Social and cultural history Books

Book SynopsisThroughout history, potters, sculptors, painters, poets, novelists, cartoonists, song-writers, photographers, and filmmakers have recorded and tried to make sense of boxing. From Daniel Mendoza to Mike Tyson, boxers have embodied and enacted our anxieties about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In her encyclopedic investigation of the shifting social, political, and cultural resonances of this most visceral of sports, Kasia Boddy throws new light on an elemental struggle for dominance whose weapons are nothing more than fists. Looking afresh at everything from neoclassical sculpture to hip-hop lyrics, Boddy explores the ways in which the history of boxing has intersected with the history of mass media. Boddy pulls no punches, looking to the work of such diverse figures as Henry Fielding and Spike Lee, Charlie Chaplin and Philip Roth, James Joyce and Mae West, Bertolt Brecht and Charles Dickens in an all-encompassing study that tells us just how and why boxing has mattered so much to so many.Trade Review"Boddy intelligently takes up--via art, literature, film, and the media--the many issues that have historically veined the sport: 'nationality, class, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, and different versions of masculinity, ' plus dialectics like 'brawn versus brains, boastfulness versus modesty, youth versus experience.' Her reach is considerable, but so is her grasp. The result is a sweeping critical history and a perfect power-to-weight ratio."--Atlantic "If one author deserves real praise for stamina, it is Kasia Boddy. The research she has put into this book, combined with her awesome understanding of Western culture, is staggering. She can write with authority about everything from classical Rome to the Dada movement of the 1920s, from the work of George Bernard Shaw to Samuel Pepys' diary. . . . Her book is a magnificent achievement."--Leo McKinstry "Sunday Telegraph " "A penetrating, sparky, and powerfully intelligent work of artistic, sporting, and cultural history. . . . When you get to its final page you will find that you have not merely been entertained but enlightened, too. A literary knockout."--Times, Sports Books of the Year "Boddy's book is a superb work of scholarship, spanning ancient Greece to Mike Tyson. Its reproduced lithographs and colour plates make the book, in its way, a handsome work of art in itself. . . . Boddy referees this heavyweight 15-rounder with elegance, aplomb, and rigor."--Jonathan Rendall "New Statesman " "Compendious, and thoroughly fascinating. . . . An excellent, well-written and beautifully illustrated book."--David Flusfeder "Daily Telegraph " "Future champs may well carry Boddy's book in their sports bags along with their gloves, gum shields, and genital protectors."--Reg Gadney "Literary Review " "Fascinating tome. . . . The breadth and rigour of her research is astonishing. A lecturer in English at the University College London, she is just as sure-footed on the intricacies of boxing as in their depiction in literature, painting, film, and television. . . . This is no dissertation dressed up in book form. Boddy seamlessly weaves together tales of fighting men with tales of the arts, placing them squarely within historical context. . . . She is a more reliable chronicler of boxing than the ringside hack."--Gavin Evans "Financial Times " "[Boddy] provides much merriment along the way as she explores the ways professional fighters excite the imagination of writers, artists and intellectuals."--Economist "The merit of Boddy's meticulously researched and deeply intelligent examination of boxing through the ages is that it refuses to take the pop historian's route of lazy simplification. The political and moral ambiguity of the fights that have played such a seminal role in shaping human consciousness are chronicled in all their rich and equivocal detail. . . . Her volume is one of the most intelligent sporting books of recent times."--Matthew Syed "Times " "Boddy's vivid and highly entertaining book traces the manner in which pugilism has been represented in Western culture from Homer's Iliad of the eighth century BC to the present. . . . A lavishly illustrated study of a contentious yet compelling sport."--John Strachan "History Today " "In this ambitious book, Boddy provides a fascinating account of the ways in which boxing has been represented in literature and the visual arts from ancient Greece to the present. . . . No other work attempts such an exhaustive investigation of boxing's cultural history in the Western world."--Choice "Boddy pursues a lively, wide-ranging critical survey of boxing in literature, film, and other media, a compendious engagement with a fantastically rich tradition. She attends to both the aesthetic and the signifying potential of boxing, which has attracted artists for three millennia not only because it inspires and challenges their creative impulses but because, as Boddy amply demonstrates, the ring has proven to be a lastingly useful venue for staging all manner of ideas about class, violence, history, gender, work, leisure, ideology, politics, race, and nation, among other topics."--Carlo Rotella, author of "Cut Time: An Education at the Fights" and "Good with Their Hands" "The first thing that must be admired is the incredible richness of its sources. Boddy moves from classical Greece to contemporary fine art and mass culture and provides a wonderful synthesis of the writing and visual imaging of boxing. She writes with great clarity and draws this huge variety of material together with great ease. The research is very impressive. The text offers both an historical survey of the culture of boxing and the points of contact and connection across different periods. This is a very accomplished piece of research and writing."--Lynda Nead, University of London Birkbeck "Almost everyone who matters in Western cultural history in the past century enters Boddy's ring. . . . such is the overall quality of the job here that she can be forgiven anything."--Peter Temple "Age " "For what seems like forever, writers have tried to make sense of man's attraction to the sport of pugilism. Precious few have succeeded in explaining the relationship, while many have failed. . . . Boddy is one of those who have successfully captured the essence of boxing's grip on us, and she has done so with flying colors. . . . A tour de force."--The Ring "If you trace man's first footsteps on the planet you'd see much about him has changed - and that some has not - such as his ability and even his need to fight. But not for survival alone--but for a reason for existence, an identity to pass on, to aspire towards. Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History explores this journey and connects dots that explain why, how long, and who we've been fighting."--Teddy Atlas "I've had a sneak preview of Kasia Boddy's huge, lithe Boxing: A Cultural History, which is out in the spring from Reaktion. Boddy is the kind of writer whose intelligence can bring together and reveal the patterns and resonances between such unlikely contenders as Plato, Scorsese, Fielding, Dickens and Keith Haring. It's a beautifully illustrated, expert, readable and startling expression of the dualities of all things. Boddy is the champion!"--Ali Smith "Guardian " "Splendid and surprising. . . . The illustrations in Boxing alone are worth the price of the book. . . . The author's research is thorough, and her writing is sharp and crisp. 'Boxing' easily pierces the aforementioned haze that surrounds the sport and gets to the crooked heart of the allure."--Julia Keller "Chicago Tribune " "A treasure trove for boxing historians and aficionados. . . . At nearly five hundred densely packed pages . . . Boxing: A Cultural History would seem to include everything that has ever been written, depicted, or in any way recorded about boxing."--Joyce Carol Oates "New York Review of Books "

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Book SynopsisLicentious Worlds is a history of sexual attitudes and behaviour through 500 years of empire-building around the world. In a graphic and sometimes unsettling account, Julie Peakman examines colonization and the imperial experience from women’s points of view, showing how they were involved in the building of empires, but also how they were almost invariably exploited. Women acted as negotiators, brothel keepers, traders and peace keepers, but were also forced into marriages and raped. The book describes women in Turkish harems, Mughal zenanas and Japanese geisha houses, as well as in royal palaces, private households and on board ships. Their stories are drawn from many sources – from captains’ logs, missionary reports and cannibals’ memoirs to travellers’ letters, traders’ accounts and reports on prostitutes. From debauched clerics and hog-buggering Pilgrims to sexually-confused cannibals and sodomising samurai, Licentious Worlds takes history where it has not been before.

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Book SynopsisSince Antiquity few trees have had a greater impact on the world’s culture and economy than the mulberry. The sole food of the silkworm, the leaves of the mulberry brought prosperity not only to ancient China, but to all nations that learned the art of silk production. Mulberry bark was used to make the first paper and the succulent, blood-red fruit of the Black Mulberry has inspired poets from Ovid to Shakespeare. The medicinal properties of all parts of the tree have been known for millennia, making it a tree of choice for medieval monastery gardens, while its anti-diabetic effects are opening exciting avenues of research today. This sumptuously illustrated book tells the remarkable story of the mulberry tree and its migrations from China and Central Asia to almost every continent of the globe. It will appeal to all who wish to know more of the rich history of this emblematic tree.

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Book SynopsisWhen students gathered in a London coffeehouse and smoked tobacco, Yorkshire women sipped sugar-infused tea, or a Glasgow family ate a bowl of Indian curry, were they aware of the mechanisms of imperial rule and trade that made such goods readily available? In Eating the Empire, Troy Bickham unfolds the extraordinary role that food played in shaping Britain during the `long’ eighteenth century (c. 1660-1837), when coffee, tea, and sugar went from rare luxuries to some of the most ubiquitous commodities in Britain, reaching even the poorest and remotest of households. Bickham reveals how the trade in the empire’s edibles underpinned the emerging consumer economy, fomenting the rise of modern retailing, visual advertising and consumer credit, and, via taxes, financed the military and civil bureaucracy that secured, governed and spread the empire.

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Book SynopsisThose They Called Idiots traces the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities from the communities of eighteenth-century England to the nineteenth-century asylum and care in today's society. Using evidence from civil and criminal court-rooms, joke books, slang dictionaries, novels, art and caricature, it explores the explosive intermingling of ideas about intelligence and race, while bringing into sharp focus the lives of people often seen as the most marginalized in society.Trade Review"Jarrett is a mesmerizing historian. He has an ear for tender, and sometimes even funny, stories about people with learning disabilities, while never shying away from the shocking abuse and casual indignities they experienced in the past and continue to be subjected to today. Jarrett overturns many assumptions about the history of disabled people and their interactions with different communities. His book is a history of medicine, science, law, philosophy, and psychology. Most of all, though, it is a history of lived experience. Jarrett's story is not only a nuanced analysis of the lives of 'idiots' from 1700 to the present; it is also a tribute to their struggles, needs, and desires."--Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck, University of London "Jarrett's elegant and provocative book brings into focus for the first time the history of people with intellectual disabilities over three centuries. Drawing on a fascinating set of sources, Jarrett traces the 'idiot's' journey from community life to institutionalization and back again, and in the process uncovers the richness and variety of lives lived by people with intellectual impairments in the past. This is a history marked by cruel stereotyping and harmful policies underpinned by the pseudoscience of eugenics, but it is also a history of love, protection, and integration. This humane history teaches us how society can adapt to accommodate all its members."--David Turner, author of Disability in Eighteenth-Century England "Simon Jarrett's The Idiot is a major re-thinking of intellectual disability, from eugenics and the views of institutional authorities of the late nineteenth century to the thoughts and practice of our modern society. Jarrett examines new sources to argue that, while recognized as different in the social structures of a preindustrial or transitional age, there have always been accommodations for the 'idiot'. Thus our present view of mental incapacity is in fact a continuation of a long-standing awareness of how those with intellectual disabilities can be integrated into society." -- Sander L. Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry at Emory UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Part One: Idiocy and Imbecility in the Eighteenth Century, c. 1700-1812 1 Poor Foolish Lads and Weak Easy Girls: Legal Ideas of Idiocy 2 Billy-noodles and Bird-wits: Cultural Ideas of Idiocy 3 Idiots Abroad: Racial Ideas of Idiocy Part Two: New Ways of Thinking, 1812-1870 4 Medical Challenge: New Ideas in the Courtroom 5 Pity and Loathing: New Cultural Thinking 6 Colonies, Anthropologists and Asylums: Race and Intelligence 7 Into the Idiot Asylum: The Great Incarceration Part Three: From Eugenics to Care in the Community, 1870 to the Present Day 8 After Darwin: Mental Deficiency, Eugenics and Psychology, 1870-1939 9 Back to the Community? 1939 to the Present References Selected Secondary Reading Acknowledgements Photo Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisSex with animals is one of the last taboos but, for a practice that is generally regarded as abhorrent, it is remarkable how many books, films, plays, paintings, and photographs depict the subject. So, what does loving animals mean? In this book the renowned historian Joanna Bourke explores the modern history of sex between humans and animals. Bourke looks at the changing meanings of “bestiality” and “zoophilia,” assesses the psychiatric and sexual aspects, and she concludes by delineating an ethics of animal loving.Trade Review"Bourke believes society should take a more nuanced approach to the matter. In her new book, Loving Animals, she points out that studies suggesting a link between bestiality and psychosis should be treated with caution due to sampling bias, because they were conducted on people already within the penal system, rather than a cross-section of the population. The sexually frustrated young farm-hand who interferes with one of his mares shouldn’t necessarily occupy the same taxonomic box as the bona fide sex pest; his indiscretion is, in the words of the psychiatrist Philip Q. Roche, an 'adaptive expedient of bucolic loneliness'—a matter of circumstance rather than proclivity; contingent rather than pathological." -- Houman Barekat * Times Literary Supplement *"In this courageous book, Bourke combines scholarship and clear prose to tackle head-on one of our most stigmatized taboos—sexual relations between humans and nonhumans. In doing so, she provides an illuminating perspective on a subject too often swept under the rug. Even if so-called zoophilia were a rare aberration, it ought to be addressed. That it is far more widespread than commonly believed justifies the need for thorough, contemporary examination." -- Jonathan Balcombe, author of "What a Fish Knows" and "Super Fly"“This bold and imaginative book is thoughtful and—inevitably—provocative. With characteristic compassion and insight, Bourke undertakes a tour de force of historical and cultural attitudes towards human-animal relations to guide us through serious ethical and political questions concerning sexuality, power, and consent.” -- Julie-Marie Strange, Durham University"Bourke’s post-anthropocentric approach to human–animal love and lust is a remarkable and much-needed contribution to both queer studies and animal studies. She offers a critical and thorough analysis of the joys, hopes, and dangers of intimacy with the most vulnerable of all lovers—animals." -- Monika Bakke, Philosophy Department, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan (Poland)

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Book SynopsisHuman twins have many meanings and different histories. They have been seen as gods and monsters, signs of danger, death and sexual deviance. They are taken as objects of wonder and violent repression, the subjects of scientific experiment. Now millions are born through fertility technologies. Their history is often buried in philosophies and medical theories, religious and scientific practices, and countless stories of devotion and tragedy. In this history of superstitions and marvels, fantasies and experiments William Viney – himself a twin – shows how the use and abuse of twins has helped to shape the world in which we live. This book has been written for twins and for anyone interested in their historical, global and political impact.Trade Review"When Viney writes about twins, he knows whereof he speaks. The author is himself a twin and his meticulously researched narrative of superstitions, fantasies, and experiments reveals the way in which twins have long fascinated us and played a part in shaping our world." * Geographical *“This is a book of probing intelligence, curiosity, and wit, of quickened fascination, and sometimes fear. Viney takes us on an ever-expanding and ever-more intimate journey through our ways of thinking about and with twins, the poetry, science, and theater of twin-ship. He explores what these help us to know of the human, and what they can make us blind to. Twins shifts the ways you see familiar things, and the ways we name the stranger ones.” -- Kenneth Gross, author of “Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life”“Viney unfolds what he calls the secret history of wonder attaching to twins, in a book that, in its intelligence and sinuous, intent inquisitiveness, is itself a thing of wonder. Ranging from ancient mythology to contemporary biotechnology, Viney explores the dualities that themselves define twins, as figures both of miracle and of menace. Mirroring with its polymorphous subject, Twins is a positive feat of superfetation.” -- Steven Connor, University of Cambridge

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Book SynopsisAvian Illuminations examines the many roles birds have played in human society, from food, messengers, deities and pets, to omens, muses, timekeepers, custodians, hunting companions, decorative motifs and, most importantly, embodiments of our aspirations. It narrates the history of our relationships with a host of birds including crows, owls, parrots, falcons, eagles, nightingales, hummingbirds, and many more. Along the way the book describes how birds’ nesting has symbolised human romance, how their flight has inspired inventors throughout history, and concludes by showing that the interconnections between birds and humans are so manifold that a world without birds would effectively mean an end to human culture itself. Beautifully illustrated, this is a superb overview of our long and rich association with our feathered friends.Trade ReviewThe wonderful Avian Illuminations traces in rich and fascinating detail the cultural relationships between humans and birds through history, philosophy, religion and art. This is a book for difficult times—it entertains, educates, elucidates and, in its assessment of what might be necessary to repair a damaged world, gives us hope.'-Esther Woolfson, author of 'Corvus: A Life with Birds' (2009) and 'Between Light and Storm: How We Live with Other Species' (2020) 'Boria Sax has long been my most trusted guide to understanding the complex relationships between humans and animals. In Avian Illuminations, I feel very fortunate to follow his wonderful mind once again as he weaves a complex portrait of the symbolic richness of our portrayals of birds throughout history and myth.', Ceridwen Dovey, author of 'Blood Kin' (2007) and 'Only the Animals' (2014) 'From Homer to Harry Potter and Plato to Rachel Carlson, Boria Sax provides a masterful overview of the role of birds in human cultural and psychological life. Drawing on history, literature, mythology and art, Avian Illuminations is a beautifully written intellectual treat that will delight anyone interested in the feathered creatures we share our world with.'-Hal Herzog, Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina, and author of 'Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals' 'Birds have provided models in almost every aspect of human culture. Their songs inspired our music; their courtship rituals, our dance; their plumage, our fashion . . . Avian Illuminations by Boria Sax covers the vast range of practices that diverse cultures have taken from birds with extraordinary thoroughness. It also goes beyond listing the colorful array of practices and motifs in isolation to show how they have provided much of the emotional and intellectual foundation of human culture.'-Roberto Marchesini, Director, Centro Studi Filosofia Postumanista (Center for Posthuman Philosophy), and author of 'Over the Human: Post-humanism and the Concept of Animal Epiphany' 'A fascinating exploration of those ecstatic moments when a human becomes enraptured by contemplation of a bird – moments which, as Boria Sax explains, can approach a religious level of intensity. I never imagined that birds had occupied so many roles in human lives and imaginings and through such a deep swath of history. An inspiring and fascinating read.'-Clive Wynne, Professor of Psychology and Animal Studies, University of Arizona, co-author of 'Animal Cognition', and author of 'Dog is Love' 'In Avian Illuminations, Boria Sax, with the deep probing intellect of a renaissance scholar, reveals how human culture has been informed and shaped by birds. His history covers thousands of years and has something special for everyone, whether a poet, artist, historian, folklorist, falconer or birder.'-John Marzluff, author of 'Welcome to Surbirdia', 'Gifts of the Crow' and 'In Search of Meadowlarks'

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Book SynopsisThis book examines those who wore glasses through history, art and literature, from the green emerald through which Emperor Nero watched gladiator fights to Benjamin Franklin’s homemade bifocals, and from Marilyn Monroe’s cat-eye glasses to Emma Bovary and Harry Potter. Spectacles are objects that seem commonplace, but this book shows that because they fundamentally changed people’s lives, glasses were the wellspring of a quiet social, cultural and economic revolution. Indeed, one can argue that modernity itself began with the paradigm shift that transformed poor eyesight from a severely limiting disease, treated with pomades and tinctures, into a minor impairment that can be remedied with mechanisms constructed from lenses and wire.Trade Review“Spectacles not only enhance our vision; they contribute to our understanding of reality. Sabin’s charming history-in-miniature reveals how history, culture, and politics have been shaped over centuries by paired discs of polished glass, and why, every once in a while, they inspire such unease, such contempt, and even, sometimes, fear.” -- Simon Ings, author of "The Eye: A Natural History" and "The Smoke"

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Book SynopsisOur penchant for keeping house plants is an ancient practice dating back to the Pharaohs. House Plants explores the stories behind the plants we bring home and how they were transformed from wild plants into members of our households. A billion-dollar global industry, house plants provide an interaction with nature, and contribute to our health, happiness and wellbeing. They also support their own miniature ecosystems and are part of the home biome. Featuring many superb illustrations, House Plants explores both their botanical history and cultural impact, from song (Gracie Fields’s Biggest Aspidistra in the World), literature (Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying) and cinema (Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors) to fashion, technology, contemporary design, and painting.

