Search results for ""manchester university press""

This edition of the best of Chaucer' s shorter poems ranges widely over the major concerns necessary to a full understanding of the text, including its occasion, literary tradition, sources, rhetoric, language, metre, mythology and themes. It is an edition which will appeal both to students and to general readers who wish to extend their knowledge of medieval English poetry.

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The sixteen short stories in this anthology demonstrate the scope of the modern Italian narrative between 1930 and 1960. To this end, the collection contains writings by both established writers, such as moravia, Vittorini, Pavese and Pasolini, as well as by lesser-known figures such as Santucci and Daví.The anthology aims to provide sixth-form and university students of Italian with high-quality and stimulating reading material, representing a range of styles and themes. The Italian text is accompanied by a comprehensive critical introduction in English and notes to clarify difficult points of language and style and to explain cultural and topographical allusions. An extensive vocabulary supports the reading and suggestions for further reading are offered.

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This book introduces students and professional historians to the main areas of concern in the history of emotions. It discusses how the emotions intersect with other lines of historical research relating to power, practice, society and morality. Addressing criticism from within and without the discipline of history, the book offers a rigorous defence of this new approach, demonstrating its potential centrality to historiographical practice, as well as the importance of this kind of historical work for our general understanding of the human brain and the meaning of human experience.

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This is the first comprehensive history of goth music and culture. John Robb explores the origins and legacy of this enduring scene, which has its roots in the post-punk era.Drawing on his own experience as a musician and journalist, Robb covers the style, the music and the clubs that spawned goth culture, alongside political and social conditions. Reaching back further into history, he examines key events and movements that frame the ideas of goth, from the fall of Rome to Lord Byron and the Romantic poets, European folk tales, Gothic art and the occult. Finally, he considers the current mainstream goth of Instagram influencers, film, literature and music.The art of darkness features interviews with Andrew Eldritch, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, The Cult, The Banshees, The Damned, Einstürzende Neubauten, Johnny Marr, Trent Reznor, Adam Ant, Laibach, The Cure, Nick Cave and many more. It offers a first-hand account of being there at the gigs and clubs that made the scene happen.

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This book introduces students and professional historians to the main areas of concern in the history of emotions and its intersection with emotion research in other disciplines. It discusses how the emotions intersect with other lines of historical research relating to power, practice, society and morality. The revised and fully updated second edition of the book demonstrates the field’s centrality to historiographical practice, as well as the importance of this kind of historical work for general interdisciplinary understandings of the value and the meaning of human experience.

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This book is a self-contained treatment of all the mathematics needed by undergraduate and masters-level students of economics, econometrics and finance. Building up gently from a very low level, the authors provide a clear, systematic coverage of calculus and matrix algebra. The second half of the book gives a thorough account of probability, dynamics and static and dynamic optimisation. The last four chapters are an accessible introduction to the rigorous mathematical analysis used in graduate-level economics. The emphasis throughout is on intuitive argument and problem-solving. All methods are illustrated by examples, exercises and problems selected from central areas of modern economic analysis. The book's careful arrangement in short chapters enables it to be used in a variety of course formats for students with or without prior knowledge of calculus, for reference and for self-study.The preface to the new edition and full table of contents are available from https://www.manchesterhive.com/page/mathematics-for-economists-supplementary-materials

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In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller’s life and the challenges it presents.How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as “navel-gazing”—or else hailed as “so brave, so raw”? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong?Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor—via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia—Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas—and occasional notes of caution—to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.

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Why don't trains run on time? Why are fares so expensive? Why are there so many strikes? Few would disagree that Britain's railways are broken, and have been for a long time. This insightful new book calls for a radical rethink of how we view the railways, and explains the problems we face and how to fix them. Haines-Doran argues that the railways should be seen as a social good and an indispensable feature of the national economy. With passengers and railway workers holding governments to account, we could then move past the incessant debates on whether our railways are an unavoidably loss-making business failure. An alternative vision is both possible and affordable, enabling the railways to play an instrumental role in decreasing social inequalities, strengthening the economy and supporting a transition to a sustainable future.This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

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What is Manchester? Moving far from the glitzy shopping districts and architectural showpieces, away from cool city-centre living and modish cultural centres, this book shows us the unheralded, under-appreciated and overlooked parts of Greater Manchester in which the majority of Mancunians live, work and play. It tells the story of the city thematically, using concepts such a ‘material’, ‘atmosphere’, ‘waste’, ‘movement’ and ‘underworld’ to challenge our understanding of the quintessential post-industrial metropolis. Bringing together contributions from twenty-five poets, academics, writers, novelists, historians, architects and artists from across the region alongside a range of captivating photographs, this book explores the history of Manchester through its chimneys, cobblestones, ginnels and graves. This wide-ranging and inclusive approach reveals a host of idiosyncrasies, hidden spaces and stories that have until now been neglected.

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Austerity Baby might best be described as an ‘oblique memoir’. Janet Wolff’s fascinating volume is a family history – but one that is digressive and consistently surprising. The central underlying and repeated themes of the book are exile and displacement; lives (and deaths) during the Third Reich; mother-daughter and sibling relationships; the generational transmission of trauma and experience; transatlantic reflections; and the struggle for creative expression. Stories mobilised, and people encountered, in the course of the narrative include: the internment of aliens in Britain during the Second World War; cultural life in Rochester, New York, in the 1920s; the social and personal meanings of colour(s); the industrialist and philanthropist, Henry Simon of Manchester, including his relationship with the Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen; the liberal British campaigner and MP of the 1940s, Eleanor Rathbone; reflections on the lives and images of spinsters. The text is supplemented and interrupted throughout by images (photographs, paintings, facsimile documents), some of which serve to illustrate the story, others engaging indirectly with the written word.

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The reader Art and its global histories represents an invaluable teaching tool, offering content ranging from academic essays and excerpts, new translations, interviews with curators and artists, to art criticism. The introduction sets out the state of art history today as it undergoes the profound shift of a 'global turn'. Particular focus is given to British India, which represents a shift from the usual attention paid to Orientalism and French art in this period. The sources and debates on this topic have never before been brought together in a satisfactory way and this book will represent a particularly significant and valuable contribution for postgraduate and undergraduate art history teaching.

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This topical and innovative study is the first book on Algerian cinema to be published in English since the 1970s. At a time when North African and Islamic cultures are of increasing political significance, Algerian National Cinema presents a dynamic, detailed and up to date analysis of how film has represented this often misunderstood nation. Algerian National Cinema explores key films from The Battle of Algiers (1966) to Mascarades (2007). Introductions to Algerian history and to the national film industry are followed by chapters on the essential genres and themes of filmmaking in Algeria, including films of anti-colonial struggle, representations of gender, Berber cinema, and filming the ‘black decade’ of the 1990s. This thoughtful and timely book will appeal to all interested in world cinemas, in North African and Islamic cultures, and in the role of cinema as a vehicle for the expression of contested identities. By the author of the critically-acclaimed Contemporary French Cinema.

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This book offers an original analysis of the problem of the authority of the state in democracies. Unlike many discussions of democracy that treat authority as a problem primarily of domestic politics or normative values, this book puts the international economy at the centre of the analysis.This volume shows how changes in the international economy from the inter-war years to the end of the twentieth century impacted upon the success and failures of democracy. It makes the argument by considering a range of different cases, and it traces the success and failure of democracies over the past century. It includes detailed studies of democracies in both developed and developing countries, and offers a comparative analysis of their fate. Available in paperback for the first time, this title will appeal to all those interested in democracy, the future of the state and the impact of the international economy on domestic politics.

