These lively and entertaining folk tales from one of Britain's most diverse counties are vividly retold by writer, storyteller and poet Jennie Bailey and storyteller, writer, psychotherapist and shamanic guide David England. Take a fantasy journey around Lancashire, the Phantom Voice at Southport, the Leprechauns of Liverpool and the famous hanging of Pendle Witches at Lancaster, to the infamous Miss Whiplash at Clitheroe. Enjoy a rich feast of local tales, a vibrant and unique mythology, where pesky boggarts, devouring dragons, villainous knights, venomous beasts and even the Devil himself stalk the land. Beautifully illustrated by local artists Jo Lowes and Adelina Pintea, these tales bring to life the landscape of the county's narrow valleys, medieval forests and treacherous sands.

During the Great Depression, California became a wellspring for some of the era's most inventive and imaginative political movements. In response to the global catastrophe, the multiracial laboring populations who formed the basis of California's economy gave rise to an oppositional culture that challenged the modes of racialism, nationalism, and rationalism that had guided modernization during preceding decades. In Rebel Imaginaries Elizabeth E. Sine tells the story of that oppositional culture's emergence, revealing how aggrieved Californians asserted political visions that embraced difference, fostered a sense of shared vulnerability, and underscored the interconnectedness and interdependence of global struggles for human dignity. From the Imperial Valley's agricultural fields to Hollywood, seemingly disparate communities of African American, Native American, Mexican, Filipinx, Asian, and White working-class people were linked by their myriad struggles against Depression-era capitalism and patterns of inequality and marginalization. In tracing the diverse coalition of those involved in labor strikes, citizenship and immigration reform, and articulating and imagining freedom through artistic practice, Sine demonstrates that the era's social movements were far more heterogeneous, multivalent, and contested than previously understood.

Orkney lies only 20 miles north of mainland Scotland, yet for many centuries its culture was more Scandanavian than Scottish. Strong westerly winds account for the scarcity of trees on Orkney and also for the tradition of well-constructed stone structures. As a result, the islands boast a large number of exceptionally well-preserved remains, which help us to form a detailed picture of Orcadian life through the ages. Sites and remains to be explored include settlements from the Stone Age, stone circles and burials from the Bronze Age, Iron Age brochs, Viking castles, the magnificent cathedral of St Magnus in Kirkwall, Renaissance palaces, a Martello tower from the Napoleonic Wars and numerous remains from the Second World War. In this updated edition of her best-selling book, Caroline Wickham-Jones, who has worked extensively on Orcadian sites for many years, introduces the history of the islands and provides a detailed survey of the principal places and sites of historic interest.

Examining the colonial history of western Massachusetts, this book provides fresh insights into important colonial social issues including African slavery, relations with Native Americans, the experiences of women, provisions for mental illness, old age and higher education, in addition to more traditional topics such as the nature of colonial governance, literacy and the book trade, Jonathan Edwards' ministries in Northampton and Stockbridge, and Governor Thomas Hutchinson's efforts to prevent a break with Britain.

Revised 2nd edition. The Yorkshire Wolds are one of Yorkshire and England's most magical but least known landscapes - dry grassy valleys through undulating chalk hills, unspoiled villages, a dramatic coastline, delightful market towns such as Beverley and Pocklington, and as a focal point, 2017 City of Culture, Kingston upon Hull. This book provides an insight into the rich history and culture of the Wolds, a story shaped by saints, soldier-adventurers, merchants, fisherman, engineers, architects, farmers, landowners, writers, and in most recent times, England's greatest living painter David Hockney, whose work has created a national awareness of the natural beauty and unique landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds. But this is also a practical guide, with detailed information and advice on how to explore the area whether by car, local train and bus, by cycle, horseback or, on foot, with suggestions on how to reach those special places, that will make a visit to the Yorkshire Wolds such a memorable experience. "- a perfect travel companion for those who have decided to visit the Yorkshire Wolds." - Councillor Caroline Fox. Chairman East Riding Council. "a pretty but practical introduction to the Wolds - rolling chalk hills, green valleys, unspoilt towns and villages and spectacular coastline." Debbie Hall, Hull Daily Mail. "often said to be the UK's most under-appreciated landscape, the Yorkshire Wolds has largely been ignored by publishers. Now a major new book redresses the balance." Roger Ratcliffe, Yorkshire Post "The Many photographs taken by Dorian Speakman and the authors' are a delight. The alone whet the appetite for discovery as well as giving pleasure to the armchair explorer," Keith Wadd, West Riding Rambler

The surprising history of the Gowanus Canal and its role in the building of Brooklyn For more than 150 years, Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal has been called a cesspool, an industrial dumping ground, and a blemish on the face of the populous borough-as well as one of the most important waterways in the history of New York harbor. Yet its true origins, man-made character, and importance to the city have been largely forgotten. Now, New York writer and guide Joseph Alexiou explores how the Gowanus creek-a naturally-occurring tidal estuary that served as a conduit for transport and industry during the colonial era-came to play an outsized role in the story of America's greatest city. From the earliest Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, to nearby Revolutionary War skirmishes, or the opulence of the Gilded Age mansions that sprung up in its wake, historical changes to the Canal and the neighborhood that surround it have functioned as a microcosm of the story of Brooklyn's rapid nineteenth-century growth. Highlighting the biographies of nineteenth-century real estate moguls like Daniel Richards and Edwin C. Litchfield, Alexiou recalls the forgotten movers and shakers that laid the foundation of modern-day Brooklyn. As he details, the pollution, crime, and industry associated with the Gowanus stretch back far earlier than the twentieth century, and helped define the culture and unique character of this celebrated borough. The story of the Gowanus, like Brooklyn itself, is a tale of ambition and neglect, bursts of creative energy, and an inimitable character that has captured the imaginations of city-lovers around the world.

The 1950s was a time of regeneration and change for Southampton. For children growing up during this decade, life was changing fast. They still made their own toys and earned their own pocket money, but, on new television sets, Andy Pandy (1950) and Bill and Ben (1952) delighted them. With rationing discontinued, confectionary was on the menu again and, for children, Southampton life in the 1950s was sweet. If you saw a Laurel and Hardy performance at The Gaumont Theatre, or made dens out of bombed-out buildings, then you'll thoroughly enjoy this charming and nostalgic account of the era.

Audubon Park's journey from farmland to cityscape The study of Audubon Park's origins, maturation, and disappearance is at root the study of a rural society evolving into an urban community, an examination of the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. When John James Audubon bought fourteen acres of northern Manhattan farmland in 1841, he set in motion a chain of events that moved forward inexorably to the streetscape that emerged seven decades later. The story of how that happened makes up the pages of The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It. This fully illustrated history peels back the many layers of a rural society evolving into an urban community, enlivened by the people who propelled it forward: property owners, tenants, laborers, and servants. The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot tells the intricate tale of how individual choices in the face of family dysfunction, economic crises, technological developments, and the myriad daily occurrences that elicit personal reflection and change of course pushed Audubon Park forward to the cityscape that distinguishes the neighborhood today. A longtime evangelist for Manhattan's Audubon Park neighborhood, author Matthew Spady delves deep into the lives of the two families most responsible over time for the anomalous arrangement of today's streetscape: the Audubons and the Grinnells. Buoyed by his extensive research, Spady reveals the darker truth behind John James Audubon (1785-1851), a towering patriarch who consumed the lives of his family members in pursuit of his own goals. He then narrates how fifty years after Audubon's death, George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) and his siblings found themselves the owners of extensive property that was not yielding sufficient income to pay taxes, insurance, and maintenance. Like the Audubons, they planned an exit strategy for controlled change that would have an unexpected ending. Beginning with the Audubons' return to America in 1839, The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot follows the many twists and turns of the area's path from forest to city, ending in the twenty-first century with the Audubon name re-purposed in today's historic district, a multiethnic, multi-racial urban neighborhood far removed from the homogeneous, Eurocentric Audubon Park suburb.