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Book SynopsisThe Private Lives of Pictures offers a new history of British art, seen from the perspective of the home. Focusing on the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, the book takes the reader on a tour of an imaginary Victorian or Edwardian house, stopping in each room to look at the pictures on the walls. The book opens up the intimate history of art in everyday life, and examines many issues including how pictures were chosen for each room, how they were displayed, and what role they played in interior design. Superbly illustrated, The Private Lives of Pictures appeals to readers interested in both art and social history, and the history of interiors.

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Book Synopsis‘There is more history in a bowl of pasta than in the Colosseum’, writes Andreas Viestad in Dinner in Rome. From the table of a classic Roman restaurant, Viestad takes us on a fascinating culinary exploration of The Eternal City, and global civilization. Food, he argues, is history’s secret driving force. Viestad finds deeper meanings in his meal: From the bread that begins the dinner he traces the origins of wheat and its role in Rome’s rise as well as its downfall. From his fried artichoke antipasto he explains olive oil’s part in the religious conflict of 16th-century Europe. From his sorbet dessert he recounts how lemons featured in the history of the Mafia in the 19th century, and how the hunger for sugar fuelled the slave trade. Viestad’s dinner may be local, but his story is universal. His ‘culinary archaeology’ is an entertaining, flavourful journey across the dinner table and time. You’ll never look at spaghetti carbonara the same way again.Trade ReviewAs enchanting as it is fascinating: Andreas Viestad has a calm gift for evocative scene-setting, story-telling and, crucially, for making and exploring connections that brings everything, illuminatingly to life.' – Nigella Lawson; 'Andreas Viestad has written a fascinating, thought-provoking and funny book about the importance of food in history. He zips seamlessly between the smells and flavors of a meal in a restaurant in Rome and the long lines of history.' – Alice Waters; 'A fascinating look at food and its history through the prism of one classic restaurant in Rome. Andreas Viestad has created a “culinary archaeology” that’s as erudite as it is gripping. He’s as comfortable with amusing asides and anecdotes as he is with the deepest digs. His writing leaves you entranced, hugely enlightened – and hungry.' – Marina O’Loughlin, Restaurant Critic for The Sunday Times; 'History and food memories are everlasting. They bring an eternal pleasure of time and place throughout the decades and centuries. This book reminds us of how deeply rooted food is in our travels, stories and traditions.' – Daniel Boulud; 'A uniquely beautiful, historical account of Andreas’ two-hour meal at a well-known trattoria in the Campo dei Fiori area of Rome. For me, Rome is the eternal city and one that I love for its history, art, architecture, and food. Andreas has brought the history of the world to life through a meal at a Roman table. He writes an entertaining and beautifully written account of how food shapes not only who we are but where we were and where we go as humans. He narrates the history of ingredients that grace the table such as bread, olive oil, pasta, pepper, and wine. It is a wonderful addition to my collection of cookbooks and culinary memoirs and travel books. It is a book that tells the history of the world according to the food that is eaten on a leisurely afternoon in one of the world’s most beautiful and historical cities. It’s a must-read.' – Lidia Bastianich, author, chef and host of PBS’s Lidia’s Kitchen; 'If “Culinary Archaeology” had been a course major back when I was in college, I just might have graduated with honors. Andreas Viestad takes us on an evocative journey through time, effortlessly weaving past and present, and transforming one classic Roman meal into an appetite-inducing learning experience. This is the best possible insalata mista: with equal parts cookbook, history lesson, travelogue, and fantasy. It’s right up there with sitting in the Campo dei Fiori on a gorgeous spring day, devouring a hillock of crispy carciofi alla guidea.' – Danny Meyer, restaurateur, author of Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business; 'Insightful and enchanting. Viestad reminds us of the power of food and how it has greatly impacted the formation of world history.' – Eric Ripert, chef

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Book SynopsisAlle Thyng Hath Tyme recreates medieval people’s experience of time: as continuous and discontinuous, linear and cyclical, embracing Creation and Judgement, shrinking to ‘atoms’ or ‘droplets’ and extending to the silent spaces of eternity. They might measure time by natural phenomena such as sunrise and sunset, the motion of the stars or the progress of the seasons, even as the late medieval invention of the mechanical clock was making time-reckoning more precise. Negotiating these mixed and competing systems, medieval people gained a nuanced and expansive sense of time that rewards attention today.Trade Review'In the Middle Ages, time didn’t just pass. Medieval people were “temporal virtuosos”, this book argues, living within great natural cycles, under shifting planetary influence, regulated by clock time with liturgical hours ringing in the air, generations succeeding generations while experiencing constant renewal and change. Alle Thyng Hath Tyme shows that an active experience of time – then as now – is an engagement with life itself. Make time for this book!' – Carolyn Dinshaw, Julius Silver Professor, New York University, and author of How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time

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Book SynopsisMaps go far beyond just showing us where things are located. All Mapped Out is an exploration of how maps impact our lives on social and cultural levels. This book takes you on a journey through the fascinating history of maps, from ancient cave paintings and stone carvings to the digital interfaces we rely on today. But it’s not just about the maps themselves; it’s about the people behind them. Discover how maps have affected societies, influenced politics and economies, impacted the environment, and even shaped our sense of personal identity. Mike Duggan uncovers the incredible power of maps to shape the world and the knowledge we consume. This is a unique and eye-opening perspective on the significance of maps in our daily lives.

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Book Synopsis For many centuries, Germany has enjoyed a reputation as the ‘land of music’. But just how was this reputation established and transformed over time, and to what extent was it produced within or outside of Germany? Through case studies that range from Bruckner to the Beatles and from symphonies to dance-club music, this volume looks at how German musicians and their audiences responded to the most significant developments of the twentieth century, including mass media, technological advances, fascism, and war on an unprecedented scale.Trade Review “Gregor and Irvine have assembled a collection that ably reflects new directions in research on music and its ties to notions of Germanness that have emerged over the past twenty-odd years. Especially welcome is the collective attention to notions of musical practice and experience as well as the authors’ catholic approach to music’s very definition. Well-written, informative, and frequently suggestive of themes that warrant further attention, the essays are sure to attract a broad, multidisciplinary readership.” • Journal of Modern History “This collection achieves the aims as formulated in the introduction. Especially the articles on affective practices as well the inherent tensions between the regional and the national are very convincing.” • Francia “[This volume] is a terrific contribution to scholarship examining the relationship between music and German national identity in the twentieth century…[It] offers a strong blueprint for those wishing to conduct research on music’s complicated role in German history. The authors convincingly demonstrate the topic’s elasticity, flexibility and breadth while also covering new ground. The book will also be an accessible and thoroughly enjoyable read for historians wishing to acquaint themselves with the field and assign new material in their courses.” • German History “A wonderful anthology that connects the European classical tradition with popular music in fascinating ways. It is a pleasure to read.” • Ulrich Adelt, University of WyomingTable of Contents List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction Neil Gregor and Thomas Irvine PART I: SPACES AND MOMENTS OF AFFECT Chapter 1. “The German in the Concert Hall”: Concertgoing and National Belonging in the Early Twentieth Century Hansjakob Ziemer Chapter 2. “Music Made in Hamburg”: How One City’s Music Scene Helped Make Rock and Roll the Lingua Franca of Youth Julia Sneeringer Chapter 3. “With Every Inconceivable Finesse, Excess, and Good Music”: Sex, Affect, and Techno at Snax Club in Berlin Luis-Manuel Garcia PART II: THE LOCAL, THE REGIONAL, THE NATIONAL Chapter 4. Bruckner, Munich, and the Longue Durée of Musical Listening between the Imperial and Postwar Eras Neil Gregor Chapter 5. Female Musicians and “Jewish” Music in the Jewish Kulturbund in Bavaria, 1934–38 123 Dana Smith Chapter 6. Pride of Place: The 1963 Rebuilding of the Munich Nationaltheater Emily Richmond Pollock PART III: GLOBALIZING MUSICAL GERMANNESS Chapter 7. Was ist Japanisch? Wagnerism and Dreams of Nationhood in Modern Japan Brooke McCorkle Chapter 8. Hubert Parry, Germany, and the “North” Thomas Irvine PART IV: FANTASIES, REMINISCENCES, DREAMS, NIGHTMARES Chapter 9. Between Musicology and Mythology at the Stunde Null:Austria’s 950th “Birthday” and the 50th Anniversary of Bruckner’s Death Lap-Kwan Kam Chapter 10. Hearing the Nazi Past in the German Democratic Republic: Antifascist Fantasies, Acoustic Realities, and Haunted Memories in Georg Katzer’s Aide –Mémoire (1983) Martha Sprigge Chapter 11. Sprockets + Autobahn: Kraftwerk Parodies, German Electronic Music, and Retro Dreams in Amerika Sean Nye Index

