The Lehrstucke (or 'learning-plays') lie at the heart of Brechtian theatre. Written during 1929 and 1930, years of far-reaching political and economic upheaveal in Germany and the period of Brecht's most sharply Communist works, these short plays show an abrupt rejection of most of the trappings of conventional theatre. The Lehrstucke are spare and highly formalized pieces intended for performance by amateurs, on the principle that the moral and political lessons contained in them can best be taught by participation in an actual production. There is nothing in the drama of the twentieth century to match the precision of their language and the economy of their theatrical technique.

"Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer and arguably one of her finest" (New York Times Book Review) These hilarious and vicious two plays examine the corruption of Nigerian society through a study of the rise and fall of one of its self-made charismatic preachers."Wole Soyinka's Nobel Prize for Literature is a triumphant affirmation of the universality of this novelist, poet, film-maker and political activist." (Guardian)

Sketching Interiors: From Traditional to Digital, highlights four basic drawing skills for interior sketching across three different media --- pencil, ink and marker. The in-depth approach to various elements of sketching, including details of perception, texture, negative space, elevation, contour and the treatment of interior and exterior spaces, will help students perfect freehand and drawing skills. Throughout various exercises inspired by field studies, students will learn best practices for creating and presenting work for clients. Additionally, the book introduces the techniques of transforming hand drawings into sophisticated digital drawings using Photoshop, an invaluable resource for both new and seasoned designers.

Professional athletes' careers and livelihoods depend on results, so when they train they make sure they get the most from their training sessions. Experienced trainer Nick Grantham introduces you to performance based conditioning, explaining why athletic-based strength and conditioning training programmes are superior to all other training methods. Providing you with detailed information in a highly accessible manner, the book ensures you can elevate your training programmes to a new level. Revealing the training S&C strategies and principles used by elite athletes, this book will show that, regardless of your current fitness and exercise experience, anyone can train like an athlete. Providing a strong scientific rationale for an athletic approach to training so you can develop a better understanding of physical preparation, The Strength and Conditioning Bible gives you the key elements of an integrated performance-conditioning programme. An essential resource, this book contains a 16-week, 4 stage plan that balances total-body strength, endurance, mobility, balance, coordination and athleticism. You will be able develop a customisable and realistic fitness programme and with the knowledge gleaned from the book, you will develop and enjoy productive and pain-free workouts for years to come.

Originally published as the Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy, this book offers the definitive guide to contemporary Continental thought. It covers all the most pressing and important themes and categories in the field - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Twelve specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, valuably, how the various topics intersect. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including an A to Z of key terms and concepts, a chronology, and a guide to practical research in the field, this is the essential reference tool for anyone working in and studying Continental Philosophy.

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is probably his most famous work. First published in 1807, it has exercised considerable influence on subsequent thinkers from Feuerbach and Marx to Heidegger, Kojeve, Adorno and Derrida. The book contains many memorable analyses of, for example, the master / slave dialectic, the unhappy consciousness, Sophocles' Antigone and the French Revolution and is one of the most important works in the Western philosophical tradition. It is, however, a difficult and challenging book and needs to be studied together with a clear and accessible secondary text. Stephen Houlgate's Reader's Guide offers guidance on: Philosophical and historical context Key themes Reading the text Reception and influence Further reading

By viewing Islamic fundamentalism as a reactive response to modern challenges and political structures, this book presents a striking analysis of how and why Islamic values have become such a potent contemporary political force, and sheds new light on a much-misunderstood situation. This revised edition offers a rigorous definition of the modern Islamist movement by linking its connotations to the historical background of Muslim traditions. It includes an entirely new section dealing with post-1997 aspects; a section on al-Qaeda and the aftermath of 9/11, as well as a discussion of the global reach of Islamism. This comprehensive volume also explores the advent of a new wave of Islamism and its manifestations in Western countries. "Islamic Fundamentalism" concludes with an overall evaluation of the future prospects of Islamism and alternative Western policies ranging from direct confrontation to political dialogue.

Individual responsibility is an issue at the heart of public debates surrounding justice today - this book explores the philosophical implications of this hugely topical contemporary debate. Personal responsibility is now very much on the political agenda. But what is personal responsibility? Why do we care about it? And what, if anything, should governments do to promote it? This book explores the idea that individuals bear a special responsibility for the success or failure of their own lives looking at philosophical theories, political ideologies and public opinion on the subject. Alexander Brown lends support to a recent move in political philosophy to deal with real world problems and shows how philosophy can contribute to public democratic debate on pressing issues of personal responsibility. Articulate, provocative and stimulating, this timely book will make a significant contribution to one of the most important debates of our time. "Think Now" is a new series of books which examines central contemporary social and political issues from a philosophical perspective. These books aim to be accessible, rather than overly technical, bringing philosophical rigour to modern questions which matter the most to us. Provocative yet engaging, the authors take a stand on political and cultural themes of interest to any intelligent reader.

This work brings together for each day of the year three prayer practices for contemplative living: first, a brief "active prayer"; second, spiritual reading; and, third, Lectio Divina. The brief introductory prayer sentences are from various sources - the Bible and traditional prayers of the church or of well-known spiritual writers. The spiritual readings come from eleven of Father Keatings books and one audiotape, with a month's worth of readings derived from each work. Each day's entry concludes with a brief selection from the Bible, or Lectio Divina.>

This book provides an exciting and stimulating introduction to some of the central questions in philosophy.Why should we be good? How do we know what is true? What is it all about? "The Good, the True and the Beautiful" asks crucial questions about who we are and what makes life worthwhile. Michael Boylan offers an accessible and stimulating introduction to philosophy, exploring issues to do with ethics, knowledge and aesthetics and how they relate to our everyday lives. He proposes a highly original understanding of the good, the true and the beautiful that seeks to answer many of the questions that have traditionally occupied philosophers. Using thought experiments to engage the reader in 'doing' philosophy, Boylan explores what it means to be good, true and beautiful in today's world. Get your ticket now for a fascinating journey of self-discovery.

Jon Spence's fascinating biography paints an intimate portrait of Jane Austen. "Becoming Jane Austen" gives the fullest account we have of her falling in love with the charming young Irishman Tom Lefroy, a relationship that was more serious and enduring than previously believed and one that had a profound effect upon her life and her art. The elegant narrative examines Austen's other emotional attachments, building a picture of her world as she herself perceived and experienced it. It is a world familiar to us from her novels, but in "Becoming Jane Austen", Jane herself is the heroine.

In this illuminating and engaging book, Alban McCoy imaginatively and intelligently addresses the key questions that non-Catholics-and even Catholics- have about Roman Catholicisim. Are faith and reason enemies or allies? Do we need proof of God? Can God and evil both exist? Do we need the Pope? Is annulment divorce by another name? Why are women not ordained as priests in the Catholic Church? In an age where morality is increasingly challenged and reassessed, Alban McCoy demonstrates the relevance of the Catholic Church's moral teaching to the modern age and shows how Roman Catholicism is fully engaged with the realities of life and of the Spirit. Alban McCoy is Chaplain to the University of Cambridge. He is also a literary editor of The Tablet. His book, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Christian Ethics, is also in the Continuum Icons series.

The 1745 Jacobite Rebellion was a turning point in British history. When Charles Edward Stuart, commonly known as the Young Pretender, sailed from France to Scotland in July 1745, and with only a handful of supporters to claim the throne for his exiled father, few people within Britain were alarmed. But after he raised the Stuart standard at Glenfinnan in the Western Highlands, destroyed a contingent of the British army at Prestonpans near Edinburgh, and then marched south into England, swiftly reaching Derby, the rising threatened to destabilise the British state, dethrone King George and the Hanoverian dynasty, while disrupting Britain's military capability in Europe and colonial activities in America and beyond. Less than four decades after the controversial Act of Union between Scotland and England, arrogance and incompetence on the part of government ministers had allowed the small danger Charles and his Jacobite army had initially posed to escalate into a full-scale civil war: part of the on-going dynastic, political and ideological struggle for the heart and soul of this new nation. Yet the reality of the '45 continues to be obscured by fiction and myth, as personified by the heroic, gallant but doomed 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' versus the heartless victor, 'Butcher' Cumberland. In the years 1745-6 nothing was certain. While utilising past and recent scholarship, this magnificent account draws extensively on a wealth of contemporary sources, revealing the thoughts and feelings of the key players and local eyewitnesses as these extraordinary events played out. What emerges is a story more complex, paradoxical and even tragic than the myth suggests. From the exiled Stuart court in Rome to the palaces of Versailles and Holyroodhouse, from the battlefields of Flanders to Falkirk and Culloden, Jacobites brilliantly sets the '45 in its full and proper context on the stage of European history. And in our own time of seismic shift for the Union, the British political system, constitution and monarchy, Jacobites offers a timely re-telling of this critical episode in our island's shared past.

What's that noise? Tweet, Quack, Moo is a playful read for children learning to count to ten and imitate animal sounds. From barking dogs to clucking chickens, there's so many noises to count!

Join Arthur and Finn as they travel back to ancient Egypt to discover dangerous rivalries, and a prince and princess with strong opinions. Can they prevent a kidnapping and stop a war? Fascinating historical facts combine with action- packed fiction to create a dramatic and gripping adventure. This fast-paced and exciting narrative will leave the reader on the edge of their seat. Will the boys succeed in helping the Egyptian prince and princess and both make it back to the present?

During the Apartheid years in South Africa, a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare was smuggled around the prison on Robben Island. The book's significance resides in the fact that the book's owner, Sonny Venkatratham, passed it to a number of his fellow political prisoners in the single cells, including Nelson Mandela, asking them to mark their favourite passages with a signature and date. Informally known as "the Robben Island Bible", numerous prisoners selected the speeches that meant the most to them and their experience as political prisoners. In 2008 and 2010, playwright and scholar Matthew Hahn conducted interviews with eight former political prisoners in South Africa. Offering a vivid and startling account of the experience of these political prisoners during Apartheid, this extraordinary verbatim play weaves Shakespeare's words together with first-hand accounts from these men. They offer their reflections on their time as Liberation activists and, twenty years later, on the costs, consequences and whether or not it was all worth it. The play is published alongside a preface by Sonny Venkatrathnam and an introduction by South African actor, director , playwright and cultural activist John Kani.

A small boy hiding in a cupboard witnesses something no child should ever see. He tries not to look but he still hears it. And when he comes out, there's no mistaking. His mum and dad have been killed. And though he's only small, he swears that he'll get revenge one day. Years later, Trey goes to a strange camp that is meant to save troubled teenagers. It's packed with crazies, god-botherers, devoted felons and broken kids. Trey's been in and out of trouble ever since the day the bad thing happened, but he's not here for saving: this is where he'll find the man who did it. Revenge and healing, salvation and hell are a boiling, dangerous mix, and Trey finds himself drawn to a girl, a dream and the offer of friendship in the dark ...

Jonathan is a private investigator in a decaying eastern European city, consumed by his work and his failing marriage. Approached one day by an elderly couple, he is presented with a faded photograph of their daughter, missing for nearly two decades. Troubled by the image of the little girl, who was the same age when she vanished as his own daughter is now - he is compelled to find her. But one night, soon after taking on the case, as he walks across the bridge spanning the river that divides the city, he encounters a young woman crouched at the foot of a stone angel - a woman who suddenly leaps into the icy water below. Without thinking, Jonathan plunges after her, and is soon drawn into her ghostly world of confusion, coincidence and intrigue, and the city he thought he knew turns strange and threatening. Haunting and deeply moving, The Drowned Detective is an intoxicating, atmospheric exploration of relationships, lies and betrayal - confirming Neil Jordon as a master storyteller and a vital literary voice.

