Your Search Results
-
Promoted Content
Humanities & Social SciencesNovember 2023Local government and democracy in the United Kingdom
by Neil Barnett, J. Chandler
-
Promoted Content
Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017British culture and the end of empire
by Stuart Ward
This book is the first major attempt to examine the cultural manifestations of the demise of imperialism as a social and political ideology in post-war Britain. Far from being a matter of indifference or resigned acceptance as is often suggested, the fall of the British Empire came as a profound shock to the British national imagination, and resonated widely in British popular culture. The sheer range of subjects discussed, from the satire boom of the 1960s to the worlds of sport and the arts, demonstrates how profoundly decolonisation was absorbed into the popular consciousness. Offers an extremely novel and provocative interpretation of post-war British cultural history, and opens up a whole new field of enquiry in the history of decolonisation.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2023The imperial Commonwealth
Australia and the project of empire, 1867-1914
by Wm. Matthew Kennedy
From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Australian settler colonists mobilised their unique settler experiences to develop their own vision of what 'empire' was and could be. Reinterpreting their histories and attempting to divine their futures with a much heavier concentration on racialized visions of humanity, white Australian settlers came to believe that their whiteness as well as their Britishness qualified them for an equal voice in the running of Britain's imperial project. Through asserting their case, many soon claimed that, as newly minted citizens of a progressive and exemplary Australian Commonwealth, white settlers such as themselves were actually better suited to the modern task of empire. Such a settler political cosmology with empire at its center ultimately led Australians to claim an empire of their own in the Pacific Islands, complete with its own, unique imperial governmentality.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2009Local government today
by J. Chandler, Bill Jones
Local government today provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure, finance, management and democratic framework for local government in Britain. This new edition has been substantially rewritten to encompass the many changes to the structure and function of the system since 2000, including developments flowing from the 2007 Local Government Act. The study discusses how, during the Blair years, local governments came to be seen once again as centrally important institutions within Britain's political system. However, they are not seen as organisations that can function as separate agencies, undertaking all their duties 'in-house'. They are now required to work in partnership with the private, public and voluntary sectors to deliver local services and represent local interests. It is further argued that, for the first time in over a century, the barriers between civil servants and senior local government officers are being eroded as central government begins to incorporate leading local government officials into its decision-making processes. This established textbook also offers a comparative focus by showing how the British system differs from the structures for local governance in Western Europe and the United States. ;
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesNovember 2011Structural reform of British local government
Rhetoric and reality
by Michael Chisholm
During the 1990s, the structure of local government in Scotland and Wales was completely reorganised by Acts of Parliament. Under other legislation, and in response to recommendations from the Local Government Commission, there was a partial reorganisation in shire England. This is the only study which examines these reforms in one volume. Running through this study is the contrast between the rhetoric used to justify replacing counties and districts by new unitary authorities and the realities of local government. The book reviews the reasons for the reforms, the processes and outcomes in the three countries, and the nature of the evidence which was available for the advantages and disadvantages of reorganisation. Two chapters compare the prior assessments with the actuality, and the final chapter discusses some important lessons for national governance. This is the only study written by someone who was directly involved in the structural review, as a member of the Local Government Commission, and it combines this special experience with a wealth of information from many sources. The book will be a key text for teachers and students of local government and also important for those studying public administration, government and politics at the second or third year undergraduate level. There should also be a wide readership in local government circles and among MPs and those concerned with public life. ;
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2023Socialist republic
Remaking the British left in 1980s Sheffield
by Daisy Payling
Socialist republic is a timely account of 1980s left-wing politics in South Yorkshire. It explores how Sheffield City Council set out to renew the British Left. Through careful analysis of the Council's agenda and how it interacted with trade unions, women's groups, lesbian and gay rights groups and acted on issues such as peace, environmentalism, anti-apartheid and anti-racism, the book draws out the complexities involved in building a broad-based politics which aimed unite class and identity politics. Running counter to 1980s narratives dominated by Thatcherism, the book examines the persistence of social democracy locally, demonstrating how grassroots local histories can enrich our understanding of political developments on a national and international level. The book is essential reading for students, scholars, and activists with an interest in left-wing politics and history.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2024Sexual politics in revolutionary England
by Sam Fullerton
Sexual politics in revolutionary England recounts a dramatic transformation in English sexual polemic that unfolded during the kingdom's mid-seventeenth-century civil wars. In early Stuart England, explicit sexual language was largely confined to manuscript and oral forms by the combined regulatory pressures of ecclesiastical press licensing and powerful cultural notions of civility and decorum. During the early 1640s, however, graphic sex-talk exploded into polemical print for the first time in English history. Over the next two decades, sexual politics evolved into a vital component of public discourse, as contemporaries utilized sexual satire to reframe the English Revolution as a battle between licentious Stuart tyrants and their lecherous puritan enemies. By the time that Charles II regained the throne in 1660, this book argues, sex was already a routine element of English political culture.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2024Agents of European overseas empires
