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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2023Who governs Britain?
Trade unions, the Conservative Party and the failure of the Industrial Relations Act 1971
by Sam Warner
Providing fresh insights from the archival record, Who governs Britain? revisits the 1970-74 Conservative government to explain why the Party tried - and failed - to reform the system of industrial relations. Designed to tackle Britain's strike problem and perceived disorder in collective bargaining, the Industrial Relations Act 1971 established a formal legal framework to counteract trade union power. As the state attempted to disengage from and 'depoliticise' collective bargaining practices, trade union leaders and employers were instructed to discipline industry. In just three-and-a-half years, the Act contributed to a crisis of the British state as industrial unrest engulfed industry and risked undermining the rule of law. Warner explores the power dynamics, strategic errors and industrial battles that destroyed this attempt to tame trade unions and ultimately brought down a government, and that shape Conservative attitudes towards trade unions to this day.
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MedicineDecember 2020African nurses and everyday work in twentieth-century Zimbabwe
by Clement Masakure, Jane Schultz
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Humanities & Social SciencesNovember 2025Serfdom in medieval England
Theory and practice 1200 to 1500
by Mark Bailey
Serfdom was a coercive relationship between a landowner and peasant, which was widespread across medieval and early modern Europe. Itfeatures prominently in major historical debates, such as the origins of capitalism and the divergent pathways of western and eastern Europe to modernity. Scholars have paid particular attention to English serfdom, which is usually portrayed as highly oppressive and a major cause of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. This comprehensive survey draws on a vast scholarship and new research to show how, in reality, English serfdom was weak, casting new light on the nature of its society and economy when the Black Death struck in 1348-9. The pandemicnow assumesa central role in the rapid decline of serfdom, as illustrated in a case study of the estate of one of England's harshest landowners, St Albans abbey.
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The ArtsSeptember 2024The renewal of post-war Manchester
Planning, architecture and the state
by Richard Brook
A compelling account of the project to transform post-war Manchester, revealing the clash between utopian vision and compromised reality. Urban renewal in Britain was thrilling in its vision, yet partial and incomplete in its implementation. For the first time, this deep study of a renewal city reveals the complex networks of actors behind physical change and stagnation in post-war Britain. Using the nested scales of region, city and case-study sites, the book explores the relationships between Whitehall legislation, its interpretation by local government planning officers and the on-the-ground impact through urban architectural projects. Each chapter highlights the connections between policy goals, global narratives and the design and construction of cities. The Cold War, decolonialisation, rising consumerism and the oil crisis all feature in a richly illustrated account of architecture and planning in post-war Manchester.
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Biography & True StoriesMay 2025Mrs Dalloway
Biography of a novel
by Mark Hussey
A compelling biography of one of the most celebrated novels in the English language. The fourth and best-known of Virginia Woolf's novels, Mrs Dalloway is a modernist masterpiece that has remained popular since its publication in 1925. Its dual narratives follow a day in the life of wealthy housewife Clarissa Dalloway and shell-shocked war veteran Septimus Warren Smith, capturing their inner worlds with a vividness that has rarely been equalled. Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel offers new readers a lively introduction to this enduring classic, while providing Woolf lovers with a wealth of information about the novel's writing, publication and reception. It follows Woolf's process from the first stirrings in her diary through her struggles to create what was quickly recognised as a major advance in prose fiction. It then traces the novel's remarkable legacy to the present day. Woolf wrote in her diary that she wanted her novel 'to give life & death, sanity & insanity. to criticise the social system, & to show it at work, at its most intense.' Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel reveals how she achieved this ambition, creating a book that will be read by generations to come.