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Book Synopsis In an era of rapidly increasing technological advances and international exchange, how did young people come to understand the world beyond their doorsteps? Focusing on Germany through the lens of the history of knowledge, this collection explores various media for children—from textbooks, adventure stories, and other literature to board games, museums, and cultural events—to probe what they aimed to teach young people about different cultures and world regions. These multifaceted contributions from specialists in historical, literary, and cultural studies delve into the ways that children absorbed, combined, and adapted notions of the world.Trade Review “This collection of essays provides rich, varied, and well-contextualized examples of the disparate forms of media through which knowledge about the world reached German children and adolescents in the nineteenth century. I found it stimulating, original, and engaging.” • Katharine Kennedy, Agnes Scott College “The World of Children is a superb book, much needed by German historiography, and contains fascinating essays with original scholarship and research. It is a pleasure to read and has much to teach us about children’s culture in the long nineteenth century.” • Carolyn Kay, Trent UniversityTable of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Children, the Nation, and the World Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß PART I: OFFICIAL KNOWLEDGE Chapter 1. New Words and the New World: Language and the Transnational Legacy of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere Kirsten Belgum Chapter 2. Images of Land and Sea: Experiencing the World as Adventure through Theodor Dielitz’s Travel Anthologies for Young Readers, 1841–1862 Matthew O. Anderson Chapter 3. World Knowledge in Textbooks for French Language Teaching in the Nineteenth Century in Germany Regina Schleicher Chapter 4. The World at War in German Textbooks: Knowledge of the World Conveyed in Representations of War Andreas Weiß Chapter 5. When Nippon Became Prussian: The German Image of Japan in Nineteenth-Century Textbooks Maik Fiedler PART II: LITERARY KNOWLEDGE Chapter 6. Thrilling Hearts and Winning Minds: The Representation of Monarchy, Navy, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Juvenile Adventure Fiction Miriam Magdalena Schneider Chapter 7. Knowing Others as Selves: German Children and American Indians H. Glenn Penny Chapter 8. “Don’t you take pity on your little brothers and sisters in China?” Missionary Literature for Children and the Distribution of Relational Knowledge in Imperial Germany Katharina Stornig PART III: KNOWLEDGE IN ENTERTAINMENT Chapter 9. Around the World in a Jiffy: Humorous Treatments of Around-the-World Travel in German Children’s Books and Games Emer O’Sullivan Chapter 10. The Rise of the Trading Card: Collecting the World before World War I Judith Blume Chapter 11. A World Made for Exploration: Germans and Their Toys, 1890–1914 David Hamlin Conclusion: Kaleidoscope and Lens: Re-envisioning the Past through the History of Knowledge Simone Lässig Index

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Book SynopsisNew Guinea, and especially Papua New Guinea, is the last country in the world where ethnologists were able to closely observe, film and photograph the whole manufacturing chaînes opératoires of polished stone felling tools, from quarry extraction to finished tool use. Research on the polished blades of PNG has evolved over the years, following changing philosophies and research agendas. While it is clear that an exceptional sum of information has been gathered, it remains centered on that small part of the Highlands where conditions for field research were more pleasant than elsewhere. Our presentation of Irian Jaya axes therefore tackles a topic that remains mostly unexplored. Until now, stone tool research in New Guinea has followed an anthropocentric approach, in which tools are seen more as vectors for social exchanges than as means of acting on the environment.This monograph will take a different approach. Here, polished stone blades are placed at the center of the world, between, on one side, the transformed natural environment, and, on the other, the social and economic environment. This approach will allow us to suggest new avenues of inference in archaeology, as well as to test and abandon existing ones.In this volume, the stone blade is considered as a living being, existing in balance within its biotope. This idea is not far removed from the beliefs of Irian Jaya farmers, for whom life animates certain objects of their material culture.Following a brief presentation of Irian Jaya, we will describe the function of polished stone blades in Irian Jaya societies and the distribution of hafting styles, define and study the quarrying zones and the areas of diffusion and use of their production, and, if possible, the different trends noted in each area of polished blade production and exchanges. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of the ethnoarchaeological potential of these contemporary observations.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface (by Polly Wiessner) Introduction Foreword to the English edition 1. Polished stone blades as means of social and technical reproduction 1.1. An island open to global economies 1.2. Raw material determinisms 1.3. Axes and Adzes 2. The Yeleme quarries (Kp. Paniai) and the polished blades of Central Irian Jaya 2.1. Rocks from the upper Ye-I River 2.2. The Wang-Kob-Me quarry 2.3. The Brahire quarry in Ye-Ineri 2.4. Blocks from the bed of the Ye-I River 2.5. From roughout to axe in Wano country 2.6. The Axe Trail 2.7. Accessing roughouts: the Yamo Dani perspective 2.8. From roughout to axe among the Yamo Dani 2.9. The expansion of the Western Dani and the acceleration of exchanges 2.10. The Baliem and the realm of adzes 2.11. Axes and adzes, the prestige of stone blades 2.12. Partners and strangers: the limitation of exchanges 3. Material and social techniques of the Dani: black rocks and greenschists 3.1. The black rocks of Gomburu (Kp. Paniai) 3.2. The black rocks of Tagi (Kp. Jayawijaya) 3.3. Black rock axes and sacred objects 3.4. The quarries of Awigobi and greenschist blades 3.5. Ye-yao, the exchange axes 4. Adzes of the Eastern Highlands (Kp. Jayawijaya) 4.1. From rock to adze in Langda 4.2. Stone blade production in the Phu Valley and the westward expansion of adzes 4.3. Yamyhl, Red Digul and the Seashell Trail 5. Ormu-Wari and the Lowland axes 5.1. The Mumugo Valley and schist axes 5.2. Ormu and marriage axes 6. The polished blades of Irian Jaya, a synthesis 6.1. A shared background: the balance between natural environment, modes of subsistence and population density 6.2. Rocks and types of sources 6.3. Quarry access and the social context of quarrying 6.4. Quarrying techniques 6.5. Duration of the quarrying events 6.6. From rock to polished blade: segmentation of the chaîne opératoire 6.7. Shaping roughouts: raw material determinisms 6.8. Manufacture and specialization 6.9. Polishing and polishing stones 6.10. Axes and adzes 6.11. Intensity of polishing 6.12. Length of the stone blades 6.13. Handles for felling tools 6.14. Circulation of the blades 6.15. Stone blades for the living 7. Postface

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Book SynopsisArchaeoastronomy and archaeology are two distinct fields of study which examine the cultural aspect of societies, but from different perspectives. Archaeoastronomy seeks to discover how the impact of the skyscape is materialised in culture, by alignments to celestial events or sky-based symbolism; yet by contrast, archaeology's approach examines all aspects of culture, but rarely considers the sky. Despite this omission, archaeology is the dominant discipline while archaeoastronomy is relegated to the sidelines. The reasons for archaeoastronomy’s marginalised status may be found by assessing its history. For such an exploration to be useful, archaeoastronomy cannot just be investigated in a vacuum but must be contextualised by exploring other contemporaneous developments, particularly in archaeology. On the periphery of both, there are various strands of esoteric thought and pseudoscientific theories which paint an alternative view of monumental remains and these also play a part in the background.The discipline of archaeology has had an unbroken lineage from the late 19th-century to the present. On the other hand, archaeoastronomy has not been consistently titled, having adopted various different names such as alignment studies, orientation theory, astro-archaeology, megalithic science, archaeotopography, archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy: names which depict variants of its methods and theory, sometimes in tandem with those of archaeology and sometimes in opposition. Similarly, its academic status has always been unclear, so to bring it closer to archaeology there was a proposal in 2015 to integrate archaeoastronomy research with that of archaeology and call it skyscape archaeology. This volume examines how all these different variants came about and consider archaeoastronomy's often troubled relationship with archaeology and its appropriation by esotericism, to shed light on its position today.Table of Contents1. Introduction: contesting the past 2. Antiquarianism: the longue durée 3. The emergence of archaeoastronomical thought 4. ‘The great subject of orientation’ 5. Lines in the landscape 6. ‘God in the machine’ 7. Megalithic science 8. New World archaeoastronomy 9. A turning point for British archaeoastronomy 10. Archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy in Europe 11. Archaeoastronomy in the 21st century 12. Final Thoughts Glossary Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people. As such, dress transcends how it is seen visually to address what is being communicated. Nonetheless, studies in ancient dance have rarely taken clothing into consideration.This volume provides new perspectives and insights on ancient dances and their ancient textiles. Comprehension of ancient dance benefits from investigations undertaken through the lens of dress, and research on ancient dress is understood through its relation to body movement and performative rituals, thus reinforcing the progressive integration of an anthropological and sociological dimension into historical analysis of ancient textiles. For the first time, the two-way transfer of knowledge between dance studies and costume studies is connected via an innovative approach. Among the issues that are specifically addressed are the movement design of dress for dance, its sensory experience, gender and identity, re-enactment and reception.The chronological range of the book is focused on the ancient world (3rd-millennium BC to 5th-century AD), with a broad geographical definition in order to promote a comparative, interdisciplinary approach and cross-cultural dialogue.Table of ContentsIntroduction Audrey Gouy Practicalities 1. Practical Perspectives on Dance and Clothing Elizabeth J. W. Barber Movement and Design 2. Dancing in flames - fabulous designs from the desert sands. Reconstructing the east Central Asien skirts’ construction secret Ulrike Beck 3. The whirling dance of Baukis: reinterpreting our sources Elena Miramontes Seijas 4. Dance and Metatheatre in Menander’s Theophoroumene Evangelia Keramari Embodiment and Communication 5. The unhellenic attire of choruses as image of the ‘other’ in ancient Greek tragedy Leonidas Papadopoulos. 6. The Dress of the dancing Lares Alexandra Sofroniew 7. Dance and Clothing in Ancient Egypt ‒ the Earliest Evidence Heidi Köpp-Junk Cognition and Sensory Experience 8. Soft cloth and sounding jewellery – sound fields of rich women in Eastern Hallstatt Culture Karina Grömer and Beate Maria Pomberger 9. Flowing White Dresses for Dancing Initiates in the Mysteries of Eleusis Aikaterini-Iliana Rassia 10. Fashioning Sensescapes through Ancient Egyptian Dance Jordan Galczynski and Robyn Price Images and Metaphors 11. Dancing around the Goddess’ dress Angela Bellia 12. ‘Wearing’ tattoos in Ancient Egypt. Evidence from Middle Kingdom mummies and feminine figurines Vittoria Rapisarda Modern Reception 13. Egyptologist Dancers – Re-enacting ‘Ancient Egyptian’ Dances at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Gerrit Berenike Heiter

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Book SynopsisThis book collects recent works on the subjects of sacrificial offerings, ritualised violence and the relative values thereof in the contexts of Scandinavian prehistory from the Neolithic to the Viking era. It provides a detailed re-appraisal of key aspects of prehistoric bog bodies using the latest forensic and material culture analytical techniques to examine questions of sacrifice, execution and ritual behaviour.The volume re-opens investigations into notions of value relating to diverse evidence and suggested evidence for human sacrifice and related ritualised violence. It covers a broad spectrum of issues relating to novel interpretations of the existing archaeological materials, but with a focus on the study of value and value dynamics in these diverse ritual contexts, engaging in questions of identity, cosmology, economics and social relations. Cases span from the Scandinavian Late Neolithic and Nordic Bronze Age, through to the well-known wetland deposits and bog bodies of the Iron Age, to Viking era executions, ‘deviant’ burials and contemporaneous double/multiple graves, exploring the implications for the transformation of sacrificial practices across Scandinavian prehistory.Each contributor untangles the myriad forms of value at play in different incarnations of human offerings, and provide insights into how those values were expressed, for example in the selection and treatment of victims in relation to their status, personhood, identity and life-history.The volume builds on a workshop hosted at the National Museum of Denmark in 2018 which inaugurated the beginning of the research project ‘Human Sacrifice and Value: The limits of sacred violence’ and was supported by the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo. It brings together research and perspectives that go beyond the who, what and where of most archaeological and anthropological investigations of sacrificial violence to address both the underlying and explicit forms of value associated with such events.Table of ContentsList of figures List of plates List of tables List of contributors Acknowledgements Foreword Rane Willerslev Introduction: In the darkest of days: Tracing human sacrifice through Scandinavian prehistory Matthew J. Walsh, Marianne Moen, Sean O’Neill, Svein H. Gullbekk and Rane Willerslev 1. Noble hunter-gatherers and ‘cruel’ farmers – a discussion of the evidence of human sacrifices during the Mesolithic and Neolithic in South Scandinavia Lasse Sørensen and Poul Otto Nielsen 2. Societies that sacrifice? Examining the potential for attendant sacrifices in the Nordic Bronze Age Matthew J. Walsh, Samantha S. Reiter and Karin M. Frei 3. Human sacrifice and human remains – the ultimate sacrifice? Pernille Pantmann 4. Naked or clothed? Bog bodies and the value of clothing in the Early Iron Age Ulla Mannering 5. Sacrifice or execution? A brief forensic medical and archaeological perspective on the Danish bog bodies Niels Lynnerup and Pauline Asingh 6. Six human skulls in a bog: Svennum – a 1st century AD sacrificial bog Sidsel Wåhlin 7. Haraldskær Woman under a new light: Bog bodies, martial rituals and value Mads Ravn 8. Figuring out bodies in watery places: Posthumanism, figurations and ecological relations Christina Fredengren 9. Thrown stone for flesh and bone? ‘White’ stones in sacrificial context in Iron Age Scandinavia Matthew J. Walsh, Pernille Pantmann and Marianne Moen 10. ‘Better not to pray than to sacrifice too much’ Human sacrifice and its alternatives in Northern Europe AD 750 - 1050 Bo Jensen 11. Regulated deviancy – ritual executions at Viking Age Tissø as indications of a complex judicial culture Mads D. Jessen and Jesper Olsen 12. Human sacrifice in Old Norse skaldic poetry Klas Wikström Af Edholm

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Book Synopsis'A joyous and celebratory tribute to all those who battled to be heard, who fought for their achievements to be recognised and honoured, who simply kept going' Kate MosseThe tried and tested 'On This Day in History' format has elevated the stories of many people and their impact on the wider world. However, of those considered noteworthy by the Establishment, just a fraction are women. But this is not the whole story - not by half.Our past is full of influential women, many of whom have been unfairly confined to the margins of history. Politicians, troublemakers, explorers, artists, writers, scientists and even the odd murderer; these women have shaped society around the globe.From Beyoncé to Doria Shafik, Queen Elizabeth I to Lillian Bilocca, On This Day She sets out to redress this imbalance and give voice to both those already deemed female icons, alongside others whom the history books have failed to include: the good, the bad and everything in between - this is a record of human existence at its most authentic.

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Book SynopsisThis volume - in Italian, with an English summary - presents the 1930s archaeological photo-albums of John Alfred Spranger (1889-1968). Engineer, topographer, mountain climber, archaeologist, art collector and photographer, Spranger traveled extensively - in the Balkans, Greece, Egypt and the Near East, Canada, Central Asia - and left several photo albums detailing archaeological explorations as well as travel memories. In the 1920s-1930s, he took part in a number of Etruscan excavations in Tuscany, together with Harry Burton, the photographer of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. With a pioneering approach, they used the photo-camera to document the excavation work in progress. The albums are dedicated to a trip to Egypt in 1929, a trip to Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1936 and some surveys and excavations carried out in Etruria (Tuscany, Italy) in 1929-1935. Spranger's photos are particularly meaningful, especially because he combined his skills in using the camera with a great expertise in archaeology and topography. His photos make it possible to understand, after almost a century, how many Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Etruscan sites appeared at the time of their first excavations Il volume - in italiano con riassunto in inglese - e dedicato agli album fotografici realizzati negli anni Trenta del Novecento da John Alfred Spranger (1889-1968): fu ingegnere, topografo, alpinista, archeologo, collezionista e fotografo. Viaggio molto - nei Balcani, in Grecia, in Egitto e nel Vicino Oriente, in Canda e in Asia centrale - lasciandoci molti album fotografici dedicati ai suoi viaggi e alle sue ricerche archeologiche. Negli anni Venti e Trenta partecipo a ricognizioni e scavi archeologici in Toscana, assieme a Harry Burton, il fotografo della Tomba di Tutankhamun. Con un approccio pionieristico, ambedue sperimentarono l'uso della macchina fotografica per documentare lo scavo archeologico. Gli album presentati sono dedicati a due viaggi, uno in Egitto nel 1929 e l'altro in Mesopotamia (Iraq) nel 1936, e a ricognizioni e scavi condotti in siti etruschi della Toscana tra 1929 e 1935. Le fotografie di Spranger sono particolarmente significative perche riflettono sia la competenza del fotografo che quella del topografo e dell'archeologo, e ci permettono di capire, a quasi un secolo di distanza, quale fosse l'aspetto di numerosi siti egizi, mesopotamici ed etruschi, al momento della loro prima indagine archeologica.Table of ContentsIntroduzione, di Stefano Anastasio e Barbara Arbeid; John Alfred Spranger, di Stefano Anastasio e Barbara Arbeid; Gli album, di Stefano Anastasio e Barbara Arbeid: Egitto/Iraq/Etruria; English Summary; Bibliografia; Appendice: digitalizzazione e archiviazione delle immagini

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Book SynopsisThe third volume in the much-admired The Colour of Time series. A Woman's World, 1850–1960 explores the many roles – domestic, social, cultural and professional – played by women across the world before second-wave feminism took hold. Using Marina Amaral's colourized images and Dan Jones's words, this survey features women both celebrated and ordinary, whether in the science lab or protesting on the streets, performing on stage or fighting in the trenches, running for election or exploring the wild. This vivid and unique history brings to life and full colour the female experience in a century of extraordinary change. Photographs include: Queen Victoria, Edith Cavell, Josephine Baker, Eva Peron, Virginia Woolf, Clara Schumann, Martha Gellhorn, Rosa Parks, Agatha Christie, Frida Kahlo, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightingale, Hattie McDaniel and Gertrude Bell; as well as revolutionaries from China to Cuba, Geishas in Japan, protestors on the Salt March, teachers and pilots, nurses and soldiers.Trade ReviewEvery bit as fascinating and revelatory as its predecessors. Jones's text is authoritative and witty, but the main appeal lies in Amaral's delicate colourisation of photographs, bringing subjects including Frida Kahlo back to life... This fine book is a moving testament to the power of social change * Observer *[These] striking images offer a new window on to fascinating, inspiring lives * History Revealed *Transform[s] them into people you feel you could meet today, making their stories all the more fascinating * Waitrose Magazine *A beautiful thing to keep on your coffee table or bookshelf. 5* * All About History *PRAISE FOR DAN JONES AND MARINA AMARAL: 'I have long considered colourisation sacrilege... after reading this book, I've changed my mind' The Times, on The Colour of Time. 'Amaral's colourisation process is most moving when applied to pictures of children. To see it more as the photographer saw it, and the way it actually was. The photographer might not have had the choice, or the technology, to take a picture in colour. But looking through the viewfinder, that's what they saw; the past – even its grimmest, darkest hours – was not in black and white' Guardian, on The World Aflame. 'There is something of The Wizard of Oz about Marina Amaral's photographs. She whisks us from black-and-white Kansas to shimmering Technicolor Oz... When you see Amaral's coloured portraits, you think: phwoar!... She changes the way we see a period or a person' Spectator, on The Colour of Time. '[Amaral] breathes new life, immediacy and human connection into black-and-white pictures. Even familiar shots are transformed in a breathtaking way' * Irish News, on The Colour of Time *

