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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2023

        Afterlives of war

        by Michael Roper

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        Children's & YA
        August 2020

        Cryptos

        by Poznanski, Ursula

        Where do we go when Nowhere is the only destination left?   Kerrybrook is Jana‘s favourite virtual escape. An idyllic fishing village with beautiful nature and, every now and then, a breeze of fresh air from the nearby sea. Jana, is this world‘s designer and person in power, she’s satisfied with her masterpiece. Best job so far. Until one day, a dead body is found, in both, ’Virtual Reality‘ and the real world. In times of climate change, VR is the only safe place for humankind. That‘s why Jana needs to solve the crime, she’s responsible for stopping the destruction.   • CliFi Thriller (Climate Fiction): Climate change & virtual reality • For fans of Black Mirror (Netflix) • All age readers • Strong, female protagonist • Highly relevant topic   WHITE RAVENS recommendation (2021):   "In the not too distant future, the world is an inhospitable place: droughts, storms, floods. That’s why world designers construct »alternative realities«, such as landscapes populated by dinosaurs, life at court in the Middle Ages, and surfing and chilling out on a beach. People can switch between these worlds at will and, when they die there, they are not truly dead; instead, they merely return to the »real world« – same as at night when they sleep. Then they are reunited with their body, which is lying inside a capsule.   In »Cryptos«, Ursula Poznanski pulls out all the stops of storytelling: She embeds numerous references to human and intellectual history in an action-packed and extremely suspenseful thriller plot. In the process, she raises central existential and ontological questions that result from the interplay between the real and the virtual worlds. This complex dystopian novel is narrated in such an enjoyable way that readers will hardly notice their brains going into overdrive as they devour it."

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2023

        Eternal light and earthly concerns

        Belief and the shaping of medieval society

        by Paul Fouracre

        In early Christianity it was established that every church should have a light burning on the altar at all times. In this unique study, Eternal light and earthly concerns, looks at the material and social consequences of maintaining these 'eternal' lights. It investigates how the cost of lighting was met across western Europe throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, revealing the social organisation that was built up around maintaining the lights in the belief that burning them reduced the time spent in Purgatory. When that belief collapsed in the Reformation the eternal lights were summarily extinguished. The history of the lights thus offers not only a new account of change in medieval Europe, but also a sustained examination of the relationship between materiality and belief.

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        Medicine
        June 2012

        Poison, detection and the Victorian imagination

        by Ian Burney, Bertrand Taithe, Roger Cooter, Carolyn Steedman

        This fascinating book looks at the phenomenon of murder and poisoning in the nineteenth century. Focusing on the case of William Palmer, a medical doctor who in 1856 was convicted of murder by poisoning, it examines how his case baffled toxicologists, doctors, detectives and judges. The investigation commences with an overview of the practice of toxicology in the Victorian era, and goes on to explore the demands imposed by legal testimony on scientific work to convict criminals. In addressing Palmer's trial, Burney focuses on the testimony of Alfred Swaine Taylor, a leading expert on poisons, and integrates the medical, legal and literary evidence to make sense of the trial itself and the sinister place of poison in wider Victorian society. Ian Burney has produced an exemplary work of cultural history, mixing a keen understanding of the contemporary social and cultural landscape with the scientific and medical history of the period. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2010

        Biografía de un cimarrón

        By Miguel Barnet and Esteban Montejo

        by Catherine Davies, William Rowlandson

        This Biography of a runaway slave is arguably the best-known book to have been written and published in revolutionary Cuba, being the testimonial narrative of Esteban Montejo, a former slave, runaway, and soldier in the Cuban wars of independence. The text is the collaboration between ethnographer Miguel Barnet and Montejo, the result of three years of tape-recorded interviews, transcribed, edited and annotated by Barnet. Montejo provides a first-hand account of slavery in nineteenth-century Cuba - the language, religion, music, and customs - and describes life in the sugar plantations and mills and as a runaway slave. Montejo's text also covers key historical moments, from slavery to Abolition, the Ten Years War, the Spanish American War, and US intervention in the new republic. Reflecting the growing interest in Latin American and Cuban Studies, this student edition includes the complete text in Spanish, notes in English, a time-line of Cuban history and themes for debate and discussion. The extensive introduction focuses on three main areas: an overview of Cuban history featuring slavery, wars of independence and the new republic; an overview of the genre of the testimonial narrative as it emerged as an important literary style in revolutionary Cuba; and an analysis of the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the publication of the text. There is also an extensive bibliography. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2002

