Politics, Philosophy & Society Books

4518 products


  • Nonfiction Sight Word Readers Guided Reading

    Scholastic Teaching Resources Nonfiction Sight Word Readers Guided Reading

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisSet the stage for your child to soar with these just-right books that teach the third 25 sight words! This cheery green box includes 25 titles, each focused on a key sight word: will, up, other, about, out, etc. The books' real-world topics with predicable text are super-engaging to make mastering these must-know words easy and fun. Includes motivating stickers PLUS a mini-activity book. Books correlate with Guided Reading Level C.Third 25 Sight Words (Fry List): will, up, other, about, out, many, then, them, these, so, some, her, would, make, like, him, into, time. has, look. two, more, write, go, see For use with Grades PreK-1.Parents can set the stage for their child to soar with these just-right books that teach the first 100 Fry sight words! Each box incParents can set the stage for their child to soar with these just-right books that teach the first 100 Fry sight words! Each box includes 25 titles, motivating stickers PLUS a mini-activity book to ensure learning sticks. Books correlate with Guided Reading Level A-D. 25 full-color, 8 page books Sticker sheet 32-page activity book Sturdy storage boxludes 25 titles, motivating stickers PLUS a mini-activity book to ensure learning sticks. Books correlate with Guided Reading Level A-D. 25 full-color, 8 page books Sticker sheet 32-page activity book Sturdy storage box

    Out of stock

    £19.79

  • Nonfiction Sight Word Readers Parent Pack Level D

    Scholastic Teaching Resources Nonfiction Sight Word Readers Parent Pack Level D

    Out of stock

    Book Synopsis

    Out of stock

    £19.79

  • Coffee Life in Japan

    University of California Press Coffee Life in Japan

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisTraces Japan's coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day. This title shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure.Trade Review"Required reading for coffee's true believers and industry insiders." -- Oliver Strand T: The New York Times Style Magazine "You'll find your eyes opened beyond the new and storied cafes you've heard of and into regional corners and paradoxical tastes." Serious Eats "A fascinating 130-year illumination of Japan's deeply rooted sipping culture." LA Weekly "This excellent book combines academic rigour with lively descriptions and compelling prose." Times Higher Education "Provides an engaging and often personal account of Japanese coffeehouses... Highly recommended." -- R. R. Wilk, Indiana University Choice "Merry White has whiled away many hours in cafes in Japan in her professional role as an anthropologist, and wishes to communicate the diversity and intimacy one can experience in them." Times Literary Supplement (TLS) "Perhaps this isn't really a review, more a recommendation - all I can really say is that I enjoyed it, and ... you'll probably enjoy this too." Jimseven "This book will certainly give you ... a lot of new knowledge and maybe a whole new perspective on Japanese culture." Yum "Coffee Life in Japan provides a novel and significant study on contemporary Japanese life." -- Willa Zhen, Culinary Institute of America Journal Of American-East Asian RelationsTable of ContentsIllustrations Preface 1. Coffee in Public: Cafe's in Urban Japan 2. Japan's Cafe's: Coffee and the Counterintuitive 3. Modernity and the Passion Factory 4. Masters of Their Universes: Performing Perfection 5. Japan's Liquid Power 6. Making Coffee Japanese: Taste in the Contemporary Cafe' 7. Urban Public Culture: Webs, Grids, and Third Places in Japanese Cities 8. Knowing Your Place Appendix: Visits to Cafe's, an Unreliable Guide Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

    5 in stock

    £21.25

  • Visualising the Beatles

    Orphans Publishing Visualising the Beatles

    15 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    15 in stock

    £18.75

  • Implementation

    University of California Press Implementation

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisExplores and elaborates the relationship between the evaluation of programs and the study of their implementation. This title suggests that tendencies to assimilate the two should be resisted.Trade Review"Of universal application . . . this is an analysis of why the urban crisis has proved so intractable. . . . Nobody who reads this book will ever again be surprised by the gulf between promise and performance in a program to help revive or save or rebuild the country's cities." * New York Times *"There are innumerable ways to profit from this fully documented yet highly readable tale of earnest but relatively unsuccessful ways of spending the taxpayers' money." * National Review *"They make an unimpeachable case. for close attention to the modes of implementing policy, and . . . constitute the first solid survey of the administrative thickets through which future urban policies will have to make their way." * New Republic *"The potential good that can come out of this study cannot be exaggerated." * Virginia Quarterly Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Participants Preface to the Third Edition: Implementation and Evaluation as Learning Preface to the First Edition 1. Appearances 2. Formulating Policy 3. Trials of Implementation 4. Two Smaller Programs: Business Loans and the Health Center 5. The Complexity of Joint Action 6. Learning from Experience 7. Economic Theory and Program Implementation 8. Implementation as Evolution 9. What Should Evaluation Mean to Implementation? 10. Implementation as Mutual Adaptation 11. Implementation as Exploration Appendix: EDA Chronology Bibliography Subject Index Index of Authors Cited

    5 in stock

    £21.25

  • The Fate of Place

    University of California Press The Fate of Place

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisOffers a philosophical history of the evolving conceptualizations of place and space in Western thought. In this title, the author begins with mythological and religious creation stories and the theories of Plato and Aristotle and then explores the heritage of Neoplatonic, medieval, and Renaissance speculations about space.Trade Review“A story masterfully told and well worth reading.” * Journal of Phenomenological Psychology *“What exactly is this precious thing called ‘Place,’ which we feel we must defend against the forces of global commodification? This book sets out to answer the question. . . . A thorough and timely investigation.” * Architectural Review *

    1 in stock

    £30.00

  • Republic of Fear

    University of California Press Republic of Fear

    4 in stock

    Book SynopsisExamining Iraqi history in a search for clues to understanding contemporary political affairs, this title illustrates how the quality of Ba'thi pan-Arabism as an ideology, the centrality of the first experience of pan-Arabism in Iraq, and the interaction between the Ba'th and communist parties in Iraq from 1958 to 1968.Table of ContentsIntroduction to the 1998 Paperback Edition Note to the Reader PART ONE: THE BA'THIST POLITY 1. Institutions of Violence 2. A World of Fear 3. Ba'thism and the Masses 4. Authority PART TWO: THE LEGITIMATION OF BA'THISM 5. Pan-Arabism and Iraq 6. Formation of the Ba'th 7. The Legitimation of Iraqi Ba'thism Conclusion: The Final Catastrophe Appendix Index Chronology

    4 in stock

    £22.95

  • Excellent Sheep

    Simon & Schuster Excellent Sheep

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisAs a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation''s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are turning out conformists without a compass. Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counsellors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw first-hand as a member of Yale''s admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to practical subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over Trade Review“In Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz sets out to unnerve the current and future college students of America (and their parents). He succeeds brilliantly, with an indictment of elite education that should launch a thousand conversations. Read this book to remember what learning should be, and then pass it along to the next sheep who should leave the flock behind.” -- Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy“This is a book of great importance to our society. It deserves to transform our understanding of integrity and achievement and success. William Deresiewicz is a genuine humanist with a profound faith in the promise of democracy, and he has an uncommon gift for wisdom without platitudes. Excellent Sheep is a withering analysis of the transactional spirit that rules American education and American life, and an inspiring example of a better ideal. A true teacher speaks here. He has my admiration and my gratitude.” -- Leon Wieseltier“William Deresiewicz’s book is in and of itself a higher education, and to read it is to learn what’s a college for. The author is an inspired teacher, and his lesson is of a truth sorely needing to be told.” -- Lewis Lapham“William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep is a searing and important critique of our morally bankrupt educational system. He argues, correctly, that colleges and universities, awash in corporate money and intend on churning out corporate managers and conformists rather than scholars, have betrayed not only their mission, but the students they purport to teach and by extension the wider society. Independent thought is subversive, uncomfortable and lonely. It requires us, as Deresiewicz points out, to challenge and question reigning assumptions rather than kneel before them. Deresiewicz’s book is not so much a call for reform as for revolt.” -- Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, with Joe Sacco, of Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt"William Deresiewicz is one of America's best young public intellectuals. He has written a passionate, deeply informed, and searing critique of the way we are educating our young. Whether you agree or disagree - and I found myself doing both - you must read this book. It should spark a great debate on America's campuses and beyond." -- Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World“Excellent Sheep is likely to make…a lasting mark…for three reasons. One, Mr. Deresiewicz spent 24 years in the Ivy League, graduating from Columbia and teaching for a decade at Yale….He brings the gory details. Two, the author is a striker, to put it in soccer terms. He’s a vivid writer, a literary critic whose headers tend to land in the back corner of the net. Three, his indictment arrives on wheels: He takes aim at just about the entirety of upper-middle-class life in America…. Mr. Deresiewicz’s book is packed full of what he wants more of in American life: passionate weirdness.” -- Dwight Garner * The New York Times *"It might surprise the countless students competing for admission to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford that they could be fighting for a dubious prize. But in this probing indictment, a former Yale professor accuses America’s top universities of turning young people into tunnel-visioned careerists, adept at padding their résumés and filling their bank accounts but unprepared to confront life’s most important questions. . . . An urgent summons to a long-overdue debate over what universities do and how they do it." -- Bryce Christensen * Booklist (starred review) * “Welcome to what is sure to be the most polarizing education and parenting book since Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom.” * Town & Country * “This refreshingly barbed indictment of America’s prestige-education addiction reveals what college students are really getting out of all that work, all that struggle, all that stress – and all those tuition loans.” * MORE Magazine *"Excellent Sheep challenges parents to break from the herd mentality, to question what we really want from our children, who we really want them to be. The book filled me with both hope that there could be a more authentic, creative way to raise a new generation of thinkers--and with the courage to try to find it." -- Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter“Deresiewicz’s critique of America’s most celebrated schools as temples of mercenary mediocrity is lucid, sharp-edged, and searching … he poses vital questions about what college teaches—and why.” * Publishers Weekly *“An unquestionably provocative book that hopefully leads to productive debate.” * Kirkus *"Not only does Deresiewicz speak with candor about the ins and outs of the educational hierarchy from an insiders point of view, but he prompts some serious questions about the potential for reform and what we as parents can do to encourage our children from a young age to change the way that they’re learning, and as a result, what they take from the world in exchange. A much recommended read, especially for those currently with or planning to have children." -- Briana Burns * High Voltage *“[A] good case that these colleges are failing in their most essential mission: to help kids "build a self." * Mother Jones *“Provocative.” * The Daily Beast *“Anyone who cares about American higher education should ponder this book.” * The New York Times Book Review *"Exceptionally enlightening." * Bowling Green Daily News *

