The resulting narrative is something like an affective history of the British Empire. -- Maya Binyam * New Yorker *Carby's book lies somewhere between what is recorded in official archives, what is remembered in family lore, and what is considered an affective draw to intellectual questions. The spiny precision of the historical...allows the reader to feel erudite, but Carby's most captivating writing is when she feels on the page. -- Tiana Reid * Bookforum *Captivating. . . offers interesting perspectives on the personal impact of capitalism and colonialism. -- Bernardine Evaristo * TLS Books of the Year, 2019 *Exceptional...By using examples from her own background, she brilliantly demonstrates that 'the personal' is indeed political. -- LSE Review of Books * Manuela Latchoumaya *At every turn, Carby refuses to tell a tidy or convenient story and instead produces an account of empire that is as expansive as it is heartbreaking. -- Saidiya Hartman * Paris Review *While the minotaur of the British imperial past is very far from dead and buried, Carby's memoir offers a course, a set of clues; it brings us a bit closer to the mouth of the maze. -- Phoebe Braithwaite * Dissent *An arresting, courageous, and urgently needed memoir that doubles as social, cultural, and political history. -- Gaiutra Bahadur * The Nation *The poignancy in this moving and patient memoir-Carby writes with equal eloquence about work on the Great Western Railway, lichen and the neglected materiality of black British life-centres on her dedication to discovering (to paraphrase James Baldwin) from whence she came. -- Paul Mendez * Times Literary Supplement *Imperial Intimacies is part of a well-established and growing body of literature that explores the margins and gaps in the historical record. ... For those interested in imperialism, postcolonialism, black studies, black British history, and archival studies, this is an essential book to consider. -- Gabriella Rodriguez * Ethnic and Third World Literatures *In Imperial Intimacies, Carby delicately balances the critical distance of the scholar with the profound subjectivity of the memoirist. ... By exploring the relations between working class Welsh life and the Jamaican colony, Bristol's industrial center and the transatlantic slave economy, and the racial transgressions in the intimacies between her own parents, Carby's critical project illuminates the histories of the British empire that are embedded in the spaces of our everyday lives. -- Sabrina Alli * Guernica *[Carby] poignantly portrays how her father, a man of great dignity, had believed in the promises and ideals proclaimed by the British. Carby moves the reader through every possible response to the complex patterns of family lineage under empire. -- Madeleine Bunting * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisFired up by the outbreak of the First World War and outraged by the capitulation of most socialist parties to the demands of national bourgeoisies, Lenin sought to understand the deeper roots of the crisis of the world movement. The result was Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which went on to become a core text for the international communist movement. But Lenin also sought to break with the Eurocentrism of the socialist movement, which tended to look down with disdain at or simply reject struggles for self-determination, especially among colonized peoples.This volume, with an introduction by the renowned abolitionist and anti-imperialist theorist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, brings together the texts on imperialism and those on the national question to provide a window into Lenin's global vision of revolution.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Ruthie Wilson GilmoreCritical Remarks on the National Question (1913)The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1915)Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline (1916)The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up (1916)Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for The Second Congress of The Communist International (1920)Memo Combatting Dominant Nation Chauvinism (1922)The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation' (1922)Notes

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In his monumental Central Asia, Adeeb Khalid puts the region at the 'crossroads of history'. A laboratory of colonialism, revolution, nation building and telescoped social and cultural transformation, it has experienced 'every achievement of modernity and every one of its disasters'."---Daniel Beer, Times Literary Supplement"Khalid presents a masterful history of modern Central Asia which is at once scholarly, analytical and wonderfully accessible. . . .Adeeb Khalid deserves our gratitude for producing a path-breaking study of modern Central Asian history. One hopes it will pave the way for more."---Scott C. Levi, History Today ​​​​​​​"The book is successful in revealing the two centuries of political, social and cultural history of the peoples of Central Asia, and serves to further progress knowledge about this region."---Mirzokhid Askarov, Ethnic and Racial Studies"One of the newest and comprehensive studies on the region. It is a very broad and, at the same time, concise introduction to Central Asian history."---Marat Iliyasov, The Rest Journal"Formidably detailed, Central Asia is ideal for upper-level students wondering how a chronically misunderstood region has been shaped by broad currents and dominant powers of modern world history, in concert with local actors."---Andrew M. Wender, World History Connected

