Search results for ""Author Dan"
University of Pennsylvania Press Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan
In the Roaring Twenties, New York City nightclubs and speakeasies became hot spots where traditions were flouted and modernity was forged. With powerful patrons in Tammany Hall and a growing customer base, nightclubs flourished in spite of the efforts of civic-minded reformers and federal Prohibition enforcement. This encounter between clubs and government-generated scandals, reform crusades, and regulations helped to redefine the image and reality of urban life in the United States. Ultimately, it took the Great Depression to cool Manhattan's Jazz Age nightclubs, forcing them to adapt and relocate, but not before they left their mark on the future of American leisure. Nightclub City explores the cultural significance of New York City's nightlife between the wars, from Texas Guinan's notorious 300 Club to Billy Rose's nostalgic Diamond Horseshoe. Whether in Harlem, Midtown, or Greenwich Village, raucous nightclub activity tested early twentieth-century social boundaries. Anglo-Saxon novelty seekers, Eastern European impresarios, and African American performers crossed ethnic lines while provocative comediennes and scantily clad chorus dancers challenged and reshaped notions of femininity. These havens of liberated sexuality, as well as prostitution and illicit liquor consumption, allowed their denizens to explore their fantasies and fears of change. The reactions of cultural critics, federal investigators, and reformers such as Fiorello La Guardia exemplify the tension between leisure and order. Peretti's research delves into the symbiotic relationships among urban politicians, social reformers, and the business of vice. Illustrated with archival photographs of the clubs and the characters who frequented them, Nightclub City is a dark and dazzling study of New York's bygone nightlife.
£26.99
University of Nebraska Press The Four Hills of Life: Northern Arapaho Knowledge and Life Movement
For many generations the Northern Arapaho people thrived over a vast area of the North American Plains and Rocky Mountains. For more than a century they have lived on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The reservation, the fourth largest in the country, is surrounded by vast rural lands and has been largely ignored by outsiders. As a result, the Northern Arapahos have been in some ways more isolated from mainstream American society than most Native groups. In The Four Hills of Life Jeffrey D. Anderson masterfully draws together many different aspects of the Northern Arapahos' world—myth, language, art, ritual, identity, and history—to offer a compelling picture of a culture that has endured and changed over time. Arapaho culture is seen dynamically through the ways that members of the community in the past and present experience their unique world in everyday life. Anderson shows that Northern Arapaho unity and identity from the nineteenth century through today are derived less from political centralization than from a shared system of ritual practices. The heart of this system is a complex of rituals called the beyoowu'u ("all the lodges"), which includes the Offerings Lodge, now more commonly known as the Sun Dance—a ritual still central to Northern Arapaho life. According to Anderson, the beyoowu'u and other life transition ceremonies work together to mold time and experience for the Arapahos, a life movement that also helps create social identities and transmit vital cultural knowledge. Anderson also offers an in-depth study of the problems that Euro-American society continues to impose on reservation life and the empowered responses of the Northern Arapahos to these problems.
£26.99
Princeton University Press U.D.I: The International Politics of the Rhodesian Rebellion
Fearing that their "civilization" would be overwhelmed, a tiny enclave of whites in Central Africa rebelled against a power which a little more than twenty-five years before had ruled the largest empire the world had ever known. Robert C. Good provides an immensely readable account of the international politics of the Rhodesian rebellion which, as he demonstrates, put great political and financial strains on Great Britain, placed Zambia in mortal danger, almost destroyed the multiracial Commonwealth, and promoted an unprecedented involvement of the United Nations in programs of dubious effectiveness and doubtful wisdom. The complex sequence of events which led to the "unilateral declaration of independence" of November 1965 and the settlement of November 1971 are probed, and the policies of the British and Rhodesian governments analyzed, particularly the actions and responses of Harold Wilson. Above all, the Rhodesian crisis is placed in its international setting to show that the failure to impose a transition towards majority rule in Rhodesia has meant that a significant chance to reverse present trends in Southern Africa towards the hardening of racial attitudes and erosion of African confidence in Western intentions has been lost. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
£46.80
Princeton University Press Why Not Default?: The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt
How creditors came to wield unprecedented power over heavily indebted countries—and the dangers this poses to democracyThe European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates—why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts?In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management. He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression. He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone—including the dramatic capitulation of Greece’s short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015.Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance. This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis—with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.
£25.00
Princeton University Press The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism
The forgotten story of the nineteenth-century freethinkers and twentieth-century humanists who tried to build their own secular religionIn The Church of Saint Thomas Paine, Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in nineteenth-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine (1737–1809) and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late twentieth century.After Paine’s remains were stolen from his grave in New Rochelle, New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine’s birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism.All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine’s followers, were swept up in new battles about religion’s public contours and secularism’s moral perils.An engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine.
£22.00
Princeton University Press American Afterlives: Reinventing Death in the Twenty-First Century
A mesmerizing trip across America to investigate the changing face of death in contemporary lifeDeath in the United States is undergoing a quiet revolution. You can have your body frozen, dissected, composted, dissolved, or tanned. Your family can incorporate your remains into jewelry, shotgun shells, paperweights, and artwork. Cremations have more than doubled, and DIY home funerals and green burials are on the rise. American Afterlives is Shannon Lee Dawdy’s lyrical and compassionate account of changing death practices in America as people face their own mortality and search for a different kind of afterlife.As an anthropologist and archaeologist, Dawdy knows that how a society treats its dead yields powerful clues about its beliefs and values. As someone who has experienced loss herself, she knows there is no way to tell this story without also reexamining her own views about death and dying. In this meditative and gently humorous book, Dawdy embarks on a transformative journey across the United States, talking to funeral directors, death-care entrepreneurs, designers, cemetery owners, death doulas, and ordinary people from all walks of life. What she discovers is that, by reinventing death, Americans are reworking their ideas about personhood, ritual, and connection across generations. She also confronts the seeming contradiction that American death is becoming at the same time more materialistic and more spiritual.Written in conjunction with a documentary film project, American Afterlives features images by cinematographer Daniel Zox that provide their own testament to our rapidly changing attitudes toward death and the afterlife.
£22.00
Princeton University Press China's Urban Champions: The Politics of Spatial Development
An exploration of how key provinces in China shape urban and regional development The rise of major metropolises across China since the 1990s has been a double-edged sword: although big cities function as economic powerhouses, concentrated urban growth can worsen regional inequalities, governance challenges, and social tensions. Wary of these dangers, China’s national leaders have tried to forestall top-heavy urbanization. However, urban and regional development policies at the subnational level have not always followed suit. China’s Urban Champions explores the development paths of different provinces and asks why policymakers in many cases favor big cities in a way that reinforces spatial inequalities rather than reducing them.Kyle Jaros combines in-depth case studies of Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu provinces with quantitative analysis to shed light on the political drivers of uneven development. Drawing on numerous Chinese-language written sources, including government documents and media reports, as well as a wealth of field interviews with officials, policy experts, urban planners, academics, and businesspeople, Jaros shows how provincial development strategies are shaped by both the horizontal relations of competition among different provinces and the vertical relations among different tiers of government. Metropolitan-oriented development strategies advance when lagging economic performance leads provincial leaders to fixate on boosting regional competitiveness, and when provincial governments have the political strength to impose their policy priorities over the objections of other actors.Rethinking the politics of spatial policy in an era of booming growth, China’s Urban Champions highlights the key role of provincial units in determining the nation’s metropolitan and regional development trajectory.
£25.20
Princeton University Press Megaphone Bureaucracy: Speaking Truth to Power in the Age of the New Normal
A revealing look at how today’s bureaucrats are finding their public voice in the era of 24-hour mediaOnce relegated to the anonymous back rooms of democratic debate, our bureaucratic leaders are increasingly having to govern under the scrutiny of a 24-hour news cycle, hyperpartisan political oversight, and a restless populace that is increasingly distrustful of the people who govern them. Megaphone Bureaucracy reveals how today’s civil servants are finding a voice of their own as they join elected politicians on the public stage and jockey for advantage in the persuasion game of modern governance.In this timely and incisive book, Dennis Grube draws on in-depth interviews and compelling case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to describe how senior bureaucrats are finding themselves drawn into political debates they could once avoid. Faced with a political climate where polarization and media spin are at an all-time high, these modern mandarins negotiate blame games and manage contradictory expectations in the glare of an unforgiving spotlight. Grube argues that in this fiercely divided public square a new style of bureaucratic leadership is emerging, one that marries the robust independence of Washington agency heads with the prudent political neutrality of Westminster civil servants. These “Washminster” leaders do not avoid the public gaze, nor do they overtly court political controversy. Rather, they use their increasingly public pulpits to exert their own brand of persuasive power.Megaphone Bureaucracy shows how today’s senior bureaucrats are making their voices heard by embracing a new style of communication that brings with it great danger but also great opportunity.