Private colonisers, 1450-1800
by Elodie Peyrol-Kleiber, L. H. Roper, Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Agnès Delahaye
Agents of European overseas empires involves contributors who specialise on often overlooked aspects of imperial endeavour: 'private' European interests, companies, merchants or courtiers, who conducted their own activities both with and without the benediction of polities. The chapters adopt intra- as well as inter-imperial perspectives and transport the reader to colonial America, the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Batavia, or Ceylon, through the Dutch, English, French and Spanish empires. Agents of European overseas empires offers crucial insight on how these actors acquired profits and power and, in turn, laid the platforms for European global empires.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2022
In defence of councillors
by Colin Copus
In defence of councillors is an unashamed defence of local representative democracy and of those elected to serve as councillors from the often ill-informed, ill-judged and inaccurate criticism made by the media, government and public, of councillors' personal, political and professional roles. By using qualitative research from a number of related projects, the book examines the roles, functions and responsibilities of councillors and the expectations placed upon them by citizens, communities and government. It also examines the impact council membership has on other facets of the councillor's life. The book examines how councillors develop strategies to overcome the constraints and restrictions on their office so as to be able to govern their communities, balance their political and public life and democratise and hold to account a vast array of unelected bodies that spend public money and develop public policy without the electoral mandate and legitimacy held by our councillors.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2019Beyond the state
The colonial medical service in British Africa
by Anna Greenwood, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
The Colonial Medical Service was the personnel section of the Colonial Service, employing the doctors who tended to the health of both the colonial staff and the local populations of the British Empire. Although the Service represented the pinnacle of an elite government agency, its reach in practice stretched far beyond the state, with the members of the African service collaborating, formally and informally, with a range of other non-governmental groups. This collection of essays on the Colonial Medical Service of Africa illustrates the diversity and active collaborations to be found in the untidy reality of government medical provision. The authors present important case studies covering former British colonial dependencies in Africa, including Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar. They reveal many new insights into the enactments of colonial policy and the ways in which colonial doctors negotiated the day-to-day reality during the height of imperial rule in Africa. The book provides essential reading for scholars and students of colonial history, medical history and colonial administration.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsDecember 2022D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation
by Jenny Barrett, Douglas Field, Ian Scott
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2023
The illusion of the Burgundian state
by Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin, Christopher Fletcher
On 25 January 1474, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, appeared before his subjects in Dijon. Robed in silk, gold and precious jewels and wearing a headpiece that gave the illusion of a crown, he made a speech in which he cryptically expressed his desire to become a king. Three years later, Charles was killed at the battle of Nancy, an event that plunged the Great Principality of Burgundy into chaos. This book, innovative and essential, not only explores Burgundian history and historiography but offers a complete synthesis about the nature of politics in this region, considered both from the north and the south. Focusing on political ideologies, a number of important issues are raised relating to the medieval state, the signification of the nation under the 'Ancien Regime', the role of warfare in the creation of political power and the impact of political loyalties in the exercise of government. In doing so, the book challenges a number of existing ideas about the Burgundian state.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2009Consumerism and the Co-operative movement in modern British history
Taking stock
by Lawrence Black, Nicole Robertson
Despite the abundance and quality of recent historical writing on consumerism, it cannot be said that the modern Co-operative movement (Co-op) has been well served. It has also been by-passed in studies that locate Britons' identity in their consumption. The reasons for this can be found in the widely perceived decline of the Co-op since the 1950s, but also in various historiographical agendas that have resulted in its relative invisibility in modern British history. This book, by demonstrating the variety of broader issues that can be addressed through the Co-op and the vibrancy of new historical research into consumption, seeks to remedy this. Taking stock, both of the Co-op in a broader context and of new approaches to the history of consumption, combines the work of leading authorities on the Co-op with recent scholarly research. It explores the Co-op's distinctive interface between everyday issues and grander idealistic concerns. The chapters intersect to examine a broad range of themes, notably: the politics of consumerism including consumer protection, ethical and fair trading and alternatives to corporate commerce; design and advertising; the Co-op's relations with other components of the labour movement; and its ideology, image and memory. The collection looks at the Co-operative movement locally (through specific case studies), nationally and also in comparison to the European movement. This collection will appeal to academics, researchers, teachers and students of the economic, cultural and political history of twentieth-century Britain. It will also be of interest to academics and students of business studies, and co-operative members themselves. ;
-
Trusted Partner
March 2020Im Alten Land
by Birgit Haustedt
Apfelbäume, so weit das Auge reicht, idyllische Fachwerkdörfer hinter dem Deich und am Horizont die Elbe: Das Alte Land ist eine uralte Kulturlandschaft am Wasser, die ihren eigenen Charakter bewahrt hat. Prächtige Bauernhöfe und Backsteinkirchen mit kostbaren Barockorgeln zeugen noch heute vom frühen Wohlstand der Altländer. Birgit Haustedt erzählt von den Anfängen im Mittelalter, von Deichbau und Sturmfluten, vom Alltag der kleinen Leute und von großer Handwerkskunst, von stolzen Bauern und mutigen Schiffern. Dazu ein Exkurs, welche Rolle das Alte Land in Lessings Leben und Goethes Faust spielte.