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This wide-ranging and accessible book examines the effects of British imperial involvements on history writing in Britain since 1750. It provides a chronological account of the development of history writing in its social, political and cultural contexts, and an analysis of the structural links between those involvements and the dominant concerns of that writing. It looks at the impact of imperial and global expansion on the treatment of government, social structures and changes, and national and ethnic identity in scholarly and popular works, school histories, and ‘famous’ history books. In a clear and student-friendly way, it argues that involvement in empire played a transformative and central role within history writing as whole, reframing its basic assumptions and language, and sustaining a significant ‘imperial’ influence across generations of writers and diverse types of historical text.

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This is a clearly written, comprehensive and topical textbook on UK government and politics for AS and A Level students. It is suitable for the A Level Edexcel, OCR and AQA exam boards. The content of the book is structured according to the boards' specifications. It covers: political power, participation and democracy; the UK constitution; elections and referenda; MPs, parties and pressure groups; Parliament and government; the courts, judges and civil liberties; local government and devolution; and the European Union.All key terms and concepts are highlighted and succinctly defined. The book has an accessible style and very user-friendly format. It includes sample exam questions with answers, and fun quizzes with answers, plus features such as 'Talking Point' and 'Analyse This' to encourage class discussion and exploration of core topics. Each chapter begins with a summary of contents and ends with sample exam questions and useful websites.

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Ancoats, in Manchester, was once unimaginably different. One of the world's earliest industrial suburbs, it was dark and dense, noisy, frenetic, violent and unhealthy. It was also vibrant and creative. It had a striking vapour, sound and feel.The area today has undergone a striking regeneration. New streets, pavements and civic spaces have been laid down. A series of installations, known as The Peeps, have been created for the area. Built into the fabric of the buildings, the brass peep holes offer a fleeting glimpse of a walled-in space, a tunnel, a disused toilet, a bell tower, a gauge.Dan Dubowitz, given the title of 'cultural masterplanner', records through photographs, interviews, commentary and contemporaneous texts, the recent past and the current regeneration of the suburb. It is a fascinating, beautifully illustrated and designed volume that eloquently depicts the common narrative of industrialisation, slow decay and rebirth.

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Art History: A critical introduction to its methods provides a lively and stimulating introduction to methodological debates within art history. Offering a lucid account of approaches from Hegel to post-colonialism, the book provides a sense of art history’s own history as a discipline from its emergence in the late-eighteenth century to contemporary debates. By explaining the underlying philosophical and political assumptions behind each method, along with clear examples of how these are brought to bear on visual and historical analysis, the authors show that an adherence to a certain method is, in effect, a commitment to a set of beliefs and values. The book makes a strong case for the vitality of the discipline and its methodological centrality to new fields such as visual culture.This book will be of enormous value to undergraduate and graduate students, and also makes its own contributions to ongoing scholarly debates about theory and method.

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This edition contains in distilled form the insight and learning found in the fuller Revels critical editions, but with less of the learning apparatus that is appropriate to a critical edition. Compact and up to date introduction and commentary. The price and format are designed to be competitive with any paperback teaching edition of this play.

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This work, by the co-founder of the "Annales School" deals with the uses and methods of history. It is useful for students of history, teachers of historiography and all those interested in the writings of the Annales school.

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This volume of essays explores the scope for a further extension of ecocriticism across the environmental humanities. Contributors, who include both established academics and early career researchers in the humanities, were given free rein to interpret the brief. The collection is unusual in that it considers collaboration between individuals both in the same discipline and across creative disciplines. Subjects include familiar environments close to home and those such as Iceland and Antarctica, where narratives of climate, geology and ecology provide a stark backdrop to creative output. A further innovation is the inclusion of essays on public art, natural heritage interpretation and the visualisation and aesthetic impact of wind farms. The book will be of interest to writers, artists, students and researchers in the environmental humanities and those with a general interest in the cultural response to the environment.

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Can reading make us better citizens? In Crossing borders and queering citizenship, Feghali crafts a sophisticated theoretical framework to theorise how the act of reading can contribute to the queering of contemporary citizenship in North America. Providing sensitive and convincing readings of work by both popular and niche authors, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Dorothy Allison, Gregory Scofield, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Erín Moure, Junot Díaz, and Yann Martel, this book is the first to not only read these authors together, but also to discuss how each powerfully resists the exclusionary work of state-sanctioned citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. This book convincingly draws connections between queer theory, citizenship studies, and border studies and sheds light on how these connections can reframe our understanding of American Studies.

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Inequality is not just a problem of poverty and the poor; it is as much a problem of wealth and the wealthy. The provision of public services is one area which is increasingly being reconfigured to extract wealth upward to the 1%, notably through so-called Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). The push for PPPs is not about building infrastructure for the benefit of society but about constructing new subsidies that benefit the already wealthy. In other words, it is less about financing development than developing finance.Understanding and exposing these processes is essential if inequality is to be challenged. But equally important is the need for critical reflection on how the wealthy are getting away with it. What does the wealth gap suggest about the need for new forms of organising by those who would resist elite power?

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Ballads and songs of Peterloo is an edited collection of poems and songs written following the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. This collection, which includes over seventy poems, were published either as broadsides or in radical periodicals and newspapers. Notes to support the reading of the texts are provided, but they also stand alone, conveying the original publications without diluting their authenticity.Following an introduction outlining the massacre, the radical press and broadside ballad, the poems are grouped into six sections according to theme. Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy is included as an appendix in acknowledgement of its continuing significance to the representation of Peterloo. This book is primarily aimed at students and lecturers of Romanticism and social history.

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A household name throughout India, B. R. Ambedkar is one of the country’s most important figures, second only to Mahatma Gandhi. He played a major role in drafting the constitution for a newly independent India and led the fight against caste-based discrimination.Ambedkar was born into a Dalit caste (the so-called ‘untouchables’), but his academic brilliance saw him study at Columbia University and London School of Economics. As a politician, he fought to overturn centuries of discrimination and promoted liberal constitutionalism in a traditionally illiberal society. He did more than anyone to articulate a cogent and enduring case for the principles of democracy in a country emerging from imperial rule.This book is also a reminder of how far the practice of politics has strayed from the high standards Ambedkar set – of intellectual distinction, policy positions animated by serious scholarship, the infusion of moral values and the upholding of democracy for the many, not just the privileged few.

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Are you fed up with the divided and unequal society or suffocating laws and regulations of the country where you live? Ever dreamed of starting your own country or just want to understand how that happens? In this refreshing new book, Matt Qvortrup provides a step-by-step guide to forming an independent country, from organising a referendum and winning it, to receiving official international recognition, establishing a currency and even entering the Eurovision song contest. The book delves into the legal, economic and political problems of creating new states, using historical examples and anecdotes from all over the world to illustrate the obstacles to these campaigns. Qvortrup recounts his globetrotting experiences as an expert consultant on referendums to give a no-nonsense explanation of the many hurdles and barriers, as well as the opportunities for those who want to break free.

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In the late 1990s, Manchester was a city in upheaval. The devastation of the IRA bomb and the closure of the notorious Haçienda nightclub were seismic events that rocked the city’s confidence at a time when identikit bands were flooding its clubs and bars, fuelled on anthemic guitar rock and swagger. Stereotypes were everywhere, while the spirit of Manchester was silently suffocating.Mancunians: Where do we start, where do I begin? is the story of those who didn’t fit the typecast: the musicians of colour, the football fans alienated by rampant commercialism, frustrated public figures, optimistic developers and ambitious artists.Through a mixture of memoir and interviews with well-known Mancunians such as Guy Garvey, Tunde Babalola, Sylvia Tella, Badly Drawn Boy and Stan Chow, David Scott portrays the city at the turn of the century in a way never seen before.

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'Punctuated by the stories of a host of interesting and extraordinary characters, Crossland has produced a fascinating exploration of the long nineteenth century’s development of terrorism and counterterrorism, highlighting the role of fear and the paranoia, repression, and overreaction it engendered.' Michael Stohl, Professor at the University of CaliforniaAuthor of Crime and Terrorism'By applying an innovative historical lens, The Rise of the Devils by James Crossland offers a remarkable perspective on the history of terrorism that is not overdetermined by the events of 9/11 and explores a "violent strain of nihilism intoxicated by a whiff of martyrdom." The book reads like the prequel to the "National Treasure" movie franchise and offers a completely unique understanding of Terrorism’s First Wave.'Mia Bloom, Georgia State UniversityAuthor of Dying to Kill: the Allure of Suicide TerrorIn the dying light of the nineteenth century, the world came to know and fear terrorism. Much like today, this was a time of progress and dread, in which breakthroughs in communications and weapons were made, political reforms were implemented and immigration waves bolstered the populations of ever-expanding cities. This era also simmered with political rage and social inequalities, which drove nationalists, nihilists, anarchists and republicans to dynamite cities and discharge pistols into the bodies of presidents, police chiefs and emperors. This wave of terrorism was seized upon by an outrage-hungry press that peddled hysteria, conspiracy theories and, sometimes, fake news in response, convincing many a reader that they were living through the end of days. Against the backdrop of this world of fear and disorder, The rise of devils chronicles the journeys of the men and women who evoked this panic and created modern terrorism – revolutionary philosophers, cult leaders, criminals and charlatans, as well as the paranoid police chiefs and unscrupulous spies who tried to thwart them. In doing so, this book explains how radicals once thought just in their causes became, as Pope Pius IX denounced them, little more than ‘devils risen up from Hell’.

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There is a part of human nature compelled to test our own limits. But what happens when this part comes to define us?When journalist Jenny Valentish wrote Woman of Substances, a book about addiction, she noticed that people who treated drug-taking like an Olympic sport would often hurl themselves into a pursuit like marathon running upon giving up. What stayed constant was the need to push their boundaries.Everything Harder Than Everyone Else follows people doing the things that most couldn’t, wouldn’t or shouldn’t. By delving into their extreme behaviour, there’s a lot that us mere mortals can learn about the human condition.There’s the neuroscientist violating his brain to override his disgust response. The athlete using childhood adversity as grist for the mill. The wrestler turning restlessness into curated ultraviolence. The architect hanging from hooks in her flesh, to better get out of her head. The performance artist seeking erasure by torturing his body. The BDSM dom helping people flirt with death to feel more alive. The bare-knuckle boxer whose gnarliest opponent is her ego. The dancer who could not separate her identity from her practice until at death’s door. The bodybuilder exacting order on a life that was once chaotic. And the porn star-turned-fighter for whom sex and violence are two sides of the same coin.Their insights lead Jenny on a compulsive, sometimes reckless journey of immersion journalism.

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What do we really know about how and where religions began, and how they spread? In this bold new book, award-winning author Robin Derricourt takes us on a journey through the birth and growth of several major religions, using history and archaeology to recreate the times, places and societies that witnessed the rise of significant monotheistic faiths. Beginning with Mormonism and working backwards through Islam, Christianity and Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Creating God opens up the conditions that allowed religious movements to emerge, attract their first followers and grow. Throughout history there have been many prophets: individuals who believed they were in direct contact with the divine, with instructions to spread a religious message. While many disappeared without trace, some gained millions of followers and established a lasting religion. In Creating God, Robin Derricourt has produced a brilliant, panoramic book that offers new insights on the origins of major religions and raises essential questions about why some succeeded where others failed.

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This book is the first full-length study of contemporary American fiction of passing. Its takes as its point of departure the return of racial and gender passing in the 1990s in order to make claims about wider trends in contemporary American fiction. The book accounts for the return of tropes of passing in fiction by Phillip Roth, Percival Everett, Louise Erdrich, Danzy Senna, Jeffrey Eugenides and Paul Beatty, by arguing meta-critical and meta-fictional tool. These writers are attracted to the trope of passing because passing narratives have always foregrounded the notion of textuality in relation to the (il)legibility of “black” subjects passing as white. The central argument of this book, then, is that contemporary narratives of passing are concerned with articulating and unpacking an analogy between passing and authorship.The title promises to inaugurate dialogue on the relationships between passing, postmodernism and authorship in contemporary American fiction.

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Backed by Brazil’s wealthy agribusiness groups, a growing evangelical movement, and an emboldened military and police force, Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019. Driven by the former army captain’s brand of controversial, aggressive rhetoric, the divisive presidential campaign saw fake news and misinformation shared with Bolsonaro’s tens of millions of social media followers.Bolsonaro promised simple solutions to Brazil’s rising violent crime, falling living standards and widespread corruption, but what has emerged is Latin America's most right-wing president since the military dictatorships of the 1970s. Famous for his racist, homophobic and sexist beliefs and his disregard for human rights, the so-called ‘Trump of the Tropics’ has established a reputation based on his polemical, sensationalist statements.Written by a journalist with decades of experience in the field, Beef, Bible and bullets is a compelling account of the origins of Brazil's unique brand of right-wing populism. Lapper offers the first major assessment of the Bolsonaro government and the growing tensions between extremist and moderate conservatives.

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Original, bold and always funny, Hanif Kureishi is one of Britain’s most popular, provocative and versatile writers.Born in Bromley in 1954 to an Indian father and white British mother, Kureishi’s life is intimately bound up with the history of immigration and social change in Britain. This is the story of how a mixed-raced child of empire who attended the local comprehensive school found success with a remarkable series of novels and screenplays, including My Beautiful Laundrette and The Buddha of Suburbia, Intimacy, Venus and Le Week-End. The book also illuminates a larger story, not only of the artist as a young man, but of the recasting of Britain in the aftermath of decolonisation.Drawing on journals, letters and manuscripts from Kureishi’s unexplored archive, recently acquired by the British Library, and informed by interviews with his family, friends and collaborators, as well with the writer himself, Ruvani Ranasinha sheds new light on how his life animates his work. This first biography offers a vivid portrait of a major talent who has inspired a new generation of writers.

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This punchy and provocative book asks a simple but overlooked question: why do we have the political views that we do? Offering a lively and original analysis of five worldviews - conservatism, national populism, liberalism, the new left and social democracy - Thomas Prosser argues that our views tend to satisfy self-interest, albeit indirectly, and that progressive worldviews are not as altruistic as their adherents believe. But What's in it for me? is far from pessimistic. Prosser contends that recognition of self-interest makes us more self-reflective, allowing us to see humanity in adversaries and countering the influence of echo chambers. As populist parties rise and liberalism and social democracy decline, this timely intervention argues that to solve our political differences, we must first realise what we have in common. -- .

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Ideal homes investigates the tastes and aspirations of the new suburban communities that emerged in Britain following the First World War. In a period when homeownership was becoming the norm, these communities sought out varieties of architecture and design that were both nostalgic and modern, reflecting longings for ‘Old England’ on the one hand and technological convenience on the other. The book draws on exhibitions, memoirs, advertisements and films, as well as surviving examples of suburban architecture and interiors, to identify a distinctively suburban modernism, embodied by the Tudorbethan semi. Arguing that the ‘ideal’ home of the period was both a retreat from the outside world and a site of change and experimentation, it concludes by considering how such houses are lived in today. This new edition also features an introductory chapter on researching the history of your own home.

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As the tragedy of the Grenfell tower fire has slowly revealed a shadowy background of outsourcing, private finance initiatives and a council turning a blind eye to health and safety concerns, many questions need answers.Stuart Hodkinson has those answers. He has worked for the last decade with residents groups in council regeneration projects across London. As residents have been shifted out of 60s and 70s social housing to make way for higher rent paying newcomers, they have been promised a higher quality of housing. Councils have passed the responsibility for this housing to private consortia who amazingly have been allowed to self-regulate on quality and safety. Residents have been ignored for years on this and only now are we hearing the truth. Stuart will weave together his research on PFIs, regulation and resident action to tell the whole story of how Grenfell happened and how this could easily have happened in multiple locations across the country.

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How can governments persuade their citizens to act in socially beneficial ways? This ground-breaking book builds on the idea of 'light touch interventions' or 'nudges' proposed in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's highly influential Nudge (2008). While recognising the power of this approach, it argues that an alternative also needs to be considered: a 'think' strategy that calls on citizens to decide their own priorities as part of a process of civic and democratic renewal. As well as setting out these divergent approaches in theory, the book provides evidence from a number of experiments to show how using 'nudge' or 'think' techniques works in practice.Updated and rewritten, this second edition features a new epilogue that reflects on recent developments in nudge theory and practice, introducing a radical version of nudge, ‘nudge plus’. There is also a substantial prologue by Cass Sunstein.

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Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom are elected to represent geographic constituencies; but how are these defined and what are the consequences for democracy?Tracing the UK’s system of parliamentary representation from its origins in the thirteenth century right through to the present, this comprehensive new survey reveals how a system initially designed to restrain the power of monarchs gradually evolved to serve their interests, then those of political parties before the twentieth century ‘settlement’ of an independent process for revising the constituency map.That settlement is now under pressure, with the traditional pattern of constituencies representing communities about to be replaced by one which elevates numbers above community. Advanced under the slogan of ‘making votes equal’, this new regime promises fairness yet, as the authors show, is destined to fail to address the disproportional and biased election results that have long been a feature of UK politics.Concluding with a detailed consideration of the ways in which various parts of the UK have embraced alternatives to first-past-the-post over the last two decades, this book serves as a timely reminder that the needs of political parties do not always coincide with those of us, the electors.

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Julius Caesar presents a performance history of a controversial play, moving from its 1599 opening all the way into the new millennium with particular emphasis on its twentieth- and twenty-first-century incarnations on stage and screen. The book tracks the play’s evolution from being a play about the oratorical skill of noble Romans to its recent manifestations as a dark political thriller.Chapters in this theoretically savvy and global study consider productions such as Orson Welles’s groundbreaking examination of European Fascism, Joseph Mankeiwicz’s Oscar winning 1953 film, politically complex productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and shows from around the world which interrogate their own cultural and educational context as well as pressing contemporary concerns such as the reach of mass media.

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The latest book in the long-running Britain at the Polls series provides an indispensable account of the fascinating 2017 British general election. It explains why the Conservatives lost their parliamentary majority and how Theresa May returned at the head of a minority government. Leading experts analyse the Conservatives’ record in government, May’s fateful decision to call an early election, Labour’s shift to the left under Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats’ ongoing problems, the collapse in UKIP’s vote share, the SNP’s diminished appeal in Scotland, and the role of gender and electoral integrity in the 2017 campaign. The book also addresses broader questions about the future of British politics against the backdrop of the 2016 Brexit referendum and ongoing austerity. Its coverage and accessible style make it of interest to general readers, students of British politics and professional political scientists.

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This edited collection aims to reimagine and extend ethnography for a data-saturated world. The book brings together leading scholars in the social sciences who have been interrogating and collaborating with data scientists working in a range of different settings. The book explores how a repurposed form of ethnography might illuminate the kinds of knowledge that are being produced by data science. It also describes how collaborations between ethnographers and data scientists might lead to new forms of social analysis

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Crossley argues that music is a form of social interaction, interwoven in the fabric of society and in constant interplay with its other threads. Musical interactions are often also economic interactions, for example, and sometimes political interactions. They can be forms of identity work, for both individuals and collectives, contributing to the reproduction or bridging of social divisions. Successive chapters of the book track and explore these interplays, in each case combining a critical consideration of existing literature with the development of an original, ‘relational’ approach to music sociology. The result is a grand sociological vision of music which captures not only music’s context but ‘the music itself’. The book will appeal to social scientists, musicologists and cultural scholars more widely.