    10 in stock

    £13.15

  • Cocaine Politics

    University of California Press Cocaine Politics

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisShows that under the cover of national security and covert operations, the US government has repeatedly collaborated with and protected major international drug traffickers.Table of ContentsPreface to the 1998 Paperback Edition Preface to the 1992 Paperback Edition Acknowledgments Introduction 1 The Kerry Report: The Truth but Not the Whole Truth PART I RIGHT-WING NARCOTERRORISM, THE CIA, AND THE CONTRAS 2 The CIA and Right-Wing Narcoterrorism in Latin America 3 Bananas, Cocaine, and Military Plots in Honduras 4 Noriega and the Contras: Guns, Drugs, and the Harari Network 5 The International Cali Connection and the United States 6 The Contra Drug Connections in Costa Rica PART II EXPOSURE AND COVER-UP 7 Jack Terrell Reveals the Contra-Drug Connection 8 North Moves to Silence Terrell 9 How the Justice Department Tried to Block the Drug Inquiry 10 Covert Operations and the Perversion of Drug Enforcement 11 The Media and the Contra Drug Issue 12 Conclusion Notes Names and Organizations Index

    2 in stock

    £22.10

  • Bodies out of Bounds

    University of California Press Bodies out of Bounds

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisExamines social representations of the fat body. This work questions discursive constructions of fatness while analyzing the politics and power of corpulence and addressing the absence of fat people in media representations of the body.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Editors' Introduction: Bodies Out of Bounds Kathleen LeBesco and Jana Evans Braziel PART ONE: Revaluing Corpulence, Redefining Fat Subjectivities 1. "Fat Beauty," by Richard Klein 2. "A 'Horror of Corpulence': Interrogating Bantingism and Mid-Nineteenth-Century Fat-Phobia," by Joyce L. Huff 3. "Letting Ourselves Go: Making Room for the Fat Body in Feminist Scholarship," by Cecilia Hartley 4. "Queering Fat Bodies/Politics," by Kathleen LeBesco PART TWO: Representational Matrices of Power: Nationality, Gender, Sexuality, and Fatness 5. "Oscar Zeta Acosta's Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo: A Fat Man's Recipe for Chicano Revolution," by Marcia Chamberlain 6. "Resisting Venus: Negotiating Corpulence in Exercise Videos," by Antonia Losano and Brenda A. Risch 7. "Fighting Abjection: Representing Fat Women," by Leia Kent PART THREE: Fat Perversities? Reconstructing Corpulent Sexualities 8. "Roscoe Arbuckle and the Scandal of Fatness," by Neda Ulaby 9. "Setting Free the Bears: Refiguring Fat Men on Television," by Jerry Mosher PART FOUR: Deconstructing the Carnivalesque, Grotesque, and Other Configurations of Corpulence 10. "'It's not over until the fat lady sings': Comedy, the Carnivalesque, and Body Politics," by Angela Stukator 11. "Devouring Women: Corporeality and Autonomy in Fiction by Women Since the 1960s," by Sarah Shieff 12. "Sex and Fat Chics: Deterritorializing the Fat Female Body," by Jana Evans Braziel PART FIVE: Bodies in Motion: Corpulence and Performativity 13. "'She's so fat': Facing the Fat Lady at Coney Island's Sideshows by the Seashore," by Sharon Mazer 14. "Fatties on Stage: Feminist Performances," by Petra Kuppers 15. "Divinity: A Dossier, a Performance Piece, a Little-Understood Emotion," by Michael Moon and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Contributors Index

    2 in stock

    £22.95

  • The Lost Art of Resurrection: Initiation, Secret

    Inner Traditions Bear and Company The Lost Art of Resurrection: Initiation, Secret

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisExploring the practice of living resurrection in ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, Persian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Celtic, and Native American traditions, Freddy Silva explains how resurrection was never meant for the dead, but for the living--a fact supported by the suppressed Gnostic Gospel of Philip: “Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing.” He reveals how these practices were not only common in the ancient world but also shared similar facets in each tradition: initiates were led through a series of challenging ordeals, retreated for a three-day period into a cave or restricted room, often called a “bridal chamber,” and while out-of-body, became fully conscious of travels in the Otherworld. Upon returning to the body, they were led by priests or priestesses to witness the rising of Sirius or the Equinox sunrise. Silva describes some of the secret chambers around the world where the ritual was performed, including the so-called tomb of Thutmosis III in Egypt, which featured an empty sarcophagus and detailed instructions for the living on how to enter the Otherworld and return alive. He reveals why esoteric and Gnostic sects claimed that the literal resurrection of Jesus promoted by the Church was a fraud and how the Church branded all living resurrection practices as a heresy, relentlessly persecuting the Gnostics to suppress knowledge of this self-empowering experience. He shows how the Knights Templar revived these concepts and how they survive to this day within Freemasonry.Trade Review“Freddy Silva’s latest book is his most brilliant, scintillating, and inviting of all, a superb book on global initiation over thousands of years. In it he explores how ancient sacred cultures guided people to experience psychic death while alive--a ritual near-death experience. The Lost Art of Resurrection is a truly remarkable contribution to the quest of reviving lost wisdom and a must-read for anyone interested in spirituality and sacred sites.” * Barbara Hand Clow, author of Awakening the Planetary Mind *“This is a breakthrough work that topples not only church dogma but a century of pyramidiots stumped by Egypt’s elusively empty sarcophagi. No mummy there! No, it’s all about the round-trip journey to the spirit world and what our ancestors were really doing in their secluded temples. Fabulously illustrated, this important book is as much about the cosmogony of the ancient wisdomkeepers as it is about the hidden chambers of the human mind.” * Susan Martinez, Ph.D., author of The Mysterious Origins of Hybrid Man *Table of ContentsA Scottish Faery Tale 1 A Noble Tradition Recently Suppressed 2 The Myth of Resurrection 3 What Is Initiation? 4 Early Followers of The Way 5 The Otherworld of the Celts 6 Secrets of the Beehive 7 Fifty Shades of Gnosticism 8 The Secret Bridal Chamber 9 What Happens in the Middle East Stays in Central America 10 Geezers of Nazareth 11 Inside the Great Pyramid and into the Otherworld 12 Egyptian Initiation 13 How to Travel to the Otherworld and Back. Or, the Pyramid Texts 14 Pharaoh Has Left the Building 15 Green Men, White Knights 16 The Science of the Otherworld 17 The Metamorphosis of the Soul Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

    1 in stock

    £14.24

  • Cigars: A Guide: a fantastically sumptuous

    Cornerstone Cigars: A Guide: a fantastically sumptuous

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated and packaged study of the cigar - its history, its production and its joys - from world-renowned expert Nicholas Foulkes and written in conjunction with Davidoff, the world's leading cigar importer. A fascinating gift for anyone wanting to be educated and entertained...'I would recommend it for every cigar-smoker's stocking this Christmas' -- The Field'Entertained, informed and kept me interested throughout' -- ***** Reader review'Amazingly entertaining' -- ***** Reader review'Encyclopaedic, scholarly, elegant, fun' -- ***** Reader review'A superb book' -- ***** Reader review******************************************************************************************"The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Cigar." Evelyn WaughExploring not just the extraordinary story of tobacco and cigars but also a history that has been instrumental in the foundations of societies and cultures, Cigars will take you on an astonishing journey through landscapes, scents and an incredible roll call of the great, the good and the not-so good. The cigar has provided solace and a chance for worldly contemplation to generations of thinkers, businessmen, writers, entrepreneurs and connoisseurs.In this elegiac offering to the pinnacles of hand-rolled tobacco, world-renowned expert Nicholas Foulkes guides you through the myths, legends, nuances and delicious realities of the smoke-savouring universe, serving as an introduction for the novice and a reference for the connoisseur.A stunning, fully-illustrated gift package, perfect for anyone wishing to be educated and entertained..."A cigar ought not to be smoked solely with the mouth, but with the hand, the eyes, and with the spirit." Zino DavidoffTrade ReviewI would recommend it for every cigar-smoker’s stocking this Christmas * The Field *

    3 in stock

    £21.25

  • DAulaires Book of Greek Myths

    Random House USA Inc DAulaires Book of Greek Myths

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisI doubt I would have grown up to be the writer and artist I became had I not fallen in love with D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths at the age of seven.—R. J. Palacio, author of Wonder.Now updated with a new cover and an afterword featuring never-before-published drawings from the sketchbook of Ingri and Edgar D''Aulaire, plus an essay about their life and work and photos from the family achive.In print for over fifty years, D''Aulaires Book of Greek Myths has introduced generations to Greek mythology—and continues to enthrall young readers. Here are the greats of ancient Greece—gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters—as freshly described in words and pictures as if they were alive today. No other volume of Greek mythology has inspired as many young readers as this timeless classic. Both adults and children alike will find this book a treasure for years to come.  “For any child fortunate enough to have this generous book . . . the kings and heroes of ancient legend will remain forever matter-of-fact; the pictures interpret the text literally and are full of detail and witty observation.”—The Horn Book “The drawings . . . are excellent and excitingly evocative.”—The New York Times A New York Public Library’s 100 Great Children’s Books100 Years selection An NPR 100 Must-Reads for Kids 9–14 selection

    3 in stock

    £16.14

  • Panzer Commander The Memoirs of Colonel Hans Von

    Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Panzer Commander The Memoirs of Colonel Hans Von

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisA stunning look at World War II from the other side...From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front--von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers.Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman. Told with the vivid detail of an impassioned eyewitness, his rare and moving memoir has become a classic in the literature of World War II, a first-person chronicle of the glory--and the inevitable tragedy--of a superb soldier fighting Hitler's war.

    10 in stock

    £8.79

  • Creation - Handmade

    Tara Books Creation - Handmade

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisFrom a fish waiting to be born, to the beginning of art and the necessity of death...lore from the Gond tribal community in central India abounds with stories of origins, transformations and ends. Celebrated Gond artist Bhajju Shyam now gathers together these tales for the first time. By linking the cosmic with the everyday, he expresses the essence of each myth in ten sequential images. This extraordinary visual narrative of cyclical time takes us from the germinal moment to the turnaround point, where death once again transits into renewal.

    1 in stock

    £25.50

  • Edgar Cayce on Atlantis By Edgar Cayce Author

    GRAND CENTRAL PUBL Edgar Cayce on Atlantis By Edgar Cayce Author

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisDrawing on his life readings, and within the context of reincarnation, Cayce offers evidence of the civilization of Atlantis - showing how its achievements and failures directly relate to the conflict of the late 20th century. Here are insights into mankind's past as seen through Atlantis.

