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      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        February 2026

        Caribbean eco-aesthetics

        Strategies of survival through contemporary art

        by Kate Keohane, Daniella Rose King, Giulia Smith

        This edited volume reframes the Caribbean as a paradigm of ecological resilience and creativity by bringing together the voices of contemporary artists and scholars who are at the forefront of environmental activism in the region and across its diasporas. While dominant narratives percolating from the environmental sciences to the mainstream press present the Caribbean as a frontier of planetary disaster, the contributors to this volume show how the region offers radical models for overcoming the environmental challenges of the present. At the heart of this argument lies the history of the Caribbean as a centre for grassroots forms of anti-colonial and anti-capitalist resistance founded upon nature-centred cosmologies and practices. Caribbean Eco-Aesthetics shows how contemporary artists are mobilising this radical heritage in a bid to unlock alternative planetary futures.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2024

        Ireland, slavery and the Caribbean

        Interdisciplinary perspectives

        by Finola O'Kane, Ciarán O'Neill

        Ireland, slavery and the Caribbean is a complex and ground-breaking collection of essays. Grounded in history, it integrates perspectives from art historians, architectural and landscape historians, and literary scholars to produce a genuinely interdisciplinary collection that spans from 1620-1830: the high point of European colonialism. By exploring imperial, national and familial relationships from their building blocks of plantation, migration, property and trade, it finds new ways to re-create and question how slavery made the Atlantic world.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Guardians of Empire

        The Armed Forces of the Colonial Powers, C.1700-1964

        by Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie, David Killingray

        For imperialists, the concept of guardian is specifically to the armed forces that kept watch on the frontiers and in the heartlands of imperial territories. Large parts of Asia and Africa, and the islands of the Pacific and the Caribbean were imperial possessions. This book discusses how military requirements and North Indian military culture, shaped the cantonments and considers the problems posed by venereal diseases and alcohol, and the sanitary strategies pursued to combat them. The trans-border Pathan tribes remained an insistent problem in Indian defence between 1849 and 1947. The book examines the process by which the Dutch elite recruited military allies, and the contribution of Indonesian soldiers to the actual fighting. The idea of naval guardianship as expressed in the campaign against the South Pacific labour trade is examined. The book reveals the extent of military influence of the Schutztruppen on the political developments in the German protectorates in German South-West Africa and German East Africa. The U.S. Army, charged with defending the Pacific possessions of the Philippines and Hawaii, encountered a predicament similar to that of the mythological Cerberus. The regimentation of military families linked access to women with reliable service, and enabled the King's African Rifles to inspire a high level of discipline in its African soldiers, askaris. The book explains the political and military pressures which drove successive French governments to widen the scope of French military operations in Algeria between 1954 and 1958. It also explores gender issues and African colonial armies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2025

        Joining up in the Second World War

        Enlistment, masculinity and the memory of the Great War

        by Joel Morley

        This book connects the First and Second World Wars. It uses oral histories and Mass Observation material to explore men's attitudes to Second World War enlistment and the relationship they perceived between military service and masculinity, and how these were influenced by understandings of the First World War. Locating the cultural legacy of First World War in the subjectivities of men who participated in the Second World War demonstrates the breadth of sources that informed men's understandings of the First World War in interwar Britain. Its cultural legacy was omnipresent and diverse, and informed young men's attitudes and service preferences, but it reinforced Edwardian conceptions of wartime masculinity as often as it undermined them. Two decades after the First World War ended, they remained resilient in the subjective understandings of men who grew up in the Great War's shadow.

