"Battle: A History of Combat and Culture" spans the globe and the centuries to explore the way ideas shape the conduct of warfare. Drawing its examples from Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and America, John A. Lynn challenges the belief that technology has been the dominant influence on combat from ancient times to the present day. In battle, ideas can be more far more important than bullets or bombs. Carl von Clausewitz proclaimed that war is politics, but even more basically, war is culture. The hard reality of armed conflict is formed by - and, in turn, forms - a culture's values, assumptions, and expectations about fighting. The author examines the relationship between the real and the ideal, arguing that feedback between the two follows certain discernable paths. Battle rejects the currently fashionable notion of a "Western way of warfare" and replaces it with more nuanced concepts of varied and evolving cultural patterns of combat. After considering history, Lynn finally asks how the knowledge gained might illuminate our understanding of the war on terrorism.

The Bronx Is Burning "meets Chuck Klosterman in this wild pop-culture history of baseball's most colorful and controversial decade

"The Major Leagues witnessed more dramatic stories and changes in the '70s than in any other era. The American popular culture and counterculture collided head-on with the national pastime, rocking the once-conservative sport to its very foundations. Outspoken players embraced free agency, openly advocated drug use, and even swapped wives. Controversial owners such as Charlie Finley, Bill Veeck, and Ted Turner introduced Astroturf, prime-time World Series, garish polyester uniforms, and outlandish promotions such as Disco Demolition Night. Hank Aaron and Lou Brock set new heights in power and speed while Reggie Jackson and Carlton Fisk emerged as October heroes and All-Star characters like Mark "The Bird" Fidrych became pop icons. For the millions of fans who grew up during this time, and especially those who cared just as much about Oscar Gamble's afro as they did about his average, this book serves up a delicious, Technicolor trip down memory lane.
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This Pivot book examines literary elements of urban topography that have animated Alan Moore, Peter Ackroyd, and Iain Sinclair's respective representations of London-ness. Ann Tso argues these authors write London "psychogeographically" to deconstruct popular visions of London with colonial and neoliberal undertones. Moore's psychogeography consists of bird's-eye views that reveal the brute force threatening to unravel Londonscape from within; Ackroyd's aims to detect London sensuously, since every new awareness recalls an otherworldly London; Sinclair's conjures up a narrative consciousness made erratic by London's disunified landscape. Drawing together the dystopian, the phenomenological, and the postcolonial, Tso explores how these texts characterize "London-ness" as estranging.

Hu seeks to explain China's failure to establish a democratic system. He demonstrates both continuity and change in China's democratization process. Modern China regards power and wealth as primary goals and treats a strong state as a major means to these ends. Such a preference puts democracy on a back burner.

Employing a theoretical framework which consists of five factors--historical legacies, local forces, the world system, socialist values, and economic development--Hu shows that, while all of these factors were at work in all eras, each assumes a special significance in a particular period. Traditional China before the 1911 Revolution attempted to adjust itself to a new, Western-dominated world. In the Republican era, the control of local forces topped the political agenda. Nationalist China sought to survive and develop in the world system, while Maoist China set for itself the task of building a socialist state. And, of course, economic development has been the priority of the Deng era. As Hu shows, these five factors have had determining impacts on the long struggle for democracy in China.

Until the latter decades of the twentieth century historical works on Australian education tended, almost without exception, to not foreground gender. The revitalisation of feminism in both the social and academic worlds in the 1970s nurtured scholarship whose primary purpose was to place gender at the centre of policy and research. One strand of this project was to map the careers and structural positioning of women teachers. However, while this important advance brought an analytical lens to bear on what had been a significant lacuna in the history of education the emphasis on the overt structural and cultural exclusions faced by women who taught tended to perpetuate stereotypes of teaching and professionalism. Thus, women teachers were understood as victims of patriarchal bureaucratic systems. The possibility that women teachers had more complex and agentic lives was largely unexplored. More recent scholarship has called for the need to investigate the subjective experiences of becoming and being a woman teacher thus creating a greater set of bounded studies which pay close attention to ethnic, class and regional differences as well as instances where women teachers exercised autonomy and resistance. A further significant development has been the insistence on the inclusion of 'stories from below' gathered through the biographical and autobiographical writings of women teachers as well as oral history testaments. This book is part of that ongoing historical exploration of women teachers' lives and makes a unique contribution. This is partly due to the location, Western Australia, and also in the focus on the process of becoming a woman teacher. Oral testimonies from twenty-four womenteachers who graduated from the only Western Australian teachers' college in the early twentieth century provide the personal perspective, while secondary sources, policy texts and institutional records are used to create the historical context. This book challenges the assumption that families and schools unproblematically reproduced prevailing gender regimes. By becoming teachers, these women had been exposed to traditional expectations that they would accept masculine authority and eventually leave teaching to become wives and mothers. On the other hand they were also educated, encouraged to enter the teaching profession, and rewarded for their achievements. They learned to invest themselves in developing their rational and critical capacities. If they stayed in the profession they would have to remain spinsters, an apparently unacceptable social position. It might have seemed like an impossible choice but in the final chapter of the book Janina Trotman details the nature of these choices and the rich and varied lives of the women who made them. Girls Becoming Teachers will appeal to a wide range of groups. Scholars engaged in researching gender, education and professionalism would find much of interest, as will those who investigate the construction of subjectivities. Since much of the book is based on oral testimonies it would be an important addition to an Oral History Collection. Finally, since stories are a source of pleasure and fascination, many teachers, both retired and in service would find the book a pleasure to read.

The rich heritage of Virginia horse racing traces its roots back to the colonial days of the late seventeenth century. Horse racing began as single-day events held at county fairs, family farms, and hunt meets, taking a long and meandering path to become the sport we know and love today. "Colonial Downs and More" examines the important changes that occurred in Virginia's horse racing industry during the last half century, with a particular focus on the debates over pari-mutuel wagering. The legalization of pari-mutuel wagering became a hot-button legislative issue in the 1980s, sparked by horse breeders and owners hoping to improve the industry. In 1988, voters approved the legalization of pari-mutuel wagering, a move that opened the doors for the establishment of a new racetrack that would come to be known as Colonial Downs. Colonial Downs faced major obstacles from its inception. Construction was bogged down by licensing delays and legal issues. Nine long years elapsed before it finally opened its gates in 1997. After a modest opening, attendance and wagering slumped over the next three to five years. Nonetheless, despite the difficulties, the track and associated operations remain high quality, offering breeders and owners needed funds and providing racing fans with unparalleled fun and excitement.