    Out of stock

    £7.79

  • History of Western Philosophy

    Taylor & Francis Ltd History of Western Philosophy

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFirst published in 1946, History of Western Philosophy went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, it is 'long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism', as the New York Times noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made Russell's History of Western Philosophy one of the most important philosophical works of all time.Trade Review'Remains unchallenged as the perfect introduction to its subject ... exactly the kind of philosophy that most people would like to read, but which only Russell could possibly have written.' - Ray Monk, University of Southampton, UK'Beautiful and luminous prose, not merely classically clear but scrupulously honest.' - Isaiah Berlin'It is a witty bird's-eye view of the main figures in Western thought enlivened by references to the personalities and quirks of the thinkers themselves.' - The Week'A great philosopher's lucid and magisterial look at the history of his own subject, wonderfully readable and enlightening.' - The Observer'Remains unchallenged as the perfect introduction to its subject ... exactly the kind of philosophy that most people would like to read, but which only Russell could possibly have written.' - Ray Monk, University of Southampton, UK'Beautiful and luminous prose, not merely classically clear but scrupulously honest.' - Isaiah Berlin'A great philosopher's lucid and magisterial look at the history of his own subject, wonderfully readable and enlightening.' - The Observer'This came out when Russell's reputation among fellow philosophers was plummeting. It is a witty bird's-eye view of the main figures in Western thought enlivened by references to the personalities and quirks of the thinkers themselves.' - Samuel Brittan, The Week, 2nd April 2005'It is a witty bird's-eye view of the main figures in Western thought enlivened by references to the personalities and quirks of the thinkers themselves.' - The WeekTable of ContentsPreface, Introduction, BOOK ONE - Ancient Philosophy, PART I: The Pre-Socratics, PART II: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, PART III: Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle, BOOK TWO - Catholic Philosophy, Introduction, PART I: The Fathers, PART II: The Schoolmen, BOOK THREE - Modern Philosophy, PART I: From the Renaissance to Hume, Part II: From Rousseau to the Present Day, Index

    15 in stock

    £19.99

  • The Odd Woman and the City

    Farrar, Straus and Giroux The Odd Woman and the City

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisA finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, AutobiographyA contentious, deeply moving ode to friendship, love, and urban life in the spirit of Fierce AttachmentsA memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same. Running steadily through the book is Vivian Gornick''s exchange of more than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness, whose friendship has shed more light on the mysterious nature of ordinary human relations than has any other intimacy she has known. The exchange between Gornick and Leonard acts as a Greek chorus to the main action of the narrator''s continual engagement on the street with grocers, derelicts, and doormen; people on the bus, cross-dressers on the corner, and acquaintances by the handful. In Leonard she sees herself reflected plain; out on the street she makes sense of what she sees. Written as a narrative collage that includes meditative pieces on the making of a modern feminist, the role of the flaneur in urban literature, and the evolution of friendship over the past two centuries, The Odd Woman and the City beautifully bookends Gornick''s acclaimed Fierce Attachments, in which we first encountered her rich relationship with the ultimate metropolis.

    Out of stock

    £14.40

  • Loss Trauma and Resilience

    WW Norton & Co Loss Trauma and Resilience

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisAll losses are touched with ambiguity. Yet those who suffer losses without finality bear a particular burden.Trade Review"The author’s many years of clinical experience in this area will help to educate and guide clinicians who encounter the growing number of clients who have experienced ambiguous loss." -- The Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic"In a dominant culture that denies death and marginalizes those most closely affected by it, the work of Pauline Boss is indeed welcome....[D]efies many traditional Western ways of thinking about and responding to loss by examining it head on and giving voice to the experiences of those whom even mental health professionals may be least prepared to assist....[A] worthy contribution." -- Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life & Palliative Care"Comprehensive, clear, well-referenced guide....[that] presents valuable insight into the common feature in the situations so many people find themselves in..." -- Counseling Resource

    Out of stock

    £26.59

  • What Young India Wants: Selected Non - Fiction

    Rupa Publications India Pvt Ltd. What Young India Wants: Selected Non - Fiction

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £6.74

  • The Race between Education and Technology

    Harvard University Press The Race between Education and Technology

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis book provides an historical analysis of the co-evolution of educational attainment and U.S. wage structure through the 20th century. During the first 80 years of the 20th century, the increase of educated workers was higher than demand for them. This boosted income for most and lowered inequality. The reverse has been true since about 1980.Trade ReviewOne of the most important books of the year. -- Nicholas D. Kristof * New York Times *Essential reading...Goldin and Katz give a broad historical view of the role of education in economic growth in the U.S. They make the case that, after a century of leading the world in supplying the educated workers needed to serve technology, the U.S. has fallen behind in education. -- Thomas F. Cooley * Forbes *Goldin and Katz's book is excellent. -- Jim Manzi * New Republic *This is the most important book on modern U.S. inequality to date. -- Tyler Cowen * marginalrevolution.com *If you want to understand the causes of the innovation deficit, I’d recommend adding one serious book to your summer reading list: The Race Between Education and Technology. -- David Leonhardt * New York Times *[Goldin and Katz] tackle the most important U.S. economic trend, and, hence, most critical domestic issue--growing income inequality...[America] now has the most unequal income and wage distributions of any high-income nation...Goldin and Katz's careful documentation of the changes in income distribution is an important public service. This alone would make their book essential reading. Yet they also offer a powerful explanation for what has driven changes in income inequality and point to solutions for addressing it...The good news is that if Goldin and Katz are right, the cure for income inequality is one most Americans would intuitively support: improving mass education. Mr Obama's spin-doctors should start translating Goldin and Katz's book into a campaign slogan at once. -- Chrystia Freeland * Financial Times *Masterful...As the book's title suggests, whether inequality increases or not is best thought of as an ongoing race between education and technology. Combining this simple but appealing idea with a deep knowledge of the histories of the U.S. labor market and educational institutions, Goldin and Katz conclude that whereas education was winning the race for most of the 20th century, technology caught up in the 1970s and has since prevailed. The authors' most insightful point is that the root cause of the recent growth in inequality is not faster technological progress during the past three decades but rather the surprising stagnation in the level of education of young Americans. -- Thomas Lemieux * Science *A staggering achievement of historical research and analysis and required reading for anyone who's tired of glib, ideologically-inspired, trendy prescriptions for how to fix America's education system. -- Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful MindClaudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have produced a definitive economic history of American education...[It's] tightly reasoned and easy to grasp by anyone who cares about the country's educational history. -- Peter H. Lindert * eh.net *This book represents the best of what economics has to offer, combining a broad theoretical perspective, careful consideration of data, detailed lessons from economic history, and a close look at the present. -- Alan Krueger, Princeton UniversityA masterful work by two leading economists on some of the biggest issues in economics: economic growth, human capital, and inequality. There are fundamental insights in the book, not just about our past but also our future. Rigorous but not overly technical, this beautifully written book will appeal to educated lay people and economists alike. -- Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago, co-author of FreakonomicsThe Race Between Education and Technology will stand as the definitive treatment of changes in income distribution and their causes, as well as of possible countervailing policies towards rising inequality. This is empirical economic scholarship at its finest. -- Lawrence Summers, Harvard UniversityAn impressive combination of extensive historical research, careful empirical analysis, and thoughtful commentary on one of the most important questions of the day: to what extent does increasing inequality in incomes stem from our failure to increase educational attainment? -- William G. Bowen, President Emeritus, The Andrew W. Mellon FoundationThe Race Between Education and Technology is a most important study, both for what it teaches us about the past and also in presenting policies for the future if America is to regain its world leadership in education. -- Stanley Engerman, University of RochesterThe Race Between Education and Technology contains many tables, a few equations and a powerfully told story about how and why the United States became the world's richest nation--namely, thanks to its schools...Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace, resulting, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz contend, in a sharply unequal nation...It is nice to be reminded, in a data-rich book, that greater investments in human capital once put Americans collectively on top of the world. -- Stephen Kotkin * New York Times *Goldin's and Katz's thesis is that the 20th century was the American century in large part because this country led the world in education. The last 30 years, when educational gains slowed markedly, have been years of slower growth and rising inequality. -- David Leonhardt * New York Times Magazine *Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz establish a clear link between the number of high school and college graduates produced in any modern society and its economic growth. -- Thomas D. Elias * Appeal-Democrat *[Goldin and Katz] combine an acute sense of history with a skillful use of statistics. -- Andrew Hacker * New York Review of Books *During the 20th century both technology and education raced forward in the US, generating massive economic expansion and rising standards of living. Throughout the century, technological changes increased the relative demand for skilled labor, while the rapid expansion of first high schools and then higher education simultaneously increased the relative supply of skilled labor. Goldin and Katz carefully examine the historical and economic forces behind this expansion in education, extracting crucial evidence from the remarkable Iowa State Census of 1915, and they argue very plausibly that the relative demand for skilled labor grew at a fairly constant rate over the century. They conclude that "education ran faster" than technology "during the first half of the century," causing a considerable drop in economic inequality, but that "technology sprinted ahead of limping education in the last 30 years," leading to the recent upsurge in inequality. The rate of return on educational investments has become, once again, very high. Why have education levels increased so sluggishly in the face of these massive rewards? The answers are not entirely clear, nor are the optimal public policies, but the authors offer much food for thought. A must read. -- R. M. Whaples * Choice *The general brilliance of illumination makes this book a feast of provocation. -- Trevor Butterworth * Forbes.com *One of the most comprehensive analyses of the spread of the American educational system throughout the 20th century. -- Eduardo Porter * New York Times *Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz’s magnum opus…[An] impressive work…Enlightens us to rethink the social-economic and cultural environment of education, the close relationship between education and technology, and the fundamental aims of education. -- Shiyu Xu * Beijing International Review of Education *Table of Contents* Introduction Part I: Economic Growth and Distribution * The Human Capital Century * Inequality across the Twentieth Century * Skill-biased Technological Change Part II: Education for the Masses in Three Transformations * The Origins of the Virtues * Economic Foundations of the High School Movement * America's Graduation from High School * Mass Higher Education in the Twentieth Century Part III. The Race * The Race between Education and Technology * How America Once Led and Can Win the Race for Tomorrow * Appendix A * Appendix B * Appendix C * Appendix D * Notes * References * A Note on Sources * Acknowledgments * Index