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Literature & Literary StudiesMay 2026Women’s Agency and the Gothic in Spain and the Americas
by Megan DeVirgilis, Sandra García Gutiérrez
This volume has emerged to fulfill two main purposes: Primarily, to constitute the first collaborative work that traces the relationship between the Gothic and Women in Spain and the Americas, but also, to surpass the term 'Female Gothic,' coined by Ellen Moers, by transferring the focus towards women and their agency as writers, readers and characters. This volume functions as a manifesto per se to open new avenues into understanding how women have interacted with the Gothic between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries in Spain and the Americas. The question, we determine, is not simply about identity, but rather about agency. We define women's agency as the total capacity of characters, authors and readers to act freely within a social framework in relation to gothic texts. In our exploration of authorship, we reject the claim that the Gothic is a simplistic literary genre, instead sustaining that the plasticity of the Gothic has enabled it to survive for centuries; by shifting from a genre to a mode, it has surpassed literary forms and invaded all kinds of media: from film to music and merchandise such as clothing and pop culture collectables, fostering an authentic goth fandom.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2026Negotiating identity conflicts in a fragmenting world order
by Paul Willem Meerts, Mark Anstey
At every level of human interaction new levels of identity-based tension are in evidence. Contributors to this book explore facets of fragmentation processes within systems of state and interstate organisation, how they influence the use of negotiation, and how negotiation might be used to effect renewed coherence. Following Anstey's (Ch1) introductory chapter framing the nature and shape of fragmentation dynamics, Zartman (Ch 2) argues that the use of negotiation as a process of conflict resolution is deeply shaped by identity groups whose internal coherence is dependent on sustaining a negative identity of others. International relations are no longer solely the realm of experienced diplomats but are shaped as Meerts (Ch3) points out by politicians seeking to be responsive to voting publics rather than wider concerns. Anstey digs into problems of fragmentation (Ch. 4) and Troitskiy (Ch 5) points out how a reluctant acceptance of the power of 'the other' can lead to a form of strategic stability in relations. Anstey and Meerts (Ch 6) point out in their analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian case as an identity conflict turned very bad. Guggenbuhl (Ch 7 ) reveals how structures and processes have been designed within the EU to prevent, contain and regulate conflicts to limit risks of confrontation and fragmentation. Schuessler (Ch 8) to advocates a shift away from a template or roadmap approach to EU membership to a cohesion based on non-dominance. There is still a strong desire on the part of some states, like Northern Macedonia, to become EU members, as reflected in Manton's (Ch 9). Paula Garzon and Frans Schram explain the success of the Colombia Peace Negotiations (Ch 10), while Odigie and da Rocha (Ch 11) analyse the struggle faced by ECOWAS to influence coup leaders in Mali to return to constitutional government and changes of government by constitutional means. Liang (Ch12) discusses how the internet as the modern vehicle of inter-state, inter-group and interpersonal communication has become weaponised. In Ch 13 Anstey draws some lessons from contributions to the compilation.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Britain 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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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2026Monasticism and renewal in southern Italy
The Chronicle of Montecassino by Leo Marsicanus, c. 529–1075
by Graham Loud
The chronicle of Leo Marsicanus recounts the history of the abbey of Montecassino from its foundation by St. Benedict in the sixth-century up to 1075. It presents a detailed and compelling story of tribulation and renewal, with the abbey twice destroyed and abandoned in the early Middle Ages and then rebuilt. It concludes with an informative account of the building and dedication of the new abbey church by Abbot Desiderius in 1066-71. The chronicle is also a key source for the more general history of southern Italy in the early Middle Ages, and of the conquest of the region by the Normans during the eleventh century. In addition, Montecassino was one of the great intellectual centres of western Christendom and a major contributor to the reform movement within the Church during the later eleventh century. Leo's chronicle is a crucial witness to that role.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 1999French society in revolution 1789–1799
by David Andress, Mark Greengrass
French society in revolution aims to retrieve the social history of the French Revolution from unjustified neglect. This study examines both the structural and cultural elements behind the breakdown of the eighteenth-century monarchic state and its aris. . . . ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2024Men and masculinities in modern Britain
by Matt Houlbrook, Katie Jones, Ben Mechen
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2026Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada’s Minor Histories
by Aymenn Al-Tamimi
This work provides the first complete English translation of works by Toledan archbishop Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada (1170-1247 CE), whose 'Minor Histories' are sequels to his larger 'Gothic History' and thus round off his grand history of Spain project that he began at the request of King Ferdinand III. The 'Minor Histories' include Rodrigo's 'History of the Arabs' that can be considered the first surviving Western monograph focused on Arab and Islamic history and thus occupies a unique position in the medieval Latin corpus of writings. In addition to the translation, this book provides a thorough and accessible introduction to the life and works of Rodrigo, making sense of the context in which he wrote and his historical method. The translations are thoroughly annotated including cross-references to other Latin and Arabic sources for comparison.
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Business, Economics & LawMay 2025Steelworkers in struggle
An oral history of the 1980 national steel strike
by Charlie McGuire
Using oral histories gathered from trade unionists, this book explores the national steelworkers strike of 1980 and asserts its significance as a key turning point in modern British history. The strike was nominally a response to a 2% pay offer made by British Steel Corporation (BSC), at a time when inflation was 17%, but was generated by the widespread works closures that characterised the British steel industry at this time. The outcome of the strike was a much higher pay increase but no change to the deindustrialisation strategy of BSC and the government. The book explores the strike from the perspective of those who fought it and reveals the short and longer-term consequences it had on the industry, the unions and the workers themselves.
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Humanities & Social SciencesDecember 2016The role of terrorism in twenty-first-century warfare
by Susanne Martin, Max Taylor, Mark Currie, John Hogan, Leonard Weinberg
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2025The four dimensions of power
Understanding domination, empowerment and democracy
by Mark Haugaard
In this accessible and sophisticated exploration of the nature and workings of social and political power, Haugaard examines the interrelation between domination and empowerment. Building upon the perspectives of Steven Lukes, Michel Foucault, Amy Allen, Hannah Arendt, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu and others, he offers a clear theoretical framework, delineating power in four interrelated dimensions. The first and second dimensions of power entail two different types of social conflict. The third dimension concerns tacit knowledge, uses of truth and reification. Drawing upon genealogical theory and accounts of slavery as social death, the fourth dimension of power concerns the power to create social subjects. The book concludes with an original normative pragmatist power-based account of democracy. Offering lucid and entertaining illustrations of complex theoretical perspectives, this book is essential reading for scholars and activists.
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