Anthem Press

The Varieties of Joycean Experience is a collection of ten essays that display the wide range and diversity of perspectives and critical approaches that can be drawn upon to enrich our readings of James Joyce’s works. With special attention to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, these essays explore an array of unorthodox problems that these notoriously demanding books pose for readers.

The first two essays offer new ways of tackling those persistent bugbear questions: “what kind of book is this?” and “what is this book about?” The first essay contemplates the relationship of Finnegans Wake to the avant-garde, both those experiments of its time and those that it has inspired since its first appearance. The second looks at the epistemological difficulties faced by anyone attempting to “summarize” Ulysses or the Wake. These essays are followed by two that turn to reconsidering how we understand Joyce’s methods of composition and revision.

The next five essays explore the Joycean ambiguities surrounding consciousness, death, scatology, and the weather to propose new understandings of these phenomena as key ways into Joyce’s works. The concluding essay examines what conceptual limits there might be to the variety of interpretations celebrated by this book: what makes a particular reading unreasonable – not simply debatable, as all readings are, but fundamentally unsound – and why do Joyce’s works seem to inspire far-fetched and even crackpot readings? The cautionary tales collected in this essay cue all readers to question the bases, logic, and agenda of their own experiences with Joyce.

Hidden Heroes offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the lives of ordinary North Koreans through a collection of short stories by renowned DPRK authors. Spanning from the 1980s to the present, these works explore the theme of the “hidden hero,” a popular moniker in the DPRK to describe the average citizen who navigates the complexities of daily life with quiet dedication for their work and country.
The anthology is divided into three thematic sections—Identities, Communities, and Power—showcasing a diverse array of characters and settings. Readers will encounter factory managers juggling work and family responsibilities, neighbors bonding during friendly outings, university deans resisting corruption, and diasporic Koreans in Japan grappling with questions of belonging. Through these relatable human experiences, the stories challenge simplistic notions of North Korean society and reveal a more nuanced reality.
While elements of propaganda and state ideology are present, as is typical in all officially sanctioned DPRK literature, the focus in the text is rather on the personal struggles, relationships, and aspirations of the characters. By highlighting these universal themes, Hidden Heroes invites readers to look beyond geopolitical tensions and connect with the shared humanity of North Koreans. For anyone seeking to expand their understanding of this often-misunderstood country, this anthology provides an engaging and thought-provoking literary journey into the everyday lives of North Korean citizens.

Gayle DeLong was a well-known activist in the autism community, the ‘Warrior Mom’ of two autistic daughters. She worked closely with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on vaccine injury issues. This book is a record (based largely on her diaries) of her happy marriage to Jonathan Rose, from their first date in 1994 to her untimely death from breast cancer in January 2022.

Love in the Age of Autism does not sugarcoat the stresses and heartbreak of raising autistic children: it is more honest about that than most other books on the subject. But it is also an inspiring love story, which can help autism parents find profound joys in spite of all the pains. It offers practical advice and models for sharing the burdens and pleasures of life, based on a strong sense of family values. Many autism moms give up their careers to care for their children, but Gayle was a determined professional woman, and her arrangements with Jonathan allowed her to continue working.

She also refused to give up one of her favourite sports – sex. This book frankly (and with an earthy sense of humour) illustrates how autism parents can continue to enjoy passionate, monogamous physical love – and it also explains how to provide sex education for autistic girls (who can easily be taken advantage of). In this book, the girl dies in the end, as she often does in love stories, but the tale is intensely romantic and life-affirming.

Asia’s legendary playwright- director Stan Lai has written one of the unique works of our time, explaining that the mysterious act of creativity is actually a traceable function of mind, and there is a path to learn creativity through un-learning many of our habits picked up in life. His special map, as well as tailor-made exercises, lays out an awe-inspiring yet practical guide from a lifetime of creative work, revered in Asia by artists and business leaders alike. Through his extensive experience, the greatest living Asian playwright shows us how to cultivate a ‘creative app’ that works within us.
Matthieu Ricard says: “Stan Lai teaches us, how to see and how to do.” Praised by Jack Ma, Ang Lee and other luminaries, this book is a rewrite by the author of his book that is the most prominent work on creativity in China, having sold over 700,000 copies. Robert Wilson calls the work “foundational support for arts and culture.” Stan Lai is uniquely qualified to write on creativity, because he not only has four decades of creative experience, widely acclaimed as the greatest playwright in the Chinese language, but is also a dedicated educator. Shannon Jackson calls the work “A must-read from an internationally renowned artist.”
Can creativity be taught? Most of the books and training in this area deal with skills for jumpstarting alternative thinking, brainstorming and other exercises, but do not deal with creativity itself. They don’t tackle the obvious question: What is creativity and how can I get it? As one of the world's leading artists, Lai explains that the reason we don’t think creativity can be taught is that we don’t really understand what happens in the mysterious process. By slowing down the moment of inspiration, Lai lets us see exactly the elements involved in this complex process that lasts only an instant. Then he shows you how to prepare for this moment, through his unique Map of Creativity. This is a whole path of training in creativity, which he explains clearly and humour and compassion, and tailor-made exercises. Travis Preston says “Stan Lai guides us to the center of the creative moment and the ultimate unity of the spiritual and physical worlds.”
Creativitry is a milestone in understanding and learning the creative act. Born in America, raised in Taiwan, with a career spanning the Chinese diaspora, Lai believes that we are all born creative, but the source to creativity has been blocked, by life. How to take down the barriers that are blocking the source from us is a task of un-learning many things that have become habits and put us into a so-called non-creative mode. Taking his cue from his Buddhist training that wisdom and method are both needed for success in any endeavour, he explains how ‘wisdom’ has mysteriously vanished from education systems all over. Most teaching in creativity focuses on method, which one learns in one’s art. But we need another type of training, more urgently, the training for wisdom, which can only happen in the domain of life. To do, you must first be. To discover your creativity, you must first discover yourself. Octavian Saiu says, “This book is not a manual, but a statement of belief, an enduring message about how each of us can go beyond our limits.”

William Hazlitt had concluded in 1815 that a Quaker poet would be ‘a literary phenomenon’ – how could a marginal sect renowned for their plain dress, sober ways and proscription of pleasures produce imaginative literature? To conceive such a writer would be a paradox. Yet the career of Bernard Barton, a prolific poet of the 1820s and 1830s, presented the Romantic era with just such a phenomenon. Instantly recognisable to his contemporaries as the Quaker poet, Barton drew on the styles of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century – Cowper, Wordsworth, Crabbe – to fashion verse under a Quaker muse. His diverse poetic output is unified by a tender emotional warmth, a picturesque love for the Suffolk countryside and a self-consciously modest but nevertheless sophisticated authorship. 

This is the first ever modern edition of Barton’s poetry, providing freshly edited texts from the original print sources and a comprehensive scholarly treatment encompassing critical commentary, detailed notes and textual variations. Capturing the full range of his career from the 1810s to 1840s, it includes generous selections of nature poetry, religious verse, texts of sociability and friendship, ekphrastic compositions, political writings and a long extract from his radically pacifist elegy to Napoleon. The book also includes a selection of invaluable contextual material, such as periodical reviews and Barton’s own prefaces, as well as a substantial essay introducing Barton and his times.

In a time when the nineteenth-century literary canon is in a continual process of expansion and revision, this unusual and striking poet, working from the position of a religious minority and yet fully engaging the mainstream poetic traditions of his day, deserves to be rediscovered, and this edition achieves precisely this.

Renu’s Recipes: Delicious and Diabetic-Friendly Dishes
Discover a culinary journey where health meets indulgence with Renu’s Recipes. This all-in-one cookbook is your gateway to diabetic-friendly cuisine that doesn’t compromise on flavour or simplicity. Perfect for home cooks of all levels, this book curates a diverse selection of easy-to-make dishes from various global cuisines.
Key Features:
Diabetic-Friendly: Savour delectable dishes designed to meet the dietary needs of persons with diabetes, packed with flavours they crave but thought they couldn’t have.
Comprehensive and Accessible: From breakfast to desserts, including mains, sides, salads, snacks and special categories such as recipes for grandchildren.
Learn and Explore: Master diverse cooking techniques such as baking, steaming and stir-frying. Discover a variety of herbs and enjoy wholesome salads that make every meal nutritious.
Benefits:
Unlock the joy of cooking with recipes that are both healthy and enticing. Renu’s Recipes empowers you to bring the richness of home-made meals to your table, ensuring every bite is as nourishing as it is delicious.
Why Choose Renu’s Recipes?
This cookbook is your go-to resource for achieving culinary excellence while prioritising health. Whether you are managing diabetes or simply embracing a healthier lifestyle, Renu Sood’s expertly crafted recipes promise to elevate your cooking experience.
Join Renu Sood on a journey of flavour and wellness. Embrace wholesome cuisine and enjoy the satisfaction of home-made goodness with every meal.

This book groups together three kinds of experience: the experience of the sublime, of 'epiphany' which is generally a profound experience of something ordinary, and the feeling of 'thrills' which can be a shiver down the spine or sudden tears. 

These 'strong experiences' have been extensively studied, but almost always separately from one another, and in a variety of disciplines, and so this is the first major attempt to bring them together under a relatively simple psychological account. The book reviews some of the work on the sublime and epiphanies, including life-changing epiphanies, in the literary critical, philosophical and psychological literature. It explores how we can feel that we know things which are deeply important without being able to put what we know into words, and it also offers an introduction to some basic psychological ideas about knowledge. The book focuses on the physical aspects of the experience, and their relation to emotions, and looks in detail at what the body actually does when we feel goosebumps and similar sensations. It continues to outline some of the simple psychological notions which support this account of strong experiences, including how surprise works, and other related notions such as curiosity, attention and empathy, and why ordinary things can sometimes be perceived as though they are sources of profound insight.

The final section briefly summarises various devices in literary texts which can be used to trigger strong experiences in a reader. It concludes by noting that our strong experiences of literary texts and other aesthetic objects are related to our more general aesthetic experience.

• Joint winner of The Literary Encyclopedia book prize 2024, category ‘Literatures written in languages other than English'
• Winner of the Nancy Staub Publications Award 2024
• Winner of the AATI Book Award 2024 for Literary, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies

- Sicilian puppet theater is a unique nineteenth- and twentieth-century popular theatrical tradition based on the masterpieces of medieval and Renaissance chivalric literature. It flourished not only in southern Italy and Sicily, but also in the diasporic Italian urban communities of North and South America and North Africa, bringing immigrants together for nightly performances of the same deeply cherished chivalric stories. Even though this art form was designated by UNESCO as an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity” in 2001, it remains largely unknown today because by the late 1950s Sicilian puppet theater companies had ceased to perform the full Paladins of France cycle that used to extend nightly for well over a year. Thus, the only means we have left to explore the substance of this once widely enjoyed cultural phenomenon are the scripts dating from opera dei pupi’s heyday. Most of these invaluable documents, however, have been lost, while the few sets still in existence are either privately owned by the remaining puppeteer families and collectors or tucked away in the archives of Italian institutions. Thanks to the newly accessible scripts of the preeminent Catanese-American puppeteer Agrippino Manteo (1884–1947), whose career stretched from Sicily to Argentina to New York, students, scholars, and the general public can now explore the cycle of chivalric narratives staged during the golden age of Sicilian puppet theater.

- The many delicate hand-written notebooks containing Agrippino Manteo’s dramatic repertory are not only of interest for their historical and aesthetic value. These masterfully executed theatrical adaptations invite readers into a chivalric world featuring knights and damsels from across the globe – from Europe to Africa to East Asia – who share the stage with a host of wizards, fairies, giants, and monsters, in alternating episodes of love, enchantment, adventure, and warfare. The concerns with which they engage, such as justice, identity, duty, love, freedom, and virtue, transcend the categories of elite and folk, local and global, medieval and modern, interrogating what it means to be human.

- This book provides the most comprehensive history to date of the Manteo Family's Sicilian Marionette Theater across three generations and brings to light for the first time the contents of Agrippino Manteo’s extensive Sicilian puppet theater scripts, including translations of 8 selected plays and 270 extant play summaries of the famous Paladins of France cycle. Accompanying comparative analyses uncover the creative process of adaptation from Italian Renaissance masterpieces of chivalric poetry to nineteenth-century prose compilations to Agrippino’s opera dei pupi scripts.

Richard Washburn Child was an American author and diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Italy between 1921 and 1924 during the rise of fascism in that country. Earlier, however, Child visited Russia on the eve of the revolution and was greatly impressed with what he saw. He praised the Russians for their spirit and independence. He optimistically believed that Russia was a dormant force ready to liberate itself from its feudal past and spring forward into modernity. He describes Russia’s resources, both natural and human, and attempts to explain the Russian mindset.
Child acknowledged rumours of a stirring revolutionary mood, but he did not believe they were accurate. Reading his observations, given what we know would soon happen, is both fascinating and poignant. Child would later go on to be a huge supporter of Mussolini and editor of the dictator’s autobiography.
Child urged the United States to establish partnerships with Russia and create opportunities with this powerful nation before other countries beat them to it. He believed that Great Britain was already taking steps to invest in Russia. Child also emphasised the importance of sending representatives to Russia who actually understood the customs and spoke the language.

Karl von Dalberg (1744–1817) was the scion of a prominent aristocratic family in the Holy Roman Empire. He served as the Empire’s last Reichskanzler (1802–1806) before its dissolution by Napoleon, and subsequently as Prince-Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine (1806–1813), implementing Napoleonic reforms in the Rhineland. In the 1790s, he had been active as a political theorist and a member of Friedrich Schiller’s intellectual circle in Jena. Dalberg’s early text of 1793, ‘Von den wahren Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats’ [‘The True Limits of the Effectiveness of the State’], published anonymously but securely attributed, defends Christian Wolff’s perfectionist theory of the state against Kantian critiques, especially as these were formulated in 1792 by Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). The confrontation between Dalberg and Humboldt illustrates the early reception of Kant’s moral, political and juridical thought, and varying German responses to the French Revolution. Dalberg offers an insightful defence of the older perfectionism, while distinguishing it from new liberal and republican approaches.
Dalberg himself had encouraged Humboldt to publish his largely Kantian reflections on the role of the state. Humboldt’s text, Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen [An Attempt to Determine the Limits of the Effectiveness of the State], was published in part in 1792, truncated by Prussian censorship, and the complete work appeared posthumously only in 1851. Humboldt advocated a minimalist state, which he took to be consistent with Kant’s repudiation of Wolffian perfectionism in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) as inimical to the self-determination of persons. The state was to be the agent of freedom and not of happiness. Dalberg responded with a critique of the minimalist state. He defended Wolffian enlightened absolutism, bolstering Wolff’s position with anthropological arguments about indolence and co-ordination to support the view that without broad state intervention and guidance, society stagnates, and perfection, or happiness, becomes unattainable. Dalberg’s response retains a strongly reformist orientation, differentiating him from other contemporary offshoots of Wolffianism, such as the staunchly conservative Historical School of Law. Dalberg is thus a representative of Enlightened absolutism in the context of the French Revolution, and his subsequent political career exemplifies this position.

The World of Wu Zhao is a carefully curated set of more than 120 translated stories—all annotated and contextualized—on a range of topics from Zhang Zhuo’s 張鷟 eighth century collection of miscellany, Collected Records of Court and Country (Chaoye qianzai 朝野僉載). The book provides English readers with a sense and feel for the empire during the reign of Wu Zhao 武曌 (624–705, also known as Empress Wu and Wu Zetian), China’s first and only female emperor. 

The World of Wu Zhao moves outward from the female sovereign’s personal and intimate domain of the inner palace. The text includes chapters on a number of different themes and topics: the female emperor’s male favorites, the culture of the court , cruel officials, as well as sections on flora and fauna, the common folk, artisans and craftsmen, Buddhist and Daoist monks, the military, spirits and the supernatural, the borderlands, and local officials. Chapters are introduced through “speaking artifacts” such as saddles, swords, bronze tallies, porcelain figurines of camels and grooms, official tallies, Buddhist cave paintings and funerary monuments—contemporary to the reign of the female emperor. This lively and fresh perspective on medieval China will amuse and shock readers, prompting them to recalibrate everything they think they know about medieval China.

Self-Presentation and Self-Praise in Open Communication Digital Enterprises presents the findings of an interdisciplinary study of the ‘self-entrepreneurial self’ and, in particular, the rationale behind its need to self-present under the current socio-economic and business conditions. It addresses the complex landscape of the levels, typologies, categories, triggers, as well as both internal and external factors impacting self-praise in the context of a digital workplace (with the focus on enterprise social media) and professional networking platforms. 

In order to reflect the complexity of the topic at hand and interconnectivity of the constructs addressed, insights from such fields as socioeconomics, sociology, social psychology (specifically identity studies), software and services (IT sector), business intelligence and business analytics, digital media communication, organisational behaviour or corporate communication are thus combined with a mixed qualitative-quantitative methodological approach utilised to provide an in-depth exploration of the evolving constructs.

From the broader socio-economic perspective of hyper globalisation, the impact of the neoliberalism economy on workplace relations, and ultimately on employee behaviour, are considered first to lay the background and introduce the relevant concepts. 

Self-presentation and in particular self-praise are considered in their multiple forms against the backdrop of precarious work relations dictated by neoliberalism, leading, among other things, to self-exploitation, but also to putting self-interest above anything else.

The focus is placed on the triggers and manifestations of the social self (how a person thinks the others perceive them) and the situational self (a person’s self-image in a specific situation) in the digital workplace, where individual (cultural) values are frequently overridden by those dictated by a given corporate culture, as aligned with the prevailing market conditions. These in turn impact workplace or employee identity. 

This exploratory and explanatory study contributes to a rather limited number of research endeavours on self-praise, conducted within narrow disciplines and specific frameworks, with the particular research gap being a lack of studies on self-presentational and self-praise activities in the corporate environment, which can primarily be observed in the virtual context of enterprise social media (ESM) and such tools of remote communication as conference calls or collaboration software, but also on professional networking platforms. Here situational antecedents (broadly what occurred before) and the audience (with their reactions) to such self-promotional activities serve as main prerequisites, thus completing the frame of analysis.

Africa: Envisioning Tomorrow explores the major trends that will define the face of the sub-Saharan continent in the next three decades. The near doubling of Africa’s population by 2050 will lead to more than twenty million new job seekers entering the African labour market every year until then. Right now, Africa doesn’t seem armed to offer jobs to this many people, resulting in possible unrest and intra-African or intercontinental migration flows, including to Europe. Climate change creates additional migratory pressure as it threatens the future of agriculture and livestock.
The author explores the opportunities for increased job creation in Africa. Work provides income, and decent and meaningful jobs contribute to prospects and social stability. The evolution of the labour market is essential for the continent’s future. Fortunately, Africa has some major strengths. The continent has the youngest population in the world and represents a wealth of creativity and innovation. Moreover, Africans excel in ‘market-creating innovation’: the ability to see market opportunities and innovations that others do not. Africans create their own jobs through micro and small enterprises. A young well-trained middle class, familiar with digital technologies, is emerging. Africa’s abundant natural resources also attract global regional powers aspiring to secure access to critical raw materials, something the continent can use to its own advantage.
Special attention goes to the European Union’s Africa policy: the book takes a critical look at the European Union’s intentions and approach and formulates recommendations to the European Commission. The author combines economic analysis with stories from twenty-five years of experience with impact investments in Africa. He challenges the typical pessimistic stereotypes about the continent and provides an optimistic vision of Africa’s future.

The practice of architecture as a learned profession is a fairly recent invention in the history of architecture, one that was an uneasy fit with professional ideals from its inception in the nineteenth century, and the value of which is under assault today from globalizing economic forces. Unfortunately, the profession’s longstanding internal tensions have prevented it from articulating a durable ethical rationale for its protections that would help it stand up to those assaults. This book proposes crafting just such a durable ethical rationale through the public good the architecture profession serves. 

But the concept of the public is itself a recent historic phenomenon, one also experiencing both tremendous pressures and instability from many of the same sources destabilizing the architecture profession—globalization, neo-liberal economics, the rise of individualism, and the destruction of privacy. Therefore, to bring architecture and the public good together in any sustained way, both architecture’s instabilities and the public’s must be better understood. The book accomplishes this task by addressing the profession’s long-standing internal struggles that prevent it from articulating a strong ethical defense, the recent economic forces which are dispersing the profession’s center much as they have the world’s middle classes, the Enlightenment-derived concept of the bourgeois public and its more recent decline and reinvention, the importance of dissecting the shifting boundaries between the public and private realms, and finally a new approach to reassert the many ways in which architecture can not only serve the public good, but also become a protagonist in its renewal as a guiding ideal for our times.

The Lure of Economic Nationalism addresses an important topic, namely, the continued appeal of economic nationalism. It places economic nationalism in both historical and contemporary contexts. It begins with a historical consideration of mercantilism and the writings of Friedrich List, considering both from multiple perspectives in economic history and policy and international relations. It then turns to the political psychology of zero-sum thinking, its role as a heuristic device but also its significant limitations.

The book considers both the aggressive trade policy of the Trump Administration in the United States and the Brexit process in the United Kingdom. It also advocates for the alternative to economic nationalism in the form of a rules-based, multilateral trading system and the World Trade Organization. It argues that going beyond zero-sum outcomes is better suited to address current problems. It considers the rising tides of ethnonationalism and the alternative of civic nationalism. It even addresses economic nationalism in the recent COVID-19 pandemic and multilateral approaches to pandemic preparedness. 

The Lure of Economic Nationalism is written in an accessible manner and draws deeply from research in economics and political science. It will be of interest to policymakers, economists, political scientists and to the informed public.

This text will examine U.S. Supreme Court cases which highlight, feature and illuminate some facets of natural law reasoning since the Court’s decree in Roe v. Wade. For most of our constitutional and legal history, there has been an exhilarating debate about whether natural law commands or encourages certain legal resolutions – even from the time of the Founders. Most would concur that the legal philosophy of Jefferson and other Founders favored a natural law basis for this republic and its corresponding rights. And while the proposed text accepts that the concept and understanding of natural law reasoning has both supporters and detractors in contemporary settings, earlier Supreme Court rulings on controversial subject matter used natural law language with regularity. Since the 1970s, the idea of a perennial, immutable and unassailable natural law has lost favor. And given the recent surge in controversial case law and conflicting decisions on highly charged topics, a return to first principles grounded in nature and natural law might be beneficial. Indeed, the proposed research hopes to gauge its current relevance, usage and reliance in more modern judicial cases.

Bringing together the ideas of many philosophers, among others Hegel, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Deleuze and Derrida, the book aims to give a coherent synthesis of ideas about change and aims to see how one can take a process view of various features of humanity, such as knowledge, relations between people, language and morality, and how, vice versa, that might contribute to process philosophy. Beginning with evolution and moving on to consider knowledge in its dynamic aspect of learning, the book takes a process view of the individual and society.

Generalised Darwinism is discussed not only in terms of biology but also in economics, organisation, language and science in terms of interactors and replicators. The key processes of variety generation, selection and transmission are fundamentally different from those in biology. Therefore, a theory of knowledge and its change is presented that in some ways is similar to evolution but also different in important ways. This theory discusses neural Darwinism. It proposes how discovery might work, in a cycle of discovery, in an interchange of stability and change, and how differences in cognition work in the combination of different sources (cognitive distance). This theory is applied to knowledge, organisations and science. The discussion explains and applies the notions of entropy and organisational focus. Recognising that absolute, objective truth is problematic, it discusses the notion of warranted assertion. The notions of sense and reference are discussed in an explanation of meaning, and the notions of order and variety in terms of langue and parole, and the role of parole in poetry. The change of meaning is further developed in terms of the hermeneutic circle to deal with order and change of meaning. It uses the notion of a script and the hypothesis of an object bias.

Ethics and morality are explored by how the individual constructs their identity and develops in their tension between authenticity and conformity in society. Aristotle’s multiple causality of action is employed to discuss power and sources of dependence and ways to deal with them. Networks as a source of identity and the decentralisation of governance to communities are discussed along with the notion of restorative justice. The concluding chapter considers the historical development and the different forms of ethics and morality, in relation to institutions, and how in evolution an instinct for benevolence has developed and is related to the intrinsic next to extrinsic value of relationships.

The Puritan Ideology of Mobility: Corporatism, the Politics of Place, and the Founding of New England Towns before 1650 examines the ideology that English Puritans developed to justify migration: their migration from England to New England, migrations from one town to another within New England, and, often, their repatriation to the mother country. Guided by the Protestant scholasticism of Cambridge University, Puritan leaders accepted the ancient corporatist image of society as a living, organic body politic, a model which they applied to nations, colonies, business corporations like the Massachusetts Bay Company, and towns.

But if a town, a colony, or a nation were a living body, how could Puritans justify withdrawing from one body to form a new social body, as they so often did? Drawing on the prevailing humoral theory of health, Puritans leaders believed that if a social body became “distempered” because of insufficient resources or political or religious disagreements, it might become necessary to bring about a new body politic in order to restore balance and harmony to the existing one. This theory gave rise to a robust “politics of place” in colonial New England, where one’s choice of residence could make a strong political statement.

In order to facilitate the founding of new town bodies, colonial elites were endowed with unique privileges of mobility. But these entrepreneurs also needed ordinary inhabitants to make a successful migration, so that the various “members” of the new social body all benefited from the opportunities conferred through the privilege of migration. The body of a new town was articulated through the social ritual of land distribution, carried out in proportion to rank according to Aristotelian “distributive justice.” The book will trace this process at work in the founding of Ipswich and its satellite towns in Massachusetts.

International student migration makes a significant contribution to higher education in the United Kingdom, with Southern Africa, and Nigeria in particular, positioned joint sixth in the top ten of sending countries. Many of these student-migrants, in supplementing their finances to fund their studies in the United Kingdom, undertake employment. Temporary and/or part-time employment is integral to the student-migrant experience, despite the express purpose of their admission into the United Kingdom designated for study purposes and not work. This explicit object is reflected in restrictions affixed to international students’ employment rights whilst studying; they are generally restricted to a maximum of 20 hours of work per week during term time and proscribed from working full time or as independent contractors. Given the scant regard this topic has received in the existing literature, this study offers an examination of students’ lived employment experiences under these rules. Adopting a qualitative methodology through interviews and ethnographic observations with cohorts of international student workers from sub-Saharan Africa, the study presents a holistic picture of the lived experiences, through employment practices, of this group of student-migrant-workers. The study aims to offer contributions to the existing body of literature in two principal ways. First, it accounts for the employment experiences of student-migrants through the analytical framework of ‘precarity’ by examining the various manifestations of insecurity in the students’ lived realities, nuanced by structures of migration control and labour market temporalities. The study highlights that these students are forced to contend with intersecting forms of insecurities in their labour market encounters. This reifies their dependence on certain forms of employment and relationships, and renders them increasingly susceptible to unfavourable work conditions including low pay, exploitation, discrimination and abuse. This aspect of the study is concluded by advancing an argument that higher education institutions, as the primary sponsors of these students, must do more to forearm them with candid insights on what to expect of the temporary employment market and furnish them with a comprehensive knowledge of their accruable employment rights. 

For the second contribution, adopting the socio-legal schema of legal consciousness, the study considers the student-migrants’ relationship with the law by way of the legal restrictions on their employment and interrogates their agency in their efforts to derogate from these rules. These derogations are conceptualised as ‘semi-legality’, an analytical construct that marks an indeterminate halfway point between utter illegality and compliance, as it applies to labour. The study highlights that there are two discernible plots towards enabling semi-legal employment and evading detection thereof. The first involves the students undertaking work with different employers simultaneously; meanwhile, the second entails students contracting for work through the use of private limited companies as a trading structure. The study argues that the specifics of the student’s violation of visa rules has profound distinctive implications for their legal consciousness’ disposition and more so the manner in which they simultaneously resist and make recourse to the law and its institutions towards resolving workplace grievances. 

It has been suggested that, if CARICOM nations wish to accelerate their development, they should embrace laissez-faire economic policies. However, laissez-faire economic policies have reinforced the very economic and social structures that have contributed to their low level of development; furthermore, laissez-faire economic policies ignore social attitudes that can greatly influence a nation’s development. Moreover, low-skilled labor-intensive production processes, which once propelled growth in CARICOM nations, will no longer perform a similar role because production processes are becoming more and more knowledge-skills intensive, and nations wishing to attract foreign manufacturing investment or high-tech services may not be able to do so without an adequate pool of the necessary knowledge skills. CARICOM nations must therefore try to accumulate a pool of knowledge skills that can help their economies become internationally competitive.

The book presents the first integrated study of the relationship between official Islamic leadership (muftiship), non-official Islamic authorities, grassroots Muslim communities and the state in post-Communist Eurasia, encompassing Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, the Volga-Urals, Crimea, the North Caucasus, Azerbaijan and ex-Soviet Central Asia. Its analysis is positioned within the current secularism/de-secularisation debate. The book is based on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including the author’s interviews with Islamic official and popular leaders and authorities, which she conducted over two decades in various parts of Eurasia. The book employs a history-based perspective and compares the nature and role of official Islamic leadership and the state-Muslim relations across Eurasia with those in both the Middle East and Western Europe. It argues that in most of the post-Soviet lands, the official Islamic leadership and its relations with the state have largely retained their particular national and broader Eurasian character, which distinguishes them from what prevails in the Middle East and Western Europe. At the same time, the increasing political ‘Europeanisation’ of Lithuania and Ukraine since 2014 and, to some extent, Belarus, has accounted for their divergence towards the Western model of state-Muslim relations. In conclusion, it analyses the impact of globalisation and the advance of global Salafism, in particular, on Islamic leadership and state-Muslim relations across post-Soviet Eurasia. 

The book has an introduction outlining the conceptual framework that gives meaning to the six collected texts that follow. This framework derives from the work of Pierre Bourdieu. He stated that ‘everything is social,’ which means that all discourses have to be understood in their own terms (as ‘structured structures’) and in relation to the social conditions in which they developed (‘structuring structures’). As social individuals we are constrained by the structures defining our situation but we also have the capacity to alter those structures. With particular reference to the ‘field’ of politics, the Introduction considers theoretically the nature of the ‘presentation of self’ (Goffman) of citizens and the nature of parliamentary democracy as ‘presentation’ or ‘representation’ (as discussed in Habermas: The structural transformation of the public sphere).

The six main chapters reproduce texts written or spoken about politics at intervals in the period from 1960 until 2020. Brief introductions to each chapter will contextualise these texts both in terms of their significance in my developing awareness of political discourse and also in terms of the historically changing nature of the field of politics itself in the United Kingdom. Having an a-political upbringing, the author suggests that he gradually acquired a political competence but, equally, developed the view that the domination of political discourse has become exclusive and that there is now a need to reassert social relations in society and to recognize the extent to which political activity sustains the social control of a privileged minority.

The book has an Epilogue which considers some recent arguments about ‘populism’ and also reflects on the extent to which the ‘new normal’ heralded by some for a post-Covid future has the capacity to circumscribe the influence of politics. The author reflects on whether deployment of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ - the process by which the attitudes of the few are imposed on the many – might lead to the possible resurgence of social movements which are sceptical about political power. The author suggests that there may be a need for a new ‘quietism’ as advanced by Fénelon in the court of Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century and as considered by Richard Rorty in “Naturalism and quietism” in Philosophy as Cultural Politics, 2007. 