-
Trusted Partner
Teaching, Language & ReferenceNovember 2023Pluriversal sovereignty and the state
Imperial encounters in Sri Lanka
by Ajay Parasram
Presenting a case study of British colonial rule and its aftermath in Sri Lanka, this book explores the collision of competing ontologies in the making of the modern state system. It develops a decolonial theoretical framework informed by the idea of a 'pluriverse' to reveal the empirical and imperial avenues through which the idea of the modern/colonial state became normalised in Ceylon. The book contributes to three areas of scholarly discussion: the politics of ontology as related to sovereignty, postcolonial and decolonial international relations, and globalisation through the colonial encounter. It argues that in order to understand contemporary postcolonial crises rooted in territorial conflicts, we must first understand the historical and conceptual processes that depoliticised and universalised the norm of 'total territorial rule' rather than treating the modern state as a territorial and developmental inevitability.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Child, nation, race and empire
Child rescue discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850–1915
by Margot Hillel, Shurlee Swain, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
Child, nation, race and empire is an innovative, inter-disciplinary, cross cultural study that contributes to understandings of both contemporary child welfare practices and the complex dynamics of empire. It analyses the construction and transmission of nineteenth-century British child rescue ideology. Locating the origins of contemporary practice in the publications of the prominent English Child rescuers, Dr Barnardo, Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Benjamin Waugh, Edward de Montjoie Rudolf and their colonial disciples and literature written for children, it shows how the vulnerable body of the child at risk came to be reconstituted as central to the survival of nation, race and empire. Yet, as the shocking testimony before the many official enquiries into the past treatment of children in out-of-home 'care' held in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada make clear, there was no guarantee that the rescued child would be protected from further harm.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2021When politics meets bureaucracy
by Christian Lo, Rod Rhodes
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Country houses and the British Empire, 1700–1930
by Stephanie Barczewski
Country houses and the British empire, 1700-1930 assesses the economic and cultural links between country houses and the Empire between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Using sources from over fifty British and Irish archives, it enables readers to better understand the impact of the empire upon the British metropolis by showing both the geographical variations and its different cultural manifestations. Barczewski offers a rare scholarly analysis of the history of country houses that goes beyond an architectural or biographical study, and recognises their importance as the physical embodiments of imperial wealth and reflectors of imperial cultural influences. In so doing, she restores them to their true place of centrality in British culture over the last three centuries, and provides fresh insights into the role of the Empire in the British metropolis.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Emigration from Scotland between the wars
by Marjory Harper
Emigration from Scotland has always been very high. However, emigration from Scotland between the wars surpassed all records; more people emigrated than were born, leading to an overall population decline. Why was it so many people left? Marjory Harper, whose knowledge is grounded in a deep understanding of the local records, maps out the many factors which worked together to cause this massive diaspora. After an opening section where the author sets the Scottish experience within the context of the rest of the British Isles, the book then divides the country geographically, starting with the Highlands, then coastal Scotland, and the urban Lowland highlighting in turn the factors that particularly influenced each of these areas. Harper then discusses the organised religious and political movements that encouraged emigration. By interweaving personal stories with statistical evidence Harper brings to life the reality behind the dramatic historical migration.