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Book SynopsisDonald R. Morris was born in 1924 and grew up in New York City. In 1948 he graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis. After serving on several destroyers, he went on to Naval Intelligence School and Russian language training and was detailed to the CIA in 1956. He remained with the CIA and continued in the Naval Reserve until 1972, when he retired as a Lieutenant Commander. He earned two battle stars in Korea and holds the Navy Commendation medal. His 17 years with the CIA were spent almost entirely in Soviet counter-espionage operations. He was stationed for lengthy periods in Berlin, Paris, Kinshasa (Zaire) and Vietnam. For many years Donald Morris was also a foreign affairs columnist for the Houston Post. In 1989 he formed the Trident Syndicate and published a weekly newsletter on current events and foreign affairs. He died in 2002.Trade ReviewSuperb -- Noel Mostert * New York Times *Mr. Morris is evidently incapable of being dull... Hemingway would have relished his vigorous way of bringing history to life * The Times *An accomplished volume, anatomising the achievement of Zulu nationhood and its destruction by the British at the high watermark of Victorian imperialism. * Observer *The book to end all books on the tragic confrontation between the assegai and the Gatling gun... Colourful yet commendably fair * Times Literary Supplement *This magnificent book is not only a history of the Zulus, the "Black Spartans", from their rise under Shaka to the deliberate destruction of the independent Zulu nation through the war forced on them by Sir Bartle Frere, but also a full-scale immensely knowledgeable account of British Colonial and military policy in relation to Southern Africa, and of the men who carried it out. * Punch *

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Book SynopsisTHE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BERBICE SLAVE REBELLION Winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize Winner of the 2021 Frederick Douglass Prize 'A gripping tale about the human need for freedom ... spellbinding' NPR 'Impressively detailed ... Kars provokes the reader into seeing the many sides involved in this bloody and desperate struggle with empathy and pity ... excellent' Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho 'A masterpiece ... a story for the ages' Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World In February 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion - and very nearly succeeded. For an entire year, they fought their enslavers, dreaming of establishing a free state, what would have been the first Black republic. Instead, they vanished from history. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this forgotten revolution, an event that almost changed the face of the Americas. Historian Marjoleine Kars draws on long-buried Dutch interrogation transcripts to reconstruct a rich day-by-day account of this extraordinary event, providing a rare look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution. An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery and the story of freedom in the New World.Trade ReviewA riveting addition to the history of the search for freedom in the Americas * Kirkus Reviews *A richly detailed account of a gripping human story -- H.W. Brands * Washington Post *[An] epic history ... A sweeping, thoughtful narrative, joining a new wave of books that make visible previously dismissed Black voices -- Carolyn Kellogg * Los Angeles Times *A gripping tale about the human need for freedom ... The story of the Berbice Rebellion begs to be told, and Kars' telling is impressive -- Martha Anne Toll * NPR Books *A model for how academic history can reach a wide audience, a narrative-driven work which presents pioneering archival scholarship in which we can hear the voices of the enslaved protagonists ... Kars represents the complexities of the rebellion without romanticising it -- Bethan Fisk * History Today *Brilliant ... 900 testimonies give unparalleled access to the complex dynamics of resistance and the voices of the enslaved ... A tour de force -- Catherine Hall FBA FRHS, Emerita Professor of History at UCL and Chair of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British SlaveryAn impressively detailed account of one of the earliest resistance battles against the horrors of slavery. Kars provokes the reader into seeing the many sides involved in this bloody and desperate struggle with empathy and pity. There's a sense of the futility of the fight against the Dutch and European Empires, but somehow she manages to convey hope and a degree of heroism on the side of those fighting for their freedom ... excellent -- Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius SanchoA powerful book that will appeal to experts and - thanks to the lively and accessible writing style - the general public alike * Black Perspectives *This striking study unearths a meaningful chapter in the history of slavery * Publishers Weekly *Meticulously researched and careful to prioritize the perspectives of the marginalized, Blood on the River offers a fascinating glimpse of the complex history of slavery in the Americas * Booklist *A must-read for anyone interested in slave revolts and the history of Atlantic slavery * Library Journal *[A] masterpiece ... Marjoleine Kars has unearthed a little-known rebellion in the Dutch colony of Berbice and rendered its story with insight, empathy, and wisdom. You'll find no easy platitudes herein. Instead, you'll find human beings in full relief, acting with courage, kindness, calculation, and mendacity in their quest for self-determination. Blood on the River is a story for the ages -- Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan PeopleTakes readers on a moving journey deep into a colonial heart of darkness. Drawing on rich and challenging sources, Marjoleine Kars reveals enslaved people making a rebellion that lingers in memory and landscape -- Alan Taylor, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Internal Enemy and William Cooper's TownThis is required reading for historians of the Black Atlantic world -- Jennifer Morgan, professor of history at New York University and author of Reckoning with SlaveryOne of the great slave revolts in modern history has at last found a gifted historian to tell its epic tale. Using a breathtaking archival discovery to make the Berbice rebels vivid flesh-and-blood actors, Marjoleine Kars deeply enriches the global scholarship on the history of slavery and resistance -- Marcus Rediker, author of The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and FreedomVivid ... The aborted attempt at freedom she chronicles provides a harrowing counterpoint to the American and French revolutions that would soon follow -- Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the WorldMarjoleine Kars has brought from the archives the voices of the enslaved, both in hope and in defeat. A tale of importance for our time -- Natalie Zemon Davis, author of Trickster Travels and The Return of Martin Guerre