    15 in stock

    £18.86

  • The Story of Philosophy The Lives and Opinions of

    Simon & Schuster The Story of Philosophy The Lives and Opinions of

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis brilliant and concise account of the lives and ideas of the world''s great philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Croce, Russell, Santayana, James, and Dewey—is a delight (The New York Times) and remains one of the most important books of our time.Will Durant chronicles the ideas of the great thinkers, the economic and intellectual environments which influenced them, and the personal traits and adventures out of which each philosophy grew. Durant’s insight and wit never cease to dazzle; The Story of Philosophy is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.Trade ReviewThe New York Times A delight.Table of ContentsContentsPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITIONINTRODUCTION: ON THE USES OF PHILOSOPHYCHAPTER IPLATOI. The Context of PlatoII. SocratesIII. The Preparation of PlatoIV. The Ethical ProblemV. The Political ProblemVI. The Psychological ProblemVII. The Psychological SolutionVIII. The Political SolutionIX. The Ethical SolutionX. CriticismCHAPTER IIARISTOTLE AND GREEK SCIENCEI. The Historical BackgroundII. The Work of AristotleIII. The Foundation of LogicIV. The Organization of Science1. Greek Science before Aristotle2. Aristotle as a Naturalist3. The Foundation of BiologyV. Metaphysics and the Nature of GodVI. Psychology and the Nature of ArtVII. Ethics and the Nature of HappinessVIII. Politics1. Communism and Conservatism2. Marriage and Education3. Democracy and AristocracyIX. CriticismX. Later Life and DeathCHAPTER IIIFRANCIS BACONI. From Aristotle to the RenaissanceII. The Political Career of Francis BaconIII. The EssaysIV. The Great Reconstruction1. The Advancement of Learning2. The New Organon3. The Utopia of ScienceV. CriticismVI. EpilogueCHAPTER IVSPINOZAHistorical and Biographical1. The Odyssey of the Jews2. The Education of Spinoza3. Excommunication4. Retirement and DeathII. The Treatise on Religion and the StateIII. The Improvement of the IntellectIV. The Ethics1. Nature and God2. Matter and Mind3. Intelligence and Morals4. Religion and ImmortalityV. The Political TreatiseVI. The Influence of SpinozaCHAPTER VVOLTAIRE AND THE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENTI. Paris: ŒdipeII. London: Letters on the EnglishIII. Cirey: The RomancesIV. Potsdam and FrederickV. Les Délices: The Essay on MoralsVI. Ferney: CandideVII. The Encyclopedia and the Philosophic DictionaryVIII. Ecrasez l'InfameIX. Voltaire and RousseauX. DénouementCHAPTER VIIMMANUEL KANT AND GERMAN IDEALISMRoads to Kant1. From Voltaire to Kant2. From Locke to Kant3. From Rousseau to KantII. Kant HimselfIII. The Critique of Pure Reason1. Transcendental Esthetic2. Transcendental Analytic3. Transcendental DialecticIV. The Critique of Practical ReasonV. On Religion and ReasonVI. On Politics and Eternal PeaceVII. Criticism and EstimateVIII. A Note on HegelCHAPTER VIISCHOPENHAUERI. The AgeII. The ManIII. The World as IdeaIV. The World as Will1. The Will to Live2. The Will to ReproduceV. The World as EvilVI. The Wisdom of Life1. Philosophy2. Genius3. Art4. ReligionVII. The Wisdom of DeathVIII. CriticismCHAPTER VIIIHERBERT SPENCERI. Comte and DarwinII. The Development of SpencerIII. First Principles1. The Unknowable2. EvolutionIV. Biology: The Evolution of LifeV. Psychology: The Evolution of MindVI. Sociology: The Evolution of SocietyVII. Ethics: The Evolution of MoralsVIII. Criticism1. First Principles2. Biology and Psychology3. Sociology and EthicsIX. ConclusionCHAPTER IXFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHEI. The Lineage of NietzscheII. YouthIII. Nietzsche and WagnerIV. The Song of ZarathustraV. Hero-moralityVI. The SupermanVII. DecadenceVIII. AristocracyIX. CriticismX. FinaleCHAPTER XCONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHERSHenri Bergson1. The Revolt Against Materialism2. Mind and Brain3. Creative Evolution4. CriticismII. Benedetto Croce1. The Man2. The Philosophy of the Spirit3. What Is Beauty?4. CriticismIII. Bertrand Russell1. The Logician2. The Reformer3. EpilogueCHAPTER XICONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERSIntroductionI. George Santayana1. Biographical2. Scepticism and Animal Faith3. Reason in Science4. Reason in Religion5. Reason in Society6. CommentII. William James1. Personal2. Pragmatism3. Pluralism4. CommentIII. John Dewey1. Education2. Instrumentalism3. Science and PoliticsConclusionGlossaryBibliographyIndex

    10 in stock

    £12.99

  • In Over our Heads  The Mental Demands of Modern

    Harvard University Press In Over our Heads The Mental Demands of Modern

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisIf contemporary culture were a school, with all the tasks and expectations meted out by modern life as its curriculum, would anyone graduate? In the spirit of a sympathetic teacher, Robert Kegan guides us through this tricky curriculum, assessing the fit between its complex demands and our mental capacities.Trade ReviewA stimulating tour through the modern mind in society… In Over Our Heads is full of insight; it reflects broad learning and enormous intellectual effort. -- David Mehegan * Boston Sunday Globe *[This book] is intellectually exciting and far-reaching in its implications… Kegan’s writing has much to offer developmental psychology, which suffers from a dearth of theoretical frameworks in the area of adult development… This book invites readers to work hard but rewards them greatly. There are foundation-shaking theoretical and research challenges here for mainstream psychology, especially behavioral and social learning approaches that focus on skill training and cumulative (quantitative) change… I thoroughly recommend this exciting book… It has the potential to transform our texts on life span development. It is a book that opens up whole new vistas for developmental researchers, as well as psychologists whose practice includes adult clients. -- Marie R. Joyce * Contemporary Psychology *A dazzling intellectual tour… In Over Our Heads provides us with entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies—the ‘abstinence vs. safe sex’ debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism. * Health and Recovery *Table of ContentsPrologue I. The Mental Demand of Adolescence 1. The Hidden Curriculum of Youth: "Whaddaya Want from Me?" 2. Coaching the Curriculum: A Bridge Must Be Well Anchored on Either Side II. The Mental Demand of Private Life: Parenting and Partnering 3. Parenting: Minding Our Children 4. Partnering: Love and Consciousness III. The Mental Demand of Public Life: Work and Self-Expansion 5. Working: On Seeking to Hire the Self-Employed 6. Dealing with Difference: Communication between the Sexes/Communication between the Theories 7. Healing: The Undiscussed Demands of Psychotherapy 8. Learning: "The Teacher Wants Us to Be Self-Directing" IV. The Mental Demand of Postmodern Life 9. Conflict, Leadership, and Knowledge Creation 10. On Being Good Company for the Wrong Journey Epilogue Notes Index

    15 in stock

    £27.16

  • The Byzantine Republic

    Harvard University Press The Byzantine Republic

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisScholars have long claimed that the Eastern Roman Empire, a Christian theocracy, bore little resemblance to ancient Rome. Here, Anthony Kaldellis reconnects Byzantium to its Roman roots, arguing that it was essentially a republic, with power exercised on behalf of, and sometimes by, Greek-speaking citizens who considered themselves fully Roman.Trade ReviewAny student of political science will find this study of interest because of its discussions of both theory and specific historical documents… Byzantine specialists will find intriguing the author’s remarks about continuity, and nonspecialists will appreciate his discussion about the legitimacy of power in a medieval context. -- J. W. Nesbitt * Choice *This is a path-breaking book that will change the discussion on the political structure of the later Roman Empire—Byzantium—and put it, finally, on a proper course. -- Dimitri Gutas, Yale UniversityThis is an important book that establishes beyond a doubt that the image we have of Byzantium, the Roman Empire in the East, is in need of revision. Kaldellis breaks down the artificial and damaging divide between Roman and Byzantine studies with his encyclopedic knowledge of the full run of Byzantine historiography. -- Paul Stephenson, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Out of stock

    £32.36

  • The Person You Mean to Be

    HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Person You Mean to Be

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisThrough the compelling stories Dolly shares and the surprising science she reports, Dolly guides each of us closer to being the person we mean to be.Trade Review“Finally: an engaging, evidence-based book about how to battle biases, champion diversity and inclusion, and advocate for those who lack power and privilege. Dolly Chugh makes a convincing case that being an ally isn’t about being a good person—it’s about constantly striving to be a better person.” — Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg “Dolly Chugh helps us identify our ‘platform of privilege’ and guides us on how we can use this and other tools to create positive change. She encourages us to accentuate our strengths and to manage our weaknesses, and forces us to focus on being better and stronger in everything we do.” — Billie Jean King, social justice pioneer and tennis champion “Dolly Chugh has written the most important and actionable book on reducing bias that I have read. Using powerful and enduring findings from research on bias, she explains the reasons we fail to be the person we mean to be and provides prescriptions for managing the pitfalls of our humanness. This deeply personal book is a must-read.” — David Thomas, president of Morehouse College and author of Leading for Equity and Breaking Through “Dolly Chugh applies the power of a growth mindset to work on equity and inclusion at a time when it is much-needed. The Person You Mean to Be is essential reading.” — Carol Dweck, bestselling author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success “This is a book for anyone who thinks of themselves as a pretty decent human being but who knows, deep in their heart, they could be better. A cocktail of stories and science that gets you thinking and, more important, gets you acting.” — Angela Duckworth, founder and CEO of Character Lab, and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance “In authoritative yet accessible prose, social psychologist Dolly Chugh outlines how we can all make the indispensable shift from being ‘believers’ who live under the ideal of inclusion to being ‘builders’ who live up to that ideal. This book is both guide and gift.” — Kenji Yoshino, author of Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial; Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU School of Law “Never has an author made it so easy to see our blind spots and the downsides of our best intentions. Dolly Chugh’s brilliant lens reveals the invisible, uncomfortable truths of ordinary privilege, yet offers a light that inspires and guides each of us to be the moral, inclusive leader we hope to be.” — Liz Wiseman, New York Times bestselling author of Multipliers and Rookie Smarts

    2 in stock

    £18.00

  • The Promise of Infrastructure

    Duke University Press The Promise of Infrastructure

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFrom U.S.-Mexico border walls to Flint''s poisoned pipes, there is a new urgency to the politics of infrastructure. Roads, electricity lines, water pipes, and oil installations promise to distribute the resources necessary for everyday life. Yetan attention to their ongoing processes also reveals how infrastructures are made with fragile and often violent relations among people, materials, and institutions. While infrastructures promise modernity and development, their breakdowns and absences reveal the underbelly of progress, liberal equality, and economic growth. This tension, between aspiration and failure, makes infrastructure a productive location for social theory. Contributing to the everyday lives of infrastructure across four continents, some of the leading anthropologists of infrastructure demonstrate in The Promise of Infrastructure how these more-than-human assemblages made over more-than-human lifetimes offer new opportunities to theorize time, politics, and prTrade Review"The Promise of Infrastructure offers a provocative reflection on the current academic, social, and political moment that we find ourselves in. . . . While The Promise of Infrastructure as a whole offers a surprisingly comprehensive condemnation of the 'radically human-centered thinking' that has produced the Anthropocene challenge that we now face, it also suggests the tools we will need to map out possible futures. Appropriately, these are not prescriptions promising a better future. Rather they are openings for possibility, for action, and for wonder." -- Tim Oakes * Technology and Culture *"The volume offers a highly valuable contribution to the study of human/non-human relations. Taking up Brian Larkin’s call against a premature separation of the material from the discursive, the editors argue that infrastructural matter becomes political only in relation to human ideologies, aesthetics or histories." -- Laura Kemmer * International Journal of Urban and Regional Research *"The Promise of Infrastructure is a timely and compelling account of the myriad ways in which infrastructures can be theorized and the limits and potentials of the same." -- Siddharth Menon * AAG Review of Books *"The Promise of Infrastructure is a stellar collection of essays by anthropologists and social scientists who explore roads, buildings, bridges, water meters, pipelines, power stations, and other structures which we encounter on a daily basis but whose contribution to the production of difference we frequently overlook." -- Natalia Kovalyova * Anthropology Book Forum *"This book presents a combination of insightful theorisations and an engaging ethnography." -- Sudha Vasan * Economic & Political Weekly *"The Promise of Infrastructure is essential reading for scholars and students who wish to more fully understand the ethical and social role of the 'Ideal Infrastructure,' its history, its criticisms and its (uncertain) future destiny." -- Marco Spada * Environment and History *“The edited collection by Anand, Gupta, and Appel highlights infrastructures as a promising site for ethnographic research.... [It] reveal[s] the potential of infrastructural ethnography to make visible power inequalities and exclusionary practices and expose infrastructures as powerful sites for redefining governance and belonging.” -- Daivi Rodima-Taylor * American Anthropologist *“The Promise of Infrastructure teaches the reader how large state-run infrastructures can possibly induce and solidify regimes in pursuing their political promises. . . . Insights stemming out of The Promise of Infrastructure—especially the concept of ‘ruination’—enable researchers to acquire a ‘fuller’ account of the lifecycle of an infrastructure.” -- Alex Christian * Journal of Cultural Economy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Temporality, Politics, and the Promise of Infrastructure / Hannah Appel, Nikhil Anand, and Akhil Gupta 1 Part I. Time 1. Infrastructural Time / Hannah Appel 41 2. The Future in Ruins: Thoughts on the Temporality of Infrastructure / Akhil Gupta 62 3. Infrastructures in and out of Time: The Promise of Roads in Contemporary Peru / Penny Harvey 80 4. The Current Never Stops: Intimacies of Energy Infrastructure in Vietnam / Christina Schwenkel 102 Part II. Politics 5. Infrastructure, Apartheid Technopolitics, and Temporalities of "Transition" / Antina von Schnitzler 133 6. A Public Matter: Water, Hydraulics, Biopolitics / Nikhil Anand 155 Part III. 7. Promising Forms: The Political Aesthetics of Infrastructure / Brian Larkin 175 8. Sustainable Knowledge Infrastructures / Geoffrey C. Bowker 203 9. Infrastructure, Potential Energy, Revolution / Dominic Boyer 223 Contributors 245 Index 249

    15 in stock

    £19.79

  • Black Rice

    Harvard University Press Black Rice

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisRice was a major plantation crop during the first 300 years of settlement in the Americas. It accompanied slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern U.S. Carney reveals how racism has shaped our historical memory and neglected this critical African contribution to the making of the Americas.Trade ReviewExploring crops, landscapes and agricultural practices in Africa and America, [Carney] demonstrates the critical role Africans played in the creation of the system of rice production that provided the foundation of Carolina’s wealth… This detailed study of historical botany, technological adaptation and agricultural diffusion adds depth to our understanding of slavery and makes a compelling case for ‘the agency of slaves’ in the creation of the South’s economy and culture. -- Drew Gilpin Faust * New York Times Book Review *Judith A. Carney’s Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas…describes how the South Carolina rice industry was built not only on slave labor but on the agricultural and technological knowledge brought over by the Africans… [It] changes our understanding of the black contribution to American life. -- Barry Gewen * New York Times Book Review *Black Rice sets out to discredit for good an old Southern recipe for history that depicts slaves as mere laborers who dumbly performed work their masters conceived. Carney tells it the other way around. After years visiting West African rice fields, then digging in archives on both sides of the Atlantic, she has emerged with evidence that early slave traders sought and seized Africans who had the abilities to grow a specific African rice… Black Rice might be called an agricultural detective story. The historical crime—and that’s clearly how Carney sees it—is the relative lack of attention given to African rice. -- Allan M. Jalon * Los Angeles Times *Contrary to common belief, [Carney] explains, rice was not brought by Europeans to the Americas by way of Asia, but rather was introduced here by Africans and cultivated by African-American slaves, particularly in South Carolina, where rice crops proved to be one of the most profitable plantation-based economies. Though this is a scholarly work, Carney’s clear, uncluttered prose invites a wider readership. * Publishers Weekly *Black Rice is an original, knowledgeable, exciting, and important addition to the literature of the making and remaking of the Atlantic world. Judith Carney demonstrates how the trans-Atlantic transfer of rice cultivation marked not simply the movement of an important crop across the Atlantic, but also the relocation of an entire culture. -- Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North AmericaAmong the very finest examples of what African Diaspora Studies should be: multidisciplinary, multilingual, broad in geographic scope, and focused on Africa and Africans as vital, active contributors to the technology and culture of the Americas. -- Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, author of Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth CenturyIf there were a field of ‘Trans-Atlantic Subaltern Studies,’ Black Rice would represent both a foundation stone of the edifice and one of its most impressive achievements. -- James C. Scott, Yale UniversityBlack Rice is a luminous, brilliant account of innovation, resistance, and identity linking Old and New Worlds. Carney has unearthed a compelling, and hitherto neglected, aspect of Africa’s contribution to the agrarian history of the Americas. A magisterial geographical history of the Black Atlantic. -- Michael Watts, University of California, BerkeleyAn intrepid and observant researcher who links African rice to North and South America in fresh and convincing ways, Judith Carney’s work is wide-ranging, provocative, and clear. Black Rice is a wonderfully rich and creative book about an amazing crop and the people who labored to grow it. You will never look at a bowl of rice—or the entire Atlantic basin—in quite the same way again. -- Peter H. Wood, author of Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono RebellionWith a fusion of highly original geographic, ethnographic, and historical analysis, Carney powerfully traces the provenance and provisioning of rice in the Americas, the profound role that it played in defining gender roles, and the myriad ways that slave labor altered the once hidden political ecology of rice landscapes. -- Karl Zimmerer, author of Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian AndesTable of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. Encounters 2. Rice Origins and Indigenous Knowledge 3. Out of Africa: Rice Culture and African Continuities 4. This Was "Woman's Wuck" 5. African Rice and the Atlantic World 6. Legacies Notes References Index

    3 in stock

    £24.26

  • The Hidden Girl

    Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd The Hidden Girl

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis book charts the author's long journey of healing from the trauma caused by having to go into hiding as a child and having to deny that she was Jewish. Marika Henriques records in words and images how she was shaped and her profession determined by historical events.Trade Review“Marika Henriques weaves word, poetry, drawing and tapestry to explore and make sense of her dark past as a Holocaust child survivor. The Hidden Girl is a beautiful book. Dreamlike and nuanced it celebrates the redemptive power of creativity and Judaism. It is a moving testament to the indomitable power of the human spirit.” Charlotte Bogard, Playwright // “Marika Henriques’s book made a lasting impact on me. I thought I knew all there is to know about the horrors of the Holocaust until I read it. It is a unique rendering which reaches one’s deepest self, the dimension of emotions we all share. Marika shows through her own experience the lasting damage that trauma inflicts on children - the difficulties they have as a consequence to become emotionally independent from their past and to regain their true identity. In her analytic way she demonstrates her struggles and her courage, and above all her determination to be herself. It is a great book.” Colette Littman, Director of The Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation // “A powerful and moving story unlike any other Holocaust story I have read or seen, because it expresses deeply buried feelings not only in words but in extraordinary drawings, tapestries and poems. The combination is unique. This story will help many others who had traumatic beginnings.” Lenka Murphy, formerly with The Prince’s Charities // “This is a book which has the ability to give hope and inspiration to anyone who has suffered. It is moving, written with courageous honesty, about profound experiences. It is a living example of the beneficial power of the psyche and our souls, if we follow and trust them, to lead us to a deep understanding of our personal selves and the collective world around us, accepting both the good and the evil, life and death. It is a remarkable book.” Maggie Stanway, Chair of C. G. Jung Club London

    1 in stock

    £24.71

  • A huddle of hippos: and other cool collective

    Burnet Media A huddle of hippos: and other cool collective

    5 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    5 in stock

    £8.54

  • The Other Side of Eden Huntergatherers Farmers

    Faber & Faber The Other Side of Eden Huntergatherers Farmers

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisHugh Brody has an international reputation as an anthropologist and documentary film-maker of the Inuit peoples. This book is a marvellous account of hunter-gatherer culture, gleaned from years of living and hunting with the Inuits of the Arctic and the salmon-fishing tribes in the Canadian Northwest. Brody explores the frontiers between hunters and farmers, and shows us how the encounter between radically different ways of being in the world is at the core of human history. He travels through exquisite landscapes of ice and snow, with people who know the land as part of their selves. Posing the question, ''Why did the farmer triumph over the hunter-gatherer?'', Brody finds answers in a variety of places, among them the Book of Genesis, the great creation myth at the centre of the agriculturalist view of the world.This is a book that invites the reader to embark on a series of expeditions, into the territories of hunter-gatherers, and into radical ideas about what itTrade Review'Often eloquent, sometimes moving, and always fascinating... Brody's gripping book brings the resourceful intelligence and courage of hunter-gatherers vividly to life.' New Scientist 'The case for the hunter's ethic has never been more persuasively argued than in this wide-ranging, eloquent book.' TLS

    3 in stock

    £11.69

  • Neuroaffective Picture Book: An Illustrated

    North Atlantic Books,U.S. Neuroaffective Picture Book: An Illustrated

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisAn illustrated introduction to the evolution and early development of the brain, emotions, and personalityDesigned for psychologists, psychotherapists, and childcare professionals, this book is an accessible primer on developmental neuropsychology, combining easy-to-understand text with light-hearted illustrations. Covering topics such as the autonomic nervous system, neuroaffective development, the prefrontal cortex, and the zone of proximal development, The Neuroaffective Picture Book is a unique and useful tool for learning about emotions, social skills, and self-regulation.

