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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2008

        National 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. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2024

        Home front heroism

        Civilians and conflict in Second World War London

        by Ellena Matthews

        Home front heroism investigates how civilians were recognised and celebrated as heroic during the Second World War. Through a focus on London, this book explores how heroism was manufactured as civilians adopted roles in production, protection and defence, through the use of uniforms and medals, and through the way that civilians were injured and killed. This book makes a novel contribution to the study of heroism by exploring the spatial, material, corporeal and ritualistic dimensions of heroic representations. By tracing the different ways that Home Front heroism was cultivated on a national, local and personal level, this study promotes new ways of thinking about the meaning and value of heroism during periods of conflict. It will appeal to anyone interested in the social and cultural history of Second World War as well as the sociology and psychology of heroism.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2021

        Making 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.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2022

        In defence of councillors

        by Colin Copus

        In defence of councillors is an unashamed defence of local representative democracy and of those elected to serve as councillors from the often ill-informed, ill-judged and inaccurate criticism made by the media, government and public, of councillors' personal, political and professional roles. By using qualitative research from a number of related projects, the book examines the roles, functions and responsibilities of councillors and the expectations placed upon them by citizens, communities and government. It also examines the impact council membership has on other facets of the councillor's life. The book examines how councillors develop strategies to overcome the constraints and restrictions on their office so as to be able to govern their communities, balance their political and public life and democratise and hold to account a vast array of unelected bodies that spend public money and develop public policy without the electoral mandate and legitimacy held by our councillors.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2020

        Defense of the West

        by Stanley R. Sloan, Lawrence Freedman

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2024

        At home with the poor

        Consumer behaviour and material culture in England, c. 1650-1850

        by Joseph Harley

        This book opens the doors to the homes of the forgotten poor and traces the goods they owned before, during and after the industrial revolution (c. 1650-1850). Using a vast and diverse range of sources, it gets to the very heart of what it meant to be 'poor' by examining the homes of the impoverished and mapping how numerous household goods became more widespread. As the book argues, poverty did not necessarily equate to owning very little and living in squalor. In fact, its novel findings show that most of the poor strove to improve their domestic spheres and that their demand for goods was so great that it was a driving force of the industrial revolution.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 1998

        Irish Home Rule

        by Alan O'Day, Mark Greengrass

        Irish Home Rule considers the pre-eminent issue in British politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. It is the first account to explain the various self-government plans, to place these in context and examine the motives for putting the schemes forward. The book distinguishes between moral and material home rulers, making the point that the first appealed especially to outsiders, some Protestants and the intelligentsia, who saw in self-government a means to reconcile Ireland's antagonistic traditions. In contrast, material home rulers viewed a Dublin Parliament as a forum of Catholic interests. This account appraises the home rule movement from a fresh angle, distinguishing it from the usual division drawn between physical force and constitutional nationalists It maintains that an ideological continuity runs from Young Ireland, the Fenians, the early home rulers including Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell, to the Gaelic Revivalists to the Men of 1916. These nationalists are distinguishable from material home rulers not on the basis of methods or strategy but by a fundamental ideological cleavage. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2021

        Picturing home

        by Hollie Price, Jeffrey Richards

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2013

        The English manor c.1200–c.1500

        by Mark Bailey

        Provides a comprehensive introduction and essential guide to one of the most important institutions in medieval England and to its substantial archive. This is the first book to offer a detailed explanation of the form, structure and evolution of the manor and its records. Offers translations of, and commentaries upon, each category of document to illustrate their main features. Examples of each category of record are provided in translation, followed by shorter extracts selected to illustrate interesting, commonly occurring, or complex features. A valuable source of reference for undergraduates wishing to understand the sources which underpin the majority of research on the medieval economy and society.