        From Beveridge to Blair

        The first fifty years of Britain's welfare state 1948–98

        by Harry Bennett, Margaret Jones, Rodney Lowe

        The creation of Britain's welfare state in 1948 was an event of major international importance. Designed to provide a concise introduction to the evolution of both the structure of the welfare state and attitudes towards it. Concentrates on five core services: health care, education, social security, the personal social services and housing. For each service it examines the original vision, the attempts to implement this vision, the resulting complexities and controversies and, above all, the impact on individual 'customers'. A wide range of documentary evidence is used, including published and unpublished government sources, political memoirs, newspaper exposés and personal testimony. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2001

        Ottonian Germany

        The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg

        by Rosemary Horrox, Simon Maclean

        The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg has long been recognised as one of the most important sources for the history of the tenth and early eleventh centuries, especially for the history of the Ottonian Empire. Thietmar's testimony also has special value because of his geographical location, in eastern Saxony, on the boundary between German and Slavic cultures. He is arguably the single most important witness to the early history of Poland, and his detailed descriptions of Slavic folklore are the earliest on record. This is a very important source in the medieval period, translated here in its entirety for the first time. It relates to an area of medieval studies generally dominated by German scholars, in which Anglo-phone scholars are beginning to make a substantial contribution. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2010

        The life of Una Marson, 1905–65

        by Delia Jarrett-Macauley

        This is an original, full length biography of Britain's first twentieth-century black feminist - Una Marson - poet, playwright, and social activist and BBC broadcaster. Una Marson is recognised today as the first major woman poet of the Caribbean and as a significant forerunner of contemporary black writers; her story throws light on the problems facing politicised black artists. In challenging definitions of 'race' and 'gender' in her political and creative work, she forged a valiant path for later black feminists. Her enormous social and cultural contributions to the Caribbean and Britain have, until now, remained hidden in archives and memoirs around the world. Based on extensive research and oral testimony, this biography embraces postcolonial realities and promise, and is a major contribution to British cultural history. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2013

        Ottonian Germany

        The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg

        by David Warner

        The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg has long been recognised as one of the most important sources for the history of the tenth and early eleventh centuries, especially for the history of the Ottonian Empire. Thietmar's testimony also has special value because of his geographical location, in eastern Saxony, on the boundary between German and Slavic cultures. He is arguably the single most important witness to the early history of Poland, and his detailed descriptions of Slavic folklore are the earliest on record. This is a very important source in the medieval period, translated here in its entirety for the first time. It relates to an area of medieval studies generally dominated by German scholars, in which Anglo-phone scholars are beginning to make a substantial contribution.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2010

        Child, nation, race and empire

        Child rescue discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850–1915

        by Margot Hillel, Shurlee Swain, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie

        Child, nation, race and empire is an innovative, inter-disciplinary, cross cultural study that contributes to understandings of both contemporary child welfare practices and the complex dynamics of empire. It analyses the construction and transmission of nineteenth-century British child rescue ideology. Locating the origins of contemporary practice in the publications of the prominent English Child rescuers, Dr Barnardo, Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Benjamin Waugh, Edward de Montjoie Rudolf and their colonial disciples and literature written for children, it shows how the vulnerable body of the child at risk came to be reconstituted as central to the survival of nation, race and empire. Yet, as the shocking testimony before the many official enquiries into the past treatment of children in out-of-home 'care' held in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada make clear, there was no guarantee that the rescued child would be protected from further harm. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Child, nation, race and empire

        Child rescue discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850–1915

        by Margot Hillel, Shurlee Swain, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie

        Child, nation, race and empire is an innovative, inter-disciplinary, cross cultural study that contributes to understandings of both contemporary child welfare practices and the complex dynamics of empire. It analyses the construction and transmission of nineteenth-century British child rescue ideology. Locating the origins of contemporary practice in the publications of the prominent English Child rescuers, Dr Barnardo, Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Benjamin Waugh, Edward de Montjoie Rudolf and their colonial disciples and literature written for children, it shows how the vulnerable body of the child at risk came to be reconstituted as central to the survival of nation, race and empire. Yet, as the shocking testimony before the many official enquiries into the past treatment of children in out-of-home 'care' held in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada make clear, there was no guarantee that the rescued child would be protected from further harm.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2024