The essays in Logos and Life, the earliest written in 2001 but mainly dating from 2014 and later, cover topics in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ethics and philosophy of language. There are discussions of the voluntary and the involuntary; reasons for action; the idea of an ‘inner state’; pleasure; the nature of ethics; justice; necessity and possibility; and a number of other topics. Numerous strands connect these four areas, which Roger Teichmann highlights: in this sense the collection exhibits thematic unity as well as diversity.

Several of the essays take as their starting points the ideas and philosophical methods of Wittgenstein and of Elizabeth Anscombe, and so will be of interest to anyone studying those philosophers. Anscombe was a friend and pupil of Wittgenstein, and Teichmann was fortunate enough to be a friend and pupil of Anscombe. He is now a leading authority on her philosophy.

A newly written Introduction serves to indicate the main themes and arguments of the book, and provide an overall statement of Teichmann’s philosophy. 

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is a technological breakthrough that will revolutionize human life. Advancements in the area of AI are happening all across the globe and this technology is not only reshaping business and government and also being applied in the daily lives of individuals. 

AI has been integrated in many industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, retail and consumer, technology, communication and entertainment, energy, transportation and logistics. The application of AI in these industries has helped in not only making processes more efficient but also reducing cost. There are many applications of Ai which are yet to be researched and put into practice. A lot needs to be done to capitalize the full potential of this technology. Companies are, therefore, investing a plenty of funds in R&D activities to harness its maximum benefit.

International Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence is an effort to engage the practitioners, researchers and users in a discussion on AI and also to provide snapshots of the status of AI in different parts of the world. 

The book provides a comprehensive discussion of the new humor that has appeared on the internet. The book is divided into five sections: First, the introduction, which explains the idea that humor has changed since the widespread adoption of the internet and social media. The introduction reviews the theoretical tools that will be applied throughout the book: a discussion of humor theory and memes and how they function. The discussion is kept engaging and readable but is nonetheless based on rigorous scholarship, presented clearly by a well-known humor researcher.

Part 1 collects several chapters on the new humorous genres that have appeared on the internet: the humorous meme, the compilation video, online digital cartoons, the “stuff white people like” phenomenon, Dogecoin, the joke crypto-currency, and of course satirical news, such as The Onion. The overall point is that many of these phenomena are completely native to the internet/social media or have been significantly affected by the distribution via the internet.

Part 2 considers in more detail a number of examples of humorous memes: they include the Cheryl She Shed meme, the BoatyMcBoatface incident in which the crowdsourcing of the name for a boat went awry, Pastafarianism, the joke religion, grumpy cats, and the Chuck Norris memes. Part 3 considers multimodal humorous genres: the Hitler rant, photobombing, embarrassment (“cringe”) comedy, rant-to-music videos, and music video parodies. Here too, these new genres can exist only due to the availability of platforms such as Youtube or TikTok. Part 4 looks at the dark side of internet humor, considering the use of humor by the alt. right on 4chan and 8chan, trolling, and related phenomena. The last chapter looks at humorous cartoon “mascots” such as Pepe the Frog and Kek, which have been appropriated by the right.

The first comprehensive guide to humor in the age of the internet and social media, this book will make you laugh (for the examples) and will enlighten you (for the analyses). Hopefully.

Insurgent Play: Social worlds of urban disruption explores play as a transgressive expression that counters the existing urban order (neoliberal, authoritarian, militarised). Insurgent play is disruptive, yet through disruption it brings social worlds into being, undergirds global subcultures and overcomes hostile urban environments characterised by ever-diminishing spaces for free expression. Acts of insurgent play are claims on space lasting from brief moments to years, animating patches of the city designed for commercial, industrial and logistical imperatives. Even in public spaces designed for leisure and play, insurgent play brings different expressions at different speeds, transgressing designated uses and bodily expectations. Through insurgent play people find belonging in the city, especially for those excluded from other spaces based on race, class, sexuality and citizenship. As such, stories of insurgent play are stories of alternative ways of inhabiting cities stemming from the widespread human desire and need for play, for joy and for sociality.
Insurgent Play draws upon examples from street skateboarding. Street skateboarding disrupts the city in the pursuit of play, enlivens patches of space through temporary claims, and initiates encounters with authorisers, property owners and citizens gravid with hostility with instants of wonder. Insurgence is a way of being, and the desire for insurgent play cannot be placated by better urban planning or formal expertise. Nor will multiplying designated play spaces, creative precincts and ‘flexible’ public spaces stop people seeking out space to create their own worlds of disruption.
The book makes four arguments. First, insurgent play is bodily expression that can challenge, disrupt and transgresses dominant ways of city-making. Second, insurgent play takes us to parts of the urban landscape that we might not otherwise go, politics we might not otherwise recognise and encounters we might otherwise overlook. Third, claims on the city made through insurgent play enliven urban space through transformative power. In this way, these claims territorialise patches of the built environment intended for other uses. Last, insurgent play space is generated from below, never above. Insurgent play shapes, and is shaped by, identities that position adherents in opposition to prevailing urban orders.

A collection of essays rather than a single, continuously argued monograph, Hawthorne’s Histories, Hawthorne’s World collects together the essays Professor Colacurcio has written on Hawthorne since the publication of his ground-breaking Province of Piety, elaborating and refining his analyses of how Hawthorne’s most memorable early tales “do history,” but proceeding then to explore the later productions of that author’s distinguished career. The result, in Colacurcio’s patient analysis, is something like Hawthorne’s history of his own times. To be sure, The Scarlet Letter returns to the rich theme we know as “the matter of the Puritans,” but rides up from a moment, and clearly implies, the vibrant but troubled women’s movement; and, imagining the world Hester Prynne as good as predicted, The Blithedale Romance deepens the sensitive but cautious inquiry. Contemporaneous too is the subject of The House of the Seven Gables which, stopping just short of discovering that property is theft, dares to inquire into the murky sources of aristocratic wealth and privilege in his present New England. From the moment between the early tales and the three American romances, the tales and sketches written at the Old Manse in Concord reveal Hawthorne’s fascinated and troubled response to that swirl of contemporary reform movements which historians know as “Freedom’s Ferment”; several encounter Emerson explicitly, and even more question the life-implications of “idealism as it appears in 1842,” as Emerson had defined his Transcendentalism.  From the so-called “Last Phase” of Hawthorne’s career, Colacurcio presents, along with some remarks “Chiefly About War Matters” (1862) and, more briefly still, the unfinished romances, a major reading of the work Hawthorne called Our Old Home (1863); growing out of the Notebooks the author kept while serving as American Consul to Liverpool in the mid-1850s, this now nostalgic, now fierce mix of excursion and critique reveals a great deal about Hawthorne’s social intelligence, and about his biases. Finally, Colacurcio offers a patient but somewhat resistant reading of The Marble Faun, a major effort to identify the “puritanic” element in the developing American identity but revealing, at the same time, an unsteady Narrator’s increasing hesitance about the epistemology of the “Romance.”  Literary genius beginning to doubt its gift.

This book contains fifteen chapters organized thematically around key themes but in a non-cumulative way. This means readers can randomly sample topics and sections of the book or dive into a single essay covering one specific issue in more detail (such as biases, mistakes, strategy, foresight, talent or teams). Either way, readers can assess if they agree with the approaches offered or perhaps favor different perspectives. If the latter, they may wish to discuss the issues with some colleagues informally during a break or examine the case more formally  in team building exercises to raise the organization’s strategic IQ.

Sampling the collected sub-sections and chapters (whether in small bites or as one read-through) will help managers refine their own approaches to strategic thinking and leadership. Also, it will help align them better with colleagues or partners who come from different backgrounds, functional responsibilities or cultural orientations. It will soon become apparent to readers that the overall approach to business problems presented is very much behavioral. This means that each essay or case starts by identifying important management problems in some realistic business settings. Before offering any conceptual perspectives or prescriptive advice, each essay seeks to better understand the behavioral context of the problems addressed.

This varied case approach seeks to provide practical insights, tips or even full solutions, but not until the essence of the problem and its broader organizational and cultural settings are sufficiently understood. Offering prescriptions without first getting well-grounded behavioual descriptions tend to result in failed interventions. Normative advice that is drawn from text books rather than real slices of life often amount to  boxing with shadows on the wall rather than solving the real issues. As such, this book aims to illustrate for managers and leaders how to frame thorny management issues by (i) clearly defining a distinct business problem, (ii) viewing it through multiple lenses and (iii) creatively exploring pragmatic solutions for the short and long runs.

First published in 1851, Henry Murger’sScènes de la vie de bohèmebrought together the stories he had written for a small arts newspaper in Paris. These semi-fictionalized tales, drawn from the daily lives of Murger and his friends, portray the struggles and celebrations, the loves and losses, of young writers and artists as they eked out an existence on the impoverished margins of society. While the nineteenth-century Parisian setting is fascinating in itself, the stories have retained their contemporary relevance as the continuing popularity of Puccini’s opera adaptation (La Bohème) and the Broadway success of Jonathan Larson’s Rent—both based on Murger’s stories—have demonstrated. 

Life in bohemia continues to attract young people in great numbers, just as it has done for almost two centuries, and it is Murger’s bohemia, with all its energy and eccentricities, that underlies that appeal. Balancing humor and despair, and optimism and desperation, Murger’s characters, much like today’s bohemians, manage to confound landlords and bill collectors, endure cold and hunger, find love and lose it, party without restraint and confront the devastating deaths of friends and lovers. 

With this new translation, readers can once again encounter the point of origin for the bohemian cultures that have flourished ever since, not only the source for Puccini’s and Larson’s phenomenally popular musical works as well as for numerous films and songs over many decades but also a classic work of literature that will re-introduce English readers to Rodolphe and Mimi, Marcel and Musette, Schaunard and Colline, after too long an absence.

This book is divided into three sections.
The first section examines the political relationships/structures of Somalia’s clans with focus on the pre–Siad Barre era. Somalis are largely one people further linked by one religion (Sunni Islam). Establishing their connectivity is crucial in view of this project’s contention that Indigenous methods of conflict resolution that have so far worked in the north (Somaliland and Puntland) can work in the south-central regions where conflict still pervades.
The next section examines the conflict in Somalia from events leading to the exit of Siad Barre (the point where the conflict really begins) and the growth of the Aristocratic/Gerontocratic system of government in the north to address the situation. It will capture the rise of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in the south-central areas whose aim was the stability of the regions under their control. The gains, gaps and setbacks of these Indigenous systems will also be discussed in this section.
The third section captures the intervention of Ethiopia and the United States in Somalia’s conflict and how the African Union (AU) was drawn into the fray to legitimize this intervention. Here the book deals with the following (research) question: Should the AU have gone ahead with the intervention plans of the US/Ethiopia that were directed at debilitating the ICU, or, should focus have been directed at supporting local structures put in place by the ICU to foster stability as had been done in the north by the clan elders? This section discusses the current state of affairs in view of what was forfeited.

Did you know that the uranium used to bomb the citizens of Hiroshima was mined at a forbidden site known as ‘the money place’ by First Nation people in northern Canada? Or have you heard about the environmental damage and social upheavals at the Atomic City of Oak Ridge? And how about the bikini swimwear? Did you know that the gaze on a woman’s belly button was that of military men carrying out atomic bombardments of the Bikini Atoll while fetishising ‘sex bombs’ and (an)atomic ‘bombshells’? And how about the poor Pacific Islanders who got their atolls blown to pieces? Have you heard about the colonial history of violence and oppression of those whose only aspiration was to live in peace with their coconut islands? And everyone is talking about climate change these days. Did you know that the debate emerged as a reaction to the fear of ordinary citizens wondering if atomic bombs would blow up the entire sky?

If some of this was news to you, it might have to do with how the story of atomic bombs has been told. The truism that history is written by its winners is very much the case in the literature about how the bomb came about, with numerous apologetic books most often written by U.S. scholars. These are usually cast as stories of the tormented souls of scientists who made a ‘Faustian bargain’ with the military in pursuit of atomic knowledge. The physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the nuke’s ‘father’, is repeatedly centre stage, as in the case of the recent film about him. These are elitist stories that more often than not ignore the suffering and violence of the bomb to laypeople in general, and to marginalised groups in particular. This book offers alternative perspectives.

For more than four centuries, Britons have been dominating and colonising other peoples and territories. Britain’s Empires tells that story without flinching from the oppressive and exploitative side of the imperial mission that shaped world history. It also aims to tell the story of the colonial past as one marked by change and reinvention, where each new era was embarked upon as a break with the past.

This is history of the many different British Empires – the Old Colonial System (1600-1776), the Empire of Free Trade (1776-1870), the New Imperialism (1870-1945), Decolonisation (1945-1990) and the era of humanitarian intervention (1990-2020).

As well as explaining the importance of ‘primitive accumulation’ to kickstarting British capitalism in the Old Colonial Era, Heartfield shows that the New Imperialism of the 1880s was in large part a response to economic exhaustion in the mother country, and an attempt to find a new purpose in the colonies. Britain’s Empires also explains the dynamics of decolonisation in the post-war era, the rebalancing of Britain’s relation to the world that allowed it to create an arm’s length relation to newly independent ex-colonies, while carrying on extensive military interventions overseas. The book concludes with an assessment of the post-Cold War resurgence of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in the less developed world, in an important retrospective account.

Britain’s Empires explains how imperial policy dominated andskewed the history of societies across the world, from Canada and the West Indies to Ireland, from Africa to the Middle East, from India to China and into Australasia; but also how the peoples of those territories imposed themselves on Britain, challenging slavery, standing up to colonial overlords and eventually overthrowing them.The book explains how the reinvention of Britain’s Empire reworked its critics protest to reinvent colonisation as a struggle against slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, and a civilising mission at that century’s end. The capacity of Empire to foster local native allies helped stabilise a polity of extraordinary reach. But as Heartfield explains, the subordination of a quarter of the world’s landmass was often a defensive reaction to internal limitations and other imperial challenges. The history of Britain’s Empires, explains Heartfield, is one of constant challenge and change, where vanquished become victors, and heroes often turn out to be villains.

How are breasts and breastfeeding shown in literature? Why does the depiction of breastfeeding in literature matter? What messages do we get from literature about the feeding of infants and children and about women’s bodies? Is this different in different cultures? What causes cultural and historical differences and what can we learn from them?

This cross-cultural study analyses images and descriptions of breasts and breastfeeding in children’s books and literature for adults, in both English and Swedish. It explores how breastfeeding is depicted in literature in the two languages and discusses why there are differences in the cultures. Literary, feminist, anthropological, sociological, historical, and cultural research is used to support this analysis and to suggest explanations for the differing depictions. For example, the book discusses the concepts of women being nude versus women being naked; nakedness, the book argues, is more acceptable in Swedish literature and society, whereas a naked female is immediately perceived as nude in English-speaking cultures, and nudity is always sexualised. It discusses the male gaze and challenges ways of seeing women’s bodies in literature; a question here is whether women can see their bodies without being influenced by the pervasiveness of the male gaze. Another example of a difference between the two cultures is the rise of formula-feeding and supposedly scientific ways of understanding and managing bodies in many Western countries, including English-speaking ones, and this in turn influences decreasing familiarity and comfort with seeing breasts and breastfeeding in literature, whereas rates of breastfeeding are still high in Scandinavia, which suggests more understanding, acceptance and support of natural bodily functions. In addition, issues such as whether a more feminist political approach might affect how breastfeeding is depicted and how it is treated in society are considered.

