The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire celebrated its centenary year in 2017. In the past one hundred years, the order has gone from a way of rewarding men and women of all walks of life for service during the Great War to one of the most recognisable orders in the world.

In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States--by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.
It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asian ingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York "Bohemians" discovered Chinese cuisine--and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing or Shanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences.
Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.

The hidden history of South Africa's book and reading cultures shows how the common practice of reading can illuminate the social and political history of a culture. This ground-breaking study reveals resistance strategies in the reading and writing practices of South Africans; strategies that have been hidden until now for political reasons relating to the country's liberation struggles. By looking to records from a slave lodge, women's associations, army education units, universities, courts, libraries, prison departments, and political groups, Archie Dick exposes the key works of fiction and non-fiction, magazines, and newspapers that were read and discussed by political activists and prisoners. Uncovering the book and library schemes that elites used to regulate reading, Dick exposes incidences of intellectual fraud, book theft, censorship, and book burning. Through this innovative methodology, Dick aptly shows how South African readers used reading and books to resist unjust regimes and build community across South Africa's class and racial barriers.

Anglo-Japanese Cultural Pioneers 1945-2015 covers interviews with ten prominent people in the field of Anglo-Japanese exchange, showing the rich cultural diversity and interaction between professional people in the UK, Europe and Japan during the last 70 years since 1945. Coming from diverse backgrounds, diplomats, scholars, musicians, business people, journalists, gardeners, and humanitarian activists, all of whom have made an impact in the field of international understanding, and contibuted to the social history of of our era.

Storytelling has proliferated today, from TED Talks and Humans of New York to a plethora of story-coaching agencies and consultants. These narratives are typically heartbreaking accounts of poverty, mistreatment, and struggle that often move us deeply. But what do they move us to? And what are the stakes in the crafting and use of storytelling? In Curated Stories, Sujatha Fernandes considers the rise of storytelling alongside the broader shift to neoliberal, free-market economies to argue that stories have been reconfigured to promote entrepreneurial self-making and restructured as easily digestible soundbites mobilized toward utilitarian ends. Fernandes roams the globe and returns with stories from the Afghan Women's Writing Project, the domestic workers movement and the undocumented student Dreamer movement in the United States, and the Mision Cultura project in Venezuela to show how the conditions under which the stories are told, the tropes through which they are narrated, and the ways in which they are responded to may actually disguise the deeper contexts of global inequality. Curated stories shift the focus away from structural problems and defuse the confrontational politics of social movements. Not just a critical examination of contemporary use of narrative and its wider impact on our collective understanding of pressing social issues, Curated Stories also explores how storytelling might be reclaimed to allow for the complexity of experience to be expressed in pursuit of transformative social change.

An intriguing account of what has attracted musicians, artists, writers and people of the theatre to the delights of coastal Suffolk over the last 200 years and beyond. Inspiration has been drawn from the constantly changing North Sea, the generously proportioned skies, vast areas of serene marshes and abundant wildlife. All appear to be persuaded that there is something very special about the area. The likes of JMW Turner, Philip Wilson Steer and Charles Rennie Mackintosh found what they wanted here. The same applied to Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, EM Forster and WH Auden. Elizabeth Jane Howard's books are as popular as ever and Jill Freud's Summer Theatre continues to thrive. There is something for everyone in coastal Suffolk.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Twenty-five years ago, after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Gerald Ford promised a return to normalcy. "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over," President Ford declared.

But it was not. The Watergate scandal, and the remedies against future abuses of power, would have an enduring impact on presidents and the country. In Shadow, Bob Woodward takes us deep into the administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton to describe how each discovered that the presidency was forever altered. With special emphasis on the human toll, Woodward shows the consequences of the new ethics laws, and the emboldened Congress and media. Powerful investigations increasingly stripped away the privacy and protections once expected by the nation's chief executive.

Shadow is an authoritative, unsettling narrative of the modern, beleaguered presidency.

That Africa is in crisis today is no doubt. Media are full of stories and analyses to this effect. However, it is very difficult to come across such an analysis produced by an African, giving a genuine insider's perspective. Dr. Onyango, however, in giving that perspective, avoids the usual eye-glazing notion that Africa's problems are the fruits of colonialism and imperialism. While not being blind to the shortcomings of colonial regimes, Dr Onyango recognises that Europe made many positive contributions to the development of Africa, and could, together with the rest of the developed world, continue to do so, provided Africa puts her house in order. To achieve the desirable objective, Dr. Onyango demonstrates that whenever one begins to analyse an African problem, it becomes evident that without the development of her own culture and its successful dissemination to others, Africa will never catch up with the rest of the world in the current crucial economic turn point. Because of the efforts of men and women like Dr. Onyango, Africa and her people will be greatly encouraged to strive for their rightful place in the sun.

