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        Politics & government
        February 2017

        Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers' Council strike and the struggle for democracy in Northern Ireland

        by Edited by David McCann, Cillian McGrattan

        The 'Sunningdale experiment' of 1973-4 witnessed the first attempt to establish peace in Northern Ireland through power-sharing. However, its provisions, particularly the cross-border 'Council of Ireland', proved to be a step too far. The experiment floundered amid ongoing paramilitary-led violence, finally collapsing in May 1974 as a result of the Ulster Workers' Council strike. Drawing on new scholarship from some of the top political historians working on the period, this book presents a series of reflections on how key protagonists struggled with notions of power-sharing and the 'Irish dimension', and how those struggles inhibited a deepening of democracy and the ending of violence for so long.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2023

        Who 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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        2020

        How Animals Hammer, Drill and Strike

        Tool Use in the Animal Kingdom

        by Peter-René Becker

        From insects to fish as well as birds and primates: the use of tools is amazingly widespread in the animal kingdom. It’s a misnomer to presume that humans are distinguished by tool use and conscious capacity. So where is culture initiated? The biologist Peter-René Becker has evaluated numerous studies and cites plenty of evidence for the use of the hammer and anvil, lances, bait or sponges. Animals also use “tools as social implements”. Ultimately, the depth of man’s conscience singles him out from other animals.

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        Biography & True Stories
        January 2024

        Mick Lynch

        by Gregor Gall

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2013

        Crisis? What crisis?

        The Callaghan government and the British ‘winter of discontent’

        by John Shepherd

        Over thirty years later, the 'winter of discontent' of 1978-79 still resonates in British politics. On 22 January 1979, 1.5 million workers were on strike. Industrial unrest swept Britain in an Arctic winter. Militant shop stewards blocked medical supplies to hospitals; mountains of rubbish remained uncollected; striking road hauliers threatened to bring the country to a standstill; even the dead were left unburied. Within weeks, the beleaguered Callaghan Labour government fell from power. In the 1979 general election, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, beginning eighteen years of unbroken Conservative rule. Based on a wide range of newly available historical sources and key interviews, this full-length account breaks new ground, analysing the origins, character and impact of a turbulent period of industrial unrest. This important study will appeal to all those interested in contemporary history and British politics. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2021

        Cinesonica

        Sounding film and video

        by Andy Birtwistle

        Cinesonica: sounding film and video explores previously neglected and under-theorised aspects of film and video sound, drawing on detailed case study analyses of Hollywood cinema, art cinema, animated cartoons, and avant-garde film and video. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the soundtrack, and breaking away from the focus on narrative and signification that has tended to dominate the study of film sound, the book examines the way in which sound's materiality figures within audiovisual experience. Through a close examination of sound-image relations in a range of film and video forms and genres - including Warner Bros. cartoons, scratch video, and artist's film and video - Cinesonica recasts the film and video text as the meeting point of audio and visual materialities, cultural practices and perceptual activity. The interdisciplinary approach adopted by the book makes its discussion of sound of interest to those studying and working in a range of subject disciplines, including film studies, sound studies, sonic arts, cultural studies, music and art history.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        November 2011

        Real and Reel

        The education of a film critic

        by Brian McFarlane

        From a little before ten years of age Brian McFarlane became addicted to stories told on the screen, and the mere fact that he had difficulty in getting to see the films he wanted - or any for that matter - only made them seem more alluring. But it wasn't just seeing the films that mattered: he also wanted, and quite soon needed, to be writing about them and these obsessions have been part of his life for the next sixty-odd years. Real and reel is a light-hearted and but deeply felt account of a lifetime's addiction. It is one particular writer and critic's story, but it will strike sparks among many others. Though many other interests have kept Brian McFarlane's life lively, nothing else has exerted such a long-standing grip on the author's imagination as film. Editor of the Encyclopaedia of British Cinema, co-editor of Manchester University Press's British Film Makers series, and author of over a dozen critical works on film and adaptation, Brian McFarlane's autobiographical Real and reel can also be read as a biography of the subject of Film Studies itself. ;

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        Society & culture: general

        A TIME OF WOLVES: GERMANY AND THE GERMANS 1945 - 1955

        by Harald Jähner

        A dance among the ruins: Harald Jähner’s major new portrait of Germany’s post-war societyCountless former soldiers drift through the towns and cities; countless children grow up without a father. The old order has been destroyed and although the streets seem eerily empty, the traditional annual street carnivals are soon back in full swing, jazz can be heard among the ruins, intellectuals rekindle a culture of discussion and debate.Harald Jähner’s book is the first history of Germany’s national mentality in the immediate post-war period. It focusses on the German people in all their diversity: the “re-educators” Alfred Döblin and Rudolf Herrnstadt, who tried in two different zones of occupation to win the trust of their fellow Germans; Beate Uhse, owner of a mail order company for “marital hygiene”, who questioned the old moral code governing what was deemed proper; the many nameless black market traders, pockets stuffed with Lucky Strike cigarettes; stylish housewives sitting at kidney-shaped coffee tables that were to become emblematic for a freer and affordable world. Using major political developments as a backdrop, this book weaves a series of life stories into a nuanced panorama that makes the monumental changes affecting the nation tangible for its readers. 1945 to 1955 was a raw, wild decade poised between two eras, portrayed here as a period that proved decisive for Germany’s future development – and one starkly different to how most Germans imagine it today.

      • Trusted Partner
        April 2024

        Fact-Immune

        Why science denial is so dangerous and how we can protect ourselves against it

        by Holm Gero Hümmler

        The phenomenon of anti-scientific disinformation has been discussed in the recent past under the acronym FLICC (Fake experts, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Cherry-picking and Conspiracy theories), especially as it pertains to the topic of climate change. What is generally missing however is a more comprehensive consideration of science denial in diff erent disciplines with a critical examination of the central arguments and a comparison of the parallels. Holm Gero Hümmler dedicates himself to this task in this readable and fact-orientated book on topics such as genetic engineering, mobile phone networks, radioactivity, and chips that are implanted under the skin for medical reasons.

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