While this intercultural exploration of breasts and breastfeeding in literature is academic and relies on extensive research, the book also suggests that this reflects popular culture today. Given the rise of the #MeToo movement and our new awareness of people’s rights to their own bodies and to consent, it is important that we explore depictions in the media of women’s bodies and encourage positive representations. Avoiding naked females in literature or primarily showing them in sexualised contexts suggests a sense of shame and fear about female bodies, or emphasises the idea that women are to be objectified.

In short, this book will focus on a topic not yet seen in any depth in academic research and will raise fresh awareness of the power of literature to influence how readers see their own and other people’s bodies, and will also illuminate cultural and historical differences that affect what writers describe and illustrators depict in literature when it comes to breasts and breastfeeding. The book challenges the currently prevailing ways of depicting female bodies in literature and discusses the way societal norms influence the writing and illustrating of literature.

To date, masculinity has tended to be presented in cinema studies as a monolithic category that serves the interests of a hegemonic, normative patriarchy. This book demonstrates how the art-house film, in the form of personal cinema and its exploitation of the melodramatic mode, tells a different story, presenting a vision of masculinity that is sexually fluid, fragmented, unstable, and often incapacitated to the point of paralysis, being undermined not only from within, but also by external circumstance. Hollywood, in the form of “male weepies,” offered preliminary insights into this failing masculinity, but it is with the flowering of Post-World War II art film and its subsequent movement into the “indie” waves of the late 20th century and the early 21st century that cinema more profoundly realizes its potential to serve as a vehicle for the exploration of men’s interior lives, developing what might be termed the “male melodrama,” the correlative of the woman’s film. 

The present volume offers a series of essays that reassess the role of melodrama in a number of touchstone films in the art-cinema tradition that explore the subjective experience of a male protagonist, announcing the emergence of a genre that has progressively proliferated in contemporary cinema. While these films, made by such notable auteurs as Vittorio De Sica, Satyajit Ray, Vincente Minnelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Luca Guadagnino have been frequently discussed as outstanding examples of art films, to date, with a few exceptions, they have not been examined in terms of their representation of gender and subjectivity, which has left a lacuna in accounts of screened masculinities.

This is a book about dying, or, more accurately, about the representation of dying in the theatre. Its chief concern is how actors undertook to translate words and concepts into forms legible and significant to an audience. It deals with the ways in which playwrights wrote about death and attitudes towards death in their cultures. Nevertheless, the emphasis is on the practice of acting.

Before the nineteenth century, when death began to be confined behind closed doors, it was widely available as a spectacle. Death and the suffering that preceded it were in plain sight; no effort was made to hide the diseased and moribund. The absence of medical means of alleviating pain or of hygienic measures meant that the most distressing and abhorrent aspects of dying were out in the open. The contempt for human life shown by the law-courts and the death penalty for the slightest offence occasioned frequent and enthusiastically attended public executions. In addition, the Church and religion generally hoped, through elaborate rites and ceremonies, both before and after death, to invest it with an edifying value that could be extended for the greater good. The sacred and social ceremony makes a transition into an aesthetic and political performance, marking a more modern frame of mind.

Neoclassic decorum eschewed such displays; and, after a heyday of spectacular dying on the nineteenth-century stage, critics again began to insist on more moderate displays. This conformed to the growing emphasis on mental processes and psychological complexity. However, it runs counter to the theatre’s need for high color, extreme situations and fanciful invention. Denied house-room in literary drama, these desiderata found a welcome haven in the various manifestations of performance art.

Palaces, villas and churches. These were the highlights of my first visit to Italy. I took a lot of photos and looked forward to sharing them with friends and family. Back home, though, I found that I didn’t recall much about the places that impressed me. Although I had the benefit of a half-day guide in Rome, Florence and Venice, I sometimes had difficulty hearing what was said on crowded streets and busy interiors. The guides were capable but had only enough time to mention a few major features. As a rule, they skimped on actually describing buildings that intrigued me. And so they were not especially helpful in providing the insights I wanted. Upon my return, I found myself wondering: Where did the architects actually find their ideas? What did they want to accomplish? And what do their choices tell us about their time? My sojourn in Italy would have been more satisfying if I had come away with a fuller account of what I had seen. What I most needed was context. This book supplies that context.
Contemplation of antiquity and the exchange of views among architects released a surge of intellectual energy not seen for a millennium, a development that would never have happened so quickly were it not for Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable type. This development, in turn, led to architects’ heightened self-awareness of their collective enterprise. They read what their fellow architects wrote and thereby gained in sophistication. They were no longer merely masons. They became architects in the modern sense. They took pride in their achievements and shared a conviction that the visual culture they created was far superior to that of the previous thousand years.
Their embrace of classical civilisation had a visceral urgency. Rome, after all, was a culture with a storied past, peopled by larger-than-life figures. To learn what the ancients had created in word or stone could supply a shortcut to wisdom. And emulating the Romans would provide new models of aesthetic excellence. This endeavour became known as the Renaissance, or rebirth. The Reformation, however, changed everything. Martin Luther brought to issue a quandary: How exactly was Christianity to be reconciled with the pagan past, if at all? Could one source of inspiration be sustained without compromising the other? Religious reform questioned the aesthetic achievements of the previous hundred years. The story of Renaissance architecture represents the effort to find an accommodation.

This book deals with the morality, identity, self-conception and prestige of states, all of which goes well beyond the narrow, rationalist defence of national interests, which dominates most IR studies. The honour of states – which is most clearly seen in situations of war – rests on the ideal conception of ‘all of us’, which includes all citizens, all classes and all generations, set against their opposite numbers outside of ‘our’ immediate sphere of domination. This state-based image of itself and its existential teleology constitutes its very essence, notwithstanding that it is often seen as a deviation (‘exception’) from the normal state of affairs, where the state is ‘just’ there to serve and support the economy and its principal actors.

The volume, which is particularly topical given the current belligerent state of Europe and the global struggle for hegemony, pursues this line of thinking along three different but interconnected routes. The first chapter delves into the morality question itself, tackling the complex relationship between politics, law and morals, and between states and citizens. The universe of moral judgements feeds off rigid distinctions between good and bad, I/we and the Other, restraint and self-restraint, liberty and puritanism. Political actors support it, law legitimates it, and citizens enact it. The second chapter deals with the question of the honour and prestige of states, historically and conceptually; this is a question that has been either ignored or misconceived by recent international relations theories, but which has now shown its renewed relevance and cries out for an explanation. Finally, the third article tackles the question of war and peace head-on. Its basic theorem is that the two are not contradictory but complementary: reasons for war are produced in times of peace. Both Kant’s thesis on ‘perpetual peace’ and its modern corollary, that is, that democracies do not go to war against each other, are seen as fallacious. The chapter ends by addressing the question of the background and rationale of the war in Ukraine, in the process critiquing the moral stance characterising the Western understanding of the situation.

Thus, all three chapters revolve around issues that relate to the interaction of war and democracy and the underlying morality that both legitimates and underpins the actions of politicians as well as citizens.

This is a relatively short work focusing on the metapolitics – the deeper structures – of the Second Cold War. It is designed to prompt discussion and debate, and thoughtful reflection on the current state of international affairs. The earlier Cold War conflict between communism and capitalism has given way to a more amorphous but, paradoxically, more intense struggle between representations of the political good. There is some analysis of diplomatic history and processes in international politics, but the focus is on the underlying attitudes and ideologies that have generated and sustained Cold War 2.

The work begins with some definitions of a Cold War and whether the term is applicable to the current condition of international affairs. There is also some discussion of the term ‘culture’ and how it is applied in this study. The fundamental question is why Cold War has returned, after all the hopes after 1989 and the end the First Cold War for a new peace order. The contesting explanations are examined, including perspectives from the ‘political West’ (the term used to describe the distinctive development of the Atlantic alliance system since 1945), from Russia and China, and later in the work, from the global South.

The work then looks at how this Cold War is being conducted, including renewed militarism, the suppression of dissent, the decline of diplomacy and the reduced opportunities for dialogue. This includes some discussion of ‘double standards’, applied not in a moralistic way but identified as a structural characteristic of international politics today. The instruments of Cold War 2 include sanctions and the reinterpretation of history and memory wars. Many of the familiar methods drawn from Cold War 1 are now applied, but in novel ways to reflect technological change as well as the different ideological contexts. Information management and communicative wars reach deep into public consciousness. However, Cold War 2 leaves much of the global South cold, refusing to be drawn into a conflict that is perceived to be largely a matter internal to the global North. The work ends with some reflections on possible ways this cold war could end.

Much has been written about political polarisation in the United States, but no one has examined it through the lens of recent U.S. history. There is nothing deterministic about how we became polarised, and it happened more recently than many think. To fully understand the problem, we must take the long view, the perspective provided by history, with its attention to change over time and the role of contingency. That’s what The Path to Paralysis does.

The book illuminates the broad forces that have shaped and reshaped American society and politics since the mid-1960s: the shift from an industrial to an information economy that produced economic inequality not seen since the 1920s; dramatic, unsettling changes in gender and sexuality; sharp conflict between those who embrace the culture of personal freedom that was a legacy of the 1960s and politically mobilised White evangelicals; persistent racial discord that transformed Southern politics and shattered the New Deal coalition; and dramatic changes in communication that transformed broadcasting into narrowcasting, creating alternate news and truths.

These developments had their origin in the late 1960s and have generated sharp political conflict for six decades. But they didn’t overwhelm the system until the 21st century. Ronald Reagan moved American politics to the right, but Republicans and Democrats forged compromise on issues as diverse as economic policy, civil rights, and immigration. After the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush tacked to the centre and sought bipartisan solutions to issues like welfare, education and immigration. Sharp conflict and governance were compatible.

The tipping point was the election of the nation’s first Black president and the economic collapse he inherited. Fault lines of religion, region, gender, sexual orientation, class, education and, especially, race widened. People chose sides and identified enemies, the number of true swing voters shrunk, fewer states and congressional districts were competitive, the two major parties became more monolithic, and appeals to the base drove strategy and what passed for policy. It was an atmosphere that provided fertile ground for a demagogue whose norm-busting appeals to White grievance and Christian Nationalism, as well as to regional and class resentment strengthened his appeal to an angry base and threatened the peaceful transition of power, the bedrock of American democracy for more than two centuries.

Defining Hybrid Heroes: The Leadership Spectrum from Scoundrel to Saint defines the hero (and his or her journey) from a hybrid perspective, exploring the spectrum from scoundrel to saint. It utilizes a more dynamic and situational outlook, regarding heroism not only as a personal characteristic, but also as a series of heroic acts within a given situation.

The book examines the hybrid hero from several distinctive points of view, e.g. through lenses dominated by fiction, business, politics and psychology, and paints a new, more complex portrait that takes full advantage of the authors’ varied backgrounds. Inge Brokerhof has an academic background in psychology and has studied the impact of narrative fiction on workplace variables, such as career identity, employability and moral leadership. Stephan Sonnenburg has studied Joseph Campbell and the impact of the hero’s journey on creativity and innovation management. Greg Stone is a communications consultant who teaches executives and professors how to explain their work in clear and compelling language..

This book will be at once theoretical and practical, with a combination of substantial intellectual content to satisfy an academic audience and a series of specific recommendations to meet the needs of thinking managers seeking to improve their leadership skills. In the “real world” of business, leaders are often both scoundrel and saint. They are role models and anti-models at the same time. The authors show how they can make these warring traits work for them and how academics can gain a new perspective on approaching leadership and management.

Embark on a new exploration of power dynamics through the book. The book challenges traditional notions of power, introducing a contemporary model that empowers ordinary individuals to wield power. Delving into the intricacies of human behavior, it presents a compelling contrast to the Machiavellian approach, providing readers with actionable insights and strategic principles to navigate and thrive in complex social landscapes.
As the narrative unfolds, engaging stories illustrate the transformative potential of the new power model. Ordinary individuals become protagonists in their journey to gain power, showcasing the applicability of these principles in real-life scenarios. The book skillfully weaves together theory and practicality, offering a roadmap for readers to enhance their personal and professional lives by embracing a more authentic and impactful approach to power.
The book is a refreshing perspective that challenges traditional norms, providing a compass to navigate the evolving terrain of power. Whether in business, relationships, or personal growth, this paradigm shift promises to empower individuals, fostering a new era where ideology and principles take center stage.

This book draws together an oral and visual art history of a country that is extremely rich in culture and history but that is often overlooked or underestimated. By observing the country’s history and visual culture and the artistic practices of select artists from the UAE, it considers the development of contemporary art from the UAE. This will increase accessibility to art by Emiratis and underline its wider relevance.
There is a dearth of literature on contemporary art by Emiratis, and this may be one of the reasons contemporary art from the UAE is under-represented globally. In order to help the reader better understand art from the UAE, this book traces the country’s historical make-up, its culture and contemporary art tradition through oral histories based on interviews with a wide variety of artists and people working in the art industries. It also explores this development using global art discourses that are relevant to art produced in the UAE today.
This book also considers how cultural and artistic identities are formed and explores the political and socio-economic interests in the country that have stimulated art practices and appreciation. For so long, an exclusively Western narrative has dominated Art, and popular media portrays the Gulf’s accomplishments in development and modernity with suspicion. Thanks to the UAE’s espousal of the Internet and online communities over the last decade, this book is particularly timely. Following the pandemic, a wider understanding of global art discourses, values and perceptions are increasingly welcomed. Art from the UAE bridges the local and the global, giving a voice and a visual presence to a country’s contemporary art tradition that has been widely overlooked.
The UAE has a distinct visual arts tradition that relates to a broader and inclusive understanding of art centered on development and change.

Did Spanish explorers really discover the sunken city of Atlantis or one of the lost tribes of Israel in the site of Aztec Mexico? Did classical writers foretell the discovery of America? Was Baja California really an island or a peninsula—and did romances of chivalry contain the answer? Were Amazon women hiding in Guiana and where was the location of the fabled golden city, El Dorado? Who was more powerful, Apollo or Diana, and which claimant nation, Spain or England, would win the game of empire? These were some of the questions English writers, historians, and polemicists asked through their engagement with Spanish romance. By exploring England’s fanatical consumption of so-called books of the brave conquistadors, this book shows how the idea of English empire took root in and through literature. 

The chapters in this book represent separate case studies regarding the use of romance strategies and tales of love and arms more generally in the imperialist myth-making of early modern England against the threat of imperial Spain, particularly those which were first used by Spanish authors to justify Spain’s own imperialist designs. With interwoven readings of Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Dryden, Ben Jonson and Peter Heylyn, this book shows how the English colonial mindset developed through a concerted conversation with the reality of Spain’s presence in the colonial world, particularly in the historically contentious sites of Mexico, Peru, Guiana, California and Australia, producing emergent discourses of English nationalism and proto-imperialism as contextually contingent responses to the Spanish problem. By uncovering long-neglected Spanish romantic influences on canonical English works, this book also tracks for the first time the unique social, political and cultural circumstances of English hysteria with Spanish romance that primed the success of Don Quixote of la Mancha in England.

This book is unique in its dedicated tackling of the subject of death in the work of Jean Baudrillard. Through new readings of his work, juxtaposed with philosophical (Schopenhauer, Kant) and artistic (Jeremy Millar, Ron Mueck) examples along with films (Norte, the End of History; Ida), the book makes so patently clear the importance of Baudrillard’s tendency to poeticize, his core indebtedness to Georges Bataille, Alfred Jarry, and others, and his reliance on paradox. Ultimately, Stratagem of the Corpse is less a making sense of death and more a transcript of what occurred when death made sense of us, a reverse thanatology in which death delineates the variant forms of our encroachment, not so much death as seen by Baudrillard but Baudrillard as seen by death.

Examples of Baudrillardian simulacra, depersonalization, detachment, violence, obscenity, Baudrillard’s notion of the ‘perfect crime’, and nihilism are incisively discussed. The book makes a compelling case for why Baudrillard is relevant and necessary.