£25.20
Princeton University Press Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology
Successful democracies throughout history--from ancient Athens to Britain on the cusp of the industrial age--have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the accelerating pace of technological change creates potentially enormous dangers as well as benefits. Accelerating Democracy shows how to adapt democracy to new information technologies that can enhance political decision making and enable us to navigate the social rapids ahead. John O. McGinnis demonstrates how these new technologies combine to address a problem as old as democracy itself--how to help citizens better evaluate the consequences of their political choices. As society became more complex in the nineteenth century, social planning became a top-down enterprise delegated to experts and bureaucrats. Today, technology increasingly permits information to bubble up from below and filter through more dispersed and competitive sources. McGinnis explains how to use fast-evolving information technologies to more effectively analyze past public policy, bring unprecedented intensity of scrutiny to current policy proposals, and more accurately predict the results of future policy. But he argues that we can do so only if government keeps pace with technological change. For instance, it must revive federalism to permit different jurisdictions to test different policies so that their results can be evaluated, and it must legalize information markets to permit people to bet on what the consequences of a policy will be even before that policy is implemented. Accelerating Democracy reveals how we can achieve a democracy that is informed by expertise and social-scientific knowledge while shedding the arrogance and insularity of a technocracy.
£31.50
WW Norton & Co The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America
Her image appeared in periodicals and advertisements roughly twenty times daily; she rivaled FDR and Edward VIII as the most photographed person in the world. Her portrait brightened the homes of countless admirers: from a black laborer’s cabin in South Carolina and young Andy Warhol’s house in Pittsburgh to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s recreation room in Washington, DC, and gangster “Bumpy” Johnson’s Harlem apartment. A few years later her smile cheered the secret bedchamber of Anne Frank in Amsterdam as young Anne hid from the Nazis. For four consecutive years Shirley Temple was the world’s box-office champion, a record never equaled. By early 1935 her mail was reported as four thousand letters a week, and hers was the second-most popular girl’s name in the country. What distinguished Shirley Temple from every other Hollywood star of the period—and everyone since—was how brilliantly she shone. Amid the deprivation and despair of the Great Depression, Shirley Temple radiated optimism and plucky good cheer that lifted the spirits of millions and shaped their collective character for generations to come. Distinguished cultural historian John F. Kasson shows how the most famous, adored, imitated, and commodified child in the world astonished movie goers, created a new international culture of celebrity, and revolutionized the role of children as consumers. Tap-dancing across racial boundaries with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, foiling villains, and mending the hearts and troubles of the deserving, Shirley Temple personified the hopes and dreams of Americans. To do so, she worked virtually every day of her childhood, transforming her own family as well as the lives of her fans.
£38.00
University of Illinois Press Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System
A bold reconsideration of Hoodoo belief and practice Katrina Hazzard-Donald explores African Americans' experience and practice of the herbal, healing folk belief tradition known as Hoodoo. She examines Hoodoo culture and history by tracing its emergence from African traditions to religious practices in the Americas. Working against conventional scholarship, Hazzard-Donald argues that Hoodoo emerged first in three distinct regions she calls "regional Hoodoo clusters" and that after the turn of the nineteenth century, Hoodoo took on a national rather than regional profile. The spread came about through the mechanism of the "African Religion Complex," eight distinct cultural characteristics familiar to all the African ethnic groups in the United States. The first interdisciplinary examination to incorporate a full glossary of Hoodoo culture, Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System lays out the movement of Hoodoo against a series of watershed changes in the American cultural landscape. Hazzard-Donald examines Hoodoo material culture, particularly the "High John the Conquer" root, which practitioners employ for a variety of spiritual uses. She also examines other facets of Hoodoo, including rituals of divination such as the "walking boy" and the "Ring Shout," a sacred dance of Hoodoo tradition that bears its corollaries today in the American Baptist churches. Throughout, Hazzard-Donald distinguishes between "Old tradition Black Belt Hoodoo" and commercially marketed forms that have been controlled, modified, and often fabricated by outsiders; this study focuses on the hidden system operating almost exclusively among African Americans in the Black spiritual underground.
£31.27
Columbia University Press Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj
With the advent of the steamship, repeated outbreaks of cholera marked oceanic pilgrimages to Mecca as a dangerous form of travel and a vehicle for the globalization of epidemic diseases. European, especially British Indian, officials also feared that lengthy sojourns in Arabia might expose their Muslim subjects to radicalizing influences from anticolonial dissidents and pan-Islamic activists. European colonial empires’ newfound ability to set the terms of hajj travel not only affected the lives of millions of pilgrims but also dramatically challenged the Ottoman Empire, the world’s only remaining Muslim imperial power.Michael Christopher Low analyzes the late Ottoman hajj and Hijaz region as transimperial spaces, reshaped by the competing forces of Istanbul’s project of frontier modernization and the extraterritorial reach of British India’s steamship empire in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Imperial Mecca recasts Ottoman Arabia as a distant, unstable semiautonomous frontier that Istanbul struggled to modernize and defend against the onslaught of colonial steamship mobility. As it turned out, steamships carried not just pilgrims, passports, and microbes, but the specter of legal imperialism and colonial intervention. Over the course of roughly a half century from the 1850s through World War I, British India’s fear of the hajj as a vector of anticolonial subversion gradually gave way to an increasingly sophisticated administrative, legal, and medical protectorate over the steamship hajj, threatening to eclipse the Ottoman state and Caliphate’s prized legitimizing claim as protector of Islam’s most holy places. Drawing on a wide range of Ottoman and British archival sources, this book sheds new light on the transimperial and global histories traversed along the pilgrimage to Mecca.
£27.00
HarperCollins Publishers Dark and Shallow Lies
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! ‘AN INTENSE AND BROODING THRILLER ’ – THE OBSERVER A intensely romantic and atmospheric thriller for young adults, full of twists and turns with a simmering supernatural undercurrent. Perfect for fans of Holly Jackson, Karen McManus and Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing When seventeen-year-old Grey makes her annual visit to La Cachette, Louisiana – the tiny bayou town that proclaims to be the “Psychic Capital of the World” – she knows it will be different from past years: her childhood best friend Elora went missing several months earlier and no one is telling the truth about the night she disappears. Grey can’t believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something—her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to Grey from beyond the grave. When a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou – a stormy-eyed boy with links to Elora and the town’s bloody history – Grey realizes that La Cachette’s past is far more present and dangerous than she’d ever understood. She doesn’t know who she can trust. In a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent—and La Cachette’s dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.
£8.99
Oxford University Press Spying on the Reich: The Cold War Against Hitler
Exactly a century ago, intelligence agencies across Europe first became aware of a fanatical German nationalist whose political party was rapidly gathering momentum. His name was Adolf Hitler. From 1933, these spy services watched with growing alarm as they tried to determine what sort of threat Hitler's regime would now pose to the rest of Europe. Would Germany rearm, either covertly or in open defiance of the outside world? Would Hitler turn his attention eastwards - or did he also pose a threat to the west? What were the feelings and attitudes of ordinary Germans, towards their own regime as well as the outside world? Despite intense rivalry and mistrust between them, these spy chiefs began to liaise and close ranks against Nazi Germany. At the heart of this loose, informal network were the British and French intelligence services, alongside the Poles and Czechs. Some other countries - Holland, Belgium, and the United States - stood at the periphery. Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished British, French, German, Danish, and Czech archival sources, Spying on the Reich tells the story of Germany and its rearmament in the 1920s and 1930s; its relations with foreign governments and their intelligence services; and the relations and rivalries between Western governments, seen through the prism of the cooperation, or lack of it, between their spy agencies. Along the way, it addresses some of the most intriguing questions that still perplex historians of the period, such as how and why Britain defended Poland in September 1939, and what alternative policies could have been pursued?
£27.00
Sourcebooks, Inc Less Than a Moment
No crime is forgiven, and no mistake overlooked in this new addition to the critically acclaimed Posadas County Mystery series…When a developer shows up in Posadas County, the locals get nervous. The small town along the southern border of New Mexico has enjoyed a surge in visitors, jobs, and prosperity since rancher Miles Waddell opened an eco-friendly complex. But then the developer buys land just next door, with plans for a project that will threaten the county's newfound success.Tension is at an all-time high when someone shoots up the newsroom—and then the developer is found dead at the base of a cliff. Sheriff Bob Torrez and Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman know these events are all too convenient and bloody not to be connected.With support from Bill Gastner—an old Western sheriff straight out of the movies—the partners dive into a heated investigation. But as the case gets personal, the two will have to untangle a web of convoluted evidence before the community turns on itself.Readers of C. J. Box and Anne Hillerman will be riveted by this female protagonist thriller set in the rural, rugged Southwest. The newest of Steven F. Havill's Western mysteries and thrillers will lead you down trails of danger and deceit… But will one of these paths lead to justice?"The Posadas County that Havill has created is so tangible, you feel that if you walked down its streets, you would be greeted by old friends."—Bookreporter "Less Than A Moment reveals Posadas' sense of small-town life through the conversations of multiple characters and by rolling them into the narrative, whether they're related or unrelated to the crimes."—Albuquerque Journal
£11.99
Tuttle Publishing Adorable Felted Animals: 30 Easy & Incredibly Lifelike Needle Felted Pals
Create cute and realistic felted animals with this fun and easy-to-follow needle felting book.Nothing feels better than a cute, fuzzy animal you can hold in the palm of your hand. Adorable Felted Animals shows you how you can create more than 30 endearing dogs, cats, birds and other animals using a little wool roving, a felting needle, and a few simple techniques. With basic shapes you roll in your hands, you can sculpt the most lifelike miniature animals, using your felting needle to join the individual parts and give them their firm and final shape. With little bits of contrasting wool, you can provide your felted friends expressions that are irresistible. It's simple, creative, and very relaxing. These cute felted animals range from the wonderfully realistic to enchantingly adorable. Included in this book are: Beloved dogs such as Golden and Labrador retrievers, a Pug, a Poodle, and Dachshund and more Exotic cats, like the Siamese and Abyssinian Feathered friends such as the parakeet, cockatiel, lovebird and finch Other household companions like the ferret and hamster Outdoor dwellers like the chipmunk and rabbit The animals range from about 2-4 inches high, and instructions are included for turning a few of your felt creations into fun dangly accessories. A full lesson takes you through one of the projects from beginning to end, covering all the basics to ensure that you have all the skills you need to make any critter you want.