    1 in stock

    £13.59

  • Sacred Knowledge

    Columbia University Press Sacred Knowledge

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisSacred Knowledge is the first well-documented, sophisticated account of the effect of psychedelics on biological processes, human consciousness, and revelatory religious experiences. Richards argues that, if used responsibly and legally, psychedelics have incredible potential to assuage human suffering and contribute to the quality of life.Trade ReviewSacred Knowledge is not only timely and relevant to a whole host of current social/legal issues but also addresses, with seemingly effortless ease, many of the deeper/subtler metaphysical implications of psychedelics—their therapeutic and spiritual potential. Richards's clear prose makes articulating such difficult topics look easy. -- G. William Barnard, Southern Methodist UniversityRichards' Sacred Knowledge is not a tome but rather a concise work rich with personal stories, observations, and insights into a compelling topic long ignored and now garnering the attention it has long deserved. -- Charles S. Grob, University of California, Los Angeles, School of MedicineA seminal work that will become required reading for anyone seriously interested in either religious experience or psychedelic research. There has not been a book in this area as valuable since William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience, more than a century ago. -- James Fadiman, author of The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred JourneysIn this wonderfully sensitive, critical, and confessional history one of the foremost clinicians and scholars of presents his own experience with psychedelics and with guiding others in studies to occasion mystical experiences using entheogens. Neither addictive nor toxic, these drugs whatever called surely can under the right set and setting reveal the God within us all. This book is the best accessible overview by someone who knows by experience, and can guide others whether they choose to be involved with entheogens personally or seek to simply to understand others who do. Regardless of choice, this loving man should be your guide. -- Ralph W. Hood Jr. , University of TennesseeAn inspiring testament to half a century of scientific research and personal exploration into the responsible, beneficial use of psychedelic substances. William A. Richards's work is visionary, personal, and transpersonal, instilled with kindness, deep humanity, and quiet wisdom. -- Don Lattin, author of The Harvard Psychedelic ClubThis is a great book which I highly recommend. It is an immersive experience, which provides an opportunity for those unfamiliar with nonordinary states of consciousness to catch a glimpse of their beauty and power. William A. Richards seamlessly weaves together his extensive understanding of spirituality on the one hand and academic and clinical science on the other – a rare combination. His humour, insights, and empathy shine through on every page. The topic is timely and a manifestation of the fact that the intellectual battle regarding the potential of nonordinary states of consciousness (as, in this case, facilitated by psychedelics) has been won. -- Amanda Feilding, director, Beckley FoundationSacred Knowledge provides the most comprehensive overview of the actual use of psychedelics in psychotherapy and of the transformative power of mystical experiences. -- Torsten Passie, Hannover Medical SchoolThis is a wonderful book and couldn't have been launched at a more auspicious time. As William A. Richards has portrayed so beautifully, psychedelics provide an experience of total sanity and give a glimpse of a deeper, more heart-centred, and universal spiritual reality. In my opinion everyone should read this book, not just researchers, theologians, and philosophers but also the ordinary person in society. As society becomes more and more degraded, the planet more and more polluted, and the natural world destroyed, the truth of what the great mystic Krishnamurthy said, 'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society,' will become ever more apparent. Increasingly I find more and more people are asking at a deeper level 'why am I here? 'What is this life about? What is it all for'? The sane answer to many of these questions is to be found in this book. -- Ivor Browne, University College DublinA practitioner and professor, Richards writes as a guide into the depths of psychedelic spirituality in an attempt to bring entheogens—substances that 'generate the divine within'—back into the mainstream. * Publishers Weekly *Richards is a generous and gregarious writer, who avoids platitudes for a mix of hard evidence, anecdotal stories, and memoir-like ruminations... Timely. * Baltimore City Paper *A valuable work and a real treat to read.... Few people could have written Sacred Knowledge and even fewer people could have done it so eloquently. * OPEN Foundation *In Sacred Knowledge, Richards . . . distills his years of thinking about psychedelics’ psychotherapeutic and spiritual uses into a book that is readable for educated general readers, intellectually firm enough for scholars, and flavored by his personal experiences. -- Tom Roberts, ErowidPart memoir, part manifesto, Sacred Knowledge charts the birth, death, and resurrection of psychedelic research. . . . The conclusion to be drawn from this book is that it’s time—in a safe setting and with careful guidance—that we started taking our miracles in tablet form. -- Charles Gilmour * Independent *Table of ContentsForeword, by G. William BarnardPreface: One Discovery of TranscendenceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionNote to the ReaderPart I. Setting the Stage1. The Death and Rebirth of Psychedelic Research2. Orientation, Definitions, and the Limits of Language3. Revelation and DoubtPart II. Mystical and Visionary Forms of Consciousness4. Intuitive Knowledge5. Approaches to Unitive Consciousness6. New Perspectives on Time and Space7. Visions and ArchetypesPart III. Personal and Interpersonal Dynamics8. The Interpersonal and the Mystical9. Experiences of Meaninglessness, Despair, and Somatic Discomfort10. Religious Conversion and Psychodynamic Experiences11. Discipline and Integration12. Reflections on DeathPart IV. Present and Future Applications of Entheogens13. Psychedelic Frontiers in Medicine14. Psychedelic Frontiers in Education15. Psychedelic Frontiers in Religion16. Maximizing the Probability of Safety and BenefitPart V. Onward17. Fears of Awakening18. Entering Into a New Paradigm19. Movement Into the FutureEpilogue: A Concise Report of Insights from the Frontier Where Science and Spirituality Are MeetingSelected BibliographyA Hopkins Playlist for Psilocybin Studies (2008 Version)Name IndexSubject Index

    1 in stock

    £18.00

  • The Bell Jar

    Faber & Faber The Bell Jar

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisI was supposed to be having the time of my life.When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The novel is partially based on Plath's own life and descent into mental illness, and has become a modern classic. The Bell Jar has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor sharp portrait of 1950s society and has sold millions of copies worldwide.

    Out of stock

    £9.02

  • Thayil J Narcopolis

    Faber & Faber Thayil J Narcopolis

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Narcopolis is a rich and hallucinatory novel set around a Bombay opium den, as the city transforms itself over three decades.In Old Bombay, they say you introduce only your worst enemy to opium. But in Rashid''s opium room on Shuklaji Street, the air is thick with voices and ghosts. A young woman holds a long-stemmed pipe over a flame, her hair falling across her eyes. Men sprawl and mutter in the gloom. And now there is an underworld whisper of a new terror: the Pathar Maar, the stone killer, whose victims are the nameless, invisible poor. In broken Bombay, there are too many to count. Stretching across three decades, with an interlude in Mao''s China, Narcopolis portrays a city in collision with itself. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, it is a journey into a sprawling underworld written in electric and utterly original prose.

    3 in stock

    £10.44

  • Trauma Healing with Guided Drawing: A

    North Atlantic Books,U.S. Trauma Healing with Guided Drawing: A

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisA body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy that will appeal to art therapists, somatic experiencing practitioners, bodyworkers, artists, and mental health professionalsWhile art therapy traditionally focuses on therapeutic image-making and the cognitive or symbolic interpretation of these creations, Cornelia Elbrecht instructs readers how to facilitate the body-focused approach of guided drawing. Clients draw with both hands and eyes closed as they focus on their felt sense. Physical pain, tension, and emotions are expressed without words through bilateral scribbles. Clients then, with an almost massage-like approach, find movements that soothe their pain, discharge inner tension and emotions, and repair boundary breaches. Archetypal shapes allow therapists to safely structure the experience in a nonverbal way. Sensorimotor art therapy is a unique and self-empowering application of somatic experiencing--it is both body-focused and trauma-informed in approach--and assists clients who have experienced complex traumatic events to actively respond to overwhelming experiences until they feel less helpless and overwhelmed and are then able to repair their memories of the past. Elbrecht provides readers with the context of body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy and walks them through the thinking behind and process of guided drawing--including 100 full-color images from client sessions that serve as helpful examples of the work.

    1 in stock

    £21.60

  • Royal Netherlands East Indies Army 193642

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Royal Netherlands East Indies Army 193642

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisUntil 1945, Indonesia was a Dutch colony known as the Netherlands East Indies. In 1930, the area had over 60 million inhabitants and was a major exporter of oil, rubber, tin and quinine. It was a particularly strong trading partner for Japan, providing some 13 percent of Japan''s oil needs--second only after the United States. Following Germany''s occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, Japan decided to expand its influence in the Netherlands East Indies via diplomatic negotiations to acquire the necessary strategic goods of oil, rubber and tin. However, the negotiations did not provide Japan with the access it had hoped to gain.Up until the mid-1930s the colonial authorities considered the probability of military conflict between the major powers in Asia to be very low and that any military presence in the colony was primarily aimed at enforcing Dutch rule. This task was mainly the responsibility of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL). This force, designed primTable of ContentsIntroduction Geopolitical developments Defence of the Netherlands East Indies: principles Command and control Organisation Infantry Tanks Artillery Air defence artillery Cavalry Engineers Signals Motor transport Medical Service Supplies Aviation Indigenous auxiliary corps Army formation Weapons Combat history Uniforms and insignia Bibliography Glossary

    15 in stock

    £11.39

  • The Vagina Monologues Eve Ensler

    Little, Brown Book Group The Vagina Monologues Eve Ensler

    7 in stock

    Book Synopsis2018 marks the twentieth anniversary of V-Day, the radical grassroots movement to end violence against women and girls, inspired by Eve Ensler''s international sensation The Vagina Monologues. This special edition features six never-before-published monologues, a new foreword by National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson, a new introduction by the author, and a new afterword by One Billion Rising director Monique Wilson on the stage phenomenon''s global impact.A landmark work in women''s empowerment, as relevant as ever after a year marked by unprecedented social and political protest in the face of unapologetic racism and misogyny, The Vagina Monologues honours women''s sexuality in all its complexity, mystery and power. Witty and irreverent, compassionate and wise, this award-winning masterpiece gives voice to real women''s deepest fantasies, fears, anger and pleasure, and calls for a world where all women are safe, equal, free and alive in their bodies.Trade ReviewThis play changed the world. Seeing it changed my soul. Performing in it changed my life * Kerry Washington *'Probably the most important piece of political theatre of the last decade' * New York Times *'Filled with generous energy and delight'The Times * The Times *Spellbinding, funny, and almost unbearably moving ... a work of art and an incisive piece of cultural history, a poem and a polemic, a performance and a balm and a benediction * Variety *

    7 in stock

    £10.44

  • THE ART OF WAR Collins Classics

    HarperCollins Publishers THE ART OF WAR Collins Classics

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.The ancient Chinese art of warfare written by military strategist Sun Tzu in the 5th century BC.

