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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2025

        England’s military heartland

        Preparing for war on Salisbury Plain

        by Vron Ware, Antonia Dawes, Mitra Pariyar, Alice Cree

        A considered investigation of a long-standing army base's impact on the British countryside. What is it like to live next door to a British Army base? Beyond the barracks provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide. Targeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK's global defence estate, the Salisbury 'super garrison' offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife. How does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? Beyond the barracks investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2024

        British Bangladeshi Muslims in the East End

        The changing landscape of dress and language

        by Fatima Rajina

        Drawing on the everyday experiences of 43 British-Bangladeshi Muslims living in East London, this book explores stories of migration and belonging vis-à-vis dress and language. In narrating those stories, the book is framed within the broader socio-political conversations happening regarding Muslims in Britain and their 'place' in this society. Recent work on Muslims focuses on their religious identity and its formation, not paying attention to the role of dress and language. With the former, much of it tends to, obsessively, focus on Muslim women only. This book, alternatively, explores religious identity formation in addition to examining the British-Bangladeshi Muslim community's relationship with their ethnic identity vis-à-vis dress and language. As such, the analysis provides a rich, bottom-up analysis of the community, and readers will be able to understand a community holistically, away from the over-sensationalised community within broader socio-political context.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2025

        England’s military heartland

        Preparing for war on Salisbury Plain

        by Vron Ware, Antonia Lucia Dawes, Mitra Pariyar, Alice Cree

        What is it like to live next door to a British Army base? England's military heartland provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide. Targeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK's global defence estate, the Salisbury 'super garrison' offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife. How does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? This book investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        British 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 Sciences
        November 2013

        The Nine Years' War and the British army 1688–97

        The operations in the low countries

        by John Childs

        Between 1689 and 1697 the British army fought as a member of the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV. Despite the military and political significance of the European conflict, this book is the first historical investigation for over a century dealing with the operations of the principal campaigns in the Low Countries. John Childs begins his comprehensive study by exploring the diplomatic origins of the Nine Years' War. Leading on from this political background, the author then focuses on the detailed organisation of the British, Dutch and other allied armies and the conduct of the operations. The specific campaigns are also examined and in particular the author looks at the strategic and tactical role played by the British. This campaign and operational study of the British army will be of interest to both specialist and general military historians, as well as to political historians. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2020

        The British political elite and Europe, 1959-1984

        A higher loyalty

        by Bob Nicholls

        This book offers an original interpretation of Britain's relationship with Europe over a 25 year period: 1959-84 and advances the argument that the current problems over EU membership resulted from much earlier political machinations. This evidence based account of the seminal period analyses the applications for EEC membership, the 1975 referendum, and the role of the press. Was the British public misled over the true aims of the European project? How significant was the role of the press in changing public opinion from anti, to pro Common Market membership? Why, after over 40 years since Britain became a member of the European community, does the issue continue to deeply divide not only the political elite, but also the British public? These, and other pertinent questions are answered in this timely book on a subject that remains topical and highly controversial.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2019

        The British political elite and Europe 1959-1984

        by Bob Nicholls

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2017

        Country 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 Sciences
        March 2017

        The harem, slavery and British imperial culture

        Anglo-Muslim relations in the late nineteenth century

        by Diane Robinson-Dunn

        This book focuses on British efforts to suppress the traffic in female slaves destined for Egyptian harems during the late-nineteenth century. It considers this campaign in relation to gender debates in England, and examines the ways in which the assumptions and dominant imperialist discourses of these abolitionists were challenged by the newly-established Muslim communities in England, as well as by English people who converted to or were sympathetic with Islam. While previous scholars have treated antislavery activity in Egypt first and foremost as an extension of earlier efforts to abolish plantation slavery in the New World, this book considers it in terms of encounters with Islam during a period which it argues marked a new departure in Anglo-Muslim relations. This approach illuminates the role of Islam in the creation of English national identities within the global cultural system of the British Empire. This book would appeal to those with an interest in British imperial history; Islam; gender, feminism, and women's studies; slavery and race; the formation of national identities; global processes; Orientalism; and Middle Eastern studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2017

        Wales and the British overseas empire

        Interactions and influences, 1650–1830

        by H.V. Bowen

        This unique collection of essays is the first book to explore the many relationships that developed between Wales and the British overseas empire between 1650 and 1830. Written by leading specialists in the field, the essays explore economic, social, cultural, political, and religious interactions between Wales and the empire. The geographical coverage is very broad, with examinations of the contributions made by Wales to expansion in the Atlantic world, Caribbean, and South Asia. The book explores Welsh influences on the emergence of 'British' imperialism, as well as the impact that the empire had upon the development of Wales itself. The book will be of interest to academic historians, postgraduate students, and undergraduates. It will be indispensable to those interested in the history of Wales, Britain, and the empire, as well as those who wish to compare Welsh imperial experiences with those of the English, Irish, and Scots.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        The British working class in postwar film

        by Philip Gillett

        An incidental pleasure of watching a film is what it tells us about the society in which it is made. Using a sociological model, The British working class in postwar film looks at how working-class people were portrayed in British feature films in the decade after the Second World War. Though some of the films examined are well known, others have been forgotten and deserve reassessment. Original statistical data is used to assess the popularity of the films with audiences. With its interdisciplinary approach and the avoidance of jargon, this book seeks to broaden the approach to film studies. Students of media and cultural studies are introduced to the skills of other disciplines, while sociologists and historians are encouraged to consider the value of film evidence in their own fields. This work should appeal to all readers interested in social history and in how cinema and society works.