£12.99
Thomas Nelson Publishers After the Rapture: An End Times Guide to Survival
What if you or someone you loved missed out on the Rapture? What happens to those who are left behind? Trusted Bible teacher Dr. David Jeremiah shares the help and hope people will need as they face the End Times in this timely, easy-to-understand guidebook for believers and non-believers alike.In?After the Rapture,?Dr. David Jeremiah equips you to understand End-Times theology and Bible prophecy. Many people want to understand how the Rapture unfolds, and this is the perfect handbook to share with your unsaved friends and loved ones so they can prepare themselves or cope with the challenges they’ll face after the Rapture. With trusted biblical insight, this book will provide the hope and confidence you need and can share with your loved ones.An ideal witnessing tool and a resource of biblical direction for those seeking answers about what is to come, this life-changing book includes: A detailed look at what the Rapture is, how it happens, and what happens afterward Eye-opening sections on the Rapture, Judgment Day, and the Great Tribulation The information you need to clear up your own confusion and prepare for Christ’s return A unique, compelling way to share Jesus with those in danger of being left behind Valuable questions and answers, Scripture verses, life application, and more An epic and vital guide to life after the Rapture, this book is a must-have resource for you to buy for those you fear might be left behind. Help your loved ones understand the End Times and guide them to accept Christ as their Savior.
£12.59
The University of Chicago Press Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America
Examining the history of phrenology and physiognomy, Beauty and the Brain proposes a bold new way of understanding the connection between science, politics, and popular culture in early America. Between the 1770s and the 1860s, people all across the globe relied on physiognomy and phrenology to evaluate human worth. These once-popular but now discredited disciplines were based on a deceptively simple premise: that facial features or skull shape could reveal a person’s intelligence, character, and personality. In the United States, these were culturally ubiquitous sciences that both elite thinkers and ordinary people used to understand human nature. While the modern world dismisses phrenology and physiognomy as silly and debunked disciplines, Beauty and the Brain shows why they must be taken seriously: they were the intellectual tools that a diverse group of Americans used to debate questions of race, gender, and social justice. While prominent intellectuals and political thinkers invoked these sciences to justify hierarchy, marginalized people and progressive activists deployed them for their own political aims, creatively interpreting human minds and bodies as they fought for racial justice and gender equality. Ultimately, though, physiognomy and phrenology were as dangerous as they were popular. In addition to validating the idea that external beauty was a sign of internal worth, these disciplines often appealed to the very people who were damaged by their prejudicial doctrines. In taking physiognomy and phrenology seriously, Beauty and the Brain recovers a vibrant—if largely forgotten—cultural and intellectual universe, showing how popular sciences shaped some of the greatest political debates of the American past.
£36.00
HarperCollins Publishers Some Sunny Day
The remarkable autobiography of the last great wartime icon. Born Vera Welch on 20 March, 1917 in the East End of London, Dame Vera Lynn’s career was set from an early age - along with her father, who also did a ‘turn’, she sang in Working Men’s Clubs from just seven years old. She had a successful radio career with Joe Loss and Charlie Kunz in the 1920s and ‘30s, but it was with World War II that she became the iconic figure that captured the imagination of the national public. Her spirit and verve, along with her ability to connect with the men fighting for their country and those left behind praying for their loved ones, made her the ‘Forces’ sweetheart’. Performing the songs that she will always be associated with, such as ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘Yours’, Vera toured Egypt, India and Burma to entertain the troops and bring them a sense of ‘back home’. Her career after the war flourished, with hits in the US and the UK, but Vera was never able to leave behind her wartime role and was deeply affected by what she had seen. Still heavily involved with veteran and other charities, this is Dame Vera’s vivid story of her life and her war - from bombs and rations to dance halls and the searing heat of her appearances abroad. Epitomising British fortitude and hope, Dame Vera gives a vivid portrait of Britain at war, and a unique story of one woman who came to symbolize a nation.
£8.09
HarperCollins Publishers King of Foxes (Conclave of Shadows, Book 2)
In the second instalment of The Conclave of Shadows.The Conclave demands its membership price from their new protégé: Tal must gather information on the sinister magician Laso Varen. But, to do this means service with the sorcerer's master, Duke Kaspar of Olasko – the very man he suspects of killing his family. A POWERFUL NEW EPIC FANTASY SERIES FROM ONE OF THE GREAT MASTERS OF THE GENRE Talon, orphan of the Orosini tribe and last of his people has been transformed by the Conclave of Shadows from a trusting young boy to the dashing young nobleman Talwin Hawkins: educated, confident and now Roldem's premier swordsman. The title, won at the Masters’ Court, in front of the King, brought him a step closer to his desire – to avenge the massacre of his family. Two participants in the slaughter are dead by his hand; Lieutenant Campaneal fell under his blade during the Master's Tournament and the other, Raven, died whilst attempting to butcher an Orodon village as he did Tal's people. But still his lust for vengeance will not be sated until the reason for the massacres has been uncovered and their architect revealed and punished. The Conclave demands its price from Tal: he must gather information on Laso Varen, a magician of terrible power and subtle craft, dangerous beyond contemplation. To do this means service with the sorcerer’s master, Duke Kaspar of Olasko – and swearing loyalty to the very man he suspects of killing his family, even if it means becoming the Duke’s right-hand and tracking down his enemies – the members of the Conclave and Talon's own friends.
£10.99
University of California Press Deeply into the Bone: Re-Inventing Rites of Passage
Over the past two decades, North Americans have become increasingly interested in understanding and reclaiming the rites that mark significant life passages. In the absence of meaningful rites of passage, we speed through the dangerous intersections of life and often come to regret missing an opportunity to contemplate a child's birth, mark the arrival of maturity, or meditate on the loss of a loved one. Providing a highly personal, thoroughly informed, and cross-cultural perspective on rites of passage for general readers, this book illustrates the power of rites to help us navigate life's troublesome transitions. The work of a major scholar who has spent years writing and teaching about ritual, "Deeply into the Bone" instigates a conversation in which readers can fruitfully reflect on their own experiences of passage.Covering the significant life events of birth, initiation, marriage, and death, chapters include first-person stories told by individuals who have undergone rites of passage, accounts of practices from around the world, brief histories of selected ritual traditions, and critical reflections probing popular assumptions about ritual. The book also explores innovative rites for other important events such as beginning school, same-sex commitment ceremonies, abortion, serious illness, divorce, and retirement. Taking us confidently into the abyss separating the spiritual from the social scientific, the personal from the scholarly, and the narrative from the analytical, Grimes synthesizes an impressive amount of information to help us find more insightful ways of comprehending life's great transitions. As we face our increasingly complex society, "Deeply into the Bone" will help us reclaim the power of rites and understand their effect on our lives.
£27.00
Little, Brown Book Group From a Far and Lovely Country
The twenty-fourth book in the multi-million copy bestselling and perennially adored No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.If you are the founder and Managing Director of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency you may expect complete strangers to approach you with their problems when they see you having dinner with your husband in a peri-peri restaurant. And if you are Precious Ramotswe, you are a kind and helpful person who will be willing to take on a quest to find the relatives of a man who, many years ago, left the country for the uncertainties and dangers of a distant conflict.While that is going on, though, there may be other things that claim your attention - such as the shocking news that a club that calls itself the Cool Singles Evening Club is encouraging married men to pretend to be single and meet women under false pretences. Who can be behind such a distasteful venture? Mma Ramotswe shows great tact in dealing with this situation, and avoids harm to the innocent.And all the time, she and her assistant, Grace Makutsi, are getting on with their normal lives - which, of course, include birthdays and the buying of birthday presents. A new dress makes a fine present, but not if, when being tried on, it splits in a way that is thought to be irreparable. Mma Potokwani has dealt with situations far worse that, and in dealing with this local emergency she shows her characteristic wisdom. At the end of the day, disaster is averted. Life in Botswana, that far and lovely country of the title, continues smoothly, which is what Mma Ramotswe and her friends want - and most certainly deserve.
£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry
'A new approach to mental disorder. Randolph Nesse's insightful book suggests that conditions such as anxiety and depression have a clear evolutionary purpose ... This intriguing book turns some age-old questions about the human condition upside down' Tim Adams, ObserverOne of the world's most respected psychiatrists provides a much-needed new evolutionary framework for making sense of mental illnessWith his classic book Why We Get Sick, Randolph Nesse established the field of evolutionary medicine. Now he returns with a book that transforms our understanding of mental disorders by exploring a fundamentally new question. Instead of asking why certain people suffer from mental illness, Nesse asks why natural selection has left us with fragile minds at all.Drawing on revealing stories from his own clinical practice and insights from evolutionary biology, Nesse shows how negative emotions are useful in certain situations, yet can become excessive. Anxiety protects us from harm in the face of danger, but false alarms are inevitable. Low mood prevents us from wasting effort in pursuit of unreachable goals, but it often escalates into pathological depression. Other mental disorders, such as addiction and anorexia, result from the mismatch between modern environments and our ancient human past. Taken together, these insights and many more help to explain the pervasiveness of human suffering, and show us new paths for relieving it.Good Reasons for Bad Feelings will fascinate anyone who wonders how our minds can be so powerful, yet so fragile, and how love and goodness came to exist in organisms shaped to maximize Darwinian fitness.
£10.99
Archaeopress Marcadores gráficos y territorios megalíticos en la Cuenca interior del Tajo: Toledo, Madrid y Guadalajara
The aim of this work is to analyze Late Prehistoric graphical markers, comprising paintings, engravings, Megalithic elements, and other portable objects. All of them can be described as post-paleolithic or Schematic Art over various surfaces. The chosen area, the inland region of the Tajo inner basin (Spain), was especially appealing for several reasons, such as the lack of scholarship on the subject, the lack of information on the geographical location of the archaeological sites, and the extended ignorance about the sites’ materials and relationships. The methodology is based on systematic registration of all archaeological sites. This is studied from an Archaeology Landscape perspective through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis. It tests geographical markers according to their strategic location (pre-eminence and visibility) and their relationship with other funerary, habitable and resources sites. This has allowed parietal surfaces (megaliths, caves, shelters) and mobile pieces to be given coordinate position for the first time in the region, which has demonstrated abundant and complex prehistoric graphical markers. The results achieved allow the extrapolation of settlement models, explained in chapter VI. Generally, shelters divide the territory by geographical units where the settlers have access to a variety of economic resources and transit networks. SPANISH DESCRIPTION: El objetivo de este trabajo es el estudio de los marcadores gráficos de la Prehistoria Reciente, entre los que se incluyen pinturas, grabados, elementos megalíticos y elementos mobiliares que responden a la descripción de Arte Esquemático o Postpaleolítico sobre diferentes soportes. Se eligió como zona de estudio la cuenca interior del Tajo a su paso por las provincias interiores (España), de especial interés por su carencia de valoraciones conjuntas y desde luego, por la escasa información acerca del posicionamiento geográfico de estos yacimientos y el desconocimiento bastante generalizado de sus contenidos y relaciones contextuales. El método de trabajo se ha fundamentado en la recogida sistemática de todos los yacimientos registrados. El estudio se ha llevado a cabo con nuevas tecnologías como los Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG), desde una perspectiva de la Arqueología del Paisaje. Se han efectuado diversos análisis establecidos sobre su posición estratégica (preeminencia y visibilidad) y su relación con otros yacimientos de carácter funerario, habitacional y recursos de explotación. Esto ha permitido que los soportes parietales (abrigos, cuevas y megalitos), así como piezas mobiliares, se hayan georreferenciado por primera vez en la región, dando muestras de la abundancia y complejidad de estas grafías prehistóricas. Los resultados nos han permitido extrapolar modelos de implantación en el territorio, expuestos en el capítulo VI. En general, existe una tendencia a delimitar el territorio en unidades geográficas caracterizadas, en las que las sociedades productoras tienen acceso a una variedad de recursos económicos y redes de tránsito.
£149.79
Biblioasis Light Lifting
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTABLE BOOK OF 2012 IRISH TIMES BOOK-TO-READ FOR 2012 ATLANTIC BOOK AWARD WINNER FINALIST FOR THE GILLER PRIZE AND THE FRANK O'CONNOR AWARD A GLOBE & MAIL, QUILL & QUIRE, AND AMAZON.CA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Engrossing, thrilling and ultimately satisfying: each story has the weight of a novel." The Economist This was the day after Mike Tyson bit off Evander Holyfield’s ear. You remember that. It was a moment in history not like Kennedy or the planes flying into the World Trade Center not up at that level. This was something much lower, more like Ben Johnson, back when his eyes were that thick, yellow color and he tested positive in Seoul after breaking the world-record in the hundred. You might not know exactly where you were standing or exactly what you were doing when you first heard about Tyson or about Ben, but when the news came down, I bet it stuck with you. When Tyson bit off Holyfield’s ear, that cut right through the everyday clutter. from "Miracle Mile" Two runners race a cargo train through the darkness of a rat-infested tunnel beneath the Detroit River. A drugstore bicycle courier crosses a forbidden threshold in an attempt to save a life and a young swimmer conquers her fear of water only to discover she's caught in far more dangerous currents. An auto-worker who loses his family in a car accident is forced to reconsider his relationship with the internal combustion engine. Alexander MacLeod is a writer of "ferocious intelligence" and "ferocious physicality" (CTV). Light Lifting, his celebrated first collection, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies that explore the depths of the psyche and channel the subconscious hopes and terrors that motivate us all. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding.
£13.88
Encounter Books,USA The Return of Anti Semitism
"Although our government hardly acknowledges the fact, and fails to orient its policies accordingly," begins Gabriel Schoenfeld in this profoundly disquieting book, "the United States is today locked in a conflict with adversaries for whom hatred of Jews lies at the core of their beliefs." To anyone with even a modest acquaintance with current events, it is clear that the Muslim world is today the epicenter of a particularly virulent brand of anti-Semitic hatred. But anti-Semitism has also reawakened dramatically in Europe, where it was long thought to be completely dormant if not entirely extinct. And as Schoenfeld shows, it is also making unprecedented headway in the United States, a country where it has never before found truly fertile soil. "The Return of Anti-Semitism" traces the confluence of several lethal currents: the infusion of judeophobia into Islamic fundamentalism; the rise of terrorist movements (including al Qaeda) that are motivated in large measure by a pathological hatred of Jews; the deliberate and well-financed export of anti-Semitism from the Muslim world into Europe and from there into the United States; and the rebirth of older anti-Semitic traditions in the West that were thought to have ended along with Nazism. Schoenfeld shows that the most vicious ideas about Jews today are not voiced by the downtrodden and disenfranchised fringe elements of society, but by its most highly educated and "progressive" segments. This is true in the Islamic world, and it is even truer in the West. One is less likely to find anti-Semites today in beer halls and trailer parks than among the mass media and in faculty lounges. And while yesterday's anti-Semitism appeared in periods of economic and political stress, its alarming return comes at a time when the Western democracies are secure and free from the social turmoil that contributed to the rise of fascism. An old disease, one that many assumed was permanently eradicated, has reappeared in our world. "The Return of Anti-Semitism" is a profound analysis of a great and growing danger.
£19.23
Paizo Publishing, LLC Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness
Answer the CallWild, untamed lands hold a wealth of mystery and danger, providing the perfect backdrop for heroic adventure. Whether adventurers are climbing mountains in search of a dragon's lair, carving their way through the jungle, or seeking a long-lost holy city covered by desert sands, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness gives them the tools to survive the wilds. A new 20-level base class, the shifter, puts animalistic powers into the hands-or claws-of player characters and villains alike, with new class features derived from animalistic attributes. Overviews of druidic sects and rituals, as well as new archetypes, character options, spells, and more, round out the latest contribution to the Pathfinder RPG rules! Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness is an invaluable hardcover companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 years of system development and an open playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into a new era. Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness includes:►The shifter, a new character class that harnesses untamed forces to change shape and bring a heightened level of savagery to the battlefield!►Archetypes for alchemists, barbarians, bards, druids, hunters, investigators, kineticists, paladins, rangers, rogues, slayers, witches, and more! ► Feats and magic items for characters of all sorts granting mastery over the perils of nature and enabling them to harvest natural power by cultivating magical plants. ►Dozens of spells to channel, protect, or thwart the powers of natural environs.►New and expanded rules to push your animal companions, familiars, and mounts to wild new heights.►A section on the First World with advice, spells, and other features to integrate the fey realm into your campaign.►Systems for exploring new lands and challenging characters with natural hazards and strange terrain both mundane and feytouched.►AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
£39.99
DK The Secret Explorers and the Smoking Volcano
Buckle up for an explosive adventure! Discover the dramatic power of an erupting volcano in this action-packed sixth installment of DK’s new educational fiction series! Meet the Secret Explorers - a band of brainiac kids from all around the world. Everyone in this diverse group of young experts has a specialty, from outer space to dinosaurs, and each story follows a character who gets chosen for a “secret exploration”. This edge-of-your-seat science book for kids is packed with: • Fun facts and illustrations about the Earth’s tectonic plates • Simple and engaging explanations on how volcanoes are formed • Quizzes, mission notes, and a glossary of words with definitions • Information that supports a STEM-based curriculum A new adventure unfoldsIn this fun, fact-filled children’s science book, we join volcanoes expert Cheng on an exciting mission to Mount Yasur on the island of Vanuatu. Joined by biology expert Leah, the team is beyond excited to witness a real-life volcanic eruption.But soon, excitement turns to worry when they realize that people are in danger. Working together swiftly and heroically, they must stage a rescue mission. Kids will love turning the pages to find out if the Secret Explorers manage to succeed in their mission!It’s the perfect gift for children aged 7-9 who love all things geology. Packed with lots of information on volcanoes, this epic adventure book gives them a thrilling introduction to earth science. Don’t let the discoveries stop Each book in the series combines exciting adventures with real-life facts related to the Secret Explorers’ latest fictional mission. Don't miss out on more secret explorations! Dive into an underwater adventure in The Secret Explorers and the Lost Whales. Travel back in time to save a dinosaur egg from destruction in The Secret Explorers and the Jurassic Rescue. Finally, set out on a journey to stop the Cairo Museum from closing down in The Secret Explorers and the Tomb Robbers.
£7.81
Louisiana State University Press Political Belief in France, 1927-1945: Gender, Empire, and Fascism in the Croix de Feu and Parti Social Francais
In the inter war era, the rise of the largest political movement in modern French history, the powerful Croix de Feu (1927- 1936), and its successor, the Parti Social Français, or PSF (1936- 1945), led to a sharp rightward turn in France's political culture. Political Belief in France, 1927- 1945 traces the central role of women in this shift, arguing that they transformed the Croix de Feu/PSF from a paramilitary league for veterans into a social reform movement that sought to remake the politics, society, and culture of the French Republic.Following the creation of a Women's Section in 1934, the women of the Croix de Feu/PSF developed a wide array of social programs, including welfare services, youth development, and health-care initiatives. At a time of economic depression and high unemployment, these popular programs tempered the organization's fearsome reputation as a violent paramilitary group. While the efforts of the Women's Section had the veneer of moderation, they accentuated the long-standing conservative image of France as a deeply Christian society and sought to assimilate people of different ethnoreligious backgrounds into the dominant national community. Croix de Feu/PSF women promoted their socialagenda as a religious and patriotic duty, a reflection of the individual's responsibility to make personal sacrifices on behalf of their vision for France's Christian civilization.The Croix de Feu/PSF's ethnoreligious nationalism circulated throughout the French imperial nation-state, making the movement the premier defender of an empire at the height of its power. But women in North African branches faced substantial marginalization, and the movement remained dangerously sectarian in the Maghreb, driving indigenous activists from reformism to anticolonialism.The Croix de Feu/PSF thus set the stage for both the authoritarian, anti-Semitic Vichy regime and the decolonization that followed the war. The first book on women of the French far right in the age of fascism, Political Belief in France, 1927- 1945 contributes to the fields of French history, gender studies, the history of fascism, and the history of empire.
£46.57
DK Dinosaur Club Collection One: Contains 4 Action-Packed Adventures
Travel back in time to the world of the dinosaurs in this exciting four-book box set of dinosaur-themed prehistoric fiction for children.Dive into an exciting Jurassic world and travel back in time with the Dinosaur Club! Children will be inspired to discover the prehistoric world with this collection of dinosaur books for 5-7-year-olds.Jamie has just moved to Ammonite Bay, a stretch of coastline famous for its fossils. He is a member of the Dinosaur Club – a network of kids around the world who love dinosaurs. Jamie is busy exploring when he discovers some dinosaur footprints and is transported back to the time of the dinosaurs! It’s amazing but dangerous too - he’ll definitely need help from the Dinosaur Club…Inside the collection:The first four books in the series are included in this collection: The T. Rex Attack, A Triceratops Charge, Saving a Stegosaurus, and Tracking the Diplodocus. Each story is fast-paced, fun, and full of facts, and along the way, Jamie encounters all kinds of amazing dinosaurs.This boxset of exciting dinosaur stories offers:- An introduction to core nonfiction to children aged 5-7 who prefer stories, but are packed with exciting dinosaur facts.- Beautifully illustrated line art accompanied by expertly written text.- Reference pages to extend childrens’ interest in these fascinating prehistoric creatures.- All the latest dinosaur information and up-to-date discoveries.- Reference material which solidifies each narrative, including timelines, quizzes, fact files, and glossaries.Little ones will love to learn about the prehistoric world with the Dinosaur Club collection of character-driven adventure stories for children, through fun facts, timelines and quizzes. More in the SeriesAt DK, we believe in the power of discovery.So why stop there? If you like the first four books in The Dinosaur Club Boxset 1, then you’ll love the following Dinosaur Club titles, The Compsognathus Chase, Catching the Velociraptor and Escaping the Liopleurodon!
£22.52
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Liquid Flesh: New & Selected Poems
Spanning twenty years and five collections, Brenda Shaughnessy’s Liquid Flesh: New & Selected Poems introduces new readers to one of America’s most audacious and thrilling poets. Since debuting with the sexy swagger of 1999’s Interior with Sudden Joy, Shaughnessy has honed a poetic voice rich with contradictions: her poems are simultaneously tricky and blindingly honest, sensual and grief-stricken, coy and utterly self-possessed. She is a moralist with a profound sense of play, taking the patriarchy and the malevolent powers-that-be to task, as in her seminal poem ‘I’m Over the Moon’: ‘I don't like what the moon is supposed to do./ Confuse me, ovulate me,// spoon-feed me longing. A kind of ancient / date-rape drug. So I'll howl at you, moon,// I'm angry. I'll take back the night.’ Shaughnessy is omnivorous and fearless, even as she stares down her terrors, whether the blaze, fizzle, or explosion of wild love between women, or the unquenchable pain of a son’s birth injury. She celebrates, too, revelling in the pleasures and powers of the body and the transcendence of art. Her poems dance wildly to the sizzling music of the English language, awake to every syllable: ‘Artless// is my heart. A stranger/ berry there never was,/ tartless.// Gone sour in the sun,/ in the sunroom or moonroof,/ roofless.’ These poems are also, at times, laugh-out-loud funny – ‘like having a bad boyfriend in a good band’ – though there is always wisdom beyond the punchline. Beginning with the youthful love lyrics of Interior with Sudden Joy, and opening onto the wily reckonings of Human Dark with Sugar, the unsparingly fierce mother-love and parallel worlds of Our Andromeda, the reverb-soaked coming of age and coming to consciousness of So Much Synth, the dark sci-fi prophecy of The Octopus Museum, before new poems that pay homage to women artists and their pathbreaking art, Liquid Flesh collects an unprecedented body of work unlike anything else in contemporary poetry.
£14.99
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and Beyond
A gripping memoir of life in Jerusalem from one of Australia's most experienced Middle East correspondents. Leading Australian journalist John Lyons will take readers on a fascinating personal journey through the wonders and dangers of the Middle East. From the sheer excitement of arriving in Jerusalem with his wife and eight-year-old son, to the fall of dictators and his gripping account of what it feels like to be taken by Egyptian soldiers, blindfolded and interrogated, this is a memoir of the Middle East like no other. Drawing on a 20-year interest in the Middle East, Lyons has had extraordinary access - he's interviewed everyone from Israel's former Prime Ministers Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert to key figures from Hezbollah and Hamas. He's witnessed the brutal Iranian Revolutionary Guard up close and was one of the last foreign journalists in Iran during the violent crackdown against the 'Green Revolution'. He's confronted Hamas officials about why they fire rockets into Israel and Israeli soldiers about why they fire tear gas at Palestinian school children. By telling the story of his family travelling through the region, this book is extremely readable and entertaining, full of humour, colour. It is sometimes dazzling in its detail, sometimes tragic. Lyons says he has written it in a way that readers can feel they are there with him - so they can smell the wonderful markets of the Middle East and feel the fear of what it is like to be blindfolded and have your hands bound with electrical cord. Lyons also looks at 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank - the mechanics of how this works and the effect it now has on both Israelis and Palestinians.Lyons explains the Middle East through every day life and experiences - his son's school, his wife's friends and his own dealings with a range of people over six years. If you only read one book on the Middle East, this is it.