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Book Synopsis'Gripping and all too timely' James Hawes 'A brilliant mix of detailed research and vivid storytelling' Julia Boyd 'History at its very best – and a fabulous translation, too' Graham Hurley In March 1930, after the collapse of the coalition that had ruled Germany since 1928, President Hindenburg asked Heinrich Bruning, bespectacled and scholarly leader of the Catholic Centre Party, to form a government. Some three years later, in January 1933, Hindenburg appointed as chancellor the demagogic, virulently anti-Semitic leader of the National Socialist party. Within weeks, Adolf Hitler has begun the process of dismantling the flawed democracy of the Weimar Republic and replacing it with a one-party totalitarian state. Darkness Falling depicts in compelling fashion the serial crises and mounting violence of a febrile era. Peter Walther examines the slow death of Weimar through the prism of nine colourful protagonists, including leading German politicians of right, left and centre, the clairvoyant and occultist, Erik Jan Hanussen and the formidable American journalist Dorothy Thompson. He profiles these heterogeneous characters in intriguing detail, pulling together the threads of their lives to chart the demise of German parliamentary democracy and the rise of National Socialist tyranny. Along the way we gain fascinating insights into the machinations in the corridors of power to keep the 'Bohemian corporal' from the chancellorship, and the venality of the Nazi elite and its fellow travellers from the demi-monde of early 1930s Berlin. Walther evokes the louche nightlife of the German capital – 'a playground for charlatans and prophets, madmen and crooks' – memorably and atmospherically. A masterly fusion of meticulously researched historical writing and vividly propulsive storytelling, Darkness Falling is a distinctive and enthralling account of Germany's slide from democracy to dictatorship. Translated by Dr Peter Lewis.Trade ReviewGripping both as German history and as a timely warning for us all of how otherwise sane people can fatally overestimate the survivability of democracy, and keep scrabbling for petty advantage even as the darkness gather -- James Hawes, author of The Shortest History of GermanyA brilliant mix of detailed research and vivid storytelling, this intriguing account of Germany's terrifying slide from democracy to dictatorship is truly hard to put down -- Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the Third ReichAn astonishing achievement, meticulously researched, beautifully written, full of surprises both terrifying and deeply revelatory. This is history as its very best – and a fabulous translation, too -- Graham Hurley, author of Last Flight to Stalingrad

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a timely and original overview of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and its longer term affects on the social and physical landscape of England and Wales during the decades that followed. Combining for the first time the full wealth of archaeological evidence gathered over the last century with the established documentary sources, it takes a more nuanced approach to the understanding of an event that has polarized debates ever since the 16th century. The book examines the most immediate and destructive outcomes of the Dissolution, such as the ruination and asset stripping of religious property and the dispersal of monastic lands. However, it also presents its longer term, albeit often unexpected outcomes, such as the creation of economic opportunities for individual entrepreneurs and civic authorities, the stimulation of new forms of polite architecture and the development of previously unimagined leisure landscapes. It concludes that whilst the Dissolution had devastating impact upon those in religious orders, its lasting legacy was the remarkable preservation of the country’s medieval Christian heritage through the monuments and archaeological sites that remain to this day in every area of the country. While primarily focusing on archaeological material, the book also encompasses a range of diverse historical sources. It is aimed at students and scholars seeking an introduction to the main debates surrounding the Dissolution, as well as providing original in-depth case studies to illustrate these.Table of Contents1 Introduction 2 Monastic England and Wales at the Dissolution 3 The Destruction and Asset Stripping of the Religious Houses 4 The Dispersal and Acquisition of Monastic Property 5 Avenues for Common Opportunity 6 The Conversion to Domestic Use 7 New Landscapes of Leisure 8 Concluding Remarks

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Book SynopsisIreland has given the world so many wonderful things – Liam Neeson, of course, and loads of other stuff. Yes, Ireland is perhaps the most magical and mysterious nation on earth. No one would dare disagree – them would be fighting words. Ireland is the spiritual home – and actual residence – of a wealth of infamous and adored authors, artists, and icons and an island full of ancient Celtic mysticism and traditions.Beloved by the millions who visit each year, Ireland never disappoints. With its traditional Irish music, scenic coastline and a limitless supply of Guinness, The Little Book of Ireland is the perfect companion, overflowing with craic and facts, stats and wisecracks, and a little bit of local lingo thrown in for good measure. In a nutshell: This tiny tome is Ireland triple-distilled and fits perfectly inside the palm of your hand. There's only one thing left to do - Sláinte!'Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.' - Pope John Paul IISean's Bar, in Athlone, is the oldest pub in Ireland. It's also widely believed that it's the oldest pub in the world – dating back to 900 AD. Fancy a pint?Table of ContentsLand of Ire: History, origins, and evolution of the island nation • The Black Stuff: Famous Irish inventions and places • The Craic: Facts about all the fun to be had in Ireland and popular culture • Delira and Excira: Classic quotes from TV, music, film, literature about Ireland's language and culture • Ancient History: Legends and Myths • Icons: Famous Irish people and their works.

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Book SynopsisLand of spectacular landscapes, rich history and fabulous legends.With its jaw-dropping beauty, magnificent architecture, superb art and culture, and friendly, hospitable people, Scotland is consistently ranked as one of the world's best-loved destinations.Packed full of fabulous facts, as well as wise and witty quotes from famous Scots, The Little Book of Scotland captures the nation at its glorious best. Covering everything from sparkling lochs and brooding castles to spellbinding legends and famous sons and daughters – not to mention tartan, haggis and whisky – it's a wonderful celebration of this vibrant, extraordinary land.'This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.' - Alexander McCall Smith, on Edinburgh'There are two seasons in Scotland: June and winter.' - Billy ConnollyThe Edinburgh International Festival is one of the largest performing arts festivals in the world. It attracts over 300,000 people annually.Scotland has more than 790 islands, 94 of which are inhabited. One of its most famous and spectacular is the enchanting Isle of Skye. It is the second-biggest island, though it has more sheep than people.Scotland's national dish is the much-loved haggis. It is made with the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, which are boiled in the animal's stomach.Table of ContentsScotland the Brave • Famous Sons and Daughters • Magnificent Sights and Scenes • Fabulous Art and Culture • Tartan, Haggis and Whisky • Secret Scotland.

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive account of the part played by Wales in WWII and the conflict''s impact on every area of the country and all involved: civilians, factory workers, children (those evacuated to and those from Wales), national and regional politicians, soldiers, pacifists, writers, film-makers and artists.

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Book SynopsisThe humble chicken has conquered the world. This unlikely descendant of Tyrannosaurus Rex is now so ubiquitous there are more than 20 billion chickens pecking, strutting and scratching around the planet at any one time. And yet, of all animals, the chicken perhaps best represents the contradictory way we humans treat other species: both beloved pet and cheap commodity, symbol of a sustainable good life and brutalised object of factory farming. Sally Coulthard charts the chicken’s fascinating journey from dinosaur to domestication, exploring every aspect of the history of Gallus gallus domesticus. As informative as it is entertaining, Fowl Play tells a remarkable tale of evolutionary change, epic global travel and ruthless exploitation – as well as of companionship, ingenuity and the folly of human nature.Trade ReviewCharming and illuminating... A fascinating history, light on moralising but rich in fancythat details. It may put you off your capon nuggets, but it will give you a good story to share with the parson's nose * Mail on Sunday *Wonderfully entertaining and informative -- Tim Birkhead, author of Birds and Us[A] marvellously complete and utter history of chickens... Hen-like herself, Ms Coulthard, a smallholder, has left no stone unturned in a book as well-researched and wide-ranging as it is written. From the first page to the last, Fowl Play is as smooth as chicken supreme * Country Life *My first reaction was that this was an extraordinary book to have been written, but then I came to wonder how it had not been written before, so interesting is the subject -- Michael PortilloA playful, entertaining and satisfyingly informative study of this humble bird and the integral and varied roles it played thoughout human history accross the world... Thoroughly researched and engagingly written... A great read * Archaeology Worldwide Magazine *PRAISE FOR SALLY COULTHARD: 'Full of fascinating social history' Independent. 'Global in scope, with fascinating vignettes from the ancient world to the present day' BBC History Magazine. 'A snappy, stimulating book' Mail on Sunday. 'Many wonderful tales unearthed by Coulthard... A smart little book' BBC Countryfile Magazine. 'One of our favourite books of the year' * Yorkshire Post *...a beautifully written and accessible interdisciplinary synthesis on this most remarkable bird -- Professor Bob Davis, University of GlasgowA fascinating read * This England *'I always look forward to reading Coulthard's work. Not only is she exceptionally well-read, but she communicates extremely well. Fowl Play is no exception' * Get History *A beautifully written and accessible interdisciplinary synthesis on this most remarkable bird * Professor Bob Davis, University of Glasgow *Sally Coulthard’s fascinating new book…charts humanity’s relationship with the chicken down the centuries * Yorkshire Post *

