Rural communities / rural life Books

Book Synopsis'A beautiful and poetic meditation on loss, nature, and what matters in life.' - Nigel WarburtonFrom the BAFTA award-winning writer of The New Yorker short film, Heart ValleyKiran Sidhu never thought she could leave London, but when her mother passes away, she knows she has to walk out of her old life and leave her toxic family behind. She chooses fresh air, an auditorium of silence and the purity of the natural world - and soon arrives in Cellan, a small, remote village nestled in the Welsh valleys.At first, the barrenness and isolation is strange. But as the months wear on, Kiran starts to connect with the close-knit community she finds there; her neighbour Sarah, who shows her how to sledge when the winter snow arrives; Jane, a 70-year-old woman who lives at the top of a mountain with three dogs and four alpacas; and Wilf, the farmer who eats the same supper every day, and teaches Kiran that the cuckoo arrives in April and leaves in July. Tender, philosophical and moving, I Can Hear the Cuckoo is a story about redefining family, about rebirth and renewal, and respecting the rhythm and timing of the earth. It's a book about moving through grief and the people we find in the midst of our sadness - and what this small community in the Welsh countryside can teach us about life.

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Book SynopsisBorn in 1943, Richard Pottinger grew up in and around the small rural villages near Cirencester, Gloucestershire. His engaging childhood reminiscences reveal the charm of living a simple country life within a small and friendly community, but also the instability experienced by many families due to the transient nature of employment for farm workers at that time. It meant a childhood spent moving from place to place with friendships gained and lost and a precarious existence which impacted upon the whole family. Each time his father uttered the words We're shiftin Richard, his mother and three brothers would all have to up sticks and move at short notice to where there was work with a tied cottage or accommodation – good or bad, they didn't know until they arrived!

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the Year Award In April 1816 Patrick Sellar was brought to trial in Inverness for culpable homicide for his treatment of the Highlanders of Strathnaver, the most northerly part of the Scottish highlands. In the process of evicting them from their ancient lands he had allegedly burnt houses, destroyed mills and wrecked pastures. There is perhaps no more hated nor reviled individual in Highland history. This outstanding new book, however, gives a balanced assessment of the man, a vivid account of a terrible episode in Highland history, and a riveting narration of a tormented life. Richard's book is an account of Sellar's life and times: that he was ruthless, avaricious, devious and cruel is beyond question. But his letters suggest a streak of idealism: did he really believe that the displaced highlanders would be better off, better fed, educated and housed in their new homes? Have the Highlands in the end become more productive and prosperous? In the course of his fast-moving and gripping account, Eric Richards looks carefully at these vexed questions.Trade ReviewPatrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances, Eric Richards' excellent, very fully documented study of the man, helps us to understand him much better...We need to be honest about Scotland in relation to imperialism, Eric Richards' subtle, imposing and highly readable book is of great service in this direction. Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances, Eric Richards' excellent, very fully documented study of the man, helps us to understand him much better...We need to be honest about Scotland in relation to imperialism, Eric Richards' subtle, imposing and highly readable book is of great service in this direction.

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Book SynopsisAllan Cunningham''s Traditional Tales is a selection of folk stories steeped in the traditions and popular literature of southern Scotland and northern England. Originally published in 1822, this was one of the earliest collections of folktales ever produced in Britain. Operating within the debateable land between fact and fancy, mixing the natural and supernatural, they blur the distinction between the oral traditions of the distant past and emerging ideas of literature and modernity. Cunningham''s Traditional Tales form an essential part of folkloric history, as well as being fascinating stories in their own right.

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1948, and edited by the artist John Piper, An English Farmhouse is Geoffrey Grigson's careful survey of the old English farmhouse, and its associated buildings, whether made from sarsen, thatch, timber, tile or brick. Grigson paints a vivid and human picture of rural life in the preceding centuries and creates a delicate weave of social history.

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Book SynopsisEnglish rural society underwent fundamental changes between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries with urbanization, commercialization and industrialization producing new challenges and opportunities for inhabitants of rural communities. However, our understanding of this period has been shaped by the compartmentalization of history into medieval and early-modern specialisms and by the debates surrounding the transition from feudalism to capitalism and landlord-tenant relations. Inspired by the classic works of Tawney and Postan, this collection of essays examines their relevance to historians today, distinguishing between their contrasting approaches to the pre-industrial economy and exploring the development of agriculture and rural industry; changes in land and property rights; and competition over resources in the English countryside.Table of Contents1. Tawney and Postan: Two Pathways to Understanding the Pre-Industrial Economy by Christopher Dyer2. Rural Industry and the Peasant Agrarian Economy: A Study of the Iron Industry in Medieval England by Alexandra Sapoznik3. English Agrarian Structures in a European Context, 1300-1925 by John Broad4. Farming the Kentish Marshlands: Continuity and Change in the late Middle Ages by Sheila Sweetinburgh5. 'The Struggle for the Commons': Commons, Custom and Cottages in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by James P. Bowen6. The Economics of Shipwreck in Late-Medieval Suffolk by Tom Johnson7. Custom and Competition for Woodland Resources in Early-Modern High and Low Furness, Lancashire by William D. Shannon8. Custom, Common Right and Commercialisation in the Forest of Dean, c.1605-1640 by Simon Sandall9. A Money Economy? Provisioning Durham Cathedral across the Dissolution, 1350-1600 by A. T. Brown10. Elizabethan Entrepreneurs: Three Clothiers of the Frome valley, 1550-1600 by John Gaisford11. 'The Fellowship of the Town': Constituting the Commonality of an English Town, Cirencester, c.1200-1800 by David RollisonAfterword by Andy Wood

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Book SynopsisA modern country postman tells, in a series of short accounts, his highlights delivering the mail to rural characters: encounters with dogs (and bulls), battling the elements, meeting the surprising farmers and cottagers, and seeing the local wildlife on a daily basis.

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Book SynopsisNearly 60 years ago, the WI handbook for country women teaches, through the seasons, the delights of cider-making, indoor bulb-planting, smocking, butter-making, cooking with home-grown herbs, public speaking, wall-papering, Durham quilting and more. How much times have changed for women, but how much we have forgotten!

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Book SynopsisBy turns informative and irreverent this book takes a new approach to tackling gender inequality in the home and at work, focusing on dads being entitled to a bigger role in parenting. It presents the barriers men face to being active dads - from sexist security guards to Tory MPs and even Homer Simpson - and, crucially, it outlines how to tackle them for the good of men, women and children. In Dads Don't Babysit two dads outline some of the biggest problems facing families that want dad to get his turn at raising the kids, and offer a range of solutions in a manifesto for parents and policy makers to consider and hopefully adopt. The book tackles topics such as the gender pay gap, lack of a strong parental leave system in the UK, the financial penalties of taking time off to look after children and the limiting expectations parents find colleagues, relatives and the media have on mums and dads. The authors draw on their own experience of parenting and that of others. Interviews are backed up by extensive research so that the book presents these important issues in an accessible, personal and at times light-hearted way that the apolitical reader will be able to relate to. There is a lively and growing argument about men's role in the 21st century and this book offers a unique perspective, giving a feminist argument by men offering solutions to benefit everyone.

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Book SynopsisOn March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compania de Santa Gertrudis - the largest employer in the region, and a subsidiary of the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company - may have committed murder. The alert was first raised at six in the morning: a fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that "no more than ten" men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all ten were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death toll was not ten, but eighty-seven. And there were seven survivors. A century later, acclaimed novelist Yuri Herrera has reconstructed a workers' tragedy at once globally resonant and deeply personal: Pachuca is his hometown. His work is an act of restitution for the victims and their families, bringing his full force of evocation to bear on the injustices that suffocated this horrific event into silence.Trade Review'A searing, painful, poetic, simple, extraordinary book about a 1920 mine disaster. Remembering Grenfell – do we learn?' Philippe Sands----'A precise and devastating account that peers into the dark mouths of the El Bordo mine as if they were the gates of hell. In these pages, Yuri Herrera paints a portrait of poverty and neglect and reveals, once again, the way exploitation and abuse lurk at the source of all violence.' Alia Trabucco Zerán, author of The Remainder----‘A Silent Fury is a narrative rebellion against the archive of atrocity. Herrera subverts the archive, turns it against itself, upends its silencing mission and reveals within it the traces of corporate and governmental abuse, disregard and murder.’ John Gibler, author of I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us----‘Like Life of a Klansman, Herrera’s book is a microhistory inspired by an absence in the archives. But where Ball enriches the record with context and speculation, Herrera conducts a crisp, matter-of-fact investigation. In quietly seething prose—ably translated by Lisa Dillman—he parses the evasive accounts of contemporary journalists, judges, mine administrators, and civil authorities, noting the implications of each elision and discrepancy. By the end, the “accident” looks more like homicide, a crime quickly covered up by local officials and company bureaucrats who barely saw their workers as human . . . The book is a gripping demonstration of how much can be unearthed from the omissions of official accounts.’ Julian Lucas, Harper’s Magazine----‘By bringing moral exactitude to a story long silenced for American profit, A Silent Fury joins that most vital of canons, the literatures of witness. Reading against the grain of official documents, defining what is there by what is not, Herrera bears witness to a crime that preceded his birth by 50 years.’ Washington Post----‘Herrera's quietly impassioned account has much to say to movements that now work to reclaim a buried past.’Boyd Tonkin, The i----‘At its heart, this is not a book about a mine or even a fire. It is about blame, and what powerful people do to make it disappear . . . This is a book that demands to be read.’ Oliver Balch, The Spectator----‘A story that resonates around the world today . . . and in this short book, Herrera tells it with a poetic concision and eye for detail, made all the stronger for the narrative’s measured pace of revelation.’ 5* New Internationalist----'The book reminded me, naturally, of the disaster that is unfolding around us at this moment [COVID, 2020]. Power doesn’t care about the powerless, Herrera shows us; he’s talking about miners a century ago but could as well be talking about a bartender today. Though often beautiful, A Silent Fury is not pleasurable reading; it is, nevertheless, essential.' Rumaan Alam, The New Republic----‘Herrera knows how to plot an intense plot and handle an original style, as capable of revealing a miserable and anguished social reality as well as elevating with poetry the humble and everyday life in order to reach symbolic proportions.’ Arturo García Ramos, ABC----‘What Yuri Herrera does is Literature, beyond genres or labels. He amply proves it again now, after five years of silence, with a fascinating story that reads like a novel.’ Matías Néspolo, El Mundo----‘With his characteristic sharp prose and exciting rhythm, Herrera is one of the most remarkable writers of Latin America. The El Bordo Mine Fire is an impeccable exercise of journalism.’ Jaime G. Mora, ABC Cultural----‘With his trio of books set in the narco-war borderlands, Herrera has shown that he’s a master of the short, tense fiction, and with A Silent Fury, he proves it further, this time venturing into a more historical mode.’ Remezcla----Booksellers on A Silent Fury----‘A plaque. A press release. A mislabeled photograph. Like a paleontologist drawing a beast from a jawbone, Herrera tells a story of greed, imperialism, and complicity from a few fragments of information. The El Bordo Mine Fire is just one almost forgotten tragedy but, like Rukeyser's Book of the Dead, the bright, poetic light Herrera shines on it with A Silent Fury, casting a shadow on our biggest questions.’ Josh Cook, Porter Square Books----‘Yuri Herrera's slim and devastating A Silent Fury documents the mining tragedy in Pachuca in 1920 and the government and mining company's attempts to cover up the deaths. There is no more relevant time to read about workers' fights for safety and justice in their workplace.’ Tom Flynn, Pilsen Community Books----‘Silence pervades this short book; that of the historical record; that of the the U.S. corporation that owned the mine; that of the survivors; and that of the dead. Herrera is haunted by the silence of the El Bordo mine fire,100 years after 87 miners died, and seeks to record the whispers of ghosts. In this, he is only partly successful, but by attempting to give voice to the silenced, hope is given breath.’ Chapter Books----‘Yuri Herrera explores the history of century-old mine disaster in a small Mexican town. Due to the owner’s influence, the historical record is dubious. Herrera’s investigation raises important questions about how the callousness of the powerful can ensure that a callous history is all that survives them.’ Keith Mosman, Powell's Books----‘Herrera gives voice to the story untold, to clarifying, devastating effect.’ Molly Moore, Book People----‘A Silent Fury is an astonishing piece of journalism. The story is about the El Bordo mine fire in Pachuca, Mexico, and how, when capital comes before workers, lives are too often lost, and justice too long unserved. My favorite book from Herrera yet, and that is an incredibly high bar to reach.’ Matt Keliher, Subtext----‘An astonishing combination of history, cultural anthropology, and journalism that sheds light on a previously forgotten mining disaster . . . and a good example of why we need more translated nonfiction.’ Lesley Rains, City of Asylum Bookstore