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Book SynopsisNoel Malcolm, a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy, has previously written histories of Bosnia (1994) and Kosovo (1998). He is a general editor of the Clarendon edition of Thomas Hobbes, for which he himself has produced acclaimed editions of Hobbes's correspondence (1994) and Leviathan (2012). He is also a former Foreign Editor of the Spectator. He was knighted in 2014. Agents of Empire is his newest book.Trade ReviewThe book is a masterpiece, which will open the eyes of readers to the intrinsic interest and importance of a historically neglected region of Europe within the framework of a relationship between civilizations which is as complex today as it was in the sixteenth century. -- Sir John Elliott, Regius Professor of History Emeritus, University of OxfordThe word "magisterial" is overused, but for once it is properly applied to this latest offering from a scholar who is as prolific as he is polymathic. -- Daniel Johnson * Standpoint *There are very few scholars with Malcolm's linguistic skills and historical vision, which is one of the many reasons Agents of Empire is such an important book. It opens up new vistas of research into the hinterland of Renaissance Europe -- Jerry Brotton * Telegraph *The best introduction to the 16th-century Mediterranean since Fernand Braudel's The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II (1949) -- David Wootton * Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisProblem Society is an essential introduction to the many facets of divided societies. It examines the complexities of how and why ancient grievances and new conflicts coexist with unprecedented connectivity and develops studentsâ understanding of the daily lived experience of people in cultural, economic, and political landscapes affected by global shifts.Structured around critical problems facing global societies in transition, it equips students with analytical tools to interpret the complex world around them. It provides a multidisciplinary exploration of the historical contexts of nation-state building and the politics of divided nations and illuminates the geopolitical upheavals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Illustrated by diverse case studies and vignettes, it takes readers on a chapter-by-chapter journey through key topics including balancing interests and needs at different societal levels, from the global to local; shifts in the tension between individualism and collectivism; obstacles to problem-solving and decision-making; causes of, and ways of managing and resolving, conflict; the challenge of ensuring effective, accountable, and transparent governance; peacekeeping forms and the ethical and political dilemmas they entail; establishing and verifying truth in an era of misinformation; and balancing privacy and security amid widespread surveillance.Borne from the authorsâ extensive experience of teaching and collaborating with students to bridge theory, concepts, and issues with their real-world experience, pedagogical features include definitions of key concepts, activities, reflection questions, further reading, as well as carefully curated suggestions for films and docuseries, to deepen studentsâ understanding of contemporary international politics.Problem Society is an engaging introduction to the intricate dynamics of a rapidly changing, interconnected world for students of sociology, politics, international relations, human geography, anthropology, area studies, and conflict resolution.

