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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2023

        Encountering The Book of Margery Kempe

        by Laura Kalas, Laura Varnam

        This innovative critical volume brings the study of Margery Kempe into the twenty-first century. Structured around four categories of 'encounter' - textual, internal, external and performative - the volume offers a capacious exploration of The Book of Margery Kempe, characterised by multiple complementary and dissonant approaches. It employs a multiplicity of scholarly and critical lenses, including the intertextual history of medieval women's literary culture, medical humanities, history of science, digital humanities, literary criticism, oral history, the global Middle Ages, archival research and creative re-imagining. Revealing several new discoveries about Margery Kempe and her Book in its global contexts, and offering multiple ways of reading the Book in the modern world, it will be an essential companion for years to come.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2025

        An unorthodox history

        British Jews since 1945

        by Gavin Schaffer

        A bold, new history of British Jewish life since the Second World War. Historian Gavin Schaffer wrestles Jewish history away from the question of what others have thought about Jews, focusing instead on the experiences of Jewish people themselves. Exploring the complexities of inclusion and exclusion, he shines a light on groups that have been marginalised within Jewish history and culture, such as queer Jews, Jews married to non-Jews, Israel-critical Jews and even Messianic Jews, while offering a fresh look at Jewish activism, Jewish religiosity and Zionism. Weaving these stories together, Schaffer argues that there are good reasons to consider Jewish Britons as a unitary whole, even as debates rage about who is entitled to call themselves a Jew. Challenging the idea that British Jewish life is in terminal decline. An unorthodox history demonstrates that Jewish Britain is thriving and that Jewishness is deeply embedded in the country's history and culture.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2024

        The history of emotions

        by Rob Boddice

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        December 2024

        The picture politics of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould

        Britain's pioneering political cartoonist

        by Mark Bryant

        This is the first major study of Britain's pioneering graphic satirist, Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (1844-1925), the first staff political cartoonist on a daily newspaper in Britain, and the first of his kind to be knighted. Written by the distinguished media historian, Colin Seymour-Ure, it is essential reading for anyone interested in cartoons, caricature and illustration and will also be welcomed by students of history, politics and the media. It examines Gould's career in Fleet Street until his retirement after the First World War. It also discusses his illustrations for magazines and books and there is an analysis of his use of symbolism and literary allusion to lampoon such eminent politicians as Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain. As Lord Baker says in his Foreword, this book is 'a major contribution to our knowledge of British cartooning.'

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2026

        The picture politics of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould

        Britain's pioneering political cartoonist

        by Colin Seymour-Ure, Mark Bryant

        This is the first major study of Britain's pioneering graphic satirist, Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (1844-1925), the first staff political cartoonist on a daily newspaper in Britain, and the first of his kind to be knighted. Written by the distinguished media historian, Colin Seymour-Ure, it is essential reading for anyone interested in cartoons, caricature and illustration and will also be welcomed by students of history, politics and the media. It examines Gould's career in Fleet Street until his retirement after the First World War. It also discusses his illustrations for magazines and books and there is an analysis of his use of symbolism and literary allusion to lampoon such eminent politicians as Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain. As Lord Baker says in his Foreword, this book is 'a major contribution to our knowledge of British cartooning.'

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2026

        Afterlives of the Troubles

        Life stories, culture and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland

        by Graham Dawson

        Focusing on experiential life stories across a range of forms and practices, this book investigates subjectivity, culture and the cultural politics of representation as a neglected dimension of conflict transformation in the Northern Irish peace process. Interdisciplinary critical perspectives from historical cultural studies, oral history and popular-memory theory inform close interpretive engagement with life stories in their cultural, historical and geographical contexts. This enables exploration of the complex temporal dynamics of 'post-conflict' subjectivities in the lengthening 'afterlife' of the Troubles, where feelings attached to conflict experiences are not 'past' but haunt the present, and memory-work carries future-oriented desires for truth, justice and reconciliation. Through case studies responding to the evolving peace process through this prism of life-storytelling, Afterlives maps a contested history of legacy policy-making and approaches to 'dealing with the past', from devolution in 2005-7 through to the Legacy and Reconciliation Act of 2023.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2022

        A new naval history

        by Quintin Colville, James Davey, Katherine Parker, Elaine Chalus, Evan Wilson, Barbara Korte, Cicely Robinson, Cindy McCreery, Ellie Miles, Mary A. Conley, Jonathan Rayner, Daniel Spence, Emma Hanna, Ulrike Zimmerman, Max Jones, Jan Rüger

        A New Naval History brings together the most significant and interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary naval history. The last few decades have witnessed a transformation in how this field is researched and understood and this volume captures the state of a field that continues to develop apace. It examines - through the prism of naval affairs - issues of nationhood and imperialism; the legacy of Nelson; the socio-cultural realities of life in ships and naval bases; and the processes of commemoration, journalism and stage-managed pageantry that plotted the interrelationship of ship and shore. This bold and original publication will be essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students of naval and maritime history. Beyond that, though, it marks an important intervention into wider historiographies that will be read by scholars from across the spectrum of social history, cultural studies and the analysis of national identity.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2020