      • Trusted Partner
        June 2026

        Little wars of empire

        British veterans in a colonial world, c.1885–1918

        by Taylor Soja

        Little Wars of Empire is a group biography of British veterans who experienced multiple wars across the British empire. Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain was constantly at war in its colonies, defending against anti-colonial resistance or trying to expand its influence. The veterans of these wars did not disappear once they were over, and many of them went on to later experience World War I. By using personal sources such as letters, diaries, and photograph albums, this book works to show how colonial violence and British military history depend upon one another, and argues that colonial war fundamentally shaped the British experience of empire. This was true for all kinds of British veterans, from British Army soldiers and officers to nurses and military families, whose experiences demonstrate the central place of colonial violence to British life.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2017

        Frontiers of the Caribbean

        by Philip Nanton, Gurminder Bhambra

        This book argues that the Caribbean frontier, usually assumed to have been eclipsed after colonial conquest, remains a powerful but unrecognised element of Caribbean island culture. Combining analytical and creative genres of writing, it explores historical and contemporary patterns of frontier change through a case study of the little-known Eastern Caribbean multi-island state of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Modern frontier traits are located in the wandering woodcutter, the squatter on government land and the mountainside ganja grower. But the frontier is also identified as part of global production that has shaped island tourism, the financial sector and patterns of migration.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        July 2025

        Medical care, humanitarianism and intimacy in the long Second World War, 1931-1953

        by Marie-Luce Desgrandchamps, Laure Humbert, Bertrand Taithe, Raphaële Balu

        This book offers a micro-global history of humanitarianism and medical care during the 'long' Second World War, which challenges the traditional and Eurocentric chronological boundaries of 1939/1945. It takes as its starting point the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which led to the progressive dislocation of the League of Nations, with the Japanese, German and Soviet departures in the 1930s. It ends with the termination of the Korean War in 1953, and the subsequent dismantlement of the first United Coalition and UN Peace enforcement operation. It considers the slow, messy and ambivalent transformation of humanitarian actors' relations to the suffering of distant others through a study of humanitarian encounters, practices, spaces and affects. Paying close attention to a variety of actors, such as French colonial doctors, Swiss ICRC delegates, Egyptian relief workers, Chinese-style physicians, Peruvian and Ecuadorian nurses or American member of the Unitarian Service Committee, the book provides a more holistic story of humanitarianism.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        May 2022

        In the Shadow of War

        Diary notes from Ukraine

        by Christoph Brumme

        "What can you learn in war? Do you become numb, do you get used to it at some point? Does war make you "hard", uncaring, above pain? No. These are just clichés. Every day brings new horrors. At best, one learns for some time to suppress strong feelings, because to give in to them would weaken one's life instinct." In a very stirring and shocking, but sometimes humorous language, Christoph Brumme tells of the situation in Ukraine, the everyday life of his family and friends, of fears, longings and political assessments. The diary entries of the war and the resistance of the Ukrainians, starting from the first signs of the impending war in mid-January 2022 until the printing of this book, 1st May 2022, impressively bear witness to the brutality of these events.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        March 2026

        Humanitarianism in Civil War

        The Biafra crisis, 1967-1970

        by Marie-Luce Desgrandchamps

        May 1967, in Nigeria, the Republic of Biafra declared its independence. Soon, civil war and famine ravaged the region and gradually entered the European and American media. Photographs of the conflict arouse considerable emotion in the West. The secessionist enclave and the areas taken over by the Nigerian army then became the scene of major relief operations, developed and financed by multiple organizations and governments. Part of a historiography of humanitarianism in full renewal, this book tells the story of the war, its metamorphosis into an international crisis and the responses that were provided. Based on a large body of sources from French, British, Swiss, Nigerian and American archives, it offers an insight into the world of humanitarian work at the end of the 1960s. It shows the reconfigurations taking place there. in the postcolonial era by proposing complementary scales of observation - international, national and local. The work also revisits some of the controversies which developed around the conflict regarding the instrumentalization of aid, its links with politics, the reception of relief operations on the ground or even the birth of borderlessness and testimony. It thus returns to the place occupied by the Biafran crisis in the history of humanitarian aid.