Do motorists pick up a phantom hitchhiker on Blue Bell Hill during stormy nights? Does Satan appear if you dance round the Devil's Bush in the village of Pluckley? Do big cats roam the local woods? And what happens if you manage to count the 'Countless Stones' near Aylesford? For centuries strange urban legends have materialised in the Garden of England. Now, for the first time, folklorist and monster-hunter Neil Arnold looks at these intriguing tales, strips back the layers, and reveals if there is more to these Chinese whispers than meets the eye. Folklore embeds itself into a local community, often to the extent that some people believe all manner of mysteries and take them as fact. Whether they're stories passed around the school playground, through the internet, or round a flickering campfire, urban legends are everywhere. Kent Urban Legends is a quirky and downright spooky ride into the heart of Kent folklore.

Observations on the new American republic by an early president of Georgetown University Father Giovanni Antonio Grassi was the ninth president of Georgetown University and pioneered its transition into a modern institution, earning him the moniker Georgetown's Second Founder. Originally published in Italian in 1818 and translated here into English for the first time, his News on the Present Condition of the Republic of the United States of North America records his rich observations of life in the young republic and the Catholic experience within it. When Grassi assumed his post as president in 1812, he found the university, known then as Georgetown College, to be in a "miserable state." He immediately set out to enlarge and improve the institution, increasing the number of non-Catholics in the school, adding to the library's holdings, and winning authority from Congress to confer degrees. Upon his return to Italy, Grassi published his News, which introduced Italians to the promise and contradictions of the American experiment in self-governance and offered perspectives on the social reality for Catholics in America. This book is a fascinating work for historians of Catholicism and of the Jesuits in particular.

In the first half of the twentieth century, when seismology was still in in its infancy, renowned geologist Bailey Willis faced off with fellow high-profile scientist Robert T. Hill in a debate with life-or-death consequences for the millions of people migrating west. Their conflict centered on a consequential question: Is southern California earthquake country? These entwined biographies of Hill and Willis offer a lively, accessible account of the ways that politics and financial interests influenced the development of earthquake science. During this period of debate, severe quakes in Santa Barbara (1925) and Long Beach (1933) caused scores of deaths and a significant amount of damage, offering turning points for scientific knowledge and mainstreaming the idea of earthquake safety. The Great Quake Debate sheds light on enduring questions surrounding the environmental hazards of our dynamic planet. What challenges face scientists bearing bad news in the public arena? How do we balance risk and the need to sustain communities and cities? And how well has California come to grips with its many faults?

The Wesleys and the Anglican Mission to Georgia examines the experiences of five Anglican minister/missionaries who came to Georgia between 1735 and 1738, including John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, on a mission to minister to residents and spread Christianity to the Native Americans. The author argues that personal relationships rather than institutional structures or cultural dynamics largely directed the forming, the dispatch, the unfolding, and eventually the collapse of this the largest minister/missionary effort in early Georgia. In addition to the missioners' relationships among themselves, their interactions with leading Trustees like James Oglethorpe and the Earl of Egmont, with Native Americans, with officials in the colony, with German religious groups in the colony like the Moravians and the Salzburgers, and with individual settlers-some of whom they clashed with and others of whom at least one of them fell in love with-shaped the Mission at every turn. The author also demonstrates how the missioners used Biblical literature to frame and explain their experiences to themselves and others. The Mission involved three of the most important religious figures of the 18th century Atlantic world whose names continue to resonate in the early 21st century. The book tells the story of their lives in Georgia just before they achieved transatlantic fame.

From supreme president to forgotten enemy, John W. Talbot lived a remarkable life. Charismatic, energetic, and powerful, he founded a national fraternal organization, the Order of Owls, and counted senators, congressmen, and business leaders among his friends. He wielded his influence to help causes close to his heart but also to bring down those who stood against him. In So Much Bad in the Best of Us, Greta Fisher's careful research reveals that Talbot was capable of great evil, causing one woman to describe him as "the Devil Incarnate." His string of very public affairs revealed his strange sexual preferences and violent tendencies, and charges leveled against him included perjury, blackmail, jury tampering, slander, libel, misuse of the mail, assault with intent to kill, and White slavery. Ultimately convicted on the slavery charge, he spent several years in Leavenworth penitentiary and eventually lost everything, including control of the Order of Owls. His descent into alcoholism and death by fire was a fitting end to a tumultuous and dramatic life. After 50 years of newspaper headlines and court battles, Talbot's death made national news, but with more enemies than friends and estranged from his family, he was ultimately forgotten. A gripping true crime story, So Much Bad in the Best of Us offers a mesmerizing account of the life of John W. Talbot, the Order of Owls, and how quickly the powerful can fall.