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In recent years there has been a significant growth in interest of the so-called 'law in context' extending legal studies beyond black letter law. This book looks at the relationship between statute law and legal practice. It examines how law is applied in reality and more precisely how law is perceived by the general public in contrast to the legal profession. The authors look at a number of themes that are central to examining ways in which myths about law are formed, and how there is inevitably a constitutive power aspect to this myth making. At the same time they explore to what extent law itself creates and sustains myths. The book will be of general interest to a number of different disciplines such as legal theory, general law, criminology and sociology.

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The book provides a comprehensive history of the third-largest Jewish community in Britain and fills an acknowledged gap in both Jewish and urban historiography. Bringing together the latest research and building on earlier local studies, the book provides an analysis of the special features which shaped the community in Leeds. Organised in three sections, Context, Chronology and Contours, the book demonstrates how Jews have influenced the city and how the city has influenced the community. A small community was transformed by the late Victorian influx of poor migrants from the Russian Empire and within two generations had become successfully integrated into the city’s social and economic structure. More than a dozen authors contribute to this definitive history and the editor provides both an introductory and concluding overview which brings the story up to the present day. The book will be of interest to both historians and general readers.

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The introduction of co-operative societies into the Irish countryside during the late-nineteenth century transformed rural society and created an enduring economic legacy. Civilising rural Ireland challenges predominant narratives of Irish history that explain the emergence of the nation-state through the lens of political conflict and violence. Instead the book takes as its focus the numerous leaders, organisers, and members of the Irish co-operative movement. Together these people captured the spirit of change as they created a modern Ireland through their reorganisation of the countryside, the spread of new economic ideas, and the promotion of mutually-owned businesses. Besides giving a comprehensive account of the co-operative movement’s introduction to Irish society the book offers an analysis of the importance of these radical economic ideas upon political Irish nationalism.

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The book examines how increasing engagement with the rest of the world transformed European art, architecture and design. It considers how commercial activity and colonial ventures gave rise to new and diverse forms of visual and material culture across the globe. Drawing on a wide range of recent scholarship, it offers a new perspective that challenges Eurocentric approaches.

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This study of Manchester football, by leading football historian Gary James, considers the sport’s emergence, development and establishment through to its position as the city’s leading team sport. The period from 1840 to 1919 saw football in Manchester develop from an inconsequential, occasionally outlawed activity, into a major business with a variety of popular football clubs and supporting industry. This book makes a distinct and original contribution to the historiography of sport. It is the first academic study into the development of association football in Manchester, and is directly linked to the current state of knowledge and debates within sports history on football’s origins. It adds regional focus to inform the wider debate, contextualising the growth of the sport in the city and identifies communities who propagated and developed football. Robust research should ensure that this becomes the benchmark study of regional football.

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Queer exceptions is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle, Oreet Ashery, Bridget Christie, Tanja Ostojic, Adrian Howells and Nassim Soleimanpour, the book examines the role of singular or ‘exceptional’ subjects in constructing and challenging assumed notions of communal sociability and togetherness, while drawing fresh insight from the fields of sociology, gender studies and political philosophy to reconsider theatre’s attachment to singular lives and experiences. Framed by a detailed exploration of arts festivals as encapsulating the material, entrepreneurial circumstances of contemporary performance-making, this is the first major critical study of solo work since the millennium.

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Designed to introduce the student or general reader to a largely unfamiliar area of Elizabethan theatrical activity, Five Elizabethan progress entertainments focuses on a group of entertainments mounted for the monarch in the closing years of her reign. Richly annotated, and prefaced by a substantial introduction, the texts enable an understanding of the motives underlying not only the progress itself, but the choice of locations the monarch elected to visit and the personal and political preoccupations of those with whom she determined to stay. Selected for their diversity, the entertainments exhibit the tensions underlying some royal visits, the lavish expenditure entailed for the monarch’s hosts and the overlap in terms of both material and authorship between the progress entertainments and the more widely studied products of the sixteenth-century stage.

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