      • 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
        June 2025

        The Germans in India

        Elite European migrants in the British Empire

        by Panikos Panayi

        Based on years of research in libraries and archives in England, Germany, India and Switzerland, this book offers a new interpretation of global migration from the early nineteenth until the early twentieth century. Rather than focusing upon the mass transatlantic migration or the movement of Britons towards British colonies, it examines the elite German migrants who progressed to India, especially missionaries, scholars and scientists, businessmen and travellers. The story told here questions, for the first time, the concept of Europeans in India. Previous scholarship has ignored any national variations in the presence of white people in India, viewing them either as part of a ruling elite or, more recently, white subalterns. The German elites undermine these conceptions. They developed into distinct groups before 1914, especially in the missionary compound, but faced marginalisation and expulsion during the First World War.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2022

        Exiting war

        The British Empire and the 1918–20 moment

        by Romain Fathi, Margaret Hutchison, Andrekos Varnava, Michael Walsh, Alan Lester

        Exiting war explores a particular 1918-20 'moment' in the British Empire's history, between the First World War's armistices of 1918, and the peace treaties of 1919 and 1920. That moment, we argue, was a challenging and transformative time for the Empire. While British authorities successfully answered some of the post-war tests they faced, such as demobilisation, repatriation, and fighting the widespread effects of the Spanish flu, the racial, social, political and economic hallmarks of their imperialism set the scene for a wide range of expressions of loyalties and disloyalties, and anticolonial movements. The book documents and conceptualises this 1918-20 'moment' and its characteristics as a crucial three-year period of transformation for and within the Empire, examining these years for the significant shifts in the imperial relationship that occurred and as laying the foundation for later change in the imperial system.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2026

        The Vietnam idea

        Global protest art and the image of radical solidarity

        by Brynn Hatton

        The Vietnam idea examines how Vietnam became a potent symbol for global movements fighting colonialism, racism, and imperialism during the American War and its aftermath. Rather than focusing on Vietnam as a place, Brynn Hatton explores how artists and activists around the world used the idea of 'Vietnam' to express political identification and solidarity through posters, films, protest actions, exhibitions, and conceptual art. Drawing on international archives, the book reveals how diverse visual works helped shape the political imagination of the global left, and continue to influence how we see identity, conflict, and solidarity today.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2026

        US cultural diplomacy after the Cold War

        Decline, recovery, and fall

        by Jeffrey H. Michaels, Giles Scott-Smith

        In the decades following the USSR's collapse, the US has gone from unrivalled hegemon to a position of relative decline. With America 'triumphant' after 1991, its culture, like its diplomatic, military and economic power, remained unmatched. Such favourable circumstances seemed to undercut the need for cultural diplomacy. Why should the US government sell a product that was already selling so well? After 9/11, however, it was apparent the US image was less popular than previously assumed. To reverse this negative image, cultural diplomacy was revived. Despite being beset by internal and external challenges, US officials supported various cultural initiatives and partnerships to promote the American brand globally. Along the way, cultural diplomacy has made use of new forms of expression to promote American culture and build positive foreign relations. The arrival of the second Trump administration in 2025 has clearly signalled an end to using cultural diplomacy to further causes of empowerment and diversity, making the future uncertain for this field of activity.

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA

        Hohoho, Here Comes Father Christmas!

        by Katja Richert/Denitza Gruber

        Soon it’ll be Christmas! It’s time to load the sleigh with presents, thinks the reindeer. But Father Christmas wants to decorate his house first, and build a snowman, and have a nice cup of tea. Then suddenly it’s almost too late! All his friends must help, so that children can get their presents on time.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2025

        Early modern drama and the theatre of war

        Militarism, conflict and disruption in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries

        by Bronwen Price, Hilary Hinds

        This volume explores the disruptive effects of militarism, war and social unrest in early modern drama. Engaging with Simon Barker's seminal work on dramatic representations of war and militarism, contributors highlight what often lies hidden beneath the surface of martial narratives, treating them as formative interventions in contemporary discourses, whether in justifying war, excluding dissident voices or shaping cultural identities. Discussions include new examinations of militarism, the figure of the soldier and early modern theories of war in Shakespearean tragedy, history and comedy, alongside antimasque and dramatic satire by lesser-known playwrights. The essays investigate how ideas of war underpin emerging concepts of gender, leadership, marriage and the family, as well as the continuing mobilisation of Shakespearean drama in the context of modern armed conflict. Together, they offer rich new contributions to the current lively critical debates on this topic.

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