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Book SynopsisAn ambitious history of Britain told through the stories of twenty-five notable structures, from the Iron Age fortification of Maiden Castle in Dorset to the Gherkin. Building Britannia is a chronicle of social, political and economic change seen through the prism of the country's built environment, but also a sequence of closely observed studies of a series of intrinsically remarkable structures: some of them beautiful or otherwise imposing; some of them more coldly functional; all of them with richly fascinating stories to tell. Steven Parissien tells both a national story, tracing how a growing sense of British nationhood was expressed through the country's architecture, and also examines how these structures were used by later generations to signpost, mythologise or remake British history. Rubbing shoulders with some 'expected' building choices – the Roman baths at Aquae Sulis, the early Gothic splendour of Lincoln Cathedral and the Tudor jewel that is Little Moreton Hall – are some striking inclusions that promise to open doors into what will be, for many readers, less familiar areas of social history: these include The Briton’s Protection, a Regency pub close in Manchester city centre and the Edwardian Baroque Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, one of the country's oldest working cinemas. Thus as well as identifying the relevance of certain iconic structures to the unfolding of the national story, Building Britannia finds fascination and meaning in the everyday and the disregarded.Trade ReviewSteven Parissien has an extraordinary ability to present the complex story of buildings with both wisdom and humour; each chapter in this book is a memorable cultural encounter with place, each illuminating in different ways the shifting story of British nationhood. * Jeremy Musson *An ingeniously personal journey through British history written with authority, flair and humour. * Jacqueline Riding *Steven Parissien brings a fresh eye and a new perspective to Britain’s architectural history. A hugely enjoyable read, both erudite and entertaining. * Adrian Tinniswood *This book offers a surgically precise section through the nation to reveal – with great clarity – how people have lived and built in Britain during the last 2,600 years. Erudition and insights coupled with lightness of touch makes Building Britannia as entertaining as it is informative. * Dan Cruickshank *Steven Parissien vividly recaptures the rich variety of life in ancient and historic Britain in just twenty-five buildings, getting to the heart of each structure and revealing what motivated people to create it. The range here is extraordinary, from an Iron Age hill fort to Paul McCartney’s post-war family home in Liverpool. Building Britannia is a remarkable book, full of surprises. * Francis Pryor *Thoroughly enjoyable * Country and Town House *PRAISE FOR STEVEN PARISSIEN: 'The most stunning art books of the year' Sir Roy Strong, Sunday Express. 'An outstanding work of reference and beauty' Interiors Magazine. 'There's plenty here to fuel the petrolhead and the social historian for many miles' Literary Review. 'A read to fascinate anyone interested in the history of the industry' Daily Express. 'A beautiful, highly original book' * Apollo Magazine *

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Book Synopsis1923: Life in Football 100 Years Ago takes a deep dive into the matches, personalities and events that lit up the game a century ago. Based on exhaustive archival research, it’s also a social history that reveals how fans and footballers lived their day to day lives and how they were affected by the year’s happenings. What they ate, drank and how they spent their leisure time. How players trained and what they earned. Who the top clubs and players were and what type of tactics they used. What kit and boots they wore and how they prepared and travelled to games, often alongside the fans. The book explores why mining communities produced so many of the year’s top footballers, and how an amateur playing army captain made an unlikely debut for the full England side. From the infamous White Horse Cup Final and the shocking murder of footballer Tommy Ball, to the painful legacy of World War One on the game and the emergence of top professional football in Europe, it’s a unique look at a memorable year in football and beyond.

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Book SynopsisHope and Glory recreates the extraordinary era of Thatcherite Britain with the dramatic tension of a novel, revealing it as a critical moment in rugby league history when despite losing everything, anything seemed possible. Rugby league should never have survived Thatcher's Britain. As the sport of the working class, the expectation was that rugby league would suffer the same fate as the textile mills, factories and coal mines that once surrounded it. Having declined in the 1970s, the sport appeared to be at the point of no return in 1982, when the Australian team destroyed any remaining illusions of 'British exceptionalism'. But as it often does, rugby league found a way to turn itself around. From the pit villages which fought industrial decline to the players who ushered in the new professional era, the 1980s was the decade when rugby league finally came of age. By the 1990s, there was an optimism that it could even replace football as the global game for the 21st century.Trade Review"Hope and Glory perfectly captures an era of immense change, opportunity and upheaval. A must-read not only for rugby league fans but for those interested in politics, history and marketing." -- John Davidson * The i newspaper *"Across 352 absorbing pages, Anthony Broxton has deftly written a 'must have' book on the subject, contrasting Conservative fortunes (in government/in the country at large) with that of the top rugby league teams. The working man’s game, unlike the mining industry, has survived intact, and in Hope and Glory Broxton seamlessly succeeds at the coal face of the sport, despite the unemployment, strikes and a killer on the loose, The Yorkshire Ripper. Rating: 10/10." -- Mark Watkins * Dare Radio *"A timely book... Broxton is a superb and sympathetic chronicler of how this happened." -- Patrick Kidd * The Times *"Brilliant, illumintive. Hope and Glory is a literary triumph for rugby league chronicling the sport's rise in defiance of industrial decay." -- Chris Irvine * Former rugby league correspondent at The Times *"Rugby league's working class heritage is intertwined with the events of the 1970s and 1980s, from punk rock to rebellion and riots. Hope and Glory is a riveting account of how sport must change and adapt to survive in times of social upheaval." -- Steve Brady * League Express *"Fascinating...If (Labour) are looking for advice perhaps they could read this book." -- Patrick Maguire * Times Radio *"A great time for this book to come out...a generation scarred by Thatcherism living to see the glory days come back." -- Paul Mason * Author of Postcapitalism *"Gripping account of rugby league’s improbable resurgence in the face of industrial collapse in Thatcher’s Britain. A book that is not just for rugby league fans." -- Brian Groom * Author of Northerners *"Whatever sport you love, I'd recommend this book. Visionaries, villains and vaudeville all play their part in a brilliant tale, expertly told." -- Brian Carney * Sky Sports *"[An] innovative account of Thatcherism, resistance and Rugby League." * Philosophy Football *

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Book SynopsisFOREWORD BY ADAM KAY, AUTHOR OF THIS IS GOING TO HURTPortion of proceeds go to NHS Charities Together.A beautiful and heart-warming collection of stories, this landmark publication tells, for the first time ever, the rich history of the NHS through the ordinary people who have experienced it.Founded on the concept of providing healthcare to rich and poor alike, the National Health Service (NHS) has been at the heart of our everyday experiences of life and death since 1948.From Joan Meredith, who stood on street corners in the freezing winter to campaign for a new health system, to one of the first patients diagnosed with HIV/Aids, Jonathan Blake, and Klarissa Velasco, who comforted and held the hands of people suffering from Covid-19, Our Stories follows our health service from its conception to today, and tells the many incredible stories that have happened throughout its lifetime.Filled with tales of every part of life, this beautiful book tells, for the first time ever, the moving history of our world-leading health service through the voices of the patients, nurses, doctors, porters and ordinary people who have turned it into the beating heart of our country. It is a heart-warming account of an amazing institution.Trade Review'What shines through with all the stories is a deep affection for the NHS' -- Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm

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Book SynopsisA genre-defying book from one of France’s most well-known philosopher-writers. In the Lower Saxony region of northwestern Germany sits the city of Osnabrück. This is where, in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was signed, bringing the Thirty Years’ War and one of the most calamitous periods of European history to an end. But the city was later to witness another calamity. Today, as one walks through Old Synagogue Street in a rich neighborhood of Osnabrück, one might miss noticing a pile of pale stones held together by chicken wire that sits between two fashionable homes. These are the well-kept ruins from behind which stares a gaping space—a place of memory and oblivion. Four polished plaques tell the tale of the horror-filled night of November 9, 1938—today known as Kristallnacht—when the synagogue that had stood on this spot was desecrated, looted, set on fire, and eventually demolished by Hitler’s forces. On the same day, ninety parishioners were imprisoned by the Gestapo and eventually sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Osnabrück was also home to Eve Klein, a member of the city’s early-twentieth-century Jewish community and the mother of author Hélène Cixous. In Well-Kept Ruins, Cixous returns to the historic city in 2019 and reflects on the remains of the synagogue that “express the life lost, the life kept.” Walking the streets of the city, plumbing the depths of the past along with her own family’s history, looking deep into the future, and punctuating her poetic prose with haunting photographs, Cixous explores the ruins at the heart of humanity. Part memoir, part philosophical meditation, Well-Kept Ruins is a genre-defying and timely reflection of the contemporary human condition. Trade Review"Well-Kept Ruins is shaped by a yearning to recover the irrecuperable. Cixous is compelled to revisit the fates of these castaways. She is a daughter who attempts to commemorate a midwife; a writer who finds herself through the bond of mother and child. . . . Cixous’s book is a genealogy of exile." * The Spectator *"This welcome translation gives us a Cixous still energetically writing the self, and other selves—this time with imperative retrospect." * 4columns *"To read Cixous here is to feel oneself pulled along, engulfed, really, amid a torrent of words, a cascade of sentences, as if one has drifted inside of a tumbling, beautiful, confusing, dream. A reader, too, must let go, must allow that we will not always know which of the book’s many voices are speaking, that we cannot always be sure where we are in time and space. The point was never to be so securely fastened, and anyway, such a condition is impossible, for Cixous at least." * Irish Times *"Well-Kept Ruins is at once a memoir, a history, and a work of philosophical theory — as [Cixous] seeks forms of writing to describe the embodied and inherited traumas of the 20th century." * On the Seawall *"One of Cixous’ imperatives is that writing should always act against finality, against death; now, with that most difficult and ungathered subject, she evokes that power." * Cleveland Review of Books *"Woven throughout is a meditation on the life of Cixous's mother and the ineffability of another's interior life and experience. . . Recommended." * Choice *"Well-Kept Ruins turns inward, toward the personal sense of a present wonderfully and terribly ruptured by the past." * The Nation *Table of Contents1.To the Centre of the Centre of the World 2.Reconstitutions3.Plötzlich—Suddenly a Photograph4.Well-Kept Tales—Prisons5.Salt in the Soup6.In the Suitcase