‘The Anthem Handbook of Screen Theory’ offers a unique and progressive survey of screen theory and how it can be applied to a range of moving-image texts and sociocultural contexts. Focusing on the ‘handbook’ angle, the book includes only original essays from two primary sources: established authors in the field and new scholars on the cutting edge of helping screen theory evolve for the twenty-first-century vistas of new media, social shifts and geopolitical change. The main purpose of this method is to guarantee a strong foundation and clarity for the canon of film theory, while also situating it as part of a larger genealogy of art theories and critical thought, and to reveal the relevance and utility of film theories and concepts to a wide array of expressive practices and specified arguments.

‘The Anthem Handbook of Screen Theory’ seeks to avoid the typical republishing of seminal film theory texts and, instead, to provide progressive chapters on major topics that offer a survey summary of the history of that subject in film theory, including references from major texts; put forward an accessible and clear illustration of how the theory can be applied to media texts and industries; and create a vision for the possible future horizon of that topic. It is at once inclusive, applicable and a chance for writers to innovate and really play with where they think the field is, can, and should be heading.

 “Media Sociology and Journalism: Studies in Truth and Democracy proposes an accurate reading on ‘fake populism’ regimes. Greg Nielson navigates on the fruitful and relevant tradition on media and power relationships to highlight the contributions of professional journalism to the fragility of democracy” — Fábio Pereira, Chair of Scientific Journalism, Université Laval.

This book throws new light on post-colonial evaluations of the Partition and its effect on eastern India. Until very recently, a striking state of 'near silence' has existed concerning the violence encountered by those who fled across the Bengal border. 'Bengal Partition Stories' addresses this silence through the retelling of stories inspired by the division of Bengal, the mass exodus that followed and their repercussions on the cultural, social and economic character of the region, modern India as a whole and the newly-formed nation of Bangladesh.

Despite numerous critical enquiries into the history, politics and social dynamics that contributed to the partition of Bengal, there remains a distinct lack of in-depth exploration into the personal experiences of those directly affected. Through oral histories, interviews and fictional retellings of the event and its aftermath, 'Bengal Partition Stories' seeks to fill this gap by unearthing and articulating the collective memories of a people traumatised by the brutal division of their homeland.

This collection of essays covers a broad range of disciplines to produce a work that rethinks relationships and divisions in gender, geography, class relations, culture and much more to create a true 'politics of the possible'.

Broadly emphasizing forms, ideologies and class relations, Sangari's essays crisscross and cohere around several themes: the politics of social location and the connection between local, metropolitan and colonial geographies as they bear on debates about the nature of knowledge; the transnational and regional production of ideologies such as altruism under the aegis of colonialism; ways of theorizing women's labour, literacy and consent to patriarchal arrangements and dominant ideologies.

Sangari's analysis of Indian English and the relationships between 'literature' and the non-literary change, the way we consider the divisions between the metropolitan and the sub-continental. In her discussion of capitalism and colonialism, her egalitarian feminist viewpoint opens up and questions issues of cultural autonomy and hybridity. She also critiques the impact of race, caste, class, religion and misogyny on patriarchal ideology and its effect on women.

The 'politics of the possible' mapped by these essays presents itself in several areas: as a more sensitive feminist historiography; as the social potential for secular activity in seemingly impossible situations; in the historical possibilities that were offered by situations not doomed to inevitable outcomes; and as the elements of resistance produced by the contradictions of different structures of oppression..

Modern Persian, Elementary Level is a textbook of the Persian language spoken in Iran. It is intended for university-level learners and features material for two consecutive semesters of elementary Persian. The textbook aims to facilitate the implementation of the most recent trends in language instruction by emphasizing the basic tenets of flipped learning and practicing the communicative language teaching methodology with the student-centric approach to language instruction. With its real-world topics; high-frequency structures and vocabulary; thematic presentation of material; a plethora of engaging speaking activities in each chapter; dedicated listening, reading and writing sections; and integration of cultural material, this textbook is an integrated, straightforward and culture-conscious way to acquiring functional proficiency in spoken and written Persian. Complete with a companion website, over 300 audio and video presentations, answer key, a searchable audio dictionary and a special appendix for instructors that features classroom activity materials for the entire year, this textbook makes for an innovative and modern language-learning resource that is available in print and in an E-book format. Extra features and accompanying online resources make this textbook an effective option for those who wish to learn the language on their own.
The theoretical framework and underlying linguistic philosophy of the book, its methodology and practical approach to language instruction, format, and learning objectives are based on the latest trends in foreign language instruction defined by the Modern Language Association and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. The material of the textbook also reflects the 5 Cs of National Standards in Foreign Language Education.

Modern Persian, Elementary Level features all the attributes necessary for the implementation of modern practices in foreign language instruction such as context-based teaching for real-world objectives, integrated approach toward all language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), thematic presentation of material, differentiation between proficiency and competence, and student-centred classrooms. The curriculum, lessons plans, exercises and activities that inspired the material of the chapters have been tested at Cornell University for several years with groups of students from beginners with no background in Persian to Persian-heritage students, undergraduate and graduate students, and even faculty members from other fields. Feedback from students has been considered and incorporated in the development of the textbook. Modern Persian, Elementary Level is inspired by the author’s extensive years of experience in designing and teaching less-commonly-taught language programs and is informed by the experiences, research, and data across various modern languages. The textbook is intended to train literate Persian speakers and teaches familiarity with both colloquial pronunciation and written spelling as practised naturally by Persian native speakers.

Do translation theorists observe what translators do and develop theories based on that? Do translators gain ideas and tools from studying theories? Or does it go both ways? Or is it neither, and translation scholars are completely separated from practising translators?

In my own translation practice, academic work, and teaching, I find that translation theories, far from being scary and distant from what I do as a translator on a day-to-day basis, actually provide beneficial concepts and strategies that can help me make translatorial decisions. The work of translators like me, in turn, comes to influence the way academics understand and write about what translators do.

I summarise a wide range of translation theories, from across different time periods and parts of the world, and I then follow this by suggesting ideas that stem from these theoretical concepts and that can be of practical use to translators.

Eight American military veterans of the Vietnam/Cold War era describe their service and its influence on their lives since leaving active service in this book. Their stories are preceded by a concise history of America's methods of raising its military forces from colonial days to today. Particular focus is given to the 34 years in which the nation relied on the possibility of mandatory service (the draft, Selective Service) from young men. Drafted service was essential to America's role in World War I, World War II, the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Special emphasis is given to Congressional acceptance of drafted service in World War I which shaped the remaining uses of the draft until 1973.

The largest part of the book provides the author's recollections of their service in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in the United States and overseas. Their service was compelled or stimulated by the presence of the draft. Their military service then shaped the next half-century of their working lives.

The final section of the book provides the author’s collective recollections of their military service as seen from the third decade of the 21st century and half a century after the end of the military draft. They reflect on the challenges faced by the current American military and the possibilities of a return to some form of drafted military service.

The publication of the National Atlas of Finland in 1899 marks the beginning of the era of the modern national atlas. It is a period that coincides neatly with the twentieth century. The modern national atlas mirrors and embodies some of the important themes of this turbulent century, including the complex connections between nation, state and territory, the rise of state-sponsored science; the growth of nation-states; the geography of biopolitics. 

Between 1900 and 2000, more than seventy countries produced a national atlas, an official or quasi-official rendering of the nation-state in maps and accompanying text. A useful working definition of a national atlas is “a generally comprehensive, officially sanctioned single-country atlas.” This book considers the reasons behind and characteristics of this state-sponsored cartographic explosion. The changing form of the national atlas provides an intriguing window into the connections between science, state, territory and power.

The primary material for this study is a close reading of thirty-seven of these national atlases from countries across the world. They represent a wide range of countries from rich to poor, progressive to regressive, and capitalist to communist. In total, these atlases provide a range of different state arrangements and national experiences. 

The early modern period witnessed the rise of impressive empires in the Eurasian context, in Europe and not less so in the east – The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires. The construction of large and stable empires necessitated the constructions of unprecedented power mechanisms. History of law and legality in the early modern period was playing a crucial role in these changes.

Born in Spain and joining his family as refugees from the great expulsion from the Iberian peninsula, heading east to the Ottoman Empire, Karo, as the rest of Sephardi intellectuals, was deeply acquainted with both European [Canon law, ius comune] and Ottoman [Shari'a, Kanuname] legal traditions, and their transformative processes during the early modern period.

The codes of law, in the short and long version, composed by R. Karo mark a watershed turn, and they were never superseded until the present. In composing them, Karo intended to respond to the global changes in law, and to update Jewish Halakhah to current political and cultural circumstances. The books suggest both a global reading of Jewish law, and a sociological perspective of Halakhah. It adds a further dimension on modernization of Jewish culture. 

This anthology explores the relationships and interdependencies between literary production and distinctions of taste by examining how the material aspects of literary texts, such as the cover, binding, typography, and paper stock, reflect or even determine their cultural status. In the nineteenth century, for example, the industrialization of printing made possible a wide range of cheap formats, such as dime novels, pulp magazines, and paperbacks, which made literature available to a mass reading public. The increased demand for new content effectively lowered the cultural entrance level, which resulted in a tremendous expansion of popular or trivial fiction. These developments were often perceived as a threat to traditional literary institutions, which increasingly relied on material distinctions as a way of preserving their cultural authority, and some publishers even attempted to mimic the conventions of exclusivity by creating deluxe editions that were designed to preserve the privileged status of so-called “highbrow” texts. In many cases, the distinctions between “highbrow” and “lowbrow” taste actually had little to do with the content of the texts themselves, as books more often functioned as markers of socioeconomic status, like clothing or home décor. At the risk of being provocative, one might even go so far as to say that the concept of literary taste was more closely related to fashion sense than critical judgment. The anthology seeks to address this claim by examining how the tensions between consumerism and prestige reflect fundamental historical changes with regard to the development of technology, literacy, and social power.

The individual chapters cover a wide range of historical periods, genres, and national literatures, and they are divided into four sections that focus on different ways in which the materiality of literature is related to cultural prestige. The first section, “Material Forms and Literary Publishing,” focuses on how writers and publishers used the material properties of books to enhance their symbolic value and to challenge the idea of literature as a mass-produced commodity. These material strategies thus served to reinforce traditional distinctions of taste, which were closely aligned with the power of the literary elite, as the consumers of deluxe editions often sought to acquire respect and admiration within their social spheres. The second section, “Material Distinctions in Popular Fiction,” examines how the publishers of popular texts also used the material properties of books to enhance their symbolic and economic value, as works that were perceived as less prestigious were often more marketable, yet they could appeal to different groups of readers in different ways based on an alternative set of cultural distinctions. Instead of using books to signify their socioeconomic status, for example, fans of popular genre fiction more often fetishize special editions as a way of gaining prestige within their own reading communities. The third section, “Cultural Prestige and Graphic Narratives,” focuses on how the material properties of visual texts were also used to signify the differences between “low” and “high” art. The graphic novel format, for example, often served to enhance the status of previously lowbrow content by presenting it as a durable work that was worthy of being sold in bookstores and preserved in archives. The fourth and final section, “Electronic Publishing and Reading Practices,” also focuses on how new forms of electronic display are currently transforming the status of literary texts. While some contributors argue that e-books are potentially more prestigious than printed books, as they are less dependent on the economic imperatives of the publishing industry, others argue that printed books continue to serve a crucial non-literary function as markers of socioeconomic status. As with the other sections, therefore, the contributors in this section agree that distinctions of taste are still largely dependent on the materiality of literature, as the material properties of literary texts continue to reflect and influence their cultural prestige.

A short, but highly relevant, history of the Cold War, 1919–1994, and its significance today. The 75-year Cold War pitted the Anglo-American world against the Soviet Bloc, with China, the ultimate prize. Chapter A will examine the creation of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, the end of World War I, 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty, and the lead-in to World War II. Chapter B will examine the Bolshevik revolution, 1919 Comintern creation, 1924 Soviet Bloc creation, the tumultuous 1930s, World War II, plus Soviet competition with America and England through 1949. Chapter C will discuss a China torn between West and East, finally joining the Soviet bloc in 1949 but by 1979 rejoining the West, and cooperating to destroy the USSR from 1979 to 1994, when the final Russian troops left Germany. In the Conclusion, the Cold War’s impact and strategic significance today will be discussed.
From 1979 to 1994, the U.S. government attempted to use its relations with China to exert diplomatic, economic, and military pressure on the USSR. Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through the 1980s, China began to import high-technology equipment from the United States to fill key sensor and weapon roles. With the end of the Cold War, in particular, the Soviet navy was eliminated almost overnight as the world’s second most powerful naval force; Russia’s Pacific fleet is now so poorly supplied and equipped that it rarely leaves port.
This unprecedented reversal of fortunes has created a maritime vacuum throughout East Asia that China hopes to fill. In recent years, however, the former Sino-U.S. cooperation has changed as rising Chinese-sponsored tensions in the South China Sea have led to many possible points of alliance between Beijing and Moscow. Joint Sino-Russian Naval Exercises are just one example. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping appear to once again be combining against the Anglo-American-led West. Will history “rhyme” as Mark Twain says, allowing the Anglo-American West to win Cold War II, or will events turn out differently this time.

In sixteen chapters devoted to avant-garde contemporary American poets, including Kenneth Goldsmith, Adeena Karasick, Tyrone Williams, Hannah Weiner, and Barrett Watten, prolific scholar and Purdue University professor Daniel Morris engages in a form of cultural repurposing by “learning twice” about how to attend to writers whose aesthetic contributions were not part of his education as a student in Boston and Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s when new formalism and post-confessional modes reigned supreme.
Morris’s study demonstrates his interest in moving beyond formalism to offer what Stephen Fredman calls “a wider cultural interpretation of literature that emphasizes the ‘new historicist’ concerns with hybridity, ethnicity, power relations, material culture, politics, and religion.” Essays address from multiple perspectives—prophetic, diasporic, ethical—the vexing problems and sublime potential of disseminating lyrics—the ancient form of transmission and preservation of the singular, private human voice across time and space—to an individual reader, in an environment in which e-poetry and digitalized poetics pose a crisis (understood as both opportunity and threat) to traditional page poetry.

In making love, one is elevated beyond the carnal desires it satisfies. For the religious, it is Divine; for those who are not religiously inclined, it is still a spiritual experience, one of seamless solidarity, a unity of two as one that defies mere orgasmic stimulation. You don’t have to make love to have sex. Even strangers can be sexually attracted and have an orgasmic escapade. But in the act of making love, there is symbolic meaning that is felt through-and-through the sex act. Two in love are joined, in life, and the sexual expression of this unison is deeply felt in the sex act itself. This is sexual intimacy, the making of love, the likes of which is rarely, if ever, seen outside a loving relationship. There is no escape from the philosophical dimensions of such a loving relationship. It is as abstract as it is concrete in the ideals that ground it. There is a mystery about it, a kind of transcendent experience that defies translation into words. Making and being in love are thus joined at the hip. Loving relationships make the bed in which true lovers sleep.
Unfortunately, many relationships flounder or never get off the ground. Just having sex may ease the tension, but it then becomes a means, not truly an end-in-itself. The moment the sex act ends, the couple may retreat and fall into discord. It is an oasis in a barren desert that provides temporary relief, a titillating, temporary escape from reality. This book can help you to overcome the obstacles, the unlovable habits that encumber your relationship, both inside and outside the bedroom. It can help to create the harmonic balance between your sex life and other aspects of your personal and interpersonal relationships, which are preludes to making and being in love.
To accomplish this, it applies a five-step method based on Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation (LBTC), a popular form of evidence-based, philosophical counseling modality. First, it introduces you to six types of unlovable ways of thinking and acting and helps you to identify the ones that may be sabotaging your own relationship. Second, it shows you how to counter these self-defeating habits with certain lovable goals (“virtues of love”). Third, it helps you to identify and embrace a personal “love philosophy” that empowers you to reach for your lovable goals. Fourth, it provides core philosophical ideas that are key to any successful quest for romantic love. Fifth, it helps you construct a behavioral plan that applies your philosophies to making constructive changes in your relationship. The latter may require making changes both inside and outside your relationship. Thus, this book also shows you how the problems you are having in one area of your life (at work, in your social life, etc.) can affect the quality of your relationship, inside and outside the bedroom, and it offers guidance, including self-improvement exercises, to overcome these impediments and attain enduring love and sexual intimacy.