      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        August 2022

        Dividing the spoils

        Perspectives on military collections and the British empire

        by Henrietta Lidchi, Stuart Allan

        At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues for a deeper examination of these collections within a range of intercultural histories that include alliance, diplomacy, curiosity and enquiry, as well as expropriation and cultural hegemony. As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, Dividing the Spoils explores how the amassing of objects was understood and governed in British military culture, and considers how objects functioned in museum collections thereafter, suggesting new avenues for sustained investigation in a controversial, contested field.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2023

        Civil war London

        Mobilizing for parliament, 1641–5

        by Jordan S. Downs

        This book looks at London's provision of financial and military support for parliament's war against King Charles I. It explores for the first time a series of episodic, circumstantial and unique mobilisations that spanned from late 1641 to early 1645 and which ultimately led to the establishment of the New Model Army. Based on research from two-dozen archives, Civil war London charts the successes and failures of efforts to move London's vast resources and in the process poses a number of challenges to longstanding notions about the capital's 'parliamentarian' makeup. It reveals interactions between London's Corporation, parochial communities and livery companies, between preachers and parishioners and between agitators, propagandists and common people. Within these tangled webs of political engagement reside the untold stories of the movement of money and men, but also of parliament's eventual success in the English Civil War.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2025

        Islamophobia, anti-racism and the British left

        by Scarlet Harris

        Islamophobia is one of the most misunderstood and pernicious forms of racism in Britain. But how do those committed to challenging Islamophobia understand it? And what does this mean for their practices 'on the ground'? Islamophobia, anti-racism and the British left combines first-hand accounts from activists and community workers across two British cities with sociological theory, critically interrogating Islamophobia's relationship to 'race', racial capitalism and other modalities of racism. Setting this discussion against some of the most pertinent political shifts in Britain in recent years - from the resurgence of left nationalism to Black Lives Matter - the book assesses the limits of recent attempts to think about and tackle Islamophobia, and considers the possibilities of an alternative approach from and for the anti-racist left.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2017

        Popular television drama

        Critical perspectives

        by Jonathan Bignell, Stephen Lacey

        Popular television drama: critical perspectives' is a collection of essays examining landmark programmes of the last forty years, from 'Doctor Who' to 'The Office', and from 'The Demon Headmaster' to 'Queer As Folk'. Contributions from prominent academics focus on the full range of popular genres, from sitcoms to science fiction, gothic horror and children's drama, and challenge received wisdom by reconsidering how British television drama can be analysed. Each section is preceded by an introduction in which the editors discuss how the essays address existing problems in the field and also suggest new directions for study. The book is split into three sections, addressing the enduring appeal of popular genres, the notion of 'quality' in television drama, and analysing a range of programmes past and present. Popular television drama: critical perspectives will be of interest to students and researchers in many academic disciplines that study television drama. Its breadth and focus on popular programmes will also appeal to those interested in the shows themselves.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Payment and philanthropy in British healthcare, 1918–48

        by George Campbell Gosling, Keir Waddington

        This book is available as an open access ebook under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence. At a time when payment is claiming a greater place than ever before within the NHS, this book provides the first in-depth investigation of the workings, scale and meaning of payment in British hospitals before the NHS. There were only three decades in British history when it was the norm for patients to pay the hospital; those between the end of the First World War and the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. Payment played an important part in redefining rather than abandoning medical philanthropy, based on class divisions and the notion of financial contribution as a civic duty. With new insights on the scope of private medicine and the workings of the means test in the hospital, as well as the civic, consumer and charitable meanings associated with paying the hospital, Gosling offers a fresh perspective on healthcare before the NHS and welfare before the welfare state.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2017

        Welsh missionaries and British imperialism

        The Empire of Clouds in north-east India

        by Andrew May

        In 1841, the Welsh sent their first missionary, Thomas Jones, to evangelise the tribal peoples of the Khasi Hills of north-east India. This book follows Jones from rural Wales to Cherrapunji, the wettest place on earth and now one of the most Christianised parts of India. As colonised colonisers, the Welsh were to have a profound impact on the culture and beliefs of the Khasis. The book also foregrounds broader political, scientific, racial and military ideologies that mobilised the Khasi Hills into an interconnected network of imperial control. Its themes are universal: crises of authority, the loneliness of geographical isolation, sexual scandal, greed and exploitation, personal and institutional dogma, individual and group morality. Written by a direct descendant of Thomas Jones, it makes a significant contribution in orienting the scholarship of imperialism to a much-neglected corner of India, and will appeal to students of the British imperial experience more broadly.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Britain in China

        by Robert Bickers

        This is a study of Britain's presence in China both at its peak, and during its inter-war dissolution in the face of assertive Chinese nationalism and declining British diplomatic support. Using archival materials from China and records in Britain and the United States, the author paints a portrait of the traders, missionaries, businessmen, diplomats and settlers who constituted "Britain-in-China", challenging our understanding of British imperialism there. Bickers argues that the British presence in China was dominated by urban settlers whose primary allegiance lay not with any grand imperial design, but with their own communities and precarious livelihoods. This brought them into conflict not only with the Chinese population, but with the British imperial government. The book also analyzes the formation and maintenance of settler identities, and then investigates how the British state and its allies brought an end to the reign of freelance, settler imperialism on the China coast. At the same time, other British sectors, missionary and business, renegotiated their own relationship with their Chinese markets and the Chinese state and distanced themselves from the settler British.

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