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Book SynopsisA powerful account of the decline of the Cuban Revolution, told through the lives of five ordinary Cuban citizens. 'Masterful... Dore uses oral history to tell a history of Cuba from the bottom up' Professor Linda Gordon 'A vital addition to Cuba's rich oral tradition' Will Grant, BBC Cuba Correspondent 'Opens wide a window on the last forty years of Cuban history' Professor Gerald Martin 'To have gathered these life stories together with such grace, eloquence and trust is a towering achievement' Professor Ruth Behar Cuba is not the country it used to be. The regime is disintegrating, and unprecedented protest marches are challenging the gerontocratic Communist Party leadership. How Things Fall Apart reveals the decay of this political system through the lives of five ordinary Cuban citizens. Born in the 1970s and 80s, these men and women recount how their lives changed over a tumultuous stretch of thirty-five years: first when Fidel opened the country to tourism following the fall of the Soviet bloc; then when Raúl Castro allowed market forces to operate, thinking it would stop the country's economic slide; and finally when President Trump's tightening of the US embargo combined with the Covid-19 pandemic to cause economic collapse. With warmth and humanity, they describe learning to survive in an environment where a tiny minority has grown rich by local standards, the great majority has been left behind, and inequality has destroyed the very things that used to give meaning to Cubans' lives. Born out of the first oral history project authorized by the Cuban government in forty years, Professor Elizabeth Dore gathers these stories to illuminate the slow and agonizing decline of the Cuban Revolution over the past four decades. For over sixty years the government controlled the historical narrative. In this book, Cubans tell their own stories.Trade ReviewMasterful... Dore uses oral history to tell a history of Cuba from the bottom up, accompanied by her own astute commentary. How Things Fall Apart reads like a set of vivid short stories -- Professor Linda GordonAn elegant account of the evolution of a revolution. Writing on a topic which still has the power to provoke the most visceral responses across the political spectrum, Dore has done a rare thing: she has let the Cuban people speak for themselves. Dore handles their stories of triumph and hardship with honesty, compassion and respect, and in the process has held up a mirror to the state of the Cuban Revolution in the twenty-first century. How Things Fall Apart is a vital addition to Cuba's rich oral tradition -- Will Grant, BBC Mexico, Central America and Cuba CorrespondentThese life stories of Cubans are so raw, so honest, so moving, that you feel as if you know each of them personally. To have gathered them together with such grace, eloquence and trust is a towering achievement... This book serves as a testament to the audacity and sorrow Cubans experienced in seeking to change not only their own history but the history of the world -- Professor Ruth Behar, author of Letters from CubaElizabeth Dore's book opens wide a window on the last forty years of Cuban history and allows us to listen, uniquely, to the always vivid memories and conclusions of ordinary Cubans as they look back on the lives they lived during the most arduous and troubled years of the Revolution -- Professor Gerald MartinCuba through human lenses. Dore's impressive book sadly portrays the unraveling of the revolutionary utopian dream -- Professor Susan EcksteinThe chronicle of a death foretold * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisThis book is the second of a series documenting a thousand years of selected London streets and their respective histories. Some of the streets have their roots and foundations in places of worship, locations for trading or because of their geographical location or particular topography. With St Paul's at its western end and St Mary-le-Bow as its centrepiece, Cheapside goes back further than a thousand years, all the way to the Romans and beyond. Its colourful history includes kings, queens, poets, playwrights, murderers, criminals, broadcasters, inventors, politicians, pioneers, philanthropists, religious fanatics, revolutionaries, diarists and architects who all played their part in making Cheapside what Charles Dickens Jnr called the greatest thoroughfare in the City of London. With London's streets harbouring a multitude of long lost stories ripe for the recounting, Mike Read's A Thousand Years of a London Street series is one with endless potential. The only question that remains is which street will pique the interest of this broadcaster turned historical supersleuth next?

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Book Synopsis‘This is the house by Cromer town …’Built in 1884 as the grand summer home for the well-connected Locker-Lampson family, the red -brick, turreted mansion Newhaven Court once sat high on a windswept hill above Cromer. Before its dramatic destruction in flames nearly eighty years later, the house played host to such eminent figures as Sir Winston Churchill, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sir Ernest Shackleton, illustrator Kate Greenaway and French tennis superstar Suzanne Lenglen.It was a home where poets rubbed shoulders with politicians and aristocracy with artists and authors. There was dance, dining and song – but also family tragedy and hidden love. Follow the true story of Newhaven Court and its colourful inhabitants from the decadent years of the late nineteenth century and the elegant Edwardian era, through the tragedy of the First World War and terrible conflict of the Second to the roaring twenties and the uncertain post-war age.Trade Review"In its heyday it was visited by celebrated names including Albert Einstein, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Shackleton. And now Newhaven Court in Cromer is the subject of a book written by a descendent of the family who once owned the house." * Coverage in Eastern Daily Press *“Helen Murray charts the true story of Newhaven Court and its colourful inhabitants from the decadent years of the late 19th century and the Edwardian era, through the tragedy of the two World Wars, and the uncertain post-war age.” * Family Tree magazine *“Read the story of this remarkable house" * This England magazine *

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Book SynopsisThe debt medicine owes to botany is not commonly appreciated. In the past, medicine relied almost entirely on plants, and even today, many western medicines are plant derived. Despite this, historians have largely neglected the study of domestic medicine, practised by the ordinary person and passed down through generations, in favour of ‘official medicine’. The History of Domestic Plant Medicine brings together manuscripts, letters, diaries, personal oral interviews and other primary evidence to produce a detailed picture of the medicinal use of native plants in Britain from 1700 to the present day. Recording for posterity this neglected aspect of our heritage, it is a valuable contribution to the study of the folklore of modern Britain and a fascinating piece of social history.

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Book SynopsisThe summer of 2022 saw the celebration of the seventieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, the first time in British history that a monarch has reached this remarkable milestone.As the event was the first of its kind to be televised, images from the ceremony inside Westminster Abbey are instantly recognisable. Far less familiar are the scenes in the streets outside, where huge crowds assembled to see a procession of state coaches and historic regiments marching past public buildings festooned with patriotic banners and colourful grandstands erected outside many famous landmarks.Using a private collection of more than 200 rare images of London’s West End, Protect and Keep looks back to the day that the Queen pledged herself to her country. It provides a unique and precious record of an historic occasion: the day of the Coronation as it was seen by ordinary members of the public.

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Book Synopsis‘An extraordinary history’ PETER ACKROYD, The Times‘A lively account of (Bazalgette’s) magnificent achievements. . . graphically illustrated’ HERMIONE HOBHOUSE‘Halliday is good on sanitary engineering and even better on cloaca, crud and putrefaction . . . (he) writes with the relish of one who savours his subject and has deeply researched it. . . splendidly illustrated’ RUTH RENDELLIn the sweltering summer of 1858, sewage generated by over two million Londoners was pouring into the Thames, producing a stink so offensive that it drove Members of Parliament from the chamber of the House of Commons.The Times called the crisis ‘The Great Stink’. Parliament had to act – drastic measures were required to clean the Thames and to improve London’s primitive system of sanitation. The great engineer entrusted with this enormous task was Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who rose to the challenge and built the system of intercepting sewers, pumping stations and treatment works that serves London to this day. In the process, he cleansed the Thames and helped banish cholera.The Great Stink of London offers a vivid insight into Bazalgette’s achievements and the era in which he worked and lived, including his heroic battles with politicians and bureaucrats that would transform the face and health of the world’s then largest city.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary history -- Peter AckroydA lively account of (Bazalgette’s) magnificent achievements. . . graphically illustrated -- Hermione HobhouseHalliday is good on sanitary engineering and even better on cloaca, crud and putrefaction . . . (he) writes with the relish of one who savours his subject and has deeply researched it. . . splendidly illustrated -- Ruth RendellAn extraordinary history -- Peter AckroydA lively account of (Bazalgette’s) magnificent achievements. . . graphically illustrated -- Hermione HobhouseHalliday is good on sanitary engineering and even better on cloaca, crud and putrefaction . . . (he) writes with the relish of one who savours his subject and has deeply researched it. . . splendidly illustrated -- Ruth Rendell

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Book SynopsisThe 1950s saw a major shift in the lifestyles of many in Britain. Employment levels rose to new heights, white consumer goods appeared in shop windows for the first time, television replaced the radio in many homes, rock ‘n’ roll was born, the National Health Service provided free healthcare to the nation, families went on holiday, and the new Queen was crowned — bringing in a glorious new Elizabethan age.Including interviews with former Labour leader Lord Neil Kinnock and footballers Bobby Charlton, Wilf McGuinness and Terry Venables, Recollections of the 1950s will appeal to all who grew up in this post-war decade. With chapters on schooldays, television and radio, trips to the seaside, music and fashion, these wonderful stories are sure to jog the memories of all who remember this exciting era.

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Book Synopsis‘This is a great tale, and what’s more, it’s beautifully told.’ – Simon BarnesFrom Sathasivam to Sangakkara, Murali to Malinga, Sri Lanka can lay claim to some of the world’s most remarkable cricketers – larger-than-life characters who thumbed convention and played the game their own way. This is the land of pint-sized, swashbuckling batsmen, on-the-fly innovators and contorted, cryptic spinners. More so than anywhere else in the world, Sri Lankan cricket has an identity: cricket is Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka is cricket.We all know the story of the 1996 World Cup: how a team of unfancied amateurs rose from obscurity and changed the way the game was played. Yet the lore of Sri Lankan cricket stretches back much further, from early matches between colonists and locals, and Ashes-bound ships bringing in cricket’s biggest stars, to the more recent triumphs and tragedies that stem from cash flowing freely into the game. An Island’s Eleven tells this story in full for the first time, focusing on the characters and moments that have shaped the game forever.Trade ReviewNicholas Brookes has filled a gap in cricket literature. This wonderful book, based on compendious research, tells the great story of Sri Lankan cricket, how it began in schools and colleges and emerged to become one of the great forces in world cricket. It is more than a cricket book: it is also indispensable for understanding Sri Lanka itself. This book should be in the library of every serious cricket lover. It has been written with real passion and understanding. A great debut from a serious sports historian. -- Peter OborneThis is a great tale, and what’s more, it’s beautifully told. -- Simon Barnes

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Book SynopsisA woman's book of household management

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