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Book SynopsisPolitical journalist Andrew Marr's vivid account of the Queen and her reign over Great Britain and the Commonwealth.Trade ReviewMarr's writing is persuasive, liberal, energized * Observer *Marr has a gift for narrative and précis, a pithy turn of phrase and an ability to unearth the familiar * The Times *Absorbing . . . particularly acute on the political aspects of constitutional monarchy, but he also writes perceptively about individual members of the Royal Family. * Mail on Sunday *Contain[s] a lot of information which will be new to any but the most dedicated student of the monarchy . . . Marr is particularly interesting on the relationship between the Queen and the BBC. -- Philip Ziegler * Spectator *An exploration of the day-to-day duties of the monarch and her family. * Daily Telegraph *Offers the reader a history of the Queen’s reign viewed from the outside, with a particular emphasis on her relations with her prime ministers and the connection between political developments and the monarchy’s shifting fortunes . . . an overwhelmingly positive endorsement of the Queen’s remarkable record. -- Matthew Dennison * Express *A fresh perspective . . . Marr looks at the people and broader historical trends who have shaped Elizabeth II’s approach to her reign . . . fascinating -- Carolyn Harris, author of Raising Royalty Table of ContentsAcknowledgements - i: Preface and Acknowledgements Section - ii: What the Queen Does Unit - Part One: Dynasty is Destiny: How the British Monarchy Remade Itself Unit - Part Two: Lilibet Section - iii: Interlude - The Queen in the World Unit - Part Three: The Queen at Work Section - iv: Interlude - Britannia and the Waves Unit - Part Four: Off With Her Head! The Queen in the Sixties Section - v: Interlude - Money Unit - Part Five: Into the Maelstrom Section - vi: The Future Section - vii: Notes Section - viii: Select Bibliography Acknowledgements - ix: Picture Acknowledgments Index - x: Index

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1961, this masterly study of the guns used by the rivals in the Armada campaign remains an essential contribution to the understanding of the event, for it gave a new perspective to the whole battle. The long-drawn-out struggle in the summer of 1588 was the first major sea-action which was a straight artillery-duel and nothing else. With that the ship-borne gun began its long reign which lasted unbroken from the Armada to the Coral Sea and Midway Island.

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Book SynopsisAlthough Africans and African Americans have been left out of most accounts of the Revolutionary years, this book pieces together their emerging path toward freedom. From Britain came the Great Awakening, the advent of evangelism in America, which would provide slaves with hope for future freedom. In 1775, black emancipation commenced in Chesapeake Bay with Lord Dunmore's proclamation and the resulting fleet, which attracted blacks, creating the first mass emancipation of slaves in British colonial history. At the end of the War for Independence, the British evacuations of loyal subjects from 1782 to 1785 were the turning point in the Emancipation Revolution. A majority of free and enslaved blacks would remain where the Royal Navy transports landed them in Jamaica, the Bahamas, Nova Scotia, or Britain. Blacks' love of freedom is concluded with the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British Empire.

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Book SynopsisIn 1519, the Conquistador Hernán Cortés landed on the mainland of the Americas. His quest to serve God, win gold, and achieve glory drove him into the heartland of what is now Mexico, where no European had ever set foot before. He marched towards to the majestic city of Tenochtitlan, floating like a jewel in the midst of Lake Texcoco. This encounter brought together cultures that had hitherto evolved in complete isolation from each other Catholic Spain and the Aztec Empire. What ensued was the swift escalation from a clash of civilizations to a war of the worlds. At the conclusion of the Conquistador campaign of 151921, Tenochtitlan lay in ruins, the last Aztec Emperor was in chains, and Spanish authority over the native peoples had been definitively asserted. With the colourful personalities Cortés, Malinche, Pedro Alvarez, Cuitláhuac, Cuauhtémoc driving the narrative, and the vivid differences in uniforms, weapons, and fighting styles between the rival armies (displayed