Haworth parsonage and village will forever be linked inextricably with one nineteenth-century literary family. For it was here, in 1821, that Patrick Bront, an Irish Anglican clergyman, came from Thornton to be curate. He brought his three young daughters and son to Haworth, and it was here that the sisters grew up to become quite the most remarkable literary phenomenon of the century. As children, they knew the streets and the houses, the moors and the people. And, as Michael Baumber shows, many of the characters in the Bront novels were based upon real Haworth folk - some of whom recognised themselves in the women's novels and were not at all happy with how they had been portrayed - while the moors above the village figure prominently and famously as the haunt of the brooding Heathcliff in Emily's greatest work "Wuthering Heights". Patrick Bront the curate was himself a notable character in the history of the village, and his role in the social, public and religious life of the village is explored at several points. Surprisingly, the Bront novels mention little about the textile industry which by that time had become such a dominant force in the district's economy. Indeed, the industrial development of the region was such an important and all-consuming fact of life in early Victorian Haworth that it forms a major subject of this new book. The Bront's did, however, describe life in the district's rural homes, schools and communities at a time of particularly harsh living conditions and appalling death rates in the new industrial community of Haworth. The village's public health record was poor well into the twentieth century, and Patrick Bront endured the deaths from tuberculosis (or other illnesses aggravated by it) of all four of his children between 1848 and 1855. Yet, as Michael Baumber's highly readable new book shows, the history of Haworth actually stretches back millennia: his book tells the whole story of the Haworth district from the early Mesolithic right up to the popular tourist magnet that the village now becomes during the summer months. The book also features the hamlets of Near and Far Oxenhope and Stanbury, providing a clear and illuminating account of how Haworth developed in the particular way that it did. Fully illustrated, with many rare old photographs, this book offers many new insights into the village and also its occasionally ambivalent relationship with its most famous literary residents.

Take a virtual tour of Northern Arizona. More than 300 postcards show the character and history of popular travel destinations like the 270 million-year-old Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Oak Creek Canyon, and the Petrified Forest. Experience the early Fred Harvey Hotels, explore Arizona's Route 66 towns and roadside attractions, and learn about the culture and history of Northern Arizona's Native Americans. Postcard collectors will also find this book a useful resource guide.

Gloucestershire's stories go back to the days of Sabrina, spirit of the Severn, and the Nine Hags of Gloucester. Tales tell of sky-ships over Bristol, the silk-caped wraith of Dover's Hill, snow foresters on the Cotswolds, and Cirencester's dark-age drama of snake and nipple. They uncover the tragic secrets of Berkeley Castle and the Gaunts' Chapel, a lonely ghost haunting an ancient inn, and twenty-first-century beasts in the Forest of Dean. From the intrigue and romance of town and abbey to the faery magic of the wild, here are thirty of the county's most enchanting tales, brought imaginatively to life by a dynamic local storyteller.

From its beginnings in Seattle nearly fifty years ago, El Centro de la Raza has been translated as "The Center for People of All Races." In Seattle's El Centro de la Raza: Dr. King's Living Laboratory, Bruce E. Johansen, with valuable aid from Estela Ortega, executive director, and Miguel Maestas, Housing and Development director at El Centro, explores how the center has become part of a nationally significant work in progress on human rights and relations based on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s concept of a "Beloved Community" that crosses all ethnic, racial, and other social boundaries. Johansen's examination of the history of the center highlights its mission to consciously provide intercultural communication and cooperation as an interracial bridge, uniting people on both a small and a large scale, from neighborhood communities to international relations. Scholars of Latin American studies, race studies, international relations, sociology, and communication will find this book especially useful.