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2022 Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize Shortlisted for the Premio Valle-Inclan prize for its translation Through war and its aftermaths, a woman fights to keep her daughters safe. Like peasants through the ages, she desperately slashes and burns in order to make a place for her children to return to. A country girl sees her village sacked and her beloved father disappeared. She is taken to the mountains to join the guerrillas, who force her to give up the baby she conceives. Surviving the rebellion, and now a woman, she sets out to find her daughter, travelling across the Atlantic with meagre resources. She returns to a community in which civilians, the militia and the ex-guerrilla fighters have to live together in a society riddled with distrust, fear and hypocrisy. Hernandez's narrators have the level gaze of ordinary women reckoning with extraordinary hardship. Denouncing the ruthless machismo of combat with quiet intelligence, Slash and Burn creates a suspenseful, slow-burning revelation of rural life in the aftermath of political trauma.Trade Review'An intensive reading experience . . . What Slash and Burn - named after a method of agriculture both destructive and regenerative - shows is the difficulty of creating a new life after war or other trauma.' John Self, The Guardian----'A brilliant evocation of civil war and its bitter legacy.' Lucy Popescu, The Observer----'Slash and Burn investigates with brilliance and compassion the depth of desolation, violence and loss the civil conflict inflicted on a scarred society.' Morning Star----'This is a book that uses indirect narration to create accounts that are both detailed and expansive, putting the personal first but speaking for the collective and from a more vulnerable part of society, really demonstrating the multi-layered meaning of being a survivor.' Sounds and Colours----'An indictment of the inherent misogyny of war and an homage to the women who tirelessly fight for justice and survival on all fronts. But hers is not simply a literature of denunciation, for in the same pages she shows, with fierce heart, the ways women refuse to be crushed, the sometimes broken ways they manage to take care of each other and struggle to survive.' John Gibler----'Extraordinary and utterly gripping, a work of brutally profound beauty and universal significance.' Philippe Sands----'What does it truly mean to be at peace following a war? Slash and Burn is a deeply thoughtful and empathetic examination of how a civil war is inherited, and how it affects subsequent generations of women. Stylistically brave and thematically bold, it is essential, necessary reading for understanding the transition from combatant to civilian, and what historical and national trauma look like on a personal level.' Julianne Pachico----'After reading far too many books about the Central American guerrilla told by and about men, I welcome this terrific novel that delves into the stories of women who come of age during and after war. In Slash and Burn, the aspirations, labour and education of women, as well as motherhood, love, reconciliation and exile, are tied together in sharp, profound prose you can't stop reading.' Lina Meruane----'It is astonishing that someone can write in such a clean and transparent way about a turbulent past. Claudia Hernandez's prose is the controlled breathing of someone who knows that memory is another battlefield. Claudia Hernandez, like her protagonists, lucid and tough women, knows how to cross these battlefields. Slash and Burn confirms that she is one of the best writers in our language.' Yuri Herrera----'Claudia Hernandez is one of the most groundbreaking short story writers from Central America, with a way of approaching the story that is closer to Virgilio Pinera o Felisberto Hernandez than to the realist tradition. Her five story collections prove this. Now, with her first novel, Claudia Hernandez takes on a new challenge: telling the recent history of El Salvador through three generations of women scarred by civil war, poverty and emigration. A pulsating feminine universe, full of energy and courage, despite the permanent threat of violence that surrounds it. An intense and moving novel, and a very intriguing way of storytelling that will captivate the reader.' Horacio Castellanos Moya----'Slash and Burn is an incisive look into the lasting wounds of El Salvador's Civil War. It is a tale of generational healing and resilience centred on its women. Hernandez is a calm, cutting voice on how what is broken must be put back together.' Ryan Gattis----'Slash and Burn reimagines the country through the voices of mothers, daughters and wives. The female gaze cuts sharp in this retelling.' Gabriela Aleman----'Claudia Hernandez's extraordinary novel Slash and Burn has an embattled, unsentimental narrative style, with swift shifts of point of view to voices that are often telling her characters what isn't possible, and a future tense that dramatizes the (im)possibilities for her and her family. Slash and Burn is destined to become a classic.' Mauro Javier Cardenas----'There is a surreal, dreamlike quality to this challenging story. . . it abounds with memories of violence told in a third person bordering on the first, both because of the randomness of events depicted and the naivety and warmth of the language that recounts the almost childlike aspects of the war, always through eyes and a voice that are, above all, feminine.' The Spanish Bookstage, "Weekly Choice"

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Book SynopsisOne beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the 1960s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher and Mickey an ageing musician. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since 1971: the disappearance of their friend Jacy. Now, decades later, the distant past interrupts the present as the truth about what happened to Jacy finally emerges, forcing the men to reconsider everything they thought they knew about each other. Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship's bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family.For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are is a stunning demonstration of a highly-acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable body of work.Trade ReviewCleverly paced, Russo's latest novel folds page-turning suspense into an unhurried, warmly observed portrait of friendship in later life. * Mail on Sunday *His stories are omnisciently narrated in a tone of sardonic understanding of human folly, which places him in the house of American style on a polished mezzanine between John Updike and Anne Tyler...Chances Are, a rare mix of the tense and tender, should gain Russo further literary acclaim. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *There's much to enjoy in Richard Russo's typically nuanced portrait of three childhood friends...[a] fine-grained exploration of troubled, small-town masculinity...Russo's prose is so quietly melodious you can almost hear it singing. * Daily Mail *An eloquent excavation of long-buried secrets. * Observer *totally engrossing...Humane and beautifully crafted, it provides further compelling evidence of Russo's prestige as a contemporary American writer. * Sydney Morning Herald *...chances are awfully good that you'll lap up this gripping, wise and wonderful summer treat. * Boston Globe *Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo balances suspense with comedy in this gripping tale. * Time *Richard Russo is often compared to Dickens, to whom he clearly owes a debt, but the ghost hovering over his fabulous new novel, Chances Are, feels more like Sam Shepard...Next to Colson Whitehead's new book, there's not a better paced summer read -- John Freeman * Literary Hub *...blends everything we love about this author with something new...Vintage Russo...No one understands men better than Russo, and no one is more eloquent in explaining how they think, suffer and love. * Kirkus (starred review) *Russo's hallmark themes - the intricacy of male friendships, one-sided love, the collision of the past with the present - are on full display * New York Times *...a brisk story with memorable characters and smart things to say about loss and missed opportunities. * Minneapolis Star Tribune *...there's heart and beauty on every page. * USA Today *Richard Russo can write like Edith Wharton leavened with a touch of David Lodge. * The Economist *A writer of great comedy and warmth, Russo's living proof that a book can be profound and wise without aiming straight into darkness. * USA Today *Perhaps if it was pointed out that here was a US writer who stood somewhere between Anne Tyler at her darkest and Russell Banks, with an occasional hint of Richard Ford at his least bleak, perhaps Russo would become as widely read as he deserves to be. * Irish Times *No one writing today captures the detail of life with such stunning accuracy. -- Annie Proulx

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Book SynopsisThis book investigates what a case study of a northern market town and its rural hinterland can tell us about village differentiation, exploring how and why rural communities developed in what was chiefly an industrial region and, notably, how the relationship between town and country influenced rural communities. It looks at six villages close to Doncaster - Sprotbrough, Warmsworth, Rossington, Fishlake, Stainforth and Braithwell - chosen to represent the diversity of landownership and land type of the Doncaster district. Rural communities, and more specifically the development of English villages, have proved fertile ground for historians. This book makes an original contribution to these debates. In particular, it engages with existing models of village typology, suggesting that not only are they too restrictive to account for nuanced differences, but also that they fail to acknowledge the importance of the relationships between rural communities and between town and country. Following Sarah Holland’s detailed research into different aspects of rural communities, the book offers new perspectives on how rural communities in close proximity developed, often differently, during the mid nineteenth century. Themes looked at in detail include living and working conditions, agriculture and industry, religion and education, and through these Holland considers existing theories of village typology, before setting out her ideas regarding social hierarchies, spheres of influence and agency, which combine to create complex patterns of differentiation. Communities in Contrast will appeal to all those interested in rural life and economy in the nineteenth century, the relationship between town and country, as well as the history of Yorkshire.Table of Contents1 Introduction 2 Social Hierarchies, Power Relations and Agency in the Countryside 3 Rural Economies 4 Living and working conditions 5 Religion and Education 6 Rural Recreation 7 Conclusion

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Book SynopsisRural England is a mythic space, a complex canvas on which people from many different backgrounds project all kinds of fantasies, prejudices, desires and fears. This book seeks to challenge many of these ideas, showing how the artificial divide between rural and urban works to conceal the underlying relationship between these two fundamental poles of human settlement. This investigation of rurality is oriented from a fixed point in north-west Hampshire, marked by a signpost that points in four directions to two towns, four villages and two hamlets. Through stories, interviews and reportage gathered over two decades, the book demolishes tired notions of rural England that cast it as a separate realm of existence, whether marooned in a perpetual time-warp, or reduced to a refuge for the retired, wealthy urbanites, extreme nature-lovers, and, more recently, anyone tired of waiting out the pandemic in towns and cities. It poses two simple questions: what does the word rural mean today? What will it mean tomorrow? The author is an ambivalent native, held captive to the land by an umbilical cord but always on the verge of fleeing home to the city. Both argument and narrative are propelled by the urgent need to reconsider the concept of ‘countryside’ in the context of the climate emergency and the patent collapse of ecosystems due to intensive farming which has poisoned the land. She writes from a feminist, postcolonial standpoint that is alert to the slow violence of historical processes taking place over many centuries; enslavement, colonialism, industrialisation, globalisation. Trade Review"This incisive work beautifully excavates the troubled, ultimately colonial, inheritance that haunts the making of modern British rural life.""A profoundly affecting and fierce case for re-finding the commons that once traversed and transcended the ownership mantras that have ousted and poisoned so much of the living world. Ware brings the world to bear on a hamlet, the smallest form of human settlement, and the hamlet, a piece of ground, to bear on the world and the planet.""A riveting environmental, historical and personal account, Return of a Native transforms our understanding of the local as Vron Ware reveals the complex connections of the land, its food and animal production and human and nonhuman inhabitants to global networks of agriculture, commerce and politics.""A thorough, enthralling and spirited reconstruction of what it took to be modern, Return of a Native is a gold mine. In this masterful exercise in retrospective geography, Vron Ware invites her reader to learn anew how touching the solid clay beneath our feet can yield such vibrant life, at least for the time being.""In traversing the English countryside, comes an account which thinks beyond local histories and provincial politics. Ware gives us a moving and often funny personal story which offers a fresh look at urgent questions relating to environmentalism, colonial legacies, class, culture and nationalism."“Return of a Native bears the compelling message that if you want to understand the world around you, look to the ground beneath your feet. Vron Ware excavates stories that shed new light on our own age, and should prompt us to rethink the way we relate to the land, to our histories and to one another.”"Like a twenty-first-century William Blake, Ware's view of England's 'green and pleasant land' is haunted by dark shadows and damage from its ruined soil, haunted colonial past, and national self-mutilations of Brexit. A brilliant, beautiful & chilling portrait of England's fateful present.""Ware's subtle and fascinating research steers us round rural twist after rural turn towards what we can only hope will be a more equitable future.""In the wake of the pandemic and as the borders between the rural and urban grow ever more porous, this illuminating anatomy of the English countryside is a timely read.""A sly, luminous, brutal, and funny excavation of rural place through time, Return of a Native brings to mind not only Hardy but also Saramago. The churn of consciousness haunts every page. Ware raises from the ground an English village’s interdependence with otherwises and elsewheres of imperial modernity."

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Book SynopsisTime to Heal; Tales of a Country Doctor tells the story of the colourful life of a country doctor towards the end of his career. In turn shocking, sad and funny, they describe a doctor who feels poorly served by the conventional medicine of his time and finds new ways to relieve the suffering of his patients. This tale has a twist. Twenty-first-century General Practice and its patients have been betrayed by top-heavy regulation, performance management and a blame culture. Young doctors no longer want to enter General Practice. The author explores why and how pandemics might provide the answers.Trade Review"Dixon's passion for the role of a family doctor in 'healing' the pain and suffering of others shines through via colorful, moving tales of caring for patients and families within the context of the local community. He brings out the magic of general practice, underpinned by the trusted bond between doctor and patient, but also shows how this has been eroded over successive political and organizational changes within the NHS. This honest and heartfelt account ends with an impassioned plea to resurrect the quintessential values of the GP within a modern context and in turn 'restoring humanity to medicine.'" -- Chaand Nagpaul CBE, chair, Council of the British Medical Association "A wonderful book, full of fascinating, engaging, and timely stories. Dixon reminds us of the importance of human medicine and the way in which communities can create health. He concludes with a new vision for health which blends the best of the past with the latest technology and science-and which will help us cope better with future pandemics." -- Lord Nigel Crisp, former chief executive and permanent secretary at the UK Department of Health "A fascinating look into life as a village doctor, with observations so profound it seamlessly becomes a thesis on humanity as a species. The local GP, not only a potential lifesaver but also a constant and friend in these ever-changing, isolated times, has never been more needed. A beautiful and moving book." -- Lady Sophie Windsor (nee Winkelman), actress "Time to Heal describes very human stories-entertaining, thought provoking, and eminently readable, whilst woven through the text is the insight that general practice is the human face of medicine." -- Sir Denis Pereira Gray, former chair and president, Royal College of General Practitioners "Captures the art of the possible by demonstrating that when the focus of our doctors is working with communities to define health priorities and solutions to health problems, we tap into local skills and expertise that surpass the realms of medicine and science and define care that is right for the people." -- Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive, Royal College of Nursing

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Book Synopsis'As a child I think we lived on rabbit - boiled, roasted or stewed, it was a staple diet for many families ...' Birdlip, Cold Slad, Crickey Hill and the Air Balloon Inn: growing up in a hamlet of only six houses, John Townsend's humble childhood is full of hardships and adventures in the rough Cotswold hills. His youthful talent for uncovering scrap metal is the beginning of a career in antiques - one which will bring its own surprises, including an encounter with a ghost ... Warm and full of character, this is an invaluable picture of life in rural Gloucestershire in the 1940s, 1950s and beyond

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Book SynopsisKnown as the 'grandmother of herbalism', Juliette de Bairacli Levy travelled throughout Europe and North America in pursuit of her passion for herbs and holistic medicine, living mostly in rural places whose nomadic communities helped expand her knowledge of plants and living from the land. In the early 1950s, she settled in a thatched 'cabin' in the New Forest for three years and raised her children in the woods.Originally published in 1958, Wanderers in the New Forest describes an extraordinary family life living wild: drawing spring water from Abbots Well, bathing in Windmill Hill Pond and sharing the water with their animal neighbours, foraging for fruits and fungi or tending to their forest garden of herbs, flowers and vegetables. Juliette's friendships within the local Gypsy community enabled her to record the impact that post-war modernisation was having on their traditions, ancient rights and intimate knowledge of the New Forest. This new edition is illustrated throughout with photographs taken by Juliette while living in the forest.

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Book SynopsisIt can be easy to assume nothing much happens beyond the city, if that''s all you''ve known. But that, of course, is far from the truth.Here, across six themed chapters, journalist Annabelle Hickson shares a different perspective on life in regional Australia, featuring stories from the coast to the farms, from the bush to the towns, from the rainforest to the outback. Annabelle brings together the best work from more than 50 leading writers, photographers and artists from her award-winning magazine, celebrating not only incredible landscapes and remarkable, beautiful places, but also the diversity, resourcefulness and creativity of the people that call the country home.

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Book SynopsisSomewhere between North Dakota and Nunavut sits a curious land with a coastline patrolled by polar bears, highways lined with monuments to household produce and dinner plates drenched in a gluey condiment known as honey dill sauce. This is Manitoba, a province that has captured the imagination of … well, maybe dozens of people around the world for more than a century.Stuck In The Middle 2: Defining Views of Manitoba finds photographer Bryan Scott and journalist Bartley Kives venturing beyond the Perimeter Highway to explore the architecture, landscapes and waterways of a province they know and love but may never truly understand. Armed with passionate ambivalence and an unwavering commitment to equivocation, Scott and Kives paint a perfectly imprecise picture of Manitoba for the rest of the planet to appreciate and revile and ultimately ignore.