    1 in stock

    £8.07

  • How Children Succeed

    Houghton Mifflin How Children Succeed

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisA persuasive wake-up call.—PeopleA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the award-winning journalist Paul Tough, a provocative and profound examination of childhood success and character—an insightful study that reveals the power to transform young people's lives. Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that success has more to do with character—skills like perseverance, curiosity, optimism, and self-control. In this groundbreaking study, Tough introduces us to key researchers and educators, who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character. Through their stories—and the stories of the children they are trying to help—Tough reveals how character has the power to transform young people's lives. This provocative and profoundly hopeful book will not only inspire and engage readers—it will also change our understanding of childhood itself.

    Out of stock

    £14.24

  • The Future is History: How Totalitarianism

    Granta Books The Future is History: How Totalitarianism

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisIn The Future is History Masha Gessen follows the lives of four Russians, born as the Soviet Union crumbled, at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children or grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths not only against the machinations of the regime that would seek to crush them all (censorship, intimidation, violence) but also against the war it waged on understanding itself, ensuring the unobstructed emergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. The Future is History is a powerful and urgent cautionary tale by contemporary Russia's most fearless inquisitor.Trade ReviewIndispensable -- Pankaj Mishra * Guardian *The Future is History is a beautifully-written, sensitively-argued and cleverly-structured journey through Russia's failure to build democracy. The difficulty for any book about Russia is how to make the world's biggest country human-sized, and she succeeds by building her story around the lives of a half-dozen people, whose fortunes wax and wane as the country opens up, then closes down once more. It is a story about hope and despair, trauma and treatment, ideals and betrayal, and above all about love and cynicism. If you want to truly understand why Vladimir Putin has been able to so dominate his country, this book will help you -- Oliver BulloughMasha Gessen is a brave and eloquent critic of the Putin regime -- Edward Lucas * The Times *Impassioned * Daily Telegraph *In The Future is History, Masha Gessen demonstrates how nostalgia has changed the fabric of Russian society. More than 25% of Russians believe that Stalin's rule was good for the country. Gessen's analysis reveals how imperial nostalgia goes hand in hand with an increase in nationalism, isolationism, sexism and homophobia... Memory is a responsibility. We ought to remember the past, not only in its polished glories but also its atrocities and injustices -- Elif Shafak * Guardian *

    1 in stock

    £10.44

  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and

    Oxford University Press The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisThis bestselling dictionary contains over 1,700 entries on all aspects of politics and international relations. Written by a leading team of political scientists, it embraces the multi-disciplinary spectrum of political theory including political thinkers, history, institutions, theories, and schools of thought, as well as notable current affairs that have shaped attitudes to politics.Fully updated for its fourth edition, the dictionary has had its coverage of international relations heavily revised and expanded, reflected in its title change, and it includes a wealth of new material in areas such as international institutions, peace building, human security, security studies, global governance, and open economy politics. It also incorporates recommended web links that can be accessed via a regularly checked and updated companion website, ensuring that the links remain relevant.The dictionary is international in its coverage and will prove invaluable to students and academics studying politics and related disciplines, as well as politicians, journalists, and the general reader seeking clarification of political terms.Table of ContentsList of Contributors Preface to the Fourth Edition Preface to the Third Edition Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the Original Edition Dictionary Timeline of Political Philosophers and Theorists

    2 in stock

    £14.24

  • The Art of WinnieThePooh

    HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Art of WinnieThePooh

    Out of stock

    Book Synopsis

    Out of stock

    £21.75

  • Democracy in Iran

    Harvard University Press Democracy in Iran

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisIn Misagh Parsa’s view, the outlook for democracy in Iran is stark. Gradual reforms will not be sufficient for real change: the government must fundamentally rethink its commitment to the role of religion in politics and civic life. For Iran to democratize, the options are narrowing to a single path: another revolution.Trade ReviewThis book deals with an important and timely issue: the difficulties of democratizing the Islamic Republic. Drawing from a wealth of primary materials—interviews, newspapers, and recent memoirs—Democracy in Iran is the first work that focuses on the movement as a social movement, with a basis in the larger society, and contains valuable insights on problems of democratization. -- Ervand Abrahamian, author of The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.–Iranian RelationsFor decades now, Parsa has thrown shafts of illumination on social movements and politics in Iran by sidestepping the polemics and theology to apply the tools of hard-nosed sociological analysis. Here he has analyzed Iran’s Green Movement in the same incisive way, and anyone who wants to understand the contemporary situation in that country—as opposed to the fantasies constructed by think tanks and opinion page editors inside the Beltway—must read this book. -- Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle EastIn this erudite and intellectually challenging book, sociologist Parsa seeks to tackle a fundamental question of democratization theory—namely, under what conditions can a country achieve democratization? In answering this question, Parsa uses Iran as a case study. He frames the case of Iran in a broad comparative perspective. He analyzes alternative routes of democratization and explains why South Korea succeeded in democratizing through reform, whereas countries like the Philippines and Indonesia experienced tumultuous and violent upheavals on their paths toward democratization. -- N. Entessar * Choice *Misagh Parsa’s brilliantly argued Democracy in Iran posits a new revolutionary future for the country, suggesting that as the gap between ruler and ruled widens, and as the different sides in Iran’s political spectrum become ever more entrenched, the prospect—or necessity—of dramatic upheaval becomes ever more real…She shows us how the Islamic Republic is in danger of becoming as laughable in the distance between reality and propaganda as the Soviet Union became. -- Anthony Forbes * Times Literary Supplement *This fine book shreds the dominant narratives about the Islamic Republic as Parsa analyzes the titanic struggle under way in Iran between theocracy and democracy. Along the way, the author shows why gradual reform—the leitmotif for Western supporters of ‘pragmatic’ Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal—is unlikely. Parsa digs deep into Persian primary material often ignored in Washington policy discussions, intelligence analysis and journalism. He also mines data from other authoritarian countries to compare and contrast those that have transformed peacefully with those that have changed more violently but still democratically (Indonesia) or erupted and returned to dictatorship (Egypt). Parsa’s careful scholarship leads him to one overarching conclusion: A peaceful evolution to a more humane system in the Islamic Republic, let alone a more democratic one, isn’t in the cards…While anyone curious about Iran will find it illuminating, for those working in government or the foreign-affairs community, it is mandatory reading…[This] book is easily the most important work in English on the Islamic Republic since the revolution. -- Reuel Marc Gerecht * Wall Street Journal *Misagh Parsa’s account of Iran is one of the most important books published about the Islamic Republic since its inception. Parsa’s mastery of an impressive range of sources, his elegant writing style and his intellectual honesty set his account apart from the legion of other books published on the theocratic state. His conclusions are as stark as they are important: the Islamic Republic cannot reform itself, and its path to genuine democratisation can only come through an actual revolution. -- Ray Takeyh * Survival *