A Financial Times Best History Book of the Year A surprising account of frontier law that challenges the image of the Wild West. In the absence of state authority, Gold Rush miners crafted effective government by the people-but not for all the people. Gold Rush California was a frontier on steroids: 1,500 miles from the nearest state, it had a constantly fluctuating population and no formal government. A hundred thousand single men came to the new territory from every corner of the nation with the sole aim of striking it rich and then returning home. The circumstances were ripe for chaos, but as Andrea McDowell shows, this new frontier was not nearly as wild as one would presume. Miners turned out to be experts at self-government, bringing about a flowering of American-style democracy-with all its promises and deficiencies. The Americans in California organized and ran meetings with an efficiency and attention to detail that amazed foreign observers. Hundreds of strangers met to adopt mining codes, decide claim disputes, run large-scale mining projects, and resist the dominance of companies financed by outside capital. Most notably, they held criminal trials on their own authority. But, mirroring the societies back east from which they came, frontiersmen drew the boundaries of their legal regime in racial terms. The ruling majority expelled foreign miners from the diggings and allowed their countrymen to massacre the local Native Americans. And as the new state of California consolidated, miners refused to surrender their self-endowed authority to make rules and execute criminals, presaging the don't-tread-on-me attitudes of much of the contemporary American west. In We the Miners, Gold Rush California offers a well-documented test case of democratic self-government, illustrating how frontiersmen used meetings and the rules of parliamentary procedure to take the place of the state.

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.

A remote, barren and ruggedly beautiful island lies at the southern end of the Outer Hebrides. Its people, loyal for centuries, have abandoned it but the beauty and history of Mingulay remain. The story of St Kilda, whose inhabitants were also forced to leave, is well known, but that of Mingulay is no less poignant, and is told in this acclaimed book for the first time. Ben Buxton documents the story of a people and of an island. In the nineteenth century Mingulay was home to up to 160 islanders who lived by crofting, fishing and by catching seabirds from cliffs which are among the highest in Britain. Looking back through the annals of history, he uncovers the traditions of a hospitable, close community which thrived under clan rule. But set in lonely isolation in the stormy Atlantic, with no proper landing place, absentee landlords and insufficient fertile land, life for Mingulay's inhabitants was hard, and By 1912, the 'voluntary' evacuation of the island was complete.

Lifting the lid on London, Spectacular Vernacular reveals the stories behind its 100 strangest and most enigmatic buildings. Some are open to the public, if you know who to ask. Others remain strictly off-limits, thus heightening the sense of mystery surrounding them. But many are so familiar that few of us ever stop to consider just how curious they are. In the heart of Kensington, for example, a 300ft tower attracts few glances that even most locals don't know it's there. South of the river the city's widest building at nearly 1,000ft has been favourably compared to the Winter Palace at St Petersburg. And in Chelsea a medieval hall, once home to a king and moved brick by brick from the City to escape demolition, is now being remodelled as London's largest private house. Elsewhere one finds an arts centre built of old shipping containers, a Victorian explorer lying dead in a tent, literally acres of secret underground government offices, even a private tunnel used for running cable-cars under the Thames. Think you know London? Well, it's time to reconsider.

Religious guilds or fraternities proliferated throughout England until their dissolution in the late 1540s, yet remarkably few of their records have survived. Amongst the survivals are the last twenty-one years of the accounts of the Luton Guild of the Holy Trinity, hitherto unpublished in full. The accounts record several hundred transactions each year, including rents for the guild's properties, and expenditure on wages to priests and clerks and dirges sung for deceased members of the guild. Purchases of food and hiring of cooks, kitchen helpers, utensils and entertainment show what extraordinarily lavish provision was made for the annual feast. The quantity of building materials which was purchased for the guild's properties suggests not only repairs but also modernisation and may be sufficient to attempt to reconstruct some of the houses. The majority of 'brothers and systers' of the guild were drawn from a radius of about twenty-five miles of Luton and included the towns and villages in neighbouring Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. A small, but noticeable, group were from London, Canterbury, Boston and Kendal. The guild was prosperous, well-connected and active, and its accounts provide an insight into daily life in mid-sixteenth-century south Bedfordshire and the surrounding area. The book contains a complete transcription of the accounts and an introduction presenting an overview of the guild's activities. It is fully indexed. Barbara Tearle is a retired librarian, formerly working at the Bodleian Law Library, Oxford, and is currently engaged in local history research with the Oxfordshire Probate Group and as editor for the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society.