        A history of humanitarianism, 1755–1989

        In the name of others

        by Silvia Salvatici

        The book traces the history of international humanitarianism from the anti-slavery movement to the end of the cold war. It is based on an extensive survey of the international literature and is retold in an original narrative that relies on a close examination of the sources. The reconstruction of humanitarianism's long history unfolds around some crucial moments and events: the colonial expansion of European countries, the two world wars and their aftermaths, the emergence of a new postcolonial order. In terms of its contents, narrative style, interpretative approach the book is aimed at a large and diverse public including: scholars who are studying and teaching humanitarianism; students who need to learn about humanitarianism as part of their training or research; operators and volunteers who are engaged in the field; non-specialist readers who are interested in the topic because of its relevance to current events.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2025

        The nineteenth-century present

        Literature, print culture and historicity

        by Koenraad Claes, Elizabeth Ludlow

        The Nineteenth-Century Present explores the multiple ways in which history was understood, structured, and reassessed in literary, theological, and political contexts across the nineteenth century. While the scope of the book is wide, ranging from the representations of geological time and ancient history to the writing of the recent past, and covering the work of writers from Walter Scott to G.K. Chesterton, each chapter reveals how present concerns intrude on and shape every view of history. Ultimately, the collection emphasises that issues raised regarding historicity in recent methodological debates were already concerns in the nineteenth century.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2026

        Globalising the Nordic Model

        From exceptionalism to entanglement

        by Mary Hilson

        The five Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - frequently attract attention as examples of a 'Nordic model'. The meanings of the term vary, but especially since the global financial crisis of 2008-9 the Nordic countries have often been portrayed positively, as examples of economic dynamism, innovation and social equality. Studies of these images of the Nordic countries and Nordic region and their international circulations are now a well-established field of research. This volume explores how the Nordic model has been shaped by global entanglements, in exchange not only with Western Europe and North America, but also with the Global South. Drawing on selected case studies, the volume offers new perspectives on the meanings of the Nordic model and Nordic exceptionalism in a global context during the half century since c. 1970.

      • Trusted Partner
        Material culture
        January 2002

        The study of dress history

        by Lou Taylor

        Over the past ten years the study of dress history has finally achieved academic respectability. This book shows how the fields of dress history and dress studies are now benefitting from the adoption of new multi-disciplinary approaches and outlines the full range of these approaches which draw on material culture, ethnography, and cultural studies. Raises a series of frank and fresh issues surrounding approaches to the history of dress, including analysis of the academic gender and subject divides that have riven it in the past. Comprehensive, engaging and trenchant, this will become the benchmark volume in the study of dress history.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        November 2024

        The Island Book of Records Volume II

        1969-70

        by Neil Storey

        The second volume of this highly collectable series, covering the pivotal years of 1969-70. The Island Book of Records Volume II documents the years 1969-70, during which Island sought to build on its success with the Spencer Davis Group by seeking out new British rock talent. By the end of the period, Island was emerging as a major British label, one that could boast releases from Jethro Tull, Nick Drake, King Crimson, John and Beverley Martyn, Fairport Convention and Cat Stevens. Featuring material from recent interviews and from media interviews of the time, and including a comprehensive discography of 45s, The Island Book of Records Volume II is lavishly illustrated with gig adverts (very many at venues that no longer exist), concert tickets, flyers, international LP variants, labels, LP and 45 adverts and other ephemera collector's dream.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2025

        Straight nation

        Heteronormativity and other exigencies of postcolonial nationalism

        by Pavan Mano

        In Straight Nation, Pavan Mano reveals the logic of straightness that sits at the heart of postcolonial nationalism in Singapore. Mano rejects the romantic notion of the nation as a haven of belonging, showing it to be a relentless force that is allied with heteronormativity to create a host of minoritized and xenologized figures. Through meticulous exploration and close reading of a swathe of texts, Mano unveils the instrumental role of sexuality in structuring the national imaginary. The book adroitly demonstrates how queerness is rendered foreign in postcolonial Singapore and functions alongside technologies of "race", gender, and class. A provocative critique of narrow contemporary identity politics and its concomitant stymying of a more ambitious political critique, Straight Nation sets out an argument that moves beyond the negativity of traditional critique into a space of (re)thinking, (re)building and (re)imagining.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        October 2023

        The Island Book of Records Volume I

        1959-68

        by Neil Storey

        The Island Book of Records brings the early years of this iconic record label to life. A fifteen-year labour of love, the volumes will fully document the analogue era of Island. Offering a comprehensive archive of album cover design and photography, together with the voices of the musicians, designers, photographers, producers, studio engineers and record company personnel that worked on each project, the volumes show in unique depth the workings of the label, covering every LP. Featuring material from recent interviews and from media interviews of the time, and each including a comprehensive discography of 45s, the books are lavishly illustrated with gig adverts (very many at venues which no longer exist), concert tickets, flyers, international LP variants, labels, LP and 45 adverts and other ephemera. These LP-sized editions are a collector's dream, offering a truly unparalleled resource for those interested in music history and a perfect gift for any music lover.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Medicine
        January 2025

        Nursing the English from plague to Peterloo, 1665-1820

        by Alannah Tomkins

        This book studies the negative stereotypes around the women who worked as sick nurses in this period and contrasts them with the lived experience of both domestic and institutional nursing staff. Furthermore, it integrates nursing by men into the broader history of care as a constant if little-recognised presence. It finds that women and men undertook caring work to the best of their ability, and often performed well, despite multiple threats to nurse reputations on the grounds of gender norms and social status. Chapters consider nursing in the home, in general hospitals, in specialist institutions like the Royal Chelsea Hospital and asylums, plus during wartime, illuminated by multiple accounts of individual nurses. In these settings, it employs the sociological concept of 'dirty work' to contextualise the challenges to nurses and nursing identities.

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