    Out of stock

    £38.21

  • Disaster Drawn  Visual Witness Comics and

    Harvard University Press Disaster Drawn Visual Witness Comics and

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisIn hard-hitting accounts of Auschwitz, Bosnia, Palestine, and Hiroshima's Ground Zero, comics have shown a stunning capacity to bear witness to trauma. Hillary Chute explores the ways graphic narratives by diverse artists, including Jacques Callot, Francisco Goya, Keiji Nakazawa, Art Spiegelman, and Joe Sacco, document the disasters of war.Trade ReviewThe provocative idea at the heart of Hillary Chute’s Disaster Drawn is that comics should be accepted as a true testament of war in the same way historical writings, documentary films and still photographs have been. She traces the lineage of the artist-reporterback to printmaker Jacques Callot in the 17th century and ends with Coco Wang’s web comics from China, which document catastrophic earthquakes almost before the ground beneath the artist’s feet has stopped reverberating. Meticulously researched and handsomely illustrated with full-color examples of the work under discussion, Chute makes a compelling case…The great strength of comics is the ability to tell in simple, intimate terms what it is to bear witness. Chute has given us a great resource on this history. -- Dmitry Samarov * Chicago Tribune *In Disaster Drawn, Chute offers an elegant aesthetic and theoretical argument for how ‘made-up pictures’ allow us to enter into traumatic historical events, ‘inviting one to look while signaling the difficulty of looking,’ making them not only an accurate form of witness, but an ethical one. -- Elizabeth Hand * Boston Review *Compelling. * New Statesman *An illuminating analysis of graphic narrative’s documentary power… [The medium] turns the reader as well as the artist into a witness of the unspeakable in a manner that often transcends polemics and partisanship. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *You reach the end of this fascinating study confident that you’ve followed its contours—confident that it has contours you can follow. And then the story explodes all over again, pulling Goya and Superman and Psychoanalysis (the comic book) and Art Spiegelman and everyone else back into a crisis—Charlie Hebdo, and which side are you on?—that starts the story all over again, that makes you feel as if you’re at the beginning of Chute’s tale, with nothing settled and everything up for grabs. -- Greil Marcus, author of Three Songs, Three Singers, Three NationsHillary Chute is the only comics academic I know who pens page-turners, and Disaster Drawn is no exception; Chute writes eloquently and readably about the three artists who most viscerally try to picture the brutality, horror, and inhumanity of humanity with unflinching and indelible moral courage. Disaster Drawn is a consuming dissection of the nature of trauma in visual narrative, and you, the reader, won’t be able to look away. -- Chris Ware, author of Building StoriesHillary Chute’s Disaster Drawn is a necessary book, without question one of the finest scholarly studies of comics that I’ve encountered. To call it a major work in comic studies, though, is setting the bar way too low: this is a book that constitutes a serious intervention in the histories of documentary and reportage. -- Scott Bukatman, Stanford UniversityIn this fiercely ambitious volume, Chute digs deep into the comic form itself, its architecture, its treatment of time, its materiality, and draws from it an understanding of a great artistic effort to capture what we have wrought in our brutal human way. Read Disaster Drawn to understand something original and astonishing in the way that historical memory can deepen through the marks of the hand-drawn line. -- Peter Galison, Harvard UniversityLike her subjects in their interpretations and experiences of mass murder and war, with Disaster Drawn Hillary Chute becomes a compelling witness to the most killing century in history. But she doesn’t simply witness; she sees. And makes us see: the art, the artistry, and the artist. She shows us Goya, George Grosz, Jules Feiffer, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman on the Holocaust, Joe Sacco on wars in the Middle East and Balkans, and (new to me) Keiji Nakazawa on the atomic bombing of his hometown, Hiroshima, one morning as he was about to enter his schoolhouse at the age of six. In an instant he was protected by a falling wall while the mother of a friend of his, standing a few feet away, became a blackened cinder. We receive Chute’s testimony as if it were the first time we knew any of this. Her chosen illustrations don’t merely accompany her text; they illuminate it. She has the power to move as well as to propel us to fresh thinking about images and their effect on us. Comics, particularly autobiographical comics, deal with time and space in a way that written literature has difficulty doing unless we are dealing with Proust and Joyce. AN INSIGHT ON EVERY PAGE. IT’S FRIGHTENING, IT’S POWERFUL, IT’S ESSENTIAL is what would be said of Disaster Drawn if it were advertised on a billboard. Engaging both literature and history in the unexpected medium of comics, Chute draws her own verbal pictures so effectively she becomes as much an artist as those she is writing about. Her accounts of graphic novels depicting the Holocaust and Hiroshima become so painful it’s necessary to look away at times not only from the images but her words. When Sacco goes to cover the slaughter in the Balkans he is as representational as a photographer, yet he is even more intense and painful because his visual reports contain his consciousness and sensibility so that one feels not only the horror of what he is depicting but also his own horror. Violence, suffering, endurance bring their own catharsis as with all great tragedy. Sophocles would have smiled at Chute. In Disaster Drawn, Hillary Chute not only sees; she becomes a seer. She presents, finally, in her own words, ‘the undimmed force of the hand-drawn image.’ -- Peter Davis, Academy Award–winning filmmaker of Hearts and Minds and author of Girl of My DreamsChute’s work is a magnificently insightful and meticulously researched analysis of the powerful role comics play in witnessing war and trauma…What emerges is a particularly impressive sense of the sustained power of comics and drawing. -- Hans Rollman * PopMatters *Hillary Chute puts forward a convincing and comprehensive argument that comics as a medium are perfectly positioned to act as documentary, as a form of witnessing, as a means of engaging and prodding history (particularly war-generated and traumatic histories). -- James Walker * The Spokesman *

    10 in stock

    £25.46

  • The Russian Origins of the First World War

    Harvard University Press The Russian Origins of the First World War

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisIn a major reinterpretation, Sean McMeekin rejects the standard notion of the war’s beginning as either a Germano-Austrian pre-emptive strike or a miscalculation. The key to the outbreak of violence, he argues, lies in St. Petersburg. Russian statesmen unleashed the war through policy decisions based on imperial ambitions in the Near East.Trade ReviewThis book should forever change the ways we have understood the role of Russia in the First World War. -- Michael S. Neiberg, author of Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War IA bold reinterpretation of the Russian Empire's entry into the First World War. McMeekin argues that Russia believed a European war to be in its interest, that it sought to humiliate Vienna, and that it hoped to conquer Constantinople and the Ottoman Straits. -- Mustafa Aksakal, author of The Ottoman Road to War in 1914The Russian Origins of the First World War is a polemic in the best sense. Written in a lively and engaging style, it should provoke a much-needed debate on Russia's role in the Great War. -- Michael Reynolds, author of Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918Going against a century of received wisdom, Bilkent University professor McMeekin offers a dramatic new interpretation of WWI...Rifling the archives, analyzing battle plans, and sifting through the machinations of high diplomacy, McMeekin reveals the grand ambitions of czarist Russia, which wanted control of the Black Sea straits to guarantee all-weather access to foreign markets. Maneuvering France and England into a war against Germany presented the best chance to acquire this longed-for prize. No empire had more to gain from the coming conflict, and none pushed harder to ensure its arrival. Once unleashed, however, the conflagration leapt out of control, and imperial Russia herself ranked among its countless victims. * Publishers Weekly *Casting a contrarian eye on the first major conflict of the twentieth century, Sean McMeekin finds the roots of WWI inside Russia, whose leaders deliberately sought--for their own ends--to expand a brawl that the Germans wanted to keep local. The author tracks the fallout of these antique plots right down to the present geopolitical landscape. * Barnes & Noble Review *An entirely new take on the origins of World War I comes as a surprise. If war guilt is to be assigned, this book argues, it should go not only (or even primarily) to Germany--the long-accepted culprit--but also to Russia...Bold reading between the lines of history. -- Robert Legvold * Foreign Affairs *As Sean McMeekin argues in this bold and brilliant revisionist study, Russia was as much to blame as Germany for the outbreak of the war. Using a wide range of archival sources, including long-neglected tsarist documents, he argues that the Russians had ambitions of their own (the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, no less) and that they were ready for a war once they had secured a favorable alliance with the British and the French. -- Orlando Figes * Sunday Times *The book is a refreshing challenge to longstanding assumptions and shifted perspectives are always good. -- Miriam Cosic * The Australian *

    15 in stock

    £18.86

  • Super Late Bloomer

    Andrews McMeel Publishing Super Late Bloomer

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisInstead of a traditional written diary, Julia Kaye has always turned to art as a means of self-reflection. So when she began her gender transition in 2016, she decided to use her popular webcomic, Up and Out, to process her journey and help others with similar struggles realize they weren’t alone.Trade Review"Kaye skillfully and effectively relates the daily indignities borne by trans women and the triumphs and quiet joys as well. Her tenacity in this hopeful story will be resonant for readers going through personal transitions of many kinds." (Publisher's Weekly)

    Out of stock

    £10.19

  • Returning Home

    Rowman & Littlefield Returning Home

    Out of stock

    Book SynopsisEach year millions of American adults visit a childhood home. Few can anticipate the effect it will have on them. Often serving several important psychological needs, these trips are not intended as visits with people from their past. Rather, those returning to their homes have a strong desire to visit the places that comprised the landscape of their childhood. Approximately one third of American adults over the age of thirty have visited a childhood home. This book describes some of their experiences and the psychology behind the journeys. Most people who visit a childhood home are motivated by a desire to connect with their past. Seeing the buildings, schools, parks, and playgrounds from their youth helps to establish the psychological and emotional link between the child in the black-and-white photographs and the person they are today. Many people use the trip to get in touch with the values and principles they were taught as children, often as a means to get their lives back on trTrade ReviewAn engaging, sensitive and informative psychological exploration of the common desire by American adults to revisit their childhood homes. Professor Burger argues for home-visiting as a kind of 'place-therapy': for establishing a sense of connection with the past, dealing with current crises and concerns, and working on issues from the past that will not go away. While the passage of time threatens to fragment our senses of self, reconnecting with the sensory, physical environment of formative years effects a kind of emotional wholeness. -- Nigel Rapport, University of St. Andrews; Editor of Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement, and of Reveries of Home: Nostalgia, Authenticity and the Performance of PlaceInteresting, entertaining ... A fascinating description and analysis of an intriguing phenomenon. Recommended reading for everyone interested in or struggling with nostalgia and homesickness. -- Ad Vingerhoets, professor of Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, The NetherlandsTable of ContentsChapter 1 Returning Home Chapter 2 A Theory of Home Attachment Chapter 3 A Child's World Chapter 4 A Place to Be Chapter 5 A Place to Grow Chapter 6 A Place to Heal Chapter 7 When There's No Place Like Home Chapter 8 The Bigger Picture

    Out of stock

    £18.99

  • Men Women and Chain Saws

    Princeton University Press Men Women and Chain Saws

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFrom its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a groundbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since the mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Clover looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although such movies have been traditionaTrade Review"[A] brilliant analysis of gender and its disturbances in modern horror films... Bubbling away beneath Clover's multi-faceted readings of slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films is the question of what the viewer gets out of them... [She] argues that most horror films are obsessed with feminism, playing out plots which climax with an image of (masculinized) female power and offering visual pleasures which are organized not around a mastering gaze, but around a more radical "victim-identified' look."--Linda Ruth Williams, Sight and Sound "Carol Clover's compelling [book] challenges simplistic assumptions about the relationship between gender and culture... She suggests that the "low tradition' in horror movies possesses positive subversive potential, a space to explore gender ambiguity and transgress traditional boundaries of masculinity and femininity."--Andrea Walsh, The Boston Globe "Clover makes a convincing case for studying the pulp-pop excesses of 'exploitation' horror as a reflection of our psychic times."--Misha Berson, San Francisco Chronicle "Clover actually bothers (as few have done before) to go into the theaters, to sit with the horror fans, and to watch how they respond to what appears on screen."--Wendy Lesser, Washington Post "In her reading of both particular horror films and of film and gender theory, Clover does what every cultural critic hopes to: she calls into question our habits of seeing."--Ramona Naddaff, Artforum "Clover, takes the most extreme genre, horror flicks, seriously. There is no condescension in this significant and probing discussion of psychology and sexuality and their role in lurid fantasy."--Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer "Fascinating, Clover has shown how the allegedly naive makers of crude films have done something more schooled directors have difficulty doing - creating females with whom male veiwers are quite prepared to identify with on the most profound levels"--The Modern Review "It's easy to see why this book is considered such a landmark in film analysis."--Rod Lott, Flick AttackTable of ContentsPreface to the Princeton Classics Edition ix Acknowledgements xv Introduction: Carrie and the Boys 3 Chapter 1 Her Body, Himself 21 Chapter 2 Opening Up 65 Chapter 3 Getting Even 114 Chapter 4 The Eye of Horror 166 Afterword 231 Films Cited 237 Works Cited 243 Index 255

    15 in stock

    £15.29

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