        ‘Survival Capitalism’ and the Big Bang

        Culture, contingency and capital in the making of the 1980s financial revolution

        by Emma Barrett

        This book about the Thatcher government and the City of London tells the compelling human story of the people and processes that made Britain's 1980s financial revolution. Fusing insider testimony with new archival discoveries, it examines high stakes and networked solutions, and uncovers new objectives that drove reforms. In so doing it demystifies a major shift in capitalism. This has implications for our understandings of government and capitalism, from the way we think about the origins of subsequent financial crises to today's growing inequalities. Survival Capitalism offers new insights into the last major restructuring of the City, disrupts myths surrounding the logics of the market, and pays attention to people and processes at a time when the City of London again faces major change as Britain seeks to find its place outside the European Union in the wake of Brexit.

      • Trusted Partner
        Society & culture: general
        July 2014

        Radical childhoods

        Schooling and the struggle for social change

        by Jessica Gerrard

        At a time when education appears to be simply reproducing social class relations, Radical childhoods offers a timely consideration of how children's and young people's education can confront and challenge social inequality. Presenting detailed analysis of archival material and oral testimony, the book examines the experiences of students and educators in two schooling initiatives that were connected to two of the most significant social movements in Britain: Socialist Sunday Schools (est. 1892) and Black Saturday/Supplementary Schools (est. 1967). Analysing across time, the author explores the ways in which these two very different schooling movements incorporated large numbers of women, challenged class and race inequality, and attempted to create spaces of 'emancipatory' education independent to the state. It argues that despite appearing to be on the 'margins' of the public sphere these schools were important, if contested and complex, sites of political struggle.

      • Trusted Partner
        Social & cultural history
        January 2016

        Gender, rhetoric and regulation

        Women's work in the Civil Service and the London County Council, 1900–55

        by Helen Glew

        The Civil Service and the London County Council employed tens of thousands of women in Britain in the early twentieth century. As public employers these institutions influenced both each other and private organisations, thereby serving as a barometer or benchmark for the conditions of women's white-collar employment. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources - including policy documents, trade union records, women's movement campaign literature and employees' personal testimony - this is the first book-length study of women's public service employment in this period. It examines three aspects of their working lives - inequality of pay, the marriage bar and inequality of opportunity - and demonstrates how far wider cultural assumptions about womanhood shaped policies towards women's employment and experiences. Scholars and students with interests in gender, British social and cultural history and labour history will find this an invaluable text.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2020

        Jews on trial

        The Papal Inquisition in Modena, 1598–1638

        by Joseph Bergin, Katherine Aron-Beller, Penny Roberts, William G. Naphy

        Jews on trial concentrates on Inquisitorial activity during the period which historians have argued was the most active in the Inquisition's history: the first forty years of the tribunal in Modena, from 1598 to 1638, the year of the Jews' enclosure in the ghetto. Scholars have in the past tended to group trials of Jews and conversos in Italy together. This book emphasises the fundamental disparity in Inquisitorial procedure, as well as the evidence examined, and argues that this was especially true in Modena where the secular authority did not have the power during the period in question to reject, or even significantly monitor, Inquisitorial trial procedure. It draws upon the detailed testimony to be found in trial transcripts to analyse Jewish interaction with Christian society in an early modern community. This book will appeal to scholars of inquisitorial studies, social and cultural interaction in early modern Europe, Jewish Italian social history and anti-Semitism.

      • Trusted Partner
        General & world history
        May 2005

        ‘Ten Pound Poms’

        A life history of British postwar emigration to Australia

        by A. James Hammerton, Alistair Thomson

        More than a million Britons emigrated to Australia between the 1940s and 1970s. They were the famous 'ten pound Poms' and this is their story. Illuminated by the fascinating testimony of migrant life histories, this is the first substantial history of their experience and fills a gaping hole in the literature of emigration. The authors, both leading figures in the fields of oral history and migration studies, draw upon a rich life history archive of letters, diaries, personal photographs and hundreds of oral history interviews with former migrants, including those who settled in Australia and those who returned to Britain. They offer original interpretations of key historical themes, including: motivations for emigration; gender relations and the family dynamics of migration; the 'very familiar and awfully strange' confrontation with the new world; the anguish of homesickness and return; and the personal and national identities of both settlers and returnees, fifty years on. Accessible and appealing, this book will engage readers interested in British and Australian migration history and intrigued about the significance of migrant memories for individuals, families and nations.

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