The Civil War in Missouri was a time of great confusion, violence, and destruction. Although several major battles were fought in the state between Confederate and Union forces, much of the fighting in Missouri was an ugly form of terrorism carried out by loose bands of Missouri guerrillas, by Kansas "Jayhawkers," or by marauding patrols of Union soldiers. This irregular warfare provided a training ground for people like Jesse and Frank James who, after the war, used their newly learned skills to form an outlaw band that ultimately became known all over the world.

Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri discusses the underlying causes of the Civil War as they relate to Missouri and reveals how the war helped create both the legend and the reality of Jesse James and his gang. Written in an accessible style, this valuable little book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in the Civil War, the legend of Jesse James, or Missouri history.

The brilliant and provocative new book from one of the world’s foremost political writers.

In The War on the West, international bestselling author Douglas Murray asks: if the history of humankind is one of slavery, conquest, prejudice, genocide and exploitation, why are only Western nations taking the blame for it?

It’s become perfectly acceptable to celebrate the contributions of non-Western cultures, but discussing their flaws and crimes is called hate speech. What’s more it has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating their contributions is also called hate speech. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning; however, some is part of a larger international attack on reason, democracy, science, progress and the citizens of the West by dishonest scholars, hatemongers, hostile nations and human-rights abusers hoping to distract from their ongoing villainy.

In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows the ways in which many well-meaning people have been lured into polarisation by lies, and shows how far the world’s most crucial political debates have been hijacked across Europe and America. Propelled by an incisive deconstruction of inconsistent arguments and hypocritical activism, The War on the West is an essential and urgent polemic that cements Murray’s status as one of the world’s foremost political writers.

The image of western ranchers making a stand for their "rights"-against developers, the government, "illegal" immigrants-may be commonplace today, but the political power of the cowboy was a long time in the making. In a book steeped in the culture, traditions, and history of western range ranching, Michelle K. Berry takes readers into the Cold War world of cattle ranchers in the American West to show how that power, with its implications for the lands and resources of the mountain states, was built, shaped, and shored up between 1945 and 1965. After long days working the ranch, battling human and nonhuman threats, and wrestling with nature, ranchers got down to business of another sort, which Berry calls "cow talk." Discussing the best new machinery; sharing stories of drought, blizzards, and bugs; talking money and management and strategy: these ranchers were building a community specific to their time, place, and work and creating a language that embodied their culture. Cow Talk explores how this language and its iconography evolved and how it came to provide both a context and a vehicle for political power. Using ranchers' personal papers, publications, and cattle growers association records, the book provides an inside view of how range cattle ranchers in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana created a culture and a shared identity that would frame and inform their relationship with their environment and with society at large in an increasingly challenging, modernizing world. A multifaceted analysis of postwar ranch life, labor, and culture, this innovative work offers unprecedented insight into the cohesive political and cultural power of western ranchers in our day.

"These case stories focus on an important event, mishap, management practice, or ethical question, and present important lessons to the reader. Their objective is to educate, inspire, motivate, challenge, and encourage food professionals to better understand food safety management and to help increase job effectiveness and productivity with ethics and integrity. Each case addresses its subject in terms of relevance and application to food safety and covers all types of risks (e.g., microbial, chemical, physical) associated with each step of the food chain. In an engaging format, the book provides an analysis of incidents or near misses. It highlights pitfalls in food safety management and provides key insight into the means of avoiding them. The book captures the real-life experience of food safety professionals around the world in very challenging situations, and invites the reader to reflect on and discuss the situations depicted. It is an essential reference for students and food professionals, including scientists, managers, trainers, food inspectors, public health officials, and more. Each of the 87 short cases includes a paragraph on "Discussion and key learnings", which will appeal equally to educators, students and working professionals in this field."

Gerald Diffey has spent four decades immersed in the world of food, wine and hospitality, from early days waiting tables in old English hotels to establishing two of the best places in the world to drink and eat: the award-winning Gerald's Bar in North Carlton -- Heston Blumenthal described it as 'a proper, proper old-fashioned sort of bar' -- and Gerald's Bar in San Sebastian. Beggars Belief is a collection of funny, poignant, insightful and just plain ludicrous stories from Gerald's life in kitchens and behind bars: his formative years in the UK, memories of food and family; tales and tips from forty years of service; journeys and meals, people and places, from lunch on the side of a volcano in Sicily to dinner on a beach in East Timor; stories and recipes and drinks suggestions from North Carlton and San Sebastian; vignettes, slices of life, observations. 'Romance', writes Gerald in the introduction. 'That's what I sell. Sensual pleasures. Sights, sounds, smells, touch, taste. Cyrano de Bergerac said: I have tried to live my whole life with panache. If I said that, I'd sound like a twat. But you get the drift. I'm off to bone some quails.'