      • Trusted Partner
        Food & Drink

        The Golden Book of Home Cooking

        by Food & Life Studio

        The Golden Book of Home Cooking is a beautifully printed cookbook with over 400 different approachable Chinese food recipes. The book collects recipes from the 10-year accumulation of seven food bloggers with more than 10 million followers, including Yuan Zhuzhu, Mi Tang, Xie Wanyun, Meng Xiangjian, Die Er, Liang Fengling and Cook Chen. Accompanied with audios of 419 recipes, videos of 84 recipes, and nearly 100 health tips, the book offers the first "visible and audible" grand feast to household chefs through a combination of media, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of technology and cook with love and passion.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        August 2002

        An Apology for Poetry (or The Defence of Poesy)

        Sir Philip Sidney

        by R. W. Maslen

        An Apology for Poetry (or The Defence of Poesy), by the celebrated soldier-poet Sir Philip Sidney, is the most important work of literary theory published in the Renaissance. The new introduction and notes include a wealth of new information and new readings drawing on recent developments in Renassance Studies. Unfamiliar words and phrases are glossed, classical and other references explained, and difficult passages analysed in detail. The first separate edition of Sidney's seminal text to be published for more than a decade. Since 1965 Geoffrey Shepherd's edition of the Apology has been the standard, and this revision of Shepherd's edition, with a new introduction and extensive notes, is designed to introduce Sidney's best-known work to a new generation of readers at the beginning. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        August 2014

        Making home

        Orphanhood, kinship and cultural memory in contemporary American novels

        by Maria Holmgren Troy, Sharon Monteith, Elizabeth Kella, Nahem Yousaf, Helena Wahlstrom

        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.

      • Trusted Partner
        January 2021

        Everyone is amazing-Xiaoxiang Family Letters 2020

        by Xiaoxiang Family Letters Activity Organization

        In the context of the "Xiaoxiang Family Letters" activity carried out across the province, the organizing committee extensively collected family letters and selected 100 family letters to show the spirit of the people in the new era. The main content of the letter includes the gratifying changes in the fight against poverty in Sanxiang, the affectionate concern of the wandering children and the fathers and elders in the hometown, the home and country feelings of heroes and the most beautiful people, and the silent persistence of various industries in specific positions, and so on. The structure of each chapter of the book is divided into two parts: introduction (mainly including the information of the writer and recipient, refer to "Anti-epidemic") and the main text. The structure of the whole book includes the preface, table of contents, main text, and postscript. Further reading or content links. The structure is characterized by conciseness, conciseness and conciseness.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2015

        In defence of councillors

        by Colin Copus

        In defence of councillors is an unashamed defence of local representative democracy and of those elected to serve as councillors from the often ill-informed, ill-judged and inaccurate criticism made by the media, government and public, of councillors' personal, political and professional roles. By using qualitative research from a number of related projects, the book examines the roles, functions and responsibilities of councillors and the expectations placed upon them by citizens, communities and government. It also examines the impact council membership has on other facets of the councillor's life. The book examines how councillors develop strategies to overcome the constraints and restrictions on their office so as to be able to govern their communities, balance their political and public life and democratise and hold to account a vast array of unelected bodies that spend public money and develop public policy without the electoral mandate and legitimacy held by our councillors. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Reporting the Raj

        The British Press and India, c.1880–1922

        by Chandrika Kaul

        This book is the first analysis of the dynamics of British press reporting of India and the attempts made by the British Government to manipulate press coverage as part of a strategy of imperial control. The press was an important forum for debate over the future of India and was used by significant groups within the political elite to advance their agendas. Focuses on a period which represented a critical transitional phase in the history of the Raj, witnessing the impact of the First World War, major constitutional reform initiatives, the tragedy of the Amritsar massacre, and the launching of Gandhi's mass movement. Asserts that the War was a watershed in official media manipulation and in the aftermath of the conflict the Government's previously informal and ad hoc attempts to shape press reporting were placed on a more formal basis.

      • Trusted Partner
        Agriculture & related industries
        November 2007

        Community-Based Water Law and Water Resource Management Reform in Developing Countries

        by B van Koppen, Mark Giordano. Edited by J Butterworth.

        The lack of sufficient access to clean water is a common problem faced by communities, efforts to alleviate poverty and gender inequality and improve economic growth in developing countries. While reforms have been implemented to manage water resources, these have taken little notice of how people use and manage their water and have had limited effect at the ground level. On the other hand, regulations developed within communities are livelihood-oriented and provide incentives for collective action but they can also be hierarchal, enforcing power and gender inequalities. This book shows how bringing together the strengths of community-based laws rooted in user participation and the formalized legal systems of the public sector, water management regimes will be more able to reach their goals.

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