£13.49
Fordham University Press Salvage Work: U.S. and Caribbean Literatures amid the Debris of Legal Personhood
Salvage Work examines contemporary literary responses to the law’s construction of personhood in the Americas. Tracking the extraordinary afterlives of the legal slave personality from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first, Angela Naimou shows the legal slave to be a fractured but generative figure for contemporary legal personhood across categories of race, citizenship, gender, and labor. What emerges is a compelling and original study of how law invents categories of identification and how literature contends with the person as a legal fiction. Through readings of Francisco Goldman’s The Ordinary Seaman, Edwidge Danticat’s Krik?Krak!, Rosario Ferre’s Sweet Diamond Dust (Maldito Amor), Gayl Jones’s Song for Anninho and Mosquito, and John Edgar Wideman’s Fanon, Naimou shows how literary engagements with legal personhood reconfigure formal narrative conventions in Black Atlantic historiography, the immigrant novel, the anticolonial romance, the trope of the talking book, and the bildungsroman. Revealing links between colonial, civic, slave, labor, immigration, and penal law, Salvage Work reframes debates over civil and human rights by revealing the shared hemispheric histories and effects of legal personhood across seemingly disparate identities—including the human and the corporate person, the political refugee and the economic migrant, and the stateless person and the citizen. In depicting the material remains of the legal slave personality in the de-industrialized neoliberal era, these literary texts develop a salvage aesthetic that invites us to rethink our political and aesthetic imagination of personhood. Questioning liberal frameworks for civil and human rights as well as what Naimou calls death-bound theories of personhood—in which forms of human life are primarily described as wasted, disposable, bare, or dead in law—Salvage Work thus responds to critical discussions of biopolitics and neoliberal globalization by exploring the potential for contemporary literature to reclaim the individual from the legal regimes that have marked her.
£75.60
The History Press Ltd The Great Borders Flood of 1948
August 1948 was an exceptional month. There were 90mph gales in Belgium, snowfalls in Switzerland and in the Scottish Borders one of the heaviest rainfalls ever in one day, while the Tweed received more than a third of its annual rainfall in only six days. The flood plain of the Tweed could just about cope with the deluge, but smaller rivers such as the Tyne at Haddington, the Biel, the Blackadder, Whiteadder Water, Rivers Till and Eye were disasters waiting to happen. The main problem was not the twenty-four-hour deluge but the rain of the previous two weeks that had already seen the rivers rise to bursting point. ‘The Glorious Twelfth’ was a day of disaster and the next few days were to affect the Borders for months to come. The sheer volume of water flowing down the rivers resulted in them bursting their banks, causing widespread flooding over a large area. The East Coast Main Line was breached in many places and was closed for eleven weeks as a result of the damage. Trees and other debris swept down with the floodwater had blocked culverts and the resultant lakes of water put so much pressure on the embankments that they were simply swept away, leaving railway lines dangling in mid-air. Roads were damaged and houses, cars and livestock swept away with the floodwater. There were many lucky escapes: a train passing over a bridge at Greenlaw just minutes before the bridge was swept away; people were rescued from their houses literally seconds before they collapsed from underneath them. Many deeds of bravery performed in that wet and windy August are also recorded in Lawson Wood’s 'The Great Borders Flood of 1948'. Illustrated with over 100 images of the greatest natural disaster to hit the Borders, this book is a unique record of that fateful month of August 1948.
£12.99
DK Dinosaur Club: Avoiding the Allosaurus
Travel back in time on a prehistoric journey to the world of the dinosaurs! Dive into an exciting Jurassic world and travel back in time with the Dinosaur Club. These character-driven dinosaur books explore different dinosaur species through a thrilling adventure story. Meet Jamie, a member of the Dinosaur Club. They are a network of kids around the world who love to share dinosaur knowledge, help identify fossils, post dino discoveries, and chat about all things prehistoric. Jamie has just moved to Ammonite Bay, a stretch of coastline famous for its fossils. He is busy exploring when he discovers some dinosaur footprints and is transported back to the time of the dinosaurs! It sounds like Jamie needs some help from the Dinosaur Club when he runs into a dangerous Allosaurus…This collection of exciting dinosaur stories features:- An introduction to core nonfiction to children aged 5-7 who prefer stories, but are packed with exciting dinosaur facts.- Beautifully illustrated line art accompanied by expertly written text.- Reference pages to build upon all dinosaur fans’ knowledge about these fascinating prehistoric creatures.- All the latest dinosaur information and up-to-date discoveries.- Engaging material that reinforces the narrative, including timelines, quizzes, fact files, and glossaries.Dinosaur Club: Avoiding the Allosaurus will take your child on a Jurassic adventure as they learn about the Allosaurus dinosaur species through fun facts, timelines and quizzes. Children will love to learn about the prehistoric world with the Dinosaur Club collection of character-driven adventure stories for fans aged 5-7 years old. More in the seriesAt DK, we believe in the power of discovery.So why stop there? If you like Dinosaur Club: Avoiding the Allosaurus, then you’ll love other titles in the series. Why not try Dinosaur Club: The T.rex Attack, Dinosaur Club: Saving the Stegosaurus, and Dinosaur Club: The Compsognathus Chase and embark on a Jurassic adventure whilst learning about different dinosaur species!
£8.23
University of California Press A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat
At the center of this pioneering work in modern European history is the German word Heimat—the homeland, the local place. Translations barely penetrate the meaning of the word, which has provided the emotional and ideological common ground for a variety of associations and individuals devoted to the cause of local preservation. Celia Applegate examines at both the national and regional levels the cultural meaning of Heimat and why it may be pivotal to the troubled and very timely question of German identity. The ideas and activities clustered around Heimat shed new light particularly on problems of modernization. Instead of viewing the Germans as a dangerously anti-modern people, Applegate argues that they used the cultivation of Heimat to ground an abstract nationalism in their attachment to familiar places and to reconcile the modern industrial and urban world with the rural landscapes and customs they admired. Primarily a characteristic of the middle classes, love of Heimat constituted an alternative vision of German unity to the familiar aggressive, militaristic one. The Heimat vision of Germany emphasized cultural diversity and defined German identity by its internal members rather than its external enemies. Applegate asks that we re-examine the continuities of German history from the perspective of the local places that made up Germany, rather than from that of prominent intellectuals or national policymakers. The local patriotism of Heimat activists emerges as an element of German culture that persisted across the great divides of 1918, 1933, and 1945. She also suggests that this attachment to a particular place is a feature of Europeans in general and is deserving of further attention. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.
£30.60
University of Washington Press War and Politics by Other Means: A Journalist's Memoir
Shelby Scates’s thirty-five-year career as a prize-winning journalist and columnist for International News Service, United Press International, the Associated Press, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has taken him to centers of action across this country and to wars and conflicts in many of the world’s danger zones. Born in the rural South in the 1930s, Scates rejected the racism he saw there and in his late teens set out across the United States — eventually to land in Seattle, attend the University of Washington, and launch himself into a world of work, travel, and adventure as a merchant seaman and soldier. He entered journalism as a wire-service reporter hired in Manhattan and assigned to the Dallas bureau. Reporting the political beat brought Scates to Baton Rouge and New Orleans to observe the remarkable performance and influence of Earl Long as governor of Louisiana; in 1957 to Little Rock, Arkansas, to witness a constitutional crisis, the early struggle to integrate the public schools; to Oklahoma City and Dallas; and to Washington, D.C., where he became familiar with both the corridors of Congress and Lyndon Johnson’s Oval Office and Air Force One. He was in Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War and its aftermath; in Lebanon and Egypt to learn about the Palestine Liberation Organization; in the Suez to investigate the “War of Attrition”; and in Cambodia during guerrilla fighting against the Vietnamese Army. As a newsman he reported on those American climbers who triumphed, though not without suffering great personal losses, by reaching the top of K2 in 1978. Scates used his considerable journalistic experience and inventiveness to get the story of this epic climb quickly back to the United States. He also describes his own midlife climb of Mt. McKinley with two friends. In a straightforward portrayal of professional life that manifests elements of both The Front Page and All the President’s Men, this memoir is about the particular combination of idealism, persistence, skepticism, and dedication to truthful reporting that marks the best of American journalism.
£25.19
Casemate Publishers The Paratrooper Training Pocket Manual 1939–1945
Airborne assault was one of the great innovations of the 1930s and 1940s, adding a new ‘vertical’ dimension to infantry warfare. By the onset of World War II in 1939, Germany, Italy, and Russia were already advanced in their development of paratrooper units. Germany in particular demonstrated the tactical shock of paratroopers in Western Europe in 1940 and, most spectacularly, in Crete in 1941, galvanizing the UK and the United States to expand and train their own airborne forces, which they unleashed in 1943–45. The Allied paratrooper drops on D-Day (6 June 1944) and those of Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944) were the stuff of legend, huge in scale and ambition, but both Allied and Axis paratroopers were deployed in numerous other actions, including special forces raids.It quickly became apparent that the physical and tactical demands placed upon paratroopers required men of exceptional stamina, courage and intelligence. To create these soldiers, levels of training were unusually punishing and protracted, and those who came through to take their ‘wings’ were a true elite.The Paratrooper Training Pocket Manual provides an unusually detailed insight into what it took to make a military paratrooper, and how he was then utilized in actions where expected survival might be measured in a matter of days. Using material from British, US, German archives and other primary sources, many never before published, the book explains paratrooper theory, training and practice in detail. The content includes details of the physical training, instruction in static-line parachute deployment, handling the various types of parachutes and harnesses, landing on dangerous terrain, small-arms handling, airborne deployment of heavier combat equipment, landing in hostile drop zones, tactics in the first minutes of landing, radio comms, and much more.Featuring original manual diagrams and illustrations, plus new introductory text explaining the history and context of airborne warfare, The Paratrooper Training Pocket Manual provides a detailed insight into the principles and practice of this unique type of combat soldier.
£9.99
Advantage Media Group The CEO's Digital Survival Guide: A Practical Handbook to Navigating the Future
A Guide to Creating the Best Data Communications and Networks for Your BusinessNo business can function without the effective design and implementation of data communications and computer networks. Yet these IT functions remain poorly understood and difficult to build strategy upon. However, every CEO needs to ensure that their organization has a powerful data communications strategy to succeed, as innovative landscapes continue to shift, challenging their operations at every turn. And one way to stay above the chaos and still operate efficiently is by having the right computer network to back it all up, safely and securely.But most CEOs do not have time to become computer network experts, although it is crucial that they understand the constantly evolving technical dangers that can disrupt and destroy their business model. Even for leaders without a strong technical background, Nathan offers the tools for CEOs to be able to analyze what they need to implement in their organization’s overall digital strategy.In The CEO’s Digital Survival Guide: A Practical Handbook to Navigating the Future, Nathan Whittacre gives access to the fundamentals of basic operations, features, and the limitations of different computer networks available today. Nathan has years of experience creating systems and processes to help CEOs run their businesses. He gives an easy-to-follow overview of what every CEO needs to know in order to be able to systematically understand, analyze and implement the right system for their organization to protect their infrastructure against external and internal threats. He explains best practices and discusses the most current technologies that are available.This book reveals everything you need to know about: Creating the best system for your organization Protecting Information Assets Cybersecurity Technology systems for business Network Design and Business Continuity Access Control and Surveillance Computer networks Linux Data security Encryption Information Systems Security IT services Internet services VoIP phone systems Small- and medium-sized business computing Virtualization Cloud computing Windows networks Microwave and millimeter RF technology Wide area networks
£25.19
John Murray Press The Badly Behaved Bible: Thinking again about the story of Scripture
We're told that the Bible is beautiful, uplifting and a joy to read - but, while we know this is how we're supposed to feel about it, in reality many of us find the very opposite. On opening the Bible, we are faced with a multitude of problems; from its form and historical content to its sheer size and often distasteful stories, we can be left feeling overwhelmed and disheartened. But the problem is not with the Bible - and it's not with us either.The problem is we've been misinformed. And so, we end up believing things about the Bible that the Bible never claims for itself. But the Bible won't politely sign up to the neat categories and terms we force on it. That's why it's badly behaved. We want to control the Bible and tame it so that we can ride it into battle; but the Bible bucks and rears and throws us off. We want to pin the Bible down so that it proves our theology; but the Bible evades capture and plays hide and seek. We want answers; but the Bible keeps firing questions. We want it to tell us what to do; but the Bible keeps telling us to think. We want to make the Bible dance to our tune: but the Bible has music of its own. The Bible is an invitation and a call. The breath of God lifts its pages, and they rise and fall with his breathing.In his honest and accessible style, Nick Page urges us to re-discover a fresh look at the Bible as thescriptural bedrock of the Christian faith, to learn how we can undo unhelpful ways of reading it anddemystifying its purpose and scope.Nick tackles what the Bible is and what it isn't, how we can critically read this inspired text and how we approach the difficulties in its content.Alongside helpful analysis and practical advice - including kickstarting his one-man campaign to ban"Bible study" - Nick helps us re-discover how to rediscover the Bible as Holy Ground, as a place where we meet and encounter God.
£10.99
Little, Brown Book Group Running out of Road: A gripping thriller set in the Derbyshire peaks
'Staincliffe excels herself here with the story of a teenage girl abducted by her real father... [a]harrowing but human drama.' Irish Daily MailA missing schoolgirl, a middle-aged recluse, an exploited teenager. Lives thrown into chaos and set on collision course. With the police in hot pursuit. Scarlett is dancing in the school talent show tomorrow. Nana, who Scarlett lives with since Mum died, reckons Scarlett will be on Strictly at this rate. Except Scarlett doesn't make it home from school. She's abducted by a man she never imagined she'd see again. A man on the police's most wanted list. Her dad. Ron has made a living as a house and pet sitter since quitting his career on the front line in the fire service. He's currently looking after a place deep in the Derbyshire Peaks. The solitude suits him. And managing animals is so much simpler than coping with other people. Dylan's a 'cuckoo', dealing drugs on the county line, moving from nest to nest, picking out people who daren't say no. Keeping his head down, one step ahead of the law. So far. But now everything's falling apart.DS Laura O'Neil is running on empty after nights dealing with her teething toddler. But Laura is driving the hunt for Scarlett and knows that every minute counts. A race against time, played out in the brooding wilderness, the limestone gorges and gritstone edges of the Peak District. Themes of escape and entrapment, of shifting loyalties and new alliances, of violence, fear and love, resilience, kindness and hope.Praise for Cath Staincliffe:''This powerful, often harrowing story will move you to tears' My Weekly'Harrowing and humane. A real knockout' Ian Rankin'It's always exciting to see a writer get better and better and Cath Staincliffe is doing just that' Val McDermid'Powerful, complex and utterly gripping' Sunday Mirror'An intelligent and emotionally engaging moral workout' Daily Telegraph'Complex and satisfying' Sunday Times
£18.89
Little, Brown Book Group Hunted: Enter an addictive world of sizzlingly hot paranormal romance . . .
Enter an addictive world of sizzlingly hot paranormal romance . . . 'Wicked banter and smexy scenes galore' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ reader review.........................He's calling to the demon inside her . . .Larkin is tired of her friends constantly trying to play Cupid. Just because they are all happily mated doesn't mean she needs to be. And she definitely doesn't need the over-protective men in her life vetting potential partners for her. In a bid to get them off her back, the harpy turns to the one person she knows they would never approve of . . .Teague Sullivan. Explicitly sexy and unquestionably alpha male, the mysterious hellhorse is the perfect candidate for a fake relationship. More than happy to spend time with the pretty harpy, Teague agrees. But when a wager is made between them, and things start to heat up, Larkin can't seem to ignore their explosive chemistry - and neither can her demon.But when old and new dangers creep up on them, and Teague's shady past starts to ring alarm bells; he must decide whether to trust Larkin completely or risk losing her forever.What readers are saying about Suzanne Wright:'The chemistry sizzles off the page' Netgalley review'Hot as hell . . . explosive' Netgalley review'It's been two minutes since my last fix and I need Suzanne Wright to give me more' Edgy Reviews'No words to describe how much I ADORE this extraordinary and magical read!!!' Gi's Spot Reviews on Burn'Sarcastic banter, a sexy alpha demon and his smart-mouthed heroine, an intense, highly passionate romance . . . I devoured this book from start to finish!' The Escapist Book Blog on Burn'Unique, original and very entertaining' Ramblings from this Chick.........................If you love this book, make sure you check out the rest of The Dark In You series - discover how this sizzling hot story began . . . BURN BLAZE ASHES EMBERS SHADOWS OMENSFALLENREAPERHUNTED
£9.99
Edition Skylight Clover
Katya Clover loves being naked, and enjoys dancing and traveling so she can show off her wonderful body. Much to our delight, she is generous with her time, giving us many intimate and arresting insights into her feminine beauty without a hint of shyness. She does this at home and on the road, but mainly in front of the camera, as this new volume of photographs well attests. The collection was put together by Stefan Soell, well-known for his erotic but natural style of photography. The book even includes a recipe for delicious apple pie, well-presented by a naked Katya Clover, who shows us what to do step by step, right up until you put it in the oven!Katya Clover was born in 1989 on Sakhalin, Russia's largest island. Her language-learning skills quickly enabled her to become fluent at English and travel all over the world. She started her career on the internet with Instagram and Twitter. Her erotic charisma and natural charm have steadily enhanced her popularity, helped by her very revealing photos and videos, which, however, have never exceeded her own acceptable limits. Katya Clover firmly believes that people shouldn't be ashamed of their nudity, and attracted attention early on in her career through appearances in Playboy, MetArt.com, and FemJoy.com. Since 2014, she has appeared in a number of erotic films, and today Katya Clover is one of the world's most popular erotic models. "CLOVER" is her exclusive debut collection of photos, featuring over 180 images. To see so much female beauty presented so openly, without a trace of bashfulness, is indeed a rare thing! As such, Katya Clover is an ambassador for radical nudism, and as worshipers of feminine allure, we especially appreciate her courage.This exclusive first photo book "CLOVER" brings together over 180 photos. So much female beauty, so completely without shyness, is rare. Katya Clover is the ambassador of radical nudism and we, as worshipers of feminine allure, particularly appreciate her courage...