Ons praat Afrikaans – diverse mense – een taal is meer as net nog ’n fotoboek: dit is die eindproduk van ’n projek wat sy ontstaan gevind het in een individu se liefde vir die Afrikaanse kultuur en taal, Douw Greeff. Die projek is geloods in 2016 toe fotograwe (amateur en ook professioneel) genader is om werke in te skryf wat hulle voel die Afrikaanse kultuur en taal raakvat. Verskeie inskrywings is ontvang en die top foto’s het deurgegaan na ’n beoordelings-rondte, waar ’n paneel die beste foto’s gekies het om in hierdie pragpublikasie te pronk.

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history. Drawing on game studies, western history, American studies, and cultural studies, the authors train a wide-ranging, deeply informed analytic perspective on the Red Dead franchise-from its earliest incarnation to the latest, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Their intersecting chapters put the series in the context of American history, culture, and contemporary media, with inquiries into issues of authenticity, realism, the meaning of play and commercial promotion, and the relationship between the game and the wider cultural iterations of the classic Western. The contributors also delve into the role the series' development has played in recent debates around working conditions in the gaming industry and gaming culture. In its redeployment and reinvention of the Western's myth and memes, the Red Dead franchise speaks to broader aspects of American culture-the hold of the frontier myth and the "Wild West" over the popular imagination, the role of gun culture in society, depictions of gender and ethnicity in mass media, and the increasing allure of digital escapism-all of which come in for scrutiny here, making this volume a vital, sweeping, and deeply revealing cultural intervention.

This book is comprised of enhanced, expanded, and updated versions of articles previously published in the the International Journal of Public and Private Perspectives on Healthcare, Culture, and the Environment (IJPPPHCE). The chapters will highlight critical trends focusing on the relationship between the public sphere, private sector, medicine, environmental health and wellbeing, and society. It covers critical topics such as environmental sustainability, ethics and medicine, healthcare and administration, corporate social responsibility, pollution and waste management, and related topics, and how the public sector and private industries contribute to these factors. This book will be interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary in its nature, as it is intended for a broad audience with interests in Healthcare, Culture, or the Environment or specifically professionals, policy makers, researchers, and graduate-level students in the fields of sociology, environmental science, public policy, healthcare administration, and business.

Film festivals around the world are in the business of making experiences for audiences, elites, industry, professionals, and even future cultural workers. Cinema and the Festivalization of Capitalism explains why these non-profit organizations work as they do: by attracting people who work for free, while appealing to businesses and policymakers as a cheap means to illuminate the creative city and draw attention to film art. Ann Vogel's unprecedented systematic sociological analysis thus provides firm evidence for the 'festival effect', which situates the festival as a key intermediary in cinema value chains, yet also demonstrates the impact of such event culture on cultural workers' lives. By probing the various resources and institutional pillars ensuring that the festivalization of capitalism is here to stay, Vogel urges us to think critically about publicly displayed benevolence in the context of cinema-and beyond.

In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded these categories. Instead, their performances adopted an aesthetic of intermediality, weaving together techniques and elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media, including ballet, art music, photography, early modern dance, vaudeville traditions, film, and more. Onstage and onscreen, performers borrowed from existing musical scores and narratives, referred to contemporary shows, films, and events, and mimicked fellow performers, skating neatly across various media, art forms, and traditions. Behind the scenes, they experimented with cross-promotion, new advertising techniques, and various technologies to broadcast images and tales of their performances and lives well beyond the walls of American theaters, cabarets, and halls. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful. Body Knowledge: Performance, Intermediality, and American Entertainment at the Turn of the Twentieth Century examines these performances and the performers behind them, highlighting the Ziegfeld Follies and The Passing Show revues, Salome dancers, Isadora Duncan's Wagner dances, Adeline Genee and Bessie Clayton's "photographic" danced histories, Hazel Mackaye and Ruth St. Denis's pageants, and Anna Pavlova's opera and film projects. By destabilizing the boundaries between various media, genres, and performance spaces, each of these women was able to create performances that negotiated turn-of-the-century American social and cultural issues: contemporary technological developments and the rise of mass reproduction, new modes of perception, the commodification of art and entertainment, the evolution of fan culture and stardom, changing understandings of the body and the self, and above all, shifting conceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity. Tracing the various modes of intermediality at work on- and offstage, Body Knowledge re-imagines early twentieth-century art and entertainment as both fluid and convergent.