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Book SynopsisResearchers often hope that their work will inform social change. The questions that motivate them to pursue research careers in the first place often stem from observations about gaps between the world as we wish it to be and the world as it is, accompanied by a deep curiosity about how it might be made different. Researchers view their profession as providing important information about what is, what could be, and how to get there. However, if research is to inform social change, we must first change the way in which research is done.Engaging the Intersection of Housing and Health offers case studies of research that is interdisciplinary, stakeholder-engaged and intentionally designed for “translation” into practice. There are numerous ways in which housing and health are intertwined. This intertwining—which is the focus of this volume—is lived daily by the children whose asthma is exacerbated by mold in their homes, the adults whose mental illness increases their risk for homelessness and whose homelessness worsens their mental and physical health, the seniors whose home environment enhances their risk of falls, and the families who must choose between paying for housing and paying for healthcare.Table of ContentsI. Engaging the Intersection of Housing and Health: Changing Research to Change Policy II. Combating HIV Stigma in Rural Alabama: Importance of Peer Leadership, Interdisciplinary Research, and Community Collaboration III. Making Baton Rouge Better: No Longer a Tale of Two Cities IV. Increasing Housing Stability: Assessing Promising Tenancy Support Models to Inform Local, State & National Policy & Practice V. Substandard Housing in Memphis, Tennessee: Developing Cross-Sector Collaborations to Address the Social Determinants of Health VI. Cincinnati VII. A View from the Intersection

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Book SynopsisAcross the global South, poor women’s lives are embedded in their social relationships and governed not just by formal institutions – rules that exist on paper – but by informal norms and practices. Village Ties takes the reader to Bangladesh, a country that has risen from the ashes of war, natural disaster, and decades of resource drain to become a development miracle. The book argues that grassroots women’s mobilization programs can empower women to challenge informal institutions when such programs are anti-oppression, deliberative, and embedded in their communities. Qayum dives into the work of Polli Shomaj (PS), a program of the development organization BRAC to show how the women of PS negotiate with state and society to alter the rules of the game, changing how poor people access resources including safety nets, the law, and governing spaces. These women create a complex and rapidly transforming world where multiple overlapping institutions exist – formal and informal, old and new, desirable and undesirable. In actively challenging power structures around them, these women defy stereotypes of poor Muslim women as backward, subservient, oppressed, and in need of saving.Trade Review"Drawing on sustained and in-depth engagement with Polli Somaj, a program associated with the NGO BRAC, Qayum argues among other things that NGOs can play a critical role in development: in linking marginalized citizens with state services and societal resources, and in shifting cultural practices through offering alternative or competing 'logics of appropriateness.' Written in carefully crafted, evocative prose, Village Ties is a welcome addition to the field." -- Dina M. Siddiqi * Clinical Associate Professor, New York University *"Village Ties does something new and valuable by telling a more complicated story about NGOs and rural Bangladeshi women. Nayma Qayum shows how these activists tackle the informal institutions that keep rural women poor and powerless, and in so doing, help build the necessary foundations for women’s power. Scholars of civil society and NGOs, of Bangladesh’s development, and of women’s empowerment will find this fascinating, full of stories and substantive arguments about the deep roots of social change." -- Naomi Hossain * co-editor of The Politics of Education in Developing Countries: From Schooling to Learning *"Confronting Social Norms is Critical for Women's Empowerment in Bangladesh, a New Book by Political Science Alumna Shows" - an interview with Nayma Qayum * CUNY.edu *"Contributes to scholarship that attends to ordinary people’s lived experiences to understand how marginalised communities solve political and social problems." * LSE Review of Books *"Village Ties: Women, NGOs, and Informal Institutions in Rural Bangladesh" interview with Nayma Qayum * New Books Network: New Books in Gender Studies *"Changing the Rules of the Game," by Aleta Mayne * College Magazine *"This book is precious in its value for diverse audiences. It should be read and taught widely across the fields of agrarian studies, development studies, gender studies, anthropology, sociology, and political science." -- Sahana Ghosh * Journal of Agrarian Change *Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Prologue PART I Setting the Stage 1 Institutions 2 A Gendered Story 3 Poor Women’s Politics PART II Formal and Informal Institutions 4 Clients, Rules, and Transactions 5 Rule of Law PART III Negotiating with State and Society 6 Changing Distributive Politics 7 Negotiating Justice 8 Governing Locally Conclusion Appendix Acknowledgments Glossary of Terms Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAcross the global South, poor women’s lives are embedded in their social relationships and governed not just by formal institutions – rules that exist on paper – but by informal norms and practices. Village Ties takes the reader to Bangladesh, a country that has risen from the ashes of war, natural disaster, and decades of resource drain to become a development miracle. The book argues that grassroots women’s mobilization programs can empower women to challenge informal institutions when such programs are anti-oppression, deliberative, and embedded in their communities. Qayum dives into the work of Polli Shomaj (PS), a program of the development organization BRAC to show how the women of PS negotiate with state and society to alter the rules of the game, changing how poor people access resources including safety nets, the law, and governing spaces. These women create a complex and rapidly transforming world where multiple overlapping institutions