|
Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
Translated by Yuan Shibing and J.J.L.Duyvendak. With introductions
by Robert Wilkinson. The two political classics in this book are
the product of a time of intense turmoil in Chinese history. Dating
from the Period of the Warring States (403-221BC), they anticipate
Machiavelli's The Prince by nearly 2000 years. The Art of War is
the best known of a considerable body of Chinese works on the
subject. It analyses the nature of war, and reveals how victory may
be ensured. The Book of Lord Shang is a political treatise for the
instruction of rulers. These texts are anything but armchair
strategy or ivory-tower speculation. They are serious, urgent and
practical responses to the desperate situations in which they were
written. They have been immensely influential both inside and
outside China.
From Ancient Egypt to the Arab Spring, iconoclasm has occurred
throughout history and across cultures. Both a vehicle for protest
and a means of imagining change, it was rife during the tumultuous
years of the French Revolution, and in this richly illustrated book
Richard Clay examines how politically diverse groups used such
attacks to play out their own complex power struggles. Drawing on
extensive archival evidence to uncover a variety of iconoclastic
acts - from the beheading or defacing of sculptures, to the
smashing of busts, slashing of paintings and toppling of statues -
Clay explores the turbulent political undercurrents in
revolutionary Paris. Objects whose physical integrity had been
respected for years were now targets for attack: while many
revolutionary leaders believed that the aesthetic or historical
value of symbols should save them from destruction, Clay argues
that few Parisians shared such views. He suggests that beneath this
treatment of representational objects lay a sophisticated
understanding of the power of public spaces and symbols to convey
meaning. Unofficial iconoclasm became a means of exerting influence
over government policy, leading to official programmes of
systematic iconoclasm that transformed Paris. Iconoclasm in
revolutionary Paris is not only a major contribution to the
historiography of so-called 'vandalism' during the Revolution, but
it also has significant implications for debates about heritage
preservation in our own time.
Focusing on a decade in Irish history which has been largely
overlooked, Youth and Popular Culture in 1950s Ireland provides the
most complete account of the 1950s in Ireland, through the eyes of
the young people who contributed, slowly but steadily, to the
social and cultural transformation of Irish society. Eleanor
O'Leary presents a picture of a generation with an international
outlook, who played basketball, read comic books and romance
magazines, listened to rock'n'roll music and skiffle, made their
own clothes to mimic international styles and even danced in the
street when the major stars and bands of the day rocked into town.
She argues that this engagement with imported popular culture was a
contributing factor to emigration and the growing dissatisfaction
with standards of living and conservative social structures in
Ireland. As well as outlining teenagers' resistance to outmoded
forms of employment and unfair work practices, she maps their
vulnerability as a group who existed in a limbo between childhood
and adulthood. Issues of unemployment, emigration and education are
examined alongside popular entertainments and social spaces in
order to provide a full account of growing up in the decade which
preceded the social upheaval of the 1960s. Examining the 1950s
through the unique prism of youth culture and reconnecting the
decade to the process of social and cultural transition in the
second half of the 20th century, this book is a valuable
contribution to the literature on 20th-century Irish history.
The stories of the Cherokee people presented here capture in
written form tales of history, myth, and legend for readers,
speakers, and scholars of the Cherokee language. Assembled by noted
authorities on Cherokee, this volume marks an unparalleled
contribution to the linguistic analysis, understanding, and
preservation of Cherokee language and culture. Cherokee Narratives
spans the spectrum of genres, including humor, religion, origin
myths, trickster tales, historical accounts, and stories about the
Eastern Cherokee language. These stories capture the voices of
tribal elders and form a living record of the Cherokee Nation and
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' oral tradition. Each narrative
appears in four different formats: the first is interlinear, with
each line shown in the Cherokee syllabary, a corresponding roman
orthography, and a free English translation; the second format
consists of a morpheme-by-morpheme analysis of each word; and the
third and fourth formats present the entire narrative in the
Cherokee syllabary and in a free English translation. The
narratives and their linguistic analysis are a rich source of
information for those who wish to deepen their knowledge of the
Cherokee syllabary, as well as for students of Cherokee history and
culture. By enabling readers at all skill levels to use and
reconstruct the Cherokee language, this collection of tales will
sustain the life and promote the survival of Cherokee for
generations to come.
A "sharp and entertaining" (The Wall Street Journal) exploration of
fashion through the ages that asks what our clothing reveals about
ourselves and our society. Dress codes are as old as clothing
itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol;
fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes,
a way to maintain political control. Merchants dressing like
princes and butchers' wives wearing gem-encrusted crowns were
public enemies in medieval societies structured by social hierarchy
and defined by spectacle. In Tudor England, silk, velvet, and fur
were reserved for the nobility, and ballooning pants called "trunk
hose" could be considered a menace to good order. The
Renaissance-era Florentine patriarch Cosimo de Medici captured the
power of fashion and dress codes when he remarked, "One can make a
gentleman from two yards of red cloth." Dress codes evolved along
with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always
reflected struggles for power and status. In the 1700s, South
Carolina's "Negro Act" made it illegal for Black people to dress
"above their condition." In the 1920s, the bobbed hair and
form-fitting dresses worn by free-spirited flappers were banned in
workplaces throughout the United States, and in the 1940s, the
baggy zoot suits favored by Black and Latino men caused riots in
cities from coast to coast. Even in today's more informal world,
dress codes still determine what we wear, when we wear it--and what
our clothing means. People lose their jobs for wearing braided
hair, long fingernails, large earrings, beards, and tattoos or
refusing to wear a suit and tie or make-up and high heels. In some
cities, wearing sagging pants is a crime. And even when there are
no written rules, implicit dress codes still influence
opportunities and social mobility. Silicon Valley CEOs wear
t-shirts and flip-flops, setting the tone for an entire industry:
women wearing fashionable dresses or high heels face ridicule in
the tech world, and some venture capitalists refuse to invest in
any company run by someone wearing a suit. In Dress Codes, law
professor and cultural critic Richard Thompson Ford presents a
"deeply informative and entertaining" (The New York Times Book
Review) history of the laws of fashion from the middle ages to the
present day, a walk down history's red carpet to uncover and
examine the canons, mores, and customs of clothing--rules that we
often take for granted. After reading Dress Codes, you'll never
think of fashion as superficial again--and getting dressed will
never be the same.
The Washington Redskins franchise remains one of the most valuable
in professional sports, in part because of its easily recognizable,
popular, and profitable brand. And yet "redskins" is a derogatory
name for American Indians. Prominent journalists, politicians, and
former players have publicly spoken out against the use of Redskins
as the name of the team. The number of grassroots campaigns to
change the name has risen in recent years despite the current team
owner's assertion that the team will never do so. The NFL, for its
part, actively defends the name and supports it in court. Redskins:
Insult and Brand examines how the ongoing struggle over the team
name raises important questions about how white Americans perceive
American Indians, about the cultural power of consumer brands, and
about continuing obstacles to inclusion and equality. C. Richard
King examines the history of the team's name, the evolution of the
term "redskin," and the various ways in which people both support
and oppose its use today. King's hard-hitting approach to the
team's logo and mascot exposes the disturbing history of a
moniker's association with the NFL-a multibillion-dollar entity
that accepts public funds-as well as popular attitudes toward
Native Americans today.
Bulelwa Mabasa was born into a ‘matchbox’ family home in Meadowlands, Soweto, at the height of apