William Edmundson examines the spectacular life story of 'Colonel' John Thomas North, also known as 'The Nitrate King,' a mechanic in Leeds who became one of the best-known and richest men of his time. Forgotten in Britain and vilified in Chile and Peru, this is the first biography of a controversial but compelling figure.

Fifty years after the publication of Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd , which suggests that 'absurd' plays purport the meaninglessness of life, this book uses the works of five major playwrights of the 1950s to provide a timely reassessment of one of the most important theatre 'movements' of the 20th century.

Speaking of Gods analyzes the figurative-narrative creation of gods, their heavenly abodes, and behaviors, reaching back to the beginning of history in Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Persia and Greece, and continuing through the figures and narratives of a biblical tradition that includes the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur'an.

A collection of studies offering an up-to-date analysis of official policies to promote Catalan in a democratic framework in each of the main Spanish regions where it is spoken: Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands.

Bringing together research from a variety of countries and periods, this volume introduces readers to the diverse approaches used to recover the evidence of reading through history in different societies, and asks whether reading practices are always conditioned by specific local circumstances or whether broader patterns might emerge.

Few individuals have positioned their work more controversially or consequently than Richard Schechner within the pivotal debates that define Performance Studies. The Rise of Performance Studies is the first collection of essays to critically examine the profound contributions that Schechner has made to Performance Studies as a discipline.

These innovative essays take a comparative approach to queer studies while simultaneously queering the field of comparative literature, strengthening the interdisciplinary of both. The book focuses not only on comparative praxis, but also on interrogating our assumptions and categories of analysis.

This book is about the emigration, film careers and socio-cultural influence of British filmmakers moving to Hollywood in the studio era. It deals with some of the unknown and neglected emigres, as well as the leading lights who founded, initiated and ensured that American film became the leading national cinema of the twentieth century.

This innovative collection features essays by a range of internationally renowned scholars and reconsiders textual practices in contemporary performance, specifically focusing on the exciting exchange between text, body and technology.

The Dramaturgy of the Real brings together an incredible range of international theatre thinking, plays and performance texts, many published here for the first time, that ask questions about how we have come to understand reality and truth in the twenty-first century and analyze the presentation of non-fiction on the international stage.

An account of how one Labour Party politician, after suffering the biggest setback of his political career, used the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in Grosvenor Square, the battle over trade union reform and the Troubles in Northern Ireland to propel himself to No 10.

An international trade emerged between 1870-1895 that incorporated the circulation of books among countries worldwide. A history of the social network and select agents who sold and distributed books overseas, this study demonstrates agents increasingly thought of the world as a negotiable, connected system and books as transnational commodities.

Romantic Cosmopolitanism shows how cosmopolitanism in the early nineteenth century offers a non-unified formulation of the nation that stands in contrast to more unified models such as Edmund Burke's which found nationality in, among other things, language, history, blood and geography.

Eglantyne Jebb was a teacher, social investigator and founder of the Save the Children Fund. Her 'Declaration of the Rights of the Child', adopted by League of Nations, shows evolution from Charity Organization Society model to philosophy of international mutual responsibility, children's rights and humanitarianism.

This engaging study examines diverse genders and sexualities in a wide range of contemporary fiction for children and young people. Mallan's insights into key dilemmas arising from the texts' treatment of romance, beauty, cyberbodies, queer, and comedy are provocative and trustworthy, and deliver exciting theoretical and social perspectives.

The highly performative categories of 'Irish culture' and 'Irishness' are in need of critical address, prompted by recent changes in Irish society, the arts industry and modes of critical inquiry. This book broaches this task by considering Irish expressive culture through some of the paradigms and vocabularies offered by performance studies.

Romantic Diasporasexamines exile in the Romantic period fromthe different perspectives of French emigres in England, British convicts transported to Australia, and Jews in their perennial diaspora.

The Double Binds of Ethics after the Holocaust advances the idea that the Holocaust undermined confidence in basic beliefs about human rights and shows steps of salvage and retrieval that need to be taken if ethics is to be a significant presence in a world still besieged by genocide and atrocity.

This book examines the unprecedented explosion of homosexual discourse in post-Soviet Russia and details how homosexuality has come to signify a surprising and often contradictory array of uniquely post-Soviet concerns.

Justice, Women, and Power in English Renaissance Drama is a collection of essays that explores the relationship of gender and justice as represented in English Renaissance drama. Many of the essays are concerned with interrogating the ways that women relied upon and/or reacted to the legal (and overarching political) systems in early modern England. Other essays examine issues involving the role of narrative, evidence, and gendered expectations about justice in the plays of this time period. An implicit concern of these essays is whether women were empowered or disempowered in this interaction with the legal/political system.

The north African roots of Jacques Derrida - he was born in Algeria, and lived there until he was nearly twenty - have yet to receive due consideration. Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East investigates the iconic theorist s claim to "Black, Arab, and Jewish" identity, demonstrating for the first time his significance for Africa and the Middle East while remaining mindful of the conflict between these Jewish and Arab heritages. Even as it criticizes Derrida s analyses of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it shows why Derrida s idiosyncratic politics should not deter his critics. Further, this study reveals similarities between deconstruction and ancient Egypto-African ways of thinking about language, and posits a new critical lineage - one with origins outside the bounds of Greco-Roman thought.

Ousselin sets out to show that Europe is essentially a literary fiction and that the ongoing movement towards European unity cannot be understood without reference to the literary works that helped bring it about.

This book investigates how the Children of Paul's (1599-1606) and the Children of the Queen's Revels (1600-13) defined their players as children and, via an analysis of their plays and theatrical practices, it examines early modern theatre as a site in which children have the opportunity to articulate their emerging selfhoods.

From 1912 to 1940, social worker Harry Hopkins committed himself to the ideal of government responsibility for impoverished Americans. This look at Hopkins' life and social work career broadens our understanding of the political and cultural currents that led to the Social Security Act of 1935, the bedrock of the American welfare state. Hopkins' experiences as an advocate and administrator of work relief and widows' pensions in New York City during the Progressive Era informed his contribution to welfare legislation during the New Deal years. Written by his granddaughter June Hopkins, this book not only clarifies the emergence of welfare policy but sheds considerable light on the present welfare debate. It also illuminates the life of one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century.