exist – formal and informal, old and new, desirable and undesirable. In actively challenging power structures around them, these women defy stereotypes of poor Muslim women as backward, subservient, oppressed, and in need of saving.Trade Review"Drawing on sustained and in-depth engagement with Polli Somaj, a program associated with the NGO BRAC, Qayum argues among other things that NGOs can play a critical role in development: in linking marginalized citizens with state services and societal resources, and in shifting cultural practices through offering alternative or competing 'logics of appropriateness.' Written in carefully crafted, evocative prose, Village Ties is a welcome addition to the field." -- Dina M. Siddiqi * Clinical Associate Professor, New York University *"Village Ties does something new and valuable by telling a more complicated story about NGOs and rural Bangladeshi women. Nayma Qayum shows how these activists tackle the informal institutions that keep rural women poor and powerless, and in so doing, help build the necessary foundations for women’s power. Scholars of civil society and NGOs, of Bangladesh’s development, and of women’s empowerment will find this fascinating, full of stories and substantive arguments about the deep roots of social change." -- Naomi Hossain * co-editor of The Politics of Education in Developing Countries: From Schooling to Learning *"Confronting Social Norms is Critical for Women's Empowerment in Bangladesh, a New Book by Political Science Alumna Shows" - an interview with Nayma Qayum * CUNY.edu *"Contributes to scholarship that attends to ordinary people’s lived experiences to understand how marginalised communities solve political and social problems." * LSE Review of Books *"Village Ties: Women, NGOs, and Informal Institutions in Rural Bangladesh" interview with Nayma Qayum * New Books Network: New Books in Gender Studies *"Changing the Rules of the Game," by Aleta Mayne * College Magazine *"This book is precious in its value for diverse audiences. It should be read and taught widely across the fields of agrarian studies, development studies, gender studies, anthropology, sociology, and political science." -- Sahana Ghosh * Journal of Agrarian Change *Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Prologue PART I Setting the Stage 1 Institutions 2 A Gendered Story 3 Poor Women’s Politics PART II Formal and Informal Institutions 4 Clients, Rules, and Transactions 5 Rule of Law PART III Negotiating with State and Society 6 Changing Distributive Politics 7 Negotiating Justice 8 Governing Locally Conclusion Appendix Acknowledgments Glossary of Terms Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe book provides empirically-rich case studies of the lives and livelihoods of marginalised ethnic minorities in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, with a specific focus on diverse rural areas. It demonstrates the dynamic and complex relationships existing between ethnic minorities and livelihoods, and analyses the ways in which projects of belonging (and identity-formation) amongst these ethnic minorities are entangled in their respective livelihood construction projects, and vice versa. The ethnic minorities include those considered indigenous to Zimbabwe, and those often defined as ‘aliens’, including ethnicities with a transnational presence in southern Africa. The ethnicities studied in the book include the following: Chewa, Doma, Tonga, Tshwa San, Shangane, Basotho, Ndau, Hlengwe and Nambya. By studying their livelihoods in particular, this book offers the first full manuscript about ethnic minorities in Zimbabwe. In doing so, it highlights the significance of these ethnic minorities to Zimbabwean history, politics and society.Table of ContentsHistoricising and Theorising the Livelihoods of Ethnic Minorities in Zimbabwe.- The Tshwa San of Zimbabwe: Land, Livelihoods, and Ethnicity.- Migrants, Ethnic Minorities and ‘Men of the Soil’: Basotho Farmers in Southern Rhodesia.- Displacement and Livelihood Vulnerability among the BaTonga Women of Binga from 1958 to 1980.- Transformations in the Livelihood Activities of Hlengwe People of the South-East Lowveld of Zimbabwe, 1890 to Now.- The Impact of Community-based Conservation on the Livelihoods of the Doma in the mid-Zambezi Valley.- Human-Wildlife Conflict and Precarious Livelihoods of the Tonga-speaking people of North-western Zimbabwe.- The Political Economy of Shangane Livelihoods in Rural Zimbabwe.- Land, Displacement and Livelihood Strategies among the Nambya People in North-western Zimbabwe, from the 1940s.- (Re)Inventing Livelihoods in Communal Areas in post-Fast Track Zimbabwe: The Case of Chewa Ex-farm Workers in Shamva Communal Areas.- Cultural Economic Survival under Crisis: Malawian Nyau Dances and Zimbabwe’s Economic Meltdown.- Ethnicity and Livelihoods in Precarious Times: The Case of the Ndau People of Chimanimani.- Changing Borderland Livelihoods and Coping Strategies among “Indigenous People”, “Malawians” and “Mozambicans” in Honde Valley since the 1970s.

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Book Synopsisn the past decade, spanning from the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, rural poverty in the United States has risen dramatically. The impact of the pandemic is set to intensify these inequalities as the decades of neoliberal dismantling of public healthcare and other social institutions leave inhabitants of impoverished rural areas particularly vulnerable.Even before this current exacerbation, representations of rural landscape in American cinema have sought to spatially visualize the country’s social inequalities and focus on the victims of poverty and marginalization. The films discussed in this monograph, Ballast (2008), Winter’s Bone (2010), Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), and Leave No Trace (2018), address deep rural poverty in a complex manner and facilitate an interactive, social understanding of landscape.New Rural Cinema suggest a novel way of looking at landscape in cinema that responds to and guides its readers through this recent development in American Independent film. It views the chosen films as expressions of a growing awareness of the dire inequality caused by neoliberal capitalism in the United States and the role landscape plays both in its mechanisms of social exclusion as well as in its collective contestation.

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Book Synopsis

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