£26.96
Nick Hern Books Year of the Fat Knight (Hardback): The Falstaff Diaries
Thirty years ago a promising young actor published his account of preparing for and playing the role of Richard III. Antony Sher's Year of the King has since become a classic of theatre literature. In 2014, Sher, now in his sixties, was cast as Falstaff in Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the two parts of Henry IV. Both the production and Sher's Falstaff were acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, with Sher winning the Critics' Circle Award for Best Shakespearean Performance. Year of the Fat Knight is Antony Sher's account - splendidly supplemented by his own paintings and sketches - of researching, rehearsing and performing one of Shakespeare's best-known and most popular characters. He tells us how he had doubts about playing the part at all, how he sought to reconcile Falstaff's obesity, drunkenness, cowardice and charm, how he wrestled with the fat suit needed to bulk him up, and how he explored the complexities and contradictions of this comic yet often dangerous personality. On the way, Sher paints a uniquely close-up portrait of the RSC at work.Year of the Fat Knight is a terrific read, rich in humour and with a built-in tension as opening night draws relentlessly nearer. It also stands as a celebration of the craft of character acting. All in all, it is destined to rank with Year of the King as one of the most enduring accounts of the creation of a giant Shakespearean role. Praise for Year of the King: 'This is a most wonderfully authentic account of the experience of creating a performance' Sunday Times 'The most exciting actor of his generation and an eloquent writer on the side' Observer Praise for Sher's Falstaff: 'A magnificent, magnetic performance - Sher plays down the fatness to emphasise the knight's upper-class origins. But, just as you start to warm to this Falstaff, you are reminded of his rapacity' Guardian 'It is Sher's irrepressible Falstaff that will linger in the memory - a lord of misrule who's absurd, delightful and in the end deeply sad' Evening Standard
£10.99
Rowman & Littlefield Blood, Sweat, and My Rock 'n' Roll Years: Is Steve Katz a Rock Star?
On paper Steve Katz’s career rivals anyone’s except the 1960s’ and ’70’s biggest stars: the Monterey Pop Festival with the legendary Blues Project, Woodstock with Blood, Sweat & Tears, and even producing rock’s most celebrated speed addict, Lou Reed. There were world tours, and his résumé screams “Hall of Fame” — it won’t be long before BS&T are on that ballot. He has three Grammies (ten nominations), three Downbeat Reader’s Poll Awards, three gold records, one platinum record, and one quadruple platinum platter (the second Blood, Sweat & Tears album), not to mention three gold singles with BS&T. All together, he’s sold close to 29 million records. He had affairs with famous female folk singers, made love to Jim Morrison’s girlfriend Pam when Jim was drunk and abusive, partied with Elizabeth Taylor and Groucho Marx, dined with Rudolf Nureyev, conversed with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tennessee Williams, hung out with Andy Warhol, jammed with everyone from Mose Allison to Jimi Hendrix, and was told to get a haircut by both Mickey Spillane and Danny Thomas. But his memoir is more Portnoy’s Complaint than the lurid party-with-your-pants-down memoir that has become the norm for rock ’n’ roll books. It’s an honest and personal account of a life at the edge of the spotlight—a privileged vantage point that earned him a bit more objectivity and earnest outrage than a lot of his colleagues, who were too far into the scene to lay any honest witness to it. Set during the Greenwich Village folk/rock scene, the Sixties’ most celebrated venues and concerts, and behind closed doors on international tours and grueling studio sessions, this is the unlikely story of a rock star as nerd, nerd as rock star, a nice Jewish boy who got to sit at the cool kid’s table and score the hot chicks.
£14.99
Cornerstone A Fatal Crossing
'Dazzling' Crime Monthly'My kind of book!' Belfast Telegraph'Captivating' My Weekly Magazine'Ingenious' Crime Time'Suspenseful' Country Life Magazine_____________________________________November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail to New York with 2,000 passengers - and a killer - on board .When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship's officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye.Birch agrees to investigate, and the trail quickly leads to the theft of a priceless painting. Its very existence is known only to its owner . . . and the now dead man.With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple's purpose on board the Endeavour proving increasingly suspicious, Birch's search for the culprit is fraught with danger.And all the while, the passengers continue to roam the ship with a killer in their midst. ________________________________________________________'A very clever plot and a final twist which will delight Agatha Christie fans. You will love it!!!' Ragnar Jónasson'With twist after gut-punching twist, A Fatal Crossing really is an ingenious thriller. Highly recommend' M. W. Craven'It twists and turns like the best of Christie' - Peterborough Telegraph'A tantalizing and captivating plot, filled with detail and texture to enhance the feeling of the halcyon days of the liners and their times' Shots Magazine'The action unfolds at a rip-roaring pace in this perfectly executed homage to the Golden Age of crime, which features a deviously devised plot boasting a final twist worthy of Christie herself. I absolutely loved it' Anita Frank'Twists and turns cartwheel to a blindsiding finish' Woman's Weekly'My favourite westward Atlantic crossing detective novel is Peter Lovesey's The Fake Inspector Dew (1981), but A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle is a first-rate addition to the corpus [...] A very good debut novel' The CriticMurder on Lake Garda by Tom Hindle was a no.8 Sunday Times bestseller 04/02/24
£9.99
Hodder & Stoughton The Fallen Angel: The stunning conclusion to The King’s Witch trilogy
'An outstanding page-turner . . . historical fiction at its absolute best' - Alison Weir'An engaging heroine . . . and Borman's depiction of Villiers, with all his ruthless charisma, is striking' - The Sunday Times_____________________________________________Frances Gorges seems destined to be happy at last. King James has apparently lost his appetite for hunting witches, so the medical skills and herbal knowledge that saw Frances accused of witchcraft no longer seem to hang over her like a death sentence. The King would rather be hunting stag and boar - and Frances's beloved husband Thomas is firmly established in the royal household as the Master of Buckhounds. Their family is growing and their estates are secure.But life at court is never without intrigue, jealousy and danger for long, and a new arrival turns the world upside down.George Villiers is a young man with the face of an angel - and as his many enemies are about to discover, the cunning heart of a devil.Soon James is totally in thrall to this charismatic new lover. All the King's former favourites are crushed by Villiers' lies and ruthless scheming. Thomas's life is made a misery and Frances is back under suspicion as Villiers - rapidly made the Earl of Buckingham - moves to secure the hand and fortune of her friend Katherine Manners.Appalled at the courtier's greed and ambition and the King's weakness and lust, Frances finds herself drawn back towards her old friend Sir Walter Raleigh and his last, desperate plot to see a Catholic monarch on the throne. And then her troubles really begin...The Fallen Angel is a standalone novel of thrilling power and emotional drama. It is also the concluding volume in the King's Witch trilogy, establishing Tracy Borman as one of our leading writers of historical fiction.'Unexpected twists and turns with every page . . . masterfully crafted' - Nicola Tallis'Lots of fascinating detail and insight into James's backstabbing court . . . enjoyable' - The Times'Lush, wholly convincing and utterly gripping. Fact and fiction have rarely been blent so seamlessly' - Sarah Gristwood
£16.99
Little, Brown Book Group Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World
'Amazingly well researched, fabulously informative and an awful lot of fun. If you love Japanese culture or are just curious to know more I can't recommend this book highly enough' Jonathan Ross'A nerd- and generalist-friendly look at how Japan shaped the post-World War II world, from toys to Trump . . . A non-native's savvy study of Japan's wide influence in ways both subtle and profound' KirkusThe Walkman. Karaoke. Pikachu. Pac-Man. Akira. Emoji. We've all fallen in love with one or another of Japan's pop-culture creations, from the techy to the wild to the super-kawaii. But as Japanese-media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation of Tokyo's pop-fantasy complex, we don't know the half of it.Japan's toys, gadgets, and fantasy worlds didn't merely entertain. They profoundly transformed the way we live. In the 1970s and '80s, Japan seemed to exist in some near future, soaring on the superior technology of Sony and Toyota while the West struggled to catch up. Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in the 'lost decades' of deep recession and social dysfunction.The end of the boom times should have plunged Japan into irrelevance, but that's precisely when its cultural clout soared - when, once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us. Hello Kitty, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and multimedia empires like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z were more than marketing hits. Artfully packaged, dangerously cute, and dizzyingly fun, these products made Japan the forge of the world's fantasies, and gave us new tools for coping with trying times. They also transformed us as we consumed them - connecting as well as isolating us in new ways, opening vistas of imagination and pathways to revolution.Through the stories of an indelible group of artists, geniuses, and oddballs, Pure Invention reveals how Japanese ingenuity remade global culture and may have created modern life as we know it. It's Japan's world; we're just gaming, texting, singing, and dreaming in it.
£12.99