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Book SynopsisPierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad met in their twenties in the midst of the Algerian war of independence. From their first meeting, a strong intellectual friendship was born between the French philosopher and the activist from the colony, nourished by the same desire to understand the world in order to change it. The work of both men was driven by the necessity of putting knowledge to use, whether by unveiling the relations of domination that structured life in Algeria or by opening emancipatory perspectives for the Algerian people. Colonies were, of course, a customary site of ethnographic work, but Bourdieu and Sayad refused to sacrifice scientific rigor to political expediency, even as Algeria descended deeper into war. Indeed, the act of understanding as a political commitment to the transformation of society lay at the heart of their project. Based on extensive interviews and deep archival work, Amín Pérez rediscovers the anticolonial origins of the pathbreaking social thought of these brilliant thinkers. Bourdieu and Sayad, he argues, forged another way of doing politics, laying the foundations of a revolutionary pedagogy, not just for anticolonial liberation but for true social emancipation.​Trade Review“This book is a revelation. Pérez uniquely offers insights into the anticolonial thought of two major social theorists of our times: Pierre Bourdieu, and his collaborator and friend Abdelmalek Sayad. Anyone interested in social theory, anticolonialism, and postcolonialism will have to read and reread this innovative, illuminating, and clarifying work of committed scholarship.”Julian Go, author of Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory“Deeply researched and fluidly argued, Pérez’s book is essential reading for anyone wishing to grasp the anti-colonial roots of Bourdieu’s sociology and a stunning document on the entanglement of social science and empire.”Loïc Wacquant, author of The Invention of the “Underclass” and Bourdieu in the City“A landmark study of the history of social science. Based on exhaustive archival research and original interviews with their contemporaries, Amín Pérez argues compellingly that Bourdieu and Sayad always attempted to articulate politics with social science, and that this did not contradict Bourdieu’s familiar arguments in favor of scientific autonomy.”George Steinmetz, author of The Colonial Origins of Modern Social ThoughtTable of ContentsPart One: Sociology as Emancipation Chapter 1: The Origins of Subversive Knowledge Chapter 2: Resisting in War-torn Algeria Chapter 3: A Sociology of the Colonial Order Part Two: Liberation through Knowledge Chapter 4: Listening, Observing, and Testifying in Times of War Chapter 5: Renewing the Social Sciences out of Political Necessity Chapter 6: From Colonial Liberation to Social Emancipation Conclusion

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Book SynopsisInspired by recent approaches to the field, the book reexamines the field of Renaissance art history by exploring the art of this era in the light of global connections. It considers the movement of objects, ideas and technologies and its significance for European art and material culture, analysing images through the lens of cultural encounter and conflict.Trade Review‘This book offers important new insights into the history of Renaissance arts by rethinking key objects and themes through the lens of cross-culturality. Its contribution is especially welcome as it demonstrates how exactly the idea of the Renaissance was formed by its global contacts and through acculturation of arts and ideas from beyond Europe.’ Sussan Babaie, Andrew W. Mellon Reader in the Arts of Iran and Islam, The Courtauld Institute of Art 'Art history has become increasingly engaged with global connections, but to date no study has filled the need for a synthetic overview of the early modern period. We can never again see the 'Renaissance' in the same, isolated way after reading these chapters.’ Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania‘Bringing together essays synthesizing recent scholarship on Renaissance art and material culture, Christian and Clark (both, Open Univ., UK) have created the first undergraduate-level treatment of the global nature of Renaissance art. The editors' goal is to illuminate “commonalities” between Europe and non-Western, non-Christian cultures. Two of the essays, Christian's on Renaissance altarpieces and Clark's on European collections of non-Western objects, consider indirect influences on art that came from luxury goods traded into Europe. The other two essays—one on art and architecture of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian inhabitants of Spain, and of Amer-Indians of the New World, the other on Venice as a palimpsest of Italian, Byzantine, and Islamic art and culture—are particularly successful in revealing direct connections between different cultures and the hybrid art that developed from close proximity.’ J. B. Gregory, formerly, Delaware College of Art and Design, CHOICE, Vol. 56, No. 2 (October 2018)‘This welcome volume is a textbook, and a very good one. It is first in a series of four titled Art and Its Global Histories that surveys the manifold cross-cultural influences between Western Europe and the world from the Pax Mongolica to postmodernism, supplemented by an anthology of seminal essays and primary sources for the entire period. The full series offers a suite of much-needed pedagogical materials for teaching early modern and modern art history from an inclusive, global-studies perspective […] Clear and comprehensive, it is written in a serious but lively style, appropriately theoretical without becoming abstruse or jargon ridden. The introduction and essays read like particularly pithy and eloquent class lectures, and the bibliographies following each chapter are worth the price of admission, with thorough and up-to-date coverage that provides a solid starting point for both student and scholarly researchers.’James M. Saslow, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter 2018) -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction – Kathleen Christian and Leah Clark1 Renaissance altarpieces: the far in the near – Kathleen Christian2 Cultural crossings in Spain and the New World c. 1350–c.1550 – Kim Woods3 Collecting the world: art, nature, and representation – Leah Clark4 Aspects of art in Venice: encounters with the East – Paul Wood with Kathleen Christian and Leah ClarkConclusion – Kathleen Christian and Leah Clark Index

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