National Academies Press
The National Academies Press (NAP)publish the reports of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. They published more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2025Arctic state identity
Geography, history, and geopolitical relations
by Ingrid A. Medby
This book sets out to answer what it means to hold a formal title as one of the eight 'Arctic states'; is there such a thing as an Arctic state identity, and if so, what does this mean for state personnel? It charts the thoughtful reflections and stories of state personnel from three Arctic states: Norway, Iceland, and Canada, alongside analysis of documents and discourses. This book shows how state identities are narrated as both geographical and temporal - understood through environments, territories, pasts and futures - and that any identity is always relational and contextual. As such, demonstrating that to understand Arctic geopolitics we need to pay attention to the people whose job it is to represent the state on a daily basis. And more broadly, it offers a 'peopled' view of geopolitics, introducing the concept and framework of 'state identity'.
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The ArtsApril 2017The BBC and national identity in Britain, 1922–53
by Jeffrey Richards, Thomas Hajkowski
Examining the ways in which the BBC constructed and disseminated British national identity during the second quarter of the twentieth century, this book is the first study that focuses in a comprehensive way on how the BBC, through its radio programs, tried to represent what it meant to be British. The BBC and national identity in Britain offers a revision of histories of regional broadcasting in Britain that interpret it as a form of cultural imperialism. The regional organization of the BBC, and the news and creative programming designed specifically for regional listeners, reinforced the cultural and historical distinctiveness of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The BBC anticipated, and perhaps encouraged, the development of the hybrid "dual identities" characteristic of contemporary Britain.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2022Civic identity and public space
Belfast since 1780
by Dominic Bryan, Sean J. Connolly, John Nagle
Civic identity and public space, focussing on Belfast, and bringing together the work of a historian and two social scientists, offers a new perspective on the sometimes lethal conflicts over parades, flags and other issues that continue to disrupt political life in Northern Ireland. It examines the emergence during the nineteenth century of the concept of public space and the development of new strategies for its regulation, the establishment, the new conditions created by the emergence in 1920 of a Northern Ireland state, of a near monopoly of public space enjoyed by Protestants and unionists, and the break down of that monopoly in more recent decades. Today policy makers and politicians struggle to devise a strategy for the management of public space in a divided city, while endeavouring to promote a new sense of civic identity that will transcend long-standing sectarian and political divisions.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2021Insanity, identity and empire
Immigrants and institutional confinement in Australia and New Zealand, 1873–1910
by Catharine Coleborne
Insanity, identity and empire examines the formation of colonial social identities inside the institutions for the insane in Australia and New Zealand. Taking a large sample of patient records, it pays particular attention to gender, ethnicity and class as categories of analysis, reminding us of the varied journeys of immigrants to the colonies and of how and where they stopped, for different reasons, inside the social institutions of the period. It is about their stories of mobility, how these were told and produced inside institutions for the insane, and how, in the telling, colonial identities were asserted and formed. Having engaged with the structural imperatives of empire and with the varied imperial meanings of gender, sexuality and medicine, historians have considered the movements of travellers, migrants, military bodies and medical personnel, and 'transnational lives'. This book examines an empire-wide discourse of 'madness' as part of this inquiry.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Cultural identities and the aesthetics of Britishness
by Dana Arnold
Considers how notions of Britishness were constructed and promoted through architecture, landscape, painting, sculpture and literature. Maps important moments in the self-conscious evolution of the idea of 'nation' against a broad cultural historical framework. An important addition to the field of postcolonial studies as it looks at how British identity creation affected those living in England - most study in this area has thus far focused on the effect of such identity creation upon the colonial subject. Broad appeal due to wide subject matter covered. Examines just how 'constructed' a national identity is - past and present.
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September 2022Identity or Not?
by Jean-Pierre Wils (ed.)
Questions of identity trigger controversial and highly emotional discussions in the political and social debate. The positions range from radically emancipatory perspectives to authoritarian and restorative efforts on the far right wing of politics. Liberal democracies are now opening up – slowly – as identity- and gender-sensitive forums. Opposite them are the 'new ethics' of illiberal democracies and totalitarian states that are aimed at ethnic homogeneity and gender uniformity. But that's not to say that there is unity in the liberal settings on the necessary degree of identity politics. Both language and gender politics are deeply controversial. Do we need an 'identity' and, if so, which one or how many? Can the identity debate be extended by means of other concepts?
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Literature & Literary StudiesJuly 2021Making home
Orphanhood, kinship and cultural memory in contemporary American novels
by Maria Holmgren Troy, Elizabeth Kella, Helena Wahlstrom, Maria Holmgren Troy
Making home explores the figure of the orphan child in a broad selection of contemporary US novels by popular and critically acclaimed authors Barbara Kingsolver, Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Cunningham, Jonathan Safran Foer, John Irving, Kaye Gibbons, Octavia Butler, Jewelle Gomez and Toni Morrison. The orphan child is a continuous presence in US literature, not only in children's books and nineteenth-century texts, but also in a variety of genres of contemporary fiction for adults. Making home examines the meanings of this figure in the contexts of American literary history, social history and ideologies of family, race and nation. It argues that contemporary orphan characters function as links to literary history and national mythologies, even as they may also serve to critique the limits of literary history, as well as the limits of familial and national belonging.
