Search results for ""Author Neil""

Although the saying, ‘Pigs might fly…’ may bring a smile to one’s lips, even stranger things have been reported as appearing in Britain’s skies over the centuries. Eye-witnesses have testified that various terrifying and bizarre forms have appeared in the skies, from ghostly planes, phantom airships and UFOs, to reports of sky serpents, celestial dragons, flying jellyfish, rains of fish (or blood, or metal, or frogs…) – even reports of a griffin seen over London! It also considers reports of haunted aircraft hangars and airfields. Shadows in the Sky compiles hundreds of accounts from the spine-chilling to the downright bizarre, that’ll keep your eyes fixed looking upwards!

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Includes an audio version of the picture book.

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Digital technologies are a key feature of contemporary education. Schools, colleges and universities operate along high-tech lines, while alternate forms of online education have emerged to challenge the dominance of traditional institutions. According to many experts, the rapid digitization of education over the past ten years has undoubtedly been a ‘good thing’. Is Technology Good For Education? offers a critical counterpoint to this received wisdom, challenging some of the central ways in which digital technology is presumed to be positively affecting education. Instead Neil Selwyn considers what is being lost as digital technologies become ever more integral to education provision and engagement. Crucially, he questions the values, agendas and interests that stand to gain most from the rise of digital education. This concise, up-to-the-minute analysis concludes by considering alternate approaches that might be capable of rescuing and perhaps revitalizing the ideals of public education, while not denying the possibilities of digital technology altogether.

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Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin for a fourth presidential term in 2018 has seen Russian democracy weaken further and Russia’s relations with the West deteriorate seriously. Yet, within Russia, Putin’s position remains unchallenged and his foreign policy battles have received widespread public support. But is Putin as safe as his approval ratings lead us to believe? And how secure is the regime that he heads? In this new book, Neil Robinson places contemporary Russian politics in historical perspective to argue that Putin’s regime has not overcome the problems that underpinned the momentous changes in twentieth-century Russian history when the country veered from tsarism to Soviet rule to post-communist chaos. The first part of the book, outlining why crises have been perennial problems for Russia, is followed by an exploration of contemporary Russian political institutions and policy to show how Putin has stabilised Russian politics. But, while Putin’s achievements as a politician have been considerable in strengthening his personal position, they have not dealt successfully with the enduring problem of the Russian state’s functionality. Like other Russian rulers, Putin has been much better at establishing a political system that supports his rule than he has at building up a state that can deliver material wealth and protection to the Russian people. As a result, Robinson argues, Russia has been and remains vulnerable to political crisis and regime change.

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History is a weapon. The powerful have their version of events, the people have another. And if we understand how the past was forged, we arm ourselves to change the future. This is a history of struggle, revolution and social change: of hominids, hunters and herders; of emperors and slaves; of patriarchs and women; of rich and poor; of dictators and revolutionaries. From the ancient empires of Persia and Rome to the Russian Revolution, the Vietnam War, and the 2008 Crash, this is a history of greed and violence, but also of solidarity and resistance. Many times in the past, a different society became an absolute necessity. Humans have always struggled to create a better life. This history proves that we, the many, have the power to change the world.

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History is a weapon. The powerful have their version of events, the people have another. And if we understand how the past was forged, we arm ourselves to change the future. This is a history of struggle, revolution and social change: of hominids, hunters and herders; of emperors and slaves; of patriarchs and women; of rich and poor; of dictators and revolutionaries. From the ancient empires of Persia and Rome to the Russian Revolution, the Vietnam War, and the 2008 Crash, this is a history of greed and violence, but also of solidarity and resistance. Many times in the past, a different society became an absolute necessity. Humans have always struggled to create a better life. This history proves that we, the many, have the power to change the world.

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This magisterial analysis of human history - from 'Lucy', the first hominid, to the current Great Recession - combines the insights of earlier generations of Marxist historians with radical new ideas about the historical process. Reading history against the grain, Neil Faulkner reveals that what happened in the past was not predetermined. Choices were frequent and numerous. Different outcomes - liberation or barbarism - were often possible. Rejecting the top-down approach of conventional history, Faulkner contends that it is the mass action of ordinary people that drives great events. At the beginning of the 21st century - with economic disaster, war, climate catastrophe and deep class divisions - humans face perhaps the greatest crisis in the long history of our species. The lesson of A Marxist History of the World is that, if we created our past, we can also create a better future.

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This book champions social movements as one of the most influential agents that shape our conceptions of human rights. It argues that human rights cannot be understood outside of the context of social movement struggles. It explains how much of the literature on human rights has systematically obscured this link, consequently distorting our understandings of human rights. Neil Stammers shows how human rights can be understood. He suggests that what he calls the 'paradox of institutionalisation' can only be addressed through a recognition of the importance of human rights arising out of grassroots activism, and through processes of institutional democratisation.

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The Sicilian BB5 Revealed follows the huge success of The Benko Gambit Revealed and The Queen's Pawn Attack Revealed in a new and innovative series of books. Using fresh, clear presentation, the key ideas of the openings are explained in an entertaining and accessible way. The aim of this series is to provide the essential knowledge to play the opening, while at the same time revealing the current thinking of the World’s elite players. For example, ‘First Moves’ leads readers through the basic opening moves. ‘Heroes & Zeroes’ gives the best and worst performances with the opening and features some of the leading exponents of the Benko Gambit. ‘Tricks & Traps’ reveals how you might catch out your opponent. ‘What’s Hot’ pinpoints the very latest ideas from the world’s elite. A detailed table in the style of ECO is given at the close of the book, summarising the main variations with assessments. 'The Sicilian BB5' is the most popular and successful Anti-Sicilian Variation. It first came to attention when it was used by Vassily Ivanchuk to score a stunning win against Gary Kasparov at Linares in 1991. It has since become recognised as the perfect way to avoid mainline Sicilian theory without compromising White’s attacking ideals. As such it has proved a deadly weapon in the hands of Adams and Grischuk – and even Kasparov himself. In this book you will find full coverage of both 2…d6 3.Bb5+ and 2…Nc6 3.Bb5. You will be shown how to implement in your own games the ideas and attacking systems that have worked so successfully at the highest level.

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Language, Bananas, and Bonobos presents a series of engaging reflections on concerns such as our knowledge and use of language, political correctness, and the linguistic abilities of chimpanzees. In doing so, this volume provides new insights into linguistics that are of universal interest.

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This unique book provides an introductory overview of modern theoretical linguistics which manages to be both accessible and humorous without sacrificing either scholarship of insight. In a series of magisterial vignettes Smith emphasizes the perennial necessity of appealing to linguistic theory if we are to gain any real understanding of the phenomena of language. However profound or however trivial the questions we raise and try answer - What exactly does one have to know to count as a speaker of a language? What would it mean for a language to have no vowels? Why do little children call lorries 'lollies'? Precisely what with this sentence is wrong? - we need to recourse to a theory even to make them coherent. In particular, the author argues that we can find solutions to our puzzles, and explanations for these phenomena, if we exploit on the one hand Chomsky's theory of Generative Grammar, and on the other Sperber and Wilson's theory of Relevance.

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This textbook provides a highly readable account of the current state of knowledge of the origins and nature of many psychological disorders.

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Seamus Heaney's poetic career has been one of constant development and expansion, and his place among the world's greatest literary figures is universally acknowledged. When it first appeared in 1986, Neil Corcoran's A Student's Guide to Seamus Heaney was immediately recognized as the clearest and most thorough account of his work so far, and it has not been rivalled since. The new edition, which like the original has had the advantage of Seamus Heaney's own cooperation and unstinted access to the poet's papers, follows the same pattern, adding a chapter apiece on the major collections of poems published since 1986, as well as separate discussions of Heaney's work as a translator and essayist. The published chapters have also been revised. In consequence, this not only remains the most useful introduction to a singularly varied and important body of work, but is the most up-to-date as well.

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When the web transitioned from a publishing to an interactive e-commerce medium, standardised web-browsers entered widespread use and developers were able to rely on a relatively stable client component. Since then, server-side developments have blossomed and resulted in considerable ease of programming, efficiency and increasing sophistication of the server-side environment. Focusing on various technologies that support the server-side processing of data from web-based forms, principally CGI style programs, scripting and Java solutions, this is a book tailored to the technical and computational components of running a commercial and successful website. To benefit most from this approach, you will have a working knowledge of HTML, some programming experience in Java or C++, and limited experience with databases. Its concentration on server-side to the exclusion of web-page design and client-side concerns will be welcomed by practitioners and students who want hands-on and in-depth guidance on: * Setting up and running an Apache server * Use of Perl for web CGI programming and support administrative tasks * PHP Scripting - ideal for prototyping small web services * Servlet technologies * JSP - separating the issues of business programming and presentation * XML - a few of its applications * Advanced services with EJBs * NET's new world order - a better model for client/server interaction The unified presentation allows for evaluation and comparison and cuts down on tedious duplication of content. Use it as a map to navigate the strengths and niches of each of the tools to help judge which best suits your environment and requirements. Realistic examples help to ground this broad coverage of server technologies and will prove invaluable for web masters, systems administrators and students looking for careers requiring web programming skills. Please visit booksite: www.uow.edu.au/~nabg/WebServer

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Will there ever be an end to the supply of books about Alfred Hitchcock?', pleaded the Times Literary Supplement in 2008. It is a fair question for, as Michael Walker pointed out in Hitchcock's Motifs, more has been written about Hitchcock (18991980) than any other film director. Indeed, Jane E. Sloan's 1993 Hitchcock bibliography revealed that well over seventy-five scholarly books and nearly 1,000 articles had been published by 1990; and those figures have, of course, continued inexorably to rise.So, while the prospective viewer of Vertigo or Rear Window is likely to feel a compelling need for some preparation before consuming the film itself, the daunting quantity (and variable quality) of Hitchcock criticism makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. That is why this new Routledge title, compiled by Neil Badmington, is so urgently needed. In four volumes, the collection meets the need for

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During World War II, 110,000 Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and incarcerated by the US government. In Looking After Minidoka the "internment camp" years become a prism for understanding three generations of Japanese American life, from immigration to the end of the twentieth century. Nakadate blends history, poetry, rescued memory, and family stories in an American narrative of hope and disappointment, language and education, employment and social standing, prejudice and pain, communal values and personal dreams.

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One of the great paradoxes of modern times is that the more scientists understand the natural world, the more we discover that our everyday beliefs about it are wrong. Astronomy, in particular, is one of the most misunderstood scientific disciplines. With the participation of thousands of undergraduate students, Neil F. Comins has identified and classified, by origin and topic, over 1,700 commonly held misconceptions. Heavenly Errors provides access to all of them and explores many, including: * Black holes suck in everything around them. * The Sun shines by burning gas. * Comets have tails trailing behind them. * The Moon alone causes tides. * Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, is the hottest planet. In the course of correcting these errors, he explains that some occur through the prevalence of pseudosciences such as astrology and UFO-logy and some enter the public conscience through the "bad astronomy" of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other science-fiction movies. Perhaps most important, Professor Comins presents the reader with the methods for identifying and replacing incorrect ideas-tools with which to probe erroneous notions so that we can begin to question for ourselves...and to think more like scientists.

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For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a "theater of the mind". This book examines that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. In "Theater of the Mind", Neil Verma applies an array of critical methods to more than six thousand recordings to produce a vivid new account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this sweeping exploration of dramatic conventions, Verma investigates legendary dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to reveal how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination. With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, Verma not only gives us a new account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century but also presents a powerful case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.

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This carefully researched study of America's greatest showman, huckster, and impresario is both an inclusive analysis of the historical and cultural forces that were the conditions of P. T. Barnum's success, and, as befits its subject, a richly entertaining presentation of the outrageous man and his exploits.

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Neil Harris's scholarship of the past twenty-five years has helped to open up the study of American cultural history. This long-awaited collection gathers some of his rich and varied writings. Harris takes us from John Philip Sousa to Superman, with stops along the way to explore art museums and world fairs, shopping malls and hotel lobbies, urban design and utopian novels, among other artifacts of American cultures. The essays fall into three general sections: the first treats the history of cultural institutions, highlighting the role of museums; the second section focuses on some literary, artistic, and entrepreneurial responses to the new mass culture; and the final group of essays explores the social history of art and architecture. Throughout Harris's diverse writings certain themes recur—the redefining of boundaries between high art and popular culture, the relationship between public taste and technological change, and the very notion of what constitutes a shared social experience. Harris's pioneering work has broadened the field of cultural history and encouraged whole new areas of inquiry. Cultural Excursions will be useful for those in American and culture studies, as well as for the general reader trying to make sense of the culture in which we live.

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What is the opposite of freedom? In Freedom as Marronage, Neil Roberts answers this question with definitive force: slavery. From there he unveils powerful new insights on the human condition as it has been understood between these poles. Crucial to his investigation is the concept of marronage - a form of slave escape that was an important aspect of Caribbean and Latin American slave systems. Examining this overlooked phenomenon - one of action from slavery and toward freedom - he deepens our understanding of freedom itself and the origin of our political ideals. Roberts examines the liminal and transitional space of slave escape in order to develop a theory of freedom as marronage, which contends that freedom is fundamentally located within this space-that it is a form of perpetual flight. He engages a stunning variety of writers, including Hannah Arendt, W. E. B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the Rastafari, among others, to develop a compelling lens through which to interpret the quandaries of slavery, freedom, and politics that still confront us today. The result is a sophisticated, interdisciplinary work that unsettles the ways we think about freedom by always casting it in the light of its critical opposite.

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Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the year -- guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever. On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange -- and passions lead to betrayals lead

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An essential book for the 21st-century citizen who seeks a lively guided tour of the ancient Greek Olympics What was it like to attend the Olympics in 388 B.C.? Would the experience resemble Olympic festivals as we celebrate them today? This remarkable book transports us back to the heyday of the city-state and classical Greek civilization. It invites us to enter this distant, alien, but still familiar culture and discover what the Greeks did and didn't do during five thrilling days in August 2,400 years ago.In the Olympic Stadium there were no stands, no shade—and no women allowed. Visitors sat on a grassy bank in the searing heat of midsummer to watch naked athletes compete in footraces, the pentathlon, horse and chariot races, and three combat sports—wrestling, boxing, and pankration, everyone's favorite competition, with virtually no rules and considerable blood and pain. This colorfully illustrated volume offers a complete tour of the Olympic site exactly as athletes and spectators found it. The book evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of the crowded encampment; introduces the various attendees (from champions and charlatans to aristocrats and prostitutes); and explains the numerous exotic religious rituals. Uniquely detailed and precise, this guide offers readers an unparalleled opportunity to travel in time, back to the excitement of ancient Olympia.

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In his haunting debut, Water and Sky, published in 2014, Neil Sentance explored the history of his family and the landscape which shaped them. Ridge and Furrow continues the project to chart in prose the voices of a seldom recorded people and place. From the long shadows of war and want, to facing the great changes to rural life in the twentieth century, to first forays into a world beyond the flatlands of Lincolnshire, the book delicately portrays the dreams of lone, and often lonely, figures in one family's history. Ridge and Furrow melds memoir and fiction, place and nature writing, told with characteristic lyricism and muddy realism.

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Who wrote Cinderella? It may sound like a trick question but few would immediately think of a French author writing to entertain the court of Louis XIV of France. Although not as famous as other children’s storytellers, Charles Perrault is responsible for writing some of the best-known fairy tales ever told including Puss-in- Boots, The Sleeping Beauty, and Little Red Riding Hood as well as lesser-known stories like Bluebeard, The Fairies, Tufty Ricky, and Patient Griselda. Originally published in the 17th century, the stories of love, revenge, chivalry, magic, mystery and happy-ever- afters continue to be printed to this day, capturing the hearts of new audiences around the world. Folklorist Neil Philip retells the stories without losing any of the original air and excitement, and his accompanying notes to the stories provide fascinating background detail on each fairy tale. This charming anthology has been beautifully illustrated by Sally Holmes, creating a book that children of all ages will cherish.

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The classic look of film noir portraits was iconic to the 1930s and 1940s - the use of light, shadows and styling created a timeless look that is as popular today as ever. This practical book explains how to take photos and use lights to create powerful portraits typical of this time. With over 100 photographs, it covers the equipment needed; explores the types of images that are classed as film noir; shares tips and tricks to improve your images; guides you through the lighting set-ups in detail; recreates some classic film noir images and ideas, and finally, explains how to shoot film noir images inside and outside on location.

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Carmarthen Castle was one of the largest castles in medieval Wales. It was also one of the most important, in its role as a centre of government and as a Crown possession in a region dominated by Welsh lands and Marcher lordships. Largely demolished during the seventeenth century, it was subsequently redeveloped, first as a prison and later as the local authority headquarters. Yet the surviving remains, and their situation, are still impressive. The situation changed with a major programme of archaeological and research work, from 1993 to 2006, which is described in this book. The history of the castle, its impact on the region and on Wales as a whole are also examined: we see the officials and other occupants of the castle, their activities and how they interacted with their environment. Excavations at the castle, and the artefacts recovered, are described along with its remaining archaeological potential. This book puts Carmarthen Castle back at the heart of the history of medieval Wales, and in its proper place in castle studies and architectural history, the whole study combining to make a major contribution to the history of one of Wales's great towns.

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The Vikings famously took no prisoners, relished cruel retribution, and prided themselves on their blood-thirsty skills as warriors. But their prowess in battle is only a small part of their story, which stretches from their Scandinavian origins to America in the west and as far as Baghdad in the east. As the Vikings did not write their history, we have to discover it for ourselves, and that discovery, as Neil Oliver reveals, tells an extraordinary story of a people who, from the brink of destruction, reached a quarter of the way around the globe and built an empire that lasted nearly 200 years.Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1000 years ago? VIKINGS will explore many of these questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.

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The official story of 25 years of the legendary Rough Trade Records.'An essential purchase for anyone who was involved in or influenced by the punk maelstrom of 1976, a riveting evocation of a period in musical history that becomes more important the further we get away from it ... Taylor's book is a joy' INDEPENDENT'Long overdue...The type of reader that buys rock biographies will crave the detailed information that spans the late 1970s to 1991 - and they will not be disappointed' RECORD COLLECTORRough Trade is practically a byword for the history of independent music over the last thirty years. DOCUMENT AND EYEWITNESS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF ROUGH TRADE tells the story from the inside of a phenomenally influential record label, through the voices of Geoff Travis, Jarvis Cocker, Robert Wyatt, Green Gartside and many many more. From the early records of Cabaret Voltaire, Kleenex and the Swell Maps, through to groundbreaking releases by The Fall, The Smiths and Scritti Pollitti, on through the collapse of the independent collective and the rebirth of Rough Trade at the turn of the century, this is the definitive, essential account for any serious music fan.

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An inspirational true story. Neil Peters transforms himself into a real-life superhero, Stick Daring, to undertake a journey of epic proportions. He takes on a near impossible task to sail around Britain in a 13 foot, 50 year old Laser sailing dinghy, purchased for 50. A humorous, touching and gritty story of determination.

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Fortunately, the milk - Lithuanian Edition

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Neil Andrews presents the first comprehensive examination of the English system of civil justice, embracing not only court proceedings but mediation and arbitration. He provides an up-to-date account of recent changes within the English system of civil justice writing in a succinct and accessible style.He explains the main institutions of civil litigation before the English courts, but notes the limitations and problems of court litigation, despite reforms to this formal and public system of adjudication. Many business and consumer disputes are now resolved by settlement negotiations, notably by resort to mediation. There has also been a resurgence of interest in arbitration.Neil Andrews' quest for more satisfactory means of handling disputes is driven by various factors: the high cost of formal litigation; disputants' preference for confidentiality, control, speediness, and flexibility of outcome and Government's interest in economy. Furthermore, he states that English courts are keen to encourage resort to alternative forms of civil justice, notably mediation. Legal advisors, not just in England, are now familiar with the possibility that a dispute might proceed through various 'tiers': settlement discussions, mediated discussion, arbitration or court proceedings. These developments are part of a modern trend in many Western legal systems to reduce the problem of excessive and expensive resort to court proceedings.

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A Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of Canberra and the High Country is a fully comprehensive field guide to the 322 bird species found in the Australian High Country, and includes all common, rare and vagrant species. With photographs from the author and the region's other top-quality nature photographers, each species is illustrated with many variants. The guide is focused on field use to help beginners and experts identify species. Previously published as A Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of the Australian High Country (John Beaufoy Publishing, 2017). For each species the common and scientific names are listed as well as local variations. The main identifying features of each species are described and key facts cover size, habits, habitat, breeding, distribution, voice and status in the region. Distribution maps provide an at-a-glance view of where the birds can be found. The book also includes information on climate and topography, types of habitat, orders and families, residents, migrants, vagrants and highly scarce migrants, topography and the key birdwatching sites. The checklist provides complete information on the local status of each species.

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Deceptively relaxed in tone, these verse letters - sometime serious, sometimes whimsical - are addressed to people who, for various reasons, have been of importance in Neil Curry's life. Ranging from Angela Carter to the Venerable Bede and from Odysseus to Gilbert White's tortoise, they cover topics as diverse as smallpox and the paintings of Vermeer, landscape-gardening, the King James Bible and Eddie Stobart's lorries on the M6. There has not been a collection of verse letters of this nature since the Epistles of the Roman poet Horace and, fittingly, it is to Horace that the final letter is addressed, partly by way of apology.

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