Hinge epistemology is a rising trend in epistemology. Drawing on some of Wittgenstein’s ideas in On Certainty, it claims that knowledge always takes place within a system of assumptions, or “hinges”, that are taken for granted and are not subject to verification and control.

This volume brings together thirteen papers on hinge epistemology written by Annalisa Coliva, the coiner of the term and one of the leading figures in this trend, and published after her influential monographs Moore and Wittgenstein. Scepticism, Certainty and Common Sense (2010), Extended Rationality. A Hinge Epistemology (2015). By mixing together Wittgenstein scholarship and systematic philosophy, they illuminate the significance of hinge epistemology for current debates on scepticism, relativism, realism and anti-realism, as well as alethic pluralism, and envision its possible extension to the epistemology of logic. 

Along the way, other varieties of hinge epistemology, such as Moyal-Sharrock’s, Pritchard’s, Williams’ and Wright’s are considered, both with respect to Wittgenstein scholarship and in their own right.

Muhammad Ali in Africana Cultural Memory is a contemporary evaluation primarily of Ali in African-American and African diasporic memory, based on the field of Africana studies’ updated critical tools for considering inheritance, mythological structure, memorialization, epic intuitive conduct, hero dynamics, immortalization philosophy, and resistance-based cognitive survival. In terms of how Muhammad Ali, as an historical actor, has left an heroic legacy that bequeaths to us a sort of inheritance, the critical task at hand is to systematically explore this historical actor’s life, feats, philosophy, grit, worldview, and even his folkloric antiheroic, to decipher his Africana cultural memory value. At the core of this edited collection is a commitment to enhance the cultural storytelling about Muhammad Ali and to critically itemize the lessons we garner from his life as allegory. The ancestral life is one that is remembered and recalled. The contributors’ research uncovers Ali’s local, national, and global encounters that are legacy worldviews. These perspectives give us direction for mining the critical depth of Ali’s encounters which map his memory in terms of culturally sustaining confidence, self-esteem, reinvention, immortalization, and empathy. These are the fertile seeds of Africana cultural memory which bloom into powerful markers and monuments of an epic life of hyperheroic activity relevant to cultural memory, sports, history, politics, health, and aesthetics.

This book is the product of an endless individual and collective process of mourning. It departs from the author’s mourning for her parents, their histories and struggles in Germany as Gastarbeiter, while it also engages with the political mourning of intersectional feminist movements against feminicide in Central and South America; the struggles against state and police misogynoir violence of #SayHerName in the United States; the resistance of refugees and migrantized people against the coloniality of migration in Germany; and the intense political grief work of families, relatives, and friends who lost their loved ones in racist attacks from the 1980s until today in Germany. Bearing witness to their stories and accounts, this book explores how mourning is shaped both by its historical context and the political labor of caring commons, while it also follows the building of a conviviality infrastructrueof support against migration-coloniality necropolitics, dwelling toward transformative and reparative practices of common justice.

Trailblazing women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945-1975 offers a compelling new perspective of Australian radio and television history. It chronicles how a group of female producers defied the odds and forged remarkable careers in the traditionally male domain of public-affairs production at the ABC in the post-war decades. Kay Kinane, Catherine King, Therése Denny and Joyce Belfrage were ambitious and resourceful producers, part of the vanguard of Australian broadcasters who used mass media as a vehicle for their social and political activism. Fiercely dedicated to their audiences, they wrote, directed and produced ground-breaking documentaries and current affairs programs that celebrated Australian life, while also challenging its cultural complacency, its racism and sexism. They immersed themselves in the ABC’s many networks of collaboration and initiated a range of strategies to expand their agency and authority. With vivid descriptions of life at the ABC, it traces their careers as they crossed borders and crossed mediums, following them as they worked on location shoots and in production offices, in television studios, control rooms and radio booths. In doing so it highlights the barriers, both official and unofficial, that confronted so many women working in broadcasting after World War II.

Former candidate in the race for his Party’s designation, Ron DeSantis is a rising star of the GOP. Despite his withdrawal from the tense campaign trail against Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, he is one of America’s best-known governors with a promising future.

The governor of Florida showcases an outstanding academic career, Yale then Harvard, and an exemplary military record. His consistency reassures both middle-class voters and big donors. Spokesman for the anti-woke culture war in the United States, he benefits from a strong republican and far-right electoral basis. A serious man with a clear vision on what he wants to do, he advocates deregulation, and the reduction of federal taxes and public debt.

Florida is the American dream, the blueprint for America in the next century, and DeSantis believes it is replicable across the country. Among his other assets are his youth, his image of a model family father, and his secret weapon—his wife Casey DeSantis. She allows him to soften his image of a calculating politician.

Aged 45, DeSantis therefore brings a breath of fresh air to the Republicans. He is a character to follow in Washington and in Florida in the next decade. We are witnessing the emergence of a new strongman in America.

Accomplished public speakers know that just a few enduring principles govern the key to success. James O’Rourke, a distinguished professor of management, has gathered 52 basic truths about confident presenting, organized into ten easily mastered categories.
Each of these principles is based on scientific evidence and years of careful observation of highly successful public speakers. Current relevant examples and specific instructions of how to apply these truths form the centerpiece of each brief chapter. Everything you need is right here from audience research to topic selection, organization patterns, forms of evidence, principles of persuasion, delivery techniques, nonverbal mannerisms, anxiety, and event management.

The purpose of this book is to shed light on American politics and power that have disadvantaged African Americans through the implementation of public policies, causing them to remain poor and underprivileged in the United States. History demonstrates that African Americans have inherited gateless poverty: exacerbated by living without training and skills; living in slums without decent medical care; having the devastating heritage of the long years of slavery; and a century of oppression, hatred, and injustice. African Americans in the United States started off at a disadvantage; they were hobbled by chains for years and then abruptly liberated, and brought to the starting line expecting to compete with everyone else.
This book will scrutinize persistent poverty using a model of institutional policies that have been implemented to keep African Americans as a permanent underclass thus withholding any measure of true equality, which I foundationally understand as racial and economically unjust. This book produces evidence that public policies, programs, and institutional practices have impacted African Americans. Therefore, it is important to challenge the long-standing misdirected paradigm, which blames the individual for being poor instead of holding the government accountable for the structural failures within the governmental system.
The persistent poverty that exists among African Americans is a result of the unanticipated consequence of a flawed policy system that was intended to alleviate problems but has, in fact, caused them to worsen. There has been considerable debate in both academic and policy arenas over the extent of long-term poverty. Some scholars argue that there is no long-term poverty problem and that most poverty is temporary and reflect short-run adjustment problems or life-cycle changes. Other scholars argue that some individuals and families remain poor for longer periods, perhaps over generations. One view blames poverty persistence on poor labor market opportunities, segregation, discrimination, inadequate under-funded schools, and the lack of community resources in disadvantaged neighborhoods. An additional group points to the work and marriage disincentives in the welfare system, the increasing number of female-headed households, the increases in teen-pregnancy and illegitimacy, deviant subcultures, and the personal deficiencies of the poor.
According to the Institute for Research on Poverty, African Americans and Latinos have poverty rates that greatly exceed the national average. Poverty levels differ depending on where people live; the metropolitan poverty rate differs greatly between suburbs and the central city, it also varies by region and within regions. According to Scott Allard, African Americans are impacted by federal housing policies, public housing practices, discriminatory mortgage lending, and racial steering, which all played a major role in the creation of poor Black neighborhoods. Douglas S. Massey argues that residential segregation is the primary structural cause of the geographical concentration of poverty in the U.S. urban areas. Research indicates that residential segregation is the principal structural feature of American society that is responsible for the perpetuation of poverty, which represents the primary cause of racial inequality in the United States. According to Wilson, Massey, and Denton, racially segregated urban poverty is one of the most recognizable products of housing discrimination and housing policy in America.

This book examines Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, and Asia in comparative development and sectoral perspectives. We traced the divergent growth in wealth between the two regions. It takes a novel approach of matching key growth sectors across five selected Asian countries and Nigeria in a cross-regional context. We found that state and institutional capabilities underlying the generation and diffusion of industrial and technological knowledge in Asia distinguished it from Africa. We employ quantitative and qualitative methods, including case studies and statistical/econometric methods, to analyze factors that separate the sample countries that made rapid economic progress in “catching up” and those that tend to be stagnating and “falling behind.”
Progress made by Asian countries over the last five decades was due in large part to their pursuit of industrialization, technological acquisition underpinned by leadership, good governance, and policies in the right institutional contexts. The four Asian countries compared with Nigeria are Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. There was not one grand development formula; however, the strategy broadly consisted of industrial (vertical) diversification as well as (horizontal) diversification in agriculture. Building industrial capabilities that enable export competitiveness was critical. Again, while leadership is not usually included in factors of growth, the book devotes a chapter to Leadership and Industrialization and another to State Capacity Industrialization and Economic Growth.
African countries on the contrary took the low road in exporting minerals and raw agricultural commodities with little value addition; in the process, Africa experienced a reversal of fortune. The African condition is manifestly a Reversal of Fortune because in the 1950s, they were ahead of, or equal to, Asia in per capita income as well as in other development metrics.
We carried out empirical measurement of Reversal of Fortune manifested in economic, social, technological, and industrial conditions by analyzing the disparities in development metrics, particularly the levels and rates of growth of national incomes, industrialization rates, and Human Development Index (HDI). The differences are stark.

For those captive to the broken world of late modernity, wherein ageing and dying persons become vulnerable to despair, this book offers a diagnostic of such despair. It also resources the practices of a realistic, humanising hope that might enable a strength for person to journey with and for others, together, through such despair. Thus, by addressing the aetiology of despair experienced by people confronting ageing, frailty and dying, and drawing upon the writings of Gabriel Marcel, among others, Ashley Moyse reveals the problematic life of a broken world with its functionalising metaphors, instrumentalising reasoning and objectifying desires that offer no hope at all. It is a broken world where despair generates behaviours that anticipate suicide or other, often tragic, outcomes that impede or greatly curtail or even completely inhibit human flourishing. Resisting despair, but living through it, Moyse presents the activity of the moral life, demonstrating a way persons might be resourced through an intersubjective and reflective pedagogy, with its habits or practices that enable a humanising hope, liberating human beings to become those readied to confront the actualities of human living and dying, and encouraged to grow and develop as ‘wayfarers’, hopefully.

Hinge Epistemology is a new branch of philosophy inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s view in On Certainty, that 'the questions that we raise, and our doubts, depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn' (OC 341). Hinge Epistemology is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting areas of epistemology and Wittgenstein studies. In connecting these two fields it brings a revived energy to both, opening them up to fresh developments. The essays in this volume extend the subject in terms of both depth and breadth in the following ways: 

(i) Fastening the hinges: In the opening essays of the book, proponents of the three major perspectives on the nature of hinge certainties strengthen their views, often by virtue of response to one another. These are followed by essays presenting new voices and challenges within hinge epistemology.

(ii) Opening the door: The second half of the book explores new applications and directions of hinge epistemology, particularly as it relates to the philosophy of mind, society, ethics, and the history of ideas. 

The book fills a gap since there is no quick reference in comparative law and economics at the moment. The book can be seen as a short introduction to comparative law and economics, a helpful guide to additional reading and a textbook for a short course or seminar. Comparative law and economics is a growing field in the interaction between law, economics and comparative political science. It includes both strands of the traditional literature, namely the role of legal families and microeconomic analysis of legal rules in a comparative perspective.

The book opens with a short introduction about the method and the standard discussion between common law and civil law. It brings in the debate over the legal origins’ theory and its consequences in terms of economic growth. It presents the study of courts at the global level and the importance of comparative judicial politics to stimulate a better understanding of comparative law and economics. The book also covers microeconomic analysis of legal rules with a few applications (titling of property, cost-shifting rules, plea-bargaining) and additional reading recommendations to the reader (for additional examples). The book then focuses on lawyering, with an emphasis on varying regulation of the legal profession around the world. The book concludes with a short summary of possible research developments in the next few years, namely behavioral and empirical advancements.

The book begins with rich descriptions of the experience of despair, drawn from real life case studies from the author’s clinical practice, and a review of current evidence of suicide prevalence, risk and protective factors. A review of theories about suicide highlights two contemporary explanatory models: Integrated Motivational-Volitional (IMV) model, with focus on perceptions of defeat and entrapment; and Interpersonal Theory (IPT), with focus on thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness. The book provides an overview of recent analyses of how literary and poetic texts confront the dilemma of existence in the face of grief and loss, and how literary readings can act as points of transformation.

When the author’s aging body and the post-polio symptoms it was manifesting made it impossible for her to undertake the physically strenuous ethnographic research in the array of American, European, African and Asian settings that underlay her book Doctors Without Borders and characterized her research throughout her career, she began writing ethnographic essays, drawing from a range of things she was seeing, experiencing, thinking and feeling at this juncture in her life.

Among the leitmotifs that pervade and interconnect these topically varied essays are lived experiences of physicians and patients, including patients who are physically handicapped, elderly, mortally ill or beyond the reach of medical care; the origins and consequences of epidemic outbreaks of old and new plague-like infectious diseases that occur and recur, despite the impressive advances of medicine; the concomitants and challenges of aging; the wellsprings, dynamics and significance of medical humanitarian action; engagement with a “beyond borders” world view; the occurrence of national and international events of major moral as well as political and legal import and repercussions, such as the travel ban on persons from certain countries with a predominantly Muslim population initiated by Donald Trump and the terrorist bombing in Brussels’s Zaventem airport; and the meaning and meaningfulness of teaching, exploring, questing and writing. Latently associated with these themes are the author’s social values and social conscience.

Composing these essays from a participant observer outlook heightens and enriches the author’s observations over the course of her daily life, enabling her to engage in “mind travel” to places and people she has intimately known in the past and to places she has yearningly hoped to visit but never has.

Climate change and the intertwined extinction crisis lend themselves to political economy. Joseph Henry Vogel has constructed an argument for bringing the carbon-rich but economically poor countries through the bottleneck of a cowboy economy and into the 'cap and trade' Annex I countries of the Kyoto Protocol. Ecuador serves as the example. ‘The Economics of the Yasuní Initiative’ is a counterpoint to ‘The Economics of Climate Change’ by Sir Nicholas Stern on many levels. At the most basic level, Vogel argues that Stern is wrong for his failure to recognize the nature of climate change as thermodynamic, thereby missing the point of Northern appropriation of the atmospheric sink. The switch to thermodynamics brings into focus the legitimacy of a 'carbon debt’ that starts to tick with the first report of the IPCC in 1990. Through the lens of economic theory, the understandable intransigence of poor countries to assume the 'cap' in 'cap and trade' is a distortion to the economic system. But by that same economics, one distortion can justify another. That other distortion is the payment Ecuador seeks for not drilling in the Yasuní Biosphere. Heeding the call of Deirdre (formerly Donald) McCloskey that economics needs more humor, Vogel has written a scathing critique of economics-as-usual which also entertains.

Local communities are now, more than ever before, experiencing environmental change. These changes draw attention to the discrepancy and conflict between their own views and the views of the initiators of development, such as governments and multilateral organizations. The main thesis of the book unfolds around the idea that under changing environmental conditions, sustainable development can only be achieved when communities can overcome the view conflict and are free to set their own goals.

Using a case study of the Trio indigenous peoples in Suriname, the book presents an “inside” view of a community on the path towards sustainable development when facing climate change. It introduces a new framework, called VIEW, to comprehensively analyze the views of the Trio community when progressing through the different stages of development. The community apparently goes through a process of judging climate change against their own values, followed by creating a meaning about it and ultimately making a decision on how to act.

This book will take the reader beyond examining a few examples from the field. It discusses the position of a researcher in community development and presents several tools and indicators to effectively work with communities. The book lays out a set of principles for researchers to engage in ethical, effective and valid research. Only with the right mindset, a researcher can look through the eyes of the community in a respectable manner and implement a truly bottom-up approach in sustainable development.

‘Leadership’ is crucial to contemporary business, politics, and organizations of every type, including the corporate, non-profit, educational, and government sectors. While modern leadership theorists suggest various models, traits, and approaches to leadership behavior that purport novelty, Ecclesiastes just may have been right that ‘There is nothing new under the sun’. The biblical figure of Moses – a familiar name both to adherents of the Western religious traditions and to people who are not – provides an exemplary model of effective leadership that is broadly applicable. Moses is depicted in the Bible as exhibiting ‘heroic’ and ‘charismatic’ tendencies. He was certainly empathic. Yet Moses also shows ‘transactional’, ‘transformational’ and ‘visionary’ leadership qualities. A leader of good character, Moses exhibits features similar to the Yiddish term, ‘mensch’ – someone showing responsibility and integrity, knowing right from wrong.

Though few might think of Moses as a ‘leader’ or a ‘manager’ in the contemporary sense, Moses not only holds a firm place among the most significant leaders in Western civilization but is arguably the quintessential example of leadership from whom much can be learned by people entering and occupying leadership positions. While current leadership and management vocabulary might differ from the Hebrew Bible, many of the traits, behaviors and actions advocated by modern leadership theorists appear to emulate those of Moses. Wolak contrasts contemporary leadership ideas with biblical and rabbinic sources that show Moses’ leadership qualities, Moses serves as an ancient model with current relevance for what modern leadership theorists argue make for an effective leader.

‘Religion and Contemporary Management’ discusses and compares original and critical biblical and rabbinic sources with current business leadership and management literature, revealing what leadership theorists’ advocate today largely emulates what the Bible depicts as effective leadership through Moses’ example. Hence, Moses’ influence on current leadership trends in Western culture appears pervasive, even if contemporary leadership theorists do not typically cite Moses as an important source for leadership precedent.

Knowledge is more than information but instead the organizing of information into theories and practices that allow us to do things and accomplish goals. The first stage of knowledge creation depended upon creative scientists and entrepreneurs, but the second stage required research laboratories and teams. Now cooperation between organizations is necessary to solve individual, organizational, institutional, and global problems that face us today.

Individuals presently are raised in four kinds of social contexts: traditional, modern, post-modern, and anomic. These contexts explain partisan divides as well as the inability of some to succeed in society. Post-modern contexts produce individuals who are cognitively complex, creative, critical but have empathy towards others. The acceleration in knowledge creation is caused by not only the growth of more post-modern individuals who are creative but organizational innovation and innovative regions. Organizational structures that discourage radical innovations are contrasted with those that facilitate it. Similarly, the histories of three innovative regions--Silicon Valley, Kistra in Sweden, and Hsinchu in Taiwan—are contrasted with the failure of Rt. 128 near Boston.

During the second wave of knowledge creation, social structures were differentiated vertically. Now in the third wave, the differentiation process is horizontal. In the stratification system this means different capitalist classes and work logics rather than social classes with super salaries, thus increasing social inequality. In the study of organizations, this translates into missionary and self-management forms where post-modern individuals obtain meaningful work and ask for customized service. In the study of networks it means the rise of systemic coordinated networks replacing supply chains.

Given the growing inefficiencies of labor markets, product/service markets, and public markets (elections), systemic coordinated networks are proposed as a solution. Furthermore, we need a national corps of individuals with special skills in sectors with shortages who can then be assigned to work in disadvantaged areas. Pre-school, primary school, and secondary school need to be reinvented to facilitate more upward social mobility. Agriculture and industry also require radical new innovations. To build a new civil society, governments have to encourage participation in programs that help others.

Based on the 2014 DP Biology course, the ‘IB Biology Revision Workbook’ is intended for use by students studying at any stage of the two-year course. Teachers and tutors will also enjoy using this workbook with their students. A wide variety of revision tasks are included covering topics of the Standard Level Core, Additional Higher Level and each of the four Options.

The tasks include skills and applications taken directly from the guide, as well as activities aimed at consolidating learning. Students are asked to draw, label, colour or annotate diagrams; sketch or analyse graphs; complete concept maps and Venn diagrams; answer examination-style questions; fill in summary tables; and connect related ideas.

A section on preparation is included to assist students prior to the examinations, along with exam-answering techniques and helpful tips to answering questions. A glossary of key terms and summary of prefixes and suffixes also assists student revision.

Duplicity and deception were essential ingredients in a comedy, and though they were not morally acceptable they reflect what happened in real life; the putting of personal obsession and private will before social and Christian responsibilities. But here, the excess of evil is there from the start and simply increases. There is little light-heartedness. It is all one sustained bitter snarl about humanity’s corruption. The tension between what people should do and what they actually do creates dramatic conflicts not just for the characters but also for the audience who may be torn between enjoying the dextrous scamming of Mosca and Volpone yet feeling they ought to be condemned and must be punished in the end. And the questions remain; should they be laughing at any of it and how can they not laugh at such a mad mixture of mistakes, such crass stupidity and such evil greed?

The fox is a creature of the night, a predator, a thief. He is a border raider, crossing from wild nature into man’s domestic domain. Nightstalker, elusive, devious, he is embedded deep in the European psyche as a trickster and deceiver. This persona goes back to ancient Greek times when the various fox fables of Aesop mix with other beast tales. The linking of humans to animal characteristics is part of the language: snake in the grass, wolf in sheep’s clothing, brave as a lion, timid as a mouse, busy as a bee, slimy toad, whoreson dog. At the most practical level, for a world almost entirely rural, he is the enemy of farmers and shepherds and individual poor households rearing just a few chickens; the feared killer who could annihilate a henhouse or ravage a warren. He was thus a food burglar, stealing vital nourishment before it could be put on the table and as such a threat to the family’s economy and perhaps even a threat to its survival.

Tragedy is as old as human misery and comedy is its not-quite-identical twin, for laughter is as old as tears. One mask may smile, the other cry, but the faces are similar and in many respects so are the two genres, though their outcomes are different. Man’s folly, his potential for evil, his potential for good, his ability to misunderstand the true values of life are common to both forms. One achieves correction of mistakes through disaster, pain, misery, the other through tears turning to laughter as folly is mocked and humiliated and order is restored.

The ‘IB Music Revision Guide 3rd Edition’ includes analyses of all the prescribed works of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme music course through to 2021. It also includes a comprehensive overview of all the musical styles and cultures that are examined during the course, practice questions and answers that allow students to check their knowledge, as well as a glossary to help ensure key terms are understood. There are also revision tips and advice on exam technique that will help students prepare for the IB listening exam with confidence. Suitable for Standard and Higher Level.

‘Aboard the Democracy Train’ is about politics and journalism in Pakistan. It is a gripping front-line account of the country’s decade of turbulent democracy (1988-1999), as told through the eyes of the only woman reporter working during the Zia era at ‘Dawn’, Pakistan’s leading English language newspaper. In this volume, the author reveals her unique experiences and coverage of ethnic violence, women’s rights and media freedoms. The narrative provides an insight into the politics of the Pak-Afghan region in the post 9-11 era, and exposes how the absence of rule of law claimed the life of its only woman prime minister.

The book is set during Pakistan's decade of turbulent democracy, which began when President Gen. Zia ul Haq's military rule abruptly ended with his plane crash. Then, as the only woman reporter at the nation's leading newspaper 'Dawn', the author was closely associated with late Benazir Bhutto's bid to become and remain the nation's first woman Prime Minister.

The book comes full circle from the Cold War era, when the events of September 11 forced Pakistan's military leaders to re-enter the U.S. orbit of influence. It is an account of why Benazir Bhutto fell victim to terrorism while her widower Asif Zardari is described as having taken on of the world's most daunting tasks of negotiating between a superpower and the military, amid a ferocious resurgence by the Taliban.

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, poet, novelist and critic, was a professor of Ottoman and Turkish literature at Istanbul University. His ‘Five Cities’ was first published in Turkish as ‘Beş Şehir’ in 1946 and revised in 1960. It consists of five lyrical essays, each focused on a city significant in Anatolian history and in Tanpinar's emotional life.

Part history, part autobiography, part poetic meditation on time and memory, ‘Five Cities’ is Proustian in style, with a tension between a backward-looking melancholy and a concern for the unpredictable future of his country. Comparable to Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s ‘Istanbul: Memories of a City’, ‘Five Cities’ emphasizes personal attitudes and reactions but has a wider scope of geography, history and culture.

Ruth Christie’s translation of ‘Beş Şehir’ makes the essays, which are as aesthetically appealing as a novel, available to readers of English for the first time.

The individual has never been more important in society – in almost every sphere of public and private life, the individual is sovereign. Yet the importance and apparent power assigned to the individual is not all that it seems. As ‘Responsible Citizens’ investigates via its UK-based case studies, this emphasis on the individual has gone hand in hand with a rise in subtle authoritarianism, which has insinuated itself into the government of the population. Whilst present throughout the public services, this authoritarianism is most conspicuous in the health and social welfare sectors, such that a kind of ‘governance through responsibility’ is today enforced upon the population.

In the twenty-first century, individualism has come to pervade the body politic, especially where health and social care are concerned. Clients who may be at their most abject and vulnerable are urged to take responsibility for themselves rather than further burden the health and social care services. In some British healthcare trusts, prosecutions are mounted against clients who have lost their temper or who act inappropriately as a result of their disorientation, under the guise of ‘making them take responsibility for their actions’. Citizens on the street in Britain are likely to have responsibility thrust upon them through mechanisms such as electronic surveillance and the burgeoning new cohorts of community enforcement officers, as well as the police themselves. Thus taking responsibility is never quite as simple as it seems – being responsible demarcates the borderland between autonomy and authority, and often equates to simply ‘doing what you’re told’.

Prometheus and Gaia examines the ideological currents known as Futurism and Eco-Pessimism. While these tendencies are rarely spoken about explicitly, especially in mainstream discourse, they do have strong (if subterranean) influences on today’s popular politics. In light of the existential threats posed by climate change, nuclear proliferation, disruptive technologies (especially bioengineering and AI) and looming economic crises, many have grown weary of the “small fixes” offered by conventional politicians. Worsening climate change, to take one example, appears to be a problem that “reducing, reusing, and recycling,” or non-binding treaties, are inadequate to remedy. Likewise, perennial economic crises seem too large and too systemic a threat compared to the moderate “fixes” of quantitative easing and government bailouts. If the system, itself, is the problem, then some radical change appears necessary. 

Here, two styles of thought emerge to challenge the status quo: The Futurist sees in existential threats just so many symptoms of a disconnect. This is the widening chasm between a dynamic and ever-accelerating technology, on the one hand, and an all-too static conception of human nature and human society, on the other. Their solution is to fully embrace the disruptive and anarchic powers of technology, and to leave the human as we know it behind, as nothing more than a parochial relic. The Eco-Pessimist instead sees technological development as the problem. The need to dominate nature, and our spoiling the planet, is the proximate cause of our contemporary crises. Their solution is to chastise human consumption, egoism and instrumental reason as destructive of a holistic, planetary balance.

What these two ideologies have in common is a strident anti-humanism. Each, in their own way, subordinates human welfare and reason to some alien “other.” This common anti-humanism is, in some respects, more important than the specific “other” that they designate—whether this be an anarchic nature or a dynamic technology. In both cases, what stands above humanity is valorized as an object of adoration rather than true understanding or comprehension. This need for radical transcendence beyond the human masquerades as a new form of politics; in fact it is a pre-modern and counter-Enlightenment tendency. Prometheus and Gaia seeks to uncover and demystify this strange coincidence of opposites, and goes on to make the positive case for a humanistic rationalism.

The BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are currently at the crossroads of major structural economic and political changes. This book provides a comparative analysis of the national innovation systems of the five BRICS countries and the trends in each of their science, technology and innovation policies. The BRICS Project was a workshop launched as part of the Globelics Scientific Committee, a global research network on the economics of learning, innovation and competence. The BRICS Project identifies and analyses development opportunities; highlights common characteristics and challenges of the BRICS countries; and helps to uncover possible paths to fulfil the BRICS countries’ socio-political and economic development potential. The BRICS Project also reveals development alternatives that contain the potential to help both developed and underdeveloped countries to overcome the problems brought by ‘an exhausted production and consumption system and a malignant regulatory and financial regime’. The collected research and workshop papers are now available in BRICS and Development Alternatives, an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the rise of these new emerging science and technology (S&T) powers and to improving evidence-based S&T policymaking with regard to these countries.

The book presents 18 games and develops the concepts of game analysis and winning strategies. Students are encouraged to play these mathematical games together, collect data developed through their play, and analyze the data to develop a winning strategy. The book provides the basis for a six- to eight-week unit on mathematical games. Each chapter also functions as a self-contained and independent exploration so that selected chapters may be used as supplementary classroom investigations or as independent projects. The book includes both familiar games (such as Quadrangles and Nim) and many others that will be new and exciting to most readers. Through the exploration of mathematical games, ‘The Play’s the Thing’ introduces teachers and students to the fun of play and to the mathematics behind the fun.

In this critical account of New Labour's economic and welfare policies in their first two terms in office, John Grieve Smith suggests that, far from pursuing any radical new agenda, they have been actively consolidating the Thatcherite Revolution. If Labour is to offer a genuine alternative to the Tories, and achieve its long standing objective of a fairer society, radical developments in policy are needed. John Grieve Smith discusses the policies needed to ensure expansion and full employment here and in the rest of the European Union. He examines the whittling away of pensions and other social security benefits, and the growing reliance on means testing, together with the need for higher and more progressive taxation if the quality of health and education services is to be improved. The greatest challenge of coming decades is to develop more effective global and regional international institutions in the economic and other fields. Here the author puts forward a programme of major reforms of the global financial system to make both developing and industrialized countries less vulnerable to the instability of financial markets. This new and updated edition of John Grieve Smith's lively and controversial book is a timely contribution to current political debate.

Western industrialism has achieved miracles, promoting unprecedented levels of prosperity and raising millions around the world out of poverty. Industrial capitalism is now diffusing throughout the East. Japan, the four Tigers (Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) and China are all incorporating themselves into the global industrial world. India, Brazil and many others are expected to follow the same course. But as China, India and other industrializing giants grow, they confront an inconvenient truth: they cannot rely on the Western industrial development model of fossil-fueled energy systems (resource throughput rather than circularity and generic finance) because these methods cause extreme spoliation of the environment and raise energy security, resource security and global warming concerns.

By necessity, a new approach to environmentally conscious development is already emerging in the East, with China leading the way in building a green industry at scale. As opposed to Western zero-growth advocates and free-market environmentalists, it can be argued that a more sustainable capitalism is being developed in China – to counter black developmental model based on coal. This new ‘green growth’ model of development, being perfected in China and now being emulated in India, Brazil, South Africa (and eventually by industrializing countries elsewhere), as well as by advanced industrial countries such as Germany, looks to become the new norm in the twenty-first century. Its core advantages are the energy security and resource security that are generated.