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Humanities & Social SciencesSeptember 2008National Missile Defence and the politics of US identity
A poststructural critique
by Natalie Bormann
Why adopt a poststructural lens for the reading of the military strategy of national missile defence (NMD)? No doubt, when contemplating an attack on US territory by intercontinental ballistic missiles, consulting Michel Foucault and critical international relations theory scholars may not seem the obvious route to take. The answer to this lies in another question: why has there been so much interest and continuous investment in NMD deployment when there is such ambiguity surrounding the status of threat to which it responds, controversy over its technological feasibility and concern about its cost? Posed in this manner, the question cannot be answered on its own terms - the terms given in official accounts of NMD that justify the system's significance on the basis of strategic feasibility studies and conventional threat predictions guided by worst-case scenarios. Instead, this book argues that the preferences leading to NMD deployment must be understood as satisfying requirements beyond strategic approaches and issues. In turning towards the interpretative modes of inquiry provided by critical social theory and poststructuralism, this book contests the conventional wisdom about NMD and suggests reading the strategy in terms of US identity. Presented as an analysis of discourses on threats to national security, around which the need for NMD deployment is predominantly framed, this book is an effort to let the two fields of critical international relations theory and US foreign policy speak directly to each other. It seeks to do so by showing how the concept of identity can be harnessed to an analysis of a contemporary military-strategic practice. ;
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MedicineApril 2021Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages
From England to the Mediterranean
by Elma Brenner, François-Olivier Touati
For the first time, this volume explores the identities of leprosy sufferers and other people affected by the disease in medieval Europe. The chapters, including contributions by leading voices such as Luke Demaitre, Carole Rawcliffe and Charlotte Roberts, challenge the view that people with leprosy were uniformly excluded and stigmatised. Instead, they reveal the complexity of responses to this disease and the fine line between segregation and integration. Ranging across disciplines, from history to bioarchaeology, Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages encompasses post-medieval perspectives as well as the attitudes and responses of contemporaries. Subjects include hospital care, diet, sanctity, miraculous healing, diagnosis, iconography and public health regulation. This richly illustrated collection presents previously unpublished archival and material sources from England to the Mediterranean.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2024Inner empire
Architecture and Imperialism in the British Isles, 1550-1950
by Daniel Maudlin, Alex Bremner
Inner Empire explores the impact of imperial cultures on the landscapes and urban environments of the British Isles from the sixteenth century through to the twentieth century. It asserts that Britain's four-hundred year entanglement with global empire left its mark upon the British Isles as much as it did the wider world. Buildings stood as one of the most conspicuous manifestations of the myriad relationships that Britain maintained with the theory and practice of colonialism in its modern history. Divided into two main sections, the volume's content considers 'internal' colonisation and its infrastructures of control, order, and suppression, alongside wider relationships between architecture, the imperial economy, and cultural identity. Taken together, the essays in this volume present for the first time a coherent analysis of the British Isles as an imperial setting understood through its buildings, spaces, and infrastructure.
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Biography & True StoriesNovember 2024Walking in the dark
James Baldwin, my father and I
by Douglas Field
A moving exploration of the life and work of the celebrated American writer, blending biography and memoir with literary criticism. Since James Baldwin's death in 1987, his writing - including The Fire Next Time, one of the manifestoes of the Civil Rights Movement, and Giovanni's Room, a pioneering work of gay fiction - has only grown in relevance. Douglas Field was introduced to Baldwin's essays and novels by his father, who witnessed the writer's debate with William F. Buckley at Cambridge University in 1965. In Walking in the dark, he embarks on a journey to unravel his life-long fascination and to understand why Baldwin continues to enthral us decades after his death. Tracing Baldwin's footsteps in France, the US and Switzerland, and digging into archives, Field paints an intimate portrait of the writer's life and influence. At the same time, he offers a poignant account of coming to terms with his father's Alzheimer's disease. Interweaving Baldwin's writings on family, illness, memory and place, Walking in the dark is an eloquent testament to the enduring power of great literature to illuminate our paths.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2018Female imperialism and national identity
Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire
by Katie Pickles, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
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The ArtsJuly 1997Films and British national identity
From Dickens to Dad'
by Jeffrey Richards
Jeffrey Richards is a regular radio and television commentator on popular culture. Covers the period from Ealing Studios to Dad's Army. A great read. ;
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The ArtsJune 2021Algerian national cinema
by Guy Austin
This topical and innovative study is the first book on Algerian cinema to be published in English since the 1970s. At a time when North African and Islamic cultures are of increasing political significance, Algerian National Cinema presents a dynamic, detailed and up to date analysis of how film has represented this often misunderstood nation. Algerian National Cinema explores key films from The Battle of Algiers (1966) to Mascarades (2007). Introductions to Algerian history and to the national film industry are followed by chapters on the essential genres and themes of filmmaking in Algeria, including films of anti-colonial struggle, representations of gender, Berber cinema, and filming the 'black decade' of the 1990s. This thoughtful and timely book will appeal to all interested in world cinemas, in North African and Islamic cultures, and in the role of cinema as a vehicle for the expression of contested identities. By the author of the critically-acclaimed Contemporary French Cinema.
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The ArtsJanuary 2019Algerian national cinema
by Guy Austin
This topical and innovative study is the first book on Algerian cinema to be published in English since the 1970s. At a time when North African and Islamic cultures are of increasing political significance, Algerian National Cinema presents a dynamic, detailed and up to date analysis of how film has represented this often misunderstood nation. Algerian National Cinema explores key films from The Battle of Algiers (1966) to Mascarades (2007). Introductions to Algerian history and to the national film industry are followed by chapters on the essential genres and themes of filmmaking in Algeria, including films of anti-colonial struggle, representations of gender, Berber cinema, and filming the 'black decade' of the 1990s. This thoughtful and timely book will appeal to all interested in world cinemas, in North African and Islamic cultures, and in the role of cinema as a vehicle for the expression of contested identities. By the author of the critically-acclaimed Contemporary French Cinema.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2018The formation of Croatian national identity
by Alex Bellamy, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2021Counter-radicalisation policy and the securing of British identity
by Thomas Martin
