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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2024

        Peace and the politics of memory

        by Annika Björkdahl, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Stefanie Kappler, Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, Timothy Williams

        This important book provides new understandings of how the politics of memory impacts peace in societies transitioning from a violent past. It does so by developing a theoretical approach focusing on the intersection of sites, agency, narratives, and events in memory-making. Drawing on rich empirical studies of mnemonic formations in Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, South Africa and Cambodia, the book speaks to a broad audience. The in-depth, cross-case analysis shows that inclusivity, pluralism, and dignity in memory politics are key to the construction of a just peace. The book contributes crucial and timely knowledge about societies that grapple with the painful legacies of the past and advances the study of memory and peace.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2023

        Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan

        Young men and the digital economy

        by Hannah Schilling

        Digital technologies promise efficiency and comfort, but the smoothness of platform services relies on the hidden social labour of those who keep the gig economy running. This book presents a comparative ethnography of young men making a living through digital technologies: selling mobile airtime in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and app-based delivery riders in Berlin, Germany. These case studies explore the significance of symbolic capital in urban youth's social existence and organisation of livelihood in the digital economy, and the technological mechanisms producing a new form of urban precarity. Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan puts forward an original comparative approach to develop a global urban sociology for the digital era. It provides an innovative analytical toolbox that decentres discussions of precarity from the standard of a normal employment contract. With its focus on symbolic capital, the ethnography shows the consequences of the proliferating gig economy for status struggles among urban youth, and carefully embeds the densification of software and services into the socio-material relations on which these new urban infrastructures are built.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2026

        The politics of Middle English parables

        Fiction, theology, and social practice

        by Mary Raschko

        The politics of Middle English parables examines the dynamic intersection of fiction, theology and social practice in late-medieval England. Parables occupy a prominent place in Middle English literature, appearing in dream visions and story collections as well as in lives of Christ and devotional treatises. While most scholarship approaches the translated stories as stable vehicles of Christian teaching, this book highlights the many variations and points of conflict across Middle English renditions of the same story. In parables related to labour, social inequality, charity and penance, the book locates a creative theological discourse through which writers attempted to re-construct Christian belief and practice. Analysis of these diverse retellings reveals not what a given parable meant in a definitive sense but rather how Middle English parables inscribe the ideologies, power structures and cultural debates of late-medieval Christianity.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2020

        US politics today

        by Edward Ashbee, Bill Jones

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2003

        British politics today

        7th edition

        by Bill Jones, Bill Jones, Dennis Kavanagh, Caroline Wilding

        A short but comprehensive textbook for students of British politics which interprets changes over the last thirty years and analyses institutions within the context of British society and economics. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2024

        The machinic city

        Media, performance and participation

        by Marcos P. Dias

        As human and machine agency become increasingly intermingled and digital media is overlaid onto the urban landscape, The machinic city argues that performance art can help us to understand contemporary urban living. Dias analyses interventions from performance artists such as Blast Theory, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Rimini Protokoll, which draw from a rich history of avant-garde art movements to create spaces for deliberation and reflection on urban life, and speculation on its future. While cities are increasingly controlled by autonomous processes mediated by technical machines, Dias analyses the performative potential of the aesthetic machine, as it assembles with media, capitalist, human and urban machines. The aesthetic machine of performance art in urban space is examined through its different components - design, city and technology actants. This unveils the unpredictable nature and emerging potential of performance art as it unfolds in the machinic city.

      • Trusted Partner
        Geography & the Environment
        June 2025

        Demystifying informal urban design and planning

        Insights from Asia

        by Mahyar Arefi

        Touting informal settlements or informality in general as illegal, crime-ridden, unsafe, filthy, chaotic, and formal developments as legal, orderly or safe, and so forth has not solved anything and informality as a way of life or an economic reality lingers and grows. Demystifying informal urban design and planning delves deeper into this conundrum and seeks to debunk some common misguided perceptions about it. Borrowing popular philosophical and political analogies from Isaiah Berlin and Gregory Treverton and others, it encourages urban designers and planners to become multitaskers like foxes rather than hedgehogs who can do one thing right. The book ends with some general takeaways on assuming more proactive roles in informal urban design issues and avoiding two potential pitfalls while interacting with them.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2026

        Playing politics

        Restoration drama and innovation, 1670-71

        by Jennie Challinor

        This study focuses on the 1670-71 season in the Restoration playhouses, an exciting and formative moment in theatrical and political history. The year proved to be difficult and damaging to King Charles II, as political, religious, and personal matters provoked controversy and disquiet, and the country teetered on the brink of major constitutional problems. My research sets drama against this backdrop. Theatrical records for this period are patchy and, for the most part, frustratingly incomplete: this book does not attempt to reconstruct the day-to-day operations of the playhouses, but rather it uses the available evidence of the extant new and revived plays we know (or believe) to have been performed in the 1670-71 theatrical season, and argues that this was the period in which serious and far-reaching political and dramatic questions began to be seriously asked and (tentatively) answered.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2005

        Russian politics today

        by Michael Waller, Bill Jones

        This introductory text, written by an established authority on communist and post-communist politics, describes how Vladimir Putin has turned to those with backgrounds in the military and security structures to provide stability in today's Russian Federation, following the democratising reforms of Gorbachev and the ensuing instability of the Yeltsin presidency. Against the background of an increasing authoritarianism, which has restored features of the Soviet political system, it examines the attempts by social and economic groups to assert themselves against the state using embryonic democratic forms that fall far short of pluralism. The book's fourteen chapters offer an exceptionally broad coverage. It will appeal to first- and second-year students in higher education, but its deliberately accessible style will also make it attractive to sixth-form students and the general reader. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2003

        European politics today

        Second edition

        by Patricia Hogwood, Bill Jones, Geoffrey Roberts

        Provides a comprehensive introduction to the political system and processes of western Europe. Demonstrates clearly that political decisions are made in the context of specific historical developments, geographical constraints and social demands. Fully updated to take account of the recent French, British and Italian general elections as well as the momentous changes that have taken place in global politics as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the preparations for EU enlargement. Chapters on the European Union and democracy in western Europe have been substantially revised to take account of globalisation and recent political corruption issues. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2024

        Dog politics

        Species stories and the animal sciences

        by Mariam Motamedi Fraser

        Do dogs belong with humans? Scientific accounts of dogs' 'species story,' in which contemporary dog-human relations are naturalised with reference to dogs' evolutionary becoming, suggest that they do. Dog politics dissects this story. This book offers a rich empirical analysis and critique of the development and consolidation of dogs' species story in science, asking what evidence exists to support it, and what practical consequences, for dogs, follow from it. It explores how this story is woven into broader scientific shifts in understandings of species, animals, and animal behaviours, and how such shifts were informed by and informed transformative political events, including slavery and colonialism, the Second World War and its aftermath, and the emergence of anti-racist movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book pays particular attention to how species-thinking bears on 'race,' racism, and individuals.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2010

        Dictionary of British Politics

        Second edition

        by Bill Jones, Bill Jones

        From Diane Abbott to Hugo Young via Keynesianism and Thatcherism, from Major to Millbank and from New Labour to Norman Tebbitt, this book is the ultimate student reference guide to British politics. The 2nd edition has been fully updated to take account of all the changes that have taken place in British politics since 2004. With over one thousand entries, the book covers the personalities, policies and institutions that have shaped British politics, with special emphasis on developments since the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the ideal instant reference book on British politics. It provides the reader with short, authoritative explanations and definitions of key terms, institutions, offices of state, political events, processes and policies as well as biographies of well known politicians, political thinkers, movements and theorists. Any student unsure of a term, an event, the details of the life of a prominent politician, or the inner workings of an institution can turn to this book for immediate assistance. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2023

        The penny politics of Victorian popular fiction

        by Rob Breton

        Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan's longest and most significant people's movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2023

        Socialist republic

        Remaking the British left in 1980s Sheffield

        by Daisy Payling

        Socialist republic is a timely account of 1980s left-wing politics in South Yorkshire. It explores how Sheffield City Council set out to renew the British Left. Through careful analysis of the Council's agenda and how it interacted with trade unions, women's groups, lesbian and gay rights groups and acted on issues such as peace, environmentalism, anti-apartheid and anti-racism, the book draws out the complexities involved in building a broad-based politics which aimed unite class and identity politics. Running counter to 1980s narratives dominated by Thatcherism, the book examines the persistence of social democracy locally, demonstrating how grassroots local histories can enrich our understanding of political developments on a national and international level. The book is essential reading for students, scholars, and activists with an interest in left-wing politics and history.

      • Trusted Partner
        Biography & True Stories
        June 2022

        The punk rock politics of Joe Strummer

        by Gregor Gall

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        September 2024

        The 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.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2022

        The religion of Orange politics

        by Joseph Webster, Alexander Smith

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2026

        Black socialities

        Urban resistance and the struggle beyond recognition in Paris

        by Vanessa Eileen Thompson

        From author: This is a cutting-edge exploration of black urban politics in Parisian racialized working class and working poor districts, the formation of abolition geography, and the possibilities of new forms of political blackness. In Black Socialities. Urban resistance and the struggle beyond recognition in Paris, Vanessa E. Thompson argues that black urban politics in the French banlieues are multi-racial and spatially grounded towards abolition. Based on a close engagement with urban black activist practices against racial imagery in the city, policing and state racism, and housing insecurity, she shows how radical anti-racism goes beyond struggles for recognition and unfolds alongside new formations of political blackness that is based on urban conviviality. This form of black politics has much to teach us in this current conjuncture of liberal anti-racism and state recognition politics.

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