The British scientist James Lovelock has done the world an enormous service by formulating the theory of a ‘living earth’ named Gaia, where life self-regulates itself and the planet by keeping the atmospheric environment more or less constant, and likewise the environment of the oceans. In China’s Green Shift, Global Green Shift, Mathews proposes a way in which Gaia (a product of the processes of the earth) can be complemented by Ceres (our own creation of a renewable energy and circular economy system). Can these two concepts of how the earth works, represented by two powerful deities, be reconciled? While Lovelock is pessimistic, asserting that Gaia will look after herself and that if we survive at all it is likely to be as a greatly diminished industrial civilization, numbering no more than one billion people, Mathews argues in this book why he believes this prognosis to be mistaken. Mathews maintains that the changes that ‘we’ are driving, as a species, represent a viable way forward. They give us a chance of reconciling economy with ecology – or Ceres with Gaia.

The book provides a comprehensive descriptive history of the founding of the Saltire Society in 1936, a Scottish cultural organization dedicated to promoting ‘all that’s best in Scottish culture’, and its series of literary awards which now includes prizes for fiction, first books, history books, non-fiction, poetry and research books. The book accomplishes this by including a detailed descriptive history of the founding of the Saltire Society and its literary awards and original analyses of the impact the award has made within the UK’s literary economy and publishing culture, forming a unique perspective of research in practice enabled by access to archives, interviews and observations that are unique.

This cultural history of the Saltire Society Literary Awards demonstrates the significance the awards have had within Scottish literary and cultural life. It is one piece of the wider cultural award puzzle and illustrates how, far from being parochial or niche, lesser-known awards, whose histories may be yet untold, play their own role in the circulation of cultural value through the consecration of literary value. The study of the Society’s Book of the Year and First Book of the Year Awards not only highlights how important connections between literary awards and national culture and identity are within prize culture and how literary awards, and their founding institutions, can be products of the socio-political and cultural milieu in which they form,; but this study also illustrates how existing literary award scholarship has only begun to scratch the surface of the complexities of the phenomenon. This book promotes a new approach to considering literary prizes, proposing that the concept of the literary awards hierarchy can contribute to emerging and developing discourses pertaining to literary, and indeed cultural, prizes more broadly.

‘Human Resource Policy’ provides practitioners and students with a conceptual framework and practical guidelines to establish and maintain an effective HR policy function. It highlights the importance of, but often neglected, policy function as the vital link between strategy and practice.

Taking a uniquely holistic approach to HR policy, ‘Human Resource Policy’ demonstrates how HR policies can contribute to the achievement of organisational goals and the development of organisational culture. It focuses on practical aspects such as the processes of policy development and policy implementation so that they are understood and have maximum impact on policy function. Common policy management challenges are also discussed.

The book also examines in detail 16 common HR policy areas and discusses policy options in each area. This part of the book includes learning activities based on realistic business scenarios that require readers to deal with policy issues and solve policy-related problems.

The book is an addition to the scarce literature dealing specifically with HR policy.

Focusing on four poets who because of their distinctive profiles illustrate especially well the opportunities and pitfalls of writing science poetry during the long eighteenth century “Four Augustan Science Poets: Abraham Cowley, James Thomson, Henry Brooke, Erasmus Darwin” offers numerous close readings that shed light not only on standard versions of the sublime but also on these idiosyncratic variants: the apologetic (Abraham Cowley), the illicit (James Thomson), the perverse (Henry Brooke) and the atheistic (Erasmus Darwin).

Recurrent concerns include the similarities and differences among the languages of poetry, science and religion. Of the poets analyzed all but Thomson wrote extensive notes to accompany their lines, permitting further comparison of languages, in this case between the same authors’ poetry and prose.

Topics covered include the Royal Society, the scientific revolution, astronomy, botany, chemistry, telescopy, microscopy, the anthropic principle, the clockwork universe, evolution, intelligent design, comets, meteors, light, the aurora borealis, the sun, the moon, the milky way, analogies, mimetic prosody, poetic diction and the value to poetry or science of fable and myth.

‘Imagined Sound’ is a unique cartography of the artistic, historical and political forces that have informed the post-World War II representation of Australian landscapes. It is the first book to formulate the unique methodology of ‘imagined sound’, a new way to read and listen to literature and music that moves beyond the dominance of the visual, the colonial mode of knowing, controlling and imagining Australian space. Emphasising sound and listening, this approach draws out and re-examines the key narratives that shape and are shaped by Australian landscapes and histories, stories of first contact, frontier violence, the explorer journey, the convict experience, non-Indigenous belonging, Pacific identity and contemporary Indigenous Dreaming. ‘Imagined Sound’ offers a compelling analysis of how these narratives are reharmonised in key works of literature and music.

To listen to and read imagined sound is to examine how works of literature and music evoke and critique landscapes and histories using sound. It is imagined sound because it is created by descriptive language and imaginative thought, and is as such an extension of the range of heard sound. The concept is inspired by Benedict Anderson’s key study of nationalism, ‘Imagined Communities’ (1983). Discussing official (and unofficial) national anthems, Anderson argues the imagined sound of these songs connects us all. This conception of sound operates in two ways: it places the listener within ‘the nation’ and it bypasses the problem of both space and time, enabling listeners from across a vast space to, simultaneously, become one. Following Anderson, imagined sound emphasises the importance of the imagination in the formation of landscapes and communities, and in the telling and retelling of histories. 

’Imagined Sound’ encounters the different forms and tonalities of imagined sound – the soundscape, refrain, song, lyric, scream, voice and noise ¬– in novels, poems, art music, folk, rock, jazz and a film clip. To listen to these imagined sounds is to encounter the diverse ways that writers and musicians have reimagined and remapped Australian colonial/postcolonial histories, landscapes and mythologies. Imagined sound links the past to the present, enabling colonial landscapes and traumas to haunt the postcolonial; it carries and expresses highly personal and interior experiences and emotions; and it links people to the landscapes they inhabit and to the narratives and myths that give place meaning. As a reading and listening practice imagined sound pursues the unresolved conflicts that echo across the haunted soundscapes connecting the colonial past to the postcolonial present. The seeds of regeneration also bear fruit as writers and musicians imagine the future. ‘Imagined Sound’ fuses the spirit of close reading common to literary studies and the score analysis familiar to musicology with ideas from sound studies, philosophy, Island studies and postcolonial studies.

It is well known that resource-rich countries may suffer from a 'resource curse'. Their economic performance in the medium and long-run may be adversely affected by the resource riches. This problem is particularly important for Russia, since it is the world's second largest producer and exporter of oil, largest producer and exporter of natural gas, and also exports other natural resources such as diamonds, platinum, nickel, coal, iron ore, timber, and grain. This book is an edited collection, bringing together well-known specialists from Russia, Japan, Western Europe and the USA, providing data about the Russian hydrocarbons sector, its size, economic significance, and taxation. It also offers data about the growth of the Stabilization Fund. In addition, it analyses the role of the hydrocarbons sector in Russia's post-1998 economic boom, drawing attention to the contribution of remittances to Russia of the proceeds of raw material exports. With respect to international political economy, 'Russia’s Oil and Natural Gas' points out that Russia today, with its large energy exports, helps solve the problem of domestic energy shortages which plague many countries. In this way, Russia is currently a major contributor to world stability and the welfare of the energy importers.

From political sleaze and scandal to West End hits and the 'feel-good' factor, Michael Diamond explores the media stories that gripped Victorian society, in an age when newspapers became cheap, nationally distributed and easily accessible to all classes. Fully illustrated, and drawing on a wealth of original material, 'Victorian Sensation' sheds light on the Victorians' fascination with celebrity culture and their obsession with gruesome and explicit reportage of murders and sex scandals. With a vivid cast of characters, ranging from the serial poisoner William Palmer, to Charles Dickens, Jumbo the Elephant, distinguished politicians and even the Queen herself, this passionate analysis of the period reveals how the reporting methods of our own popular media have their origins in the Victorian press, and shows that sensation was as integral a part of society in the nineteenth century as it is today.

A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game presents sixteen short, readable chapters designed to leverage our post-truth condition’s deep historical and philosophical roots into opportunities for unprecedented innovation and change. Fuller offers a bracing, proactive and hopeful vision against the tendency to demonize post-truth as the realm of ‘fake news’ and ‘bullshit’. Where others see threats to the established order, Fuller sees opportunities to overturn it. This theme is pursued across many domains, including politics, religion, the economy, the law, public relations, journalism, the performing arts and academia, not least academic science. The red thread running through Fuller’s treatment is that these domains are games that cannot be easily won unless one can determine the terms of engagement, which is to say, the ‘name of the game’. This involves the exercise of ‘modal power’, which is the capacity to manipulate what people think is possible. Once the ‘necessarily’ true appears to be only ‘contingently’ so, then the future suddenly becomes a more open space for action. This was what frightened Plato about the alternative realities persuasively portrayed by playwrights in ancient Athens. Nevertheless, Fuller believes that it should be embraced by denizens of today’s post-truth condition. 

This book is designed to do what its title says, namely, to provide a guide to the post-truth condition for those who wish to feel at home and thrive in it – rather than simply avoid or attack it. It consists of a series of short chapters that are best read in the order presented but may also be read in a different order or simply in parts – as most books are normally read. The book ranges widely across philosophy, theology, science, politics, economics, psychology and the arts – but hopefully in a way that allows readers to find their bearings, given the opportunities presented by the Internet to follow up whatever might interest them in the text. Underlying this breadth of scope is a fundamental scepticism with ‘business as usual’ in the production and evaluation of knowledge claims. To be sure, the reader will see that post-truth extends many of the themes already found in what passes for ‘postmodernism’. However, at a deeper level, and in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the post-truth condition invites us to discover in a new key what it has always meant to be ‘modern’.

The book traces Luther’s career from his humble origins through his conflicts with pope and emperor, and his initiating the split between Protestants and Catholics. Based on the most recent scholarship, and drawing heavily upon Luther’s own writings, 'Martin Luther and the German Reformation' provides a picture of Luther that is historically faithful without being needlessly scholarly. Intended for use by students, it assumes no initial familiarity with Luther and is accessible to non-scholars. It would be ideal for any interested person who wants to get to know Martin Luther; one of the key figures in European history.

'South of the Crisis' examines why and how global capitalism has entered a phase of unsustainable crises of accumulation and legitimacy, and looks at various solutions to such crises, from mild reform to radical overhaul.

The book then examines the various scenarios from a Latin American perspective, arguing that the continent is a 'garden of forking paths' rather than a homogeneous area, and that different countries are likely to try diverse experiments in adapting to the crisis - with significantly different outcomes.

One common challenge faced by all Latin American countries, albeit with different modalities, is how to achieve economic growth with social inclusion. Corradi investigates the pros and cons of different policy solutions to the challenge of inclusion.

‘Foundations of Natural Gas Price Formation’ examines the fundamentals of natural gas price formation and the five principal features that make it unique in the world of commodities. It presents a model of hybrid gas pricing developed by Sergei Komlev from his detailed analysis of the interlinked impact of these features that is presented as a corrective to potential market failure.

Using mainstream economic theory, the book presents hybrid-pricing mechanisms not previously analyzed. Through a failure to understand the role of hybrid-pricing, boosters of spot pricing mechanisms through gas hubs are promoting an incorrect understanding of gas markets that will lead to market failure and to potential critical supply shortages in the near-term future. ‘Foundations of Natural Gas Price Formation’ defends the system of oil-indexed pricing as an accurate, market-based mechanism that has stood the test of time.

In the early nineteenth century, Henry Maudslay, an engineer from a humble background, opened a factory in Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, a stone’s throw from the Thames. Maudslay invented precision engineering, which made the industrial revolution possible, helping Great Britain become the workshop of the world.

He developed mass production, interchangeable components, and built the world’s first all-metal machine tools, which quite literally shaped the modern world. Without his inventions, there would have been no railways, no steam-ship industry and no mechanised textiles industry.

His factory became the pre-Victorian equivalent of Google and Apple combined, attracting the best in engineering talent. The people who worked left to set up their own businesses. These included Joseph Clement, who constructed the Difference Engine, the world’s first computer, and Joseph Whitworth, who moved to Manchester and by the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 was deemed the world’s foremost mechanical engineer.

The essays in this volume demonstrate how the Rossettis – from the celebrated Dante Gabriel and Christina to the comparatively neglected Maria and William – drew upon a shared cultural experience, and describe how each contributed to the intellectual debates of the age and played a substantial role in their various fields. Bringing together significant contributions from some of the most renowned experts on the Rossettis, 'Outsiders Looking In' provides important new perspectives on this talented family and their brilliant legacy.

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by a group of atomic scientists to symbolise the perils facing humanity from nuclear weapons. In 2007 it was set at five minutes before the final bell, including for the first time the threat of climate change as well as new developments in the life sciences and nanotechnology. This book aims at an analysis of the evolution of our present predicament throughout the Anthropocene Era beginning in 1763, making special reference to the history of the period, the study of the subject and major advances in the natural sciences.

Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson set out the basis for a scientific approach to the pre-industrial stages of historical development in the Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, when the American and French Revolutions created a vocabulary of modernity. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the industrial revolution unfolded in several stages, nationalism, imperialism and totalitarianism were among the phenomena impeding the update of the Enlightenment programme as well as the fulfilment of the aspirations of 1776 and 1789. Our present predicament demands a rigorous examination of its origins and an assertion of a scientific pandisciplinary approach involving history and other academic specialisations.

How western countries handle issues of how to regulate immigration appears critical for their future development. Many agree on this, but at the same time think they know too little about these issues. In Eurobarometer surveys from the spring of 2018, migration was the issue most stated as the most important for the EU. At the same time, a majority did not think they were well-informed about migration and integration. This book has been written for those who want to find out more about why people migrate and what the consequences are of their doing so.

The book begins with a historical overview of migration. Focusing on the last fifty years, it looks, among other things, at what motives drive people to migrate and at migrants’ economic outcomes in their destination countries. It also describes the state of knowledge about the economic and social consequences of migration for the communities that receive the migrants. Finally, it discusses what scope there is in the west for increasing the level of control over migration.

A common theme throughout the book is that migration is a very different phenomenon from one situation to another. Groups of people who are over-represented among migrants include the world’s most successful technical developers as well as its most vulnerable war victims, and many things in-between. The conditions of different groups in their countries of destination can differ widely, and their immigration has different consequences for these countries. Some of these differences may also persist for several generations. Therefore, referring to migration as a single phenomenon often does not result in a very useful description. Instead, we should get used to portraying the diversity of migration and be careful with making comparisons between different groups of migrants.

China's economy has boomed, but a potentially disastrous side effect - along with pollution and a growing income gap between urban and rural regions - is the effects obesity will have on the country's fragile healthcare system. Today's overweight in China can look to a mixed future of bright economic hopes for their country, and poor and deteriorating health for themselves. From a situation 20 years ago when diets were limited by food availability, and famine was still a recent memory, China's urban centres have seen alarmingly rising rates of obesity. Throughout the country an estimated 200 million people out of a total population of around 1.3 billion were overweight (over 15%).

Why is this issue so important? Taking into account that the recent period of stable world economic growth has in large part been driven by the availability of cheap labour in China, which produces much of the goods that keep the retail tills ringing elsewhere in the world, the issue of China's rising obesity is an issue of potentially global economic significance. Consider a scenario just a few years down the line, where there are so many overweight urban Chinese, suffering from obesity-related illness, that the government, in order to pay for increased healthcare treatments, has to raise the levels of income and other tax to pay for this huge and continual expense.

For more information please see the book website: http://fatchina.anthempressblog.com