With their power to create a sense of proximity and empathy, photographs have long been a crucial means of exchanging ideas between people across the globe; this book explores the role of photography in shaping ideas about race and difference from the 1840s to the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. Focusing on Australian experience in a global context, a rich selection of case studies - drawing on a range of visual genres, from portraiture to ethnographic to scientific photographs - show how photographic encounters between Aboriginals, missionaries, scientists, photographers and writers fuelled international debates about morality, law, politics and human rights.Drawing on new archival research, Photography, Humanitarianism, Empire is essential reading for students and scholars of race, visuality and the histories of empire and human rights.

Illuminating the dark side of the erotic, these interwoven stories explore obsession, violence, and the thin line between sex and death. Under a Mediterranean sun a man searches for the Temple of Zeus as his wife awaits her stalker; a sex worker at an illegal fetish club contemplates her options; a strike spirals out of control with eerie consequences; and a conflict with noisy neighbours reaches theatrical heights. Driven by lust, greed and revenge, chillingly calm or maddened by rage, Patricia Duncker's characters use every tool at their disposal to get what they want. Unapologetically disturbing and provocative like the B movies that inspired them, Seven Tales of Sex and Death holds up a mirror to humanity at its most flawed, ruthless and seductive.

The Valentine was the most produced and most widely used British tank of the Second World War. The Valentine first saw combat during Operation Compass in November 1941 and remained one of the main medium tanks in British service into 1943. As the Churchill became more prevalent the Valentine was relegated to specialist and tank-destroyer variants, which would remain in service in the Far East to the end of the war. This book describes the evolution of the Valentine design and weighs up its impact on the battlefield. Although widely regarded today as one of the weaker tanks to be fielded during the war, it was exceptionally numerous, with more Valentines produced than any other British tank.

Is it merely an accident of English etymology that 'imagination' is cognate with 'image'? Despite the iconoclasm shared to a greater or lesser extent by all Abrahamic faiths, theism tends to assert a link between beauty, goodness and truth, all of which are viewed as Divine attributes. Douglas Hedley argues that religious ideas can be presented in a sensory form, especially in aesthetic works. Drawing explicitly on a Platonic metaphysics of the image as a bearer of transcendence, The Iconic Imagination shows the singular capacity and power of images to represent the transcendent in the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. In opposition to cold abstraction and narrow asceticism, Hedley shows that the image furnishes a vision of the eternal through the visible and temporal.

The story of FC Barcelona, written by the author of the internationally acclaimed Hand of God: The Life of Diego Maradona and updated with a new preface 'Burns' examination of the club's fates and fortunes always goes well beyond the game itself ... Burns is a brilliant journalist ... Unmissable' Total Football 'Anyone who really wants to know Barcelona should read Burns. A cracker - part sports book, part travelogue' Daily Mirror Barca is mes que un club: more than a club. It is a social and political phenomenon, successful on the football field and emblematic of the proud region of Catalonia off it. Founded in 1898, FC Barcelona is today the world's biggest football club. To unravel the background to the Barca phenomenon, Jimmy Burns has travelled with supporters, talked to people intimately linked to the club, unearthed police files and long-forgotten newspaper reports. Barca: A People's Passion is much more than a book about football - it is a story of more than a hundred years of obsessive national pride and has now been brought right up to date.

Welcome back to Mighty High - the school for superheroes. Our heroes, Stan, Minnie, Miles and, of course, Pudding the Wonder Dog, face their toughest challenge yet - a weatherman gone bad! Thunderbot is determined to hold the country to ransom by controlling the weather - he even threatens to put the Queen in danger! With gadgets a-plenty, our young superheroes must battle through ice, snow, tornadoes and lightning strikes - but can they save the day? With fully integrated black and white illustrations throughout, this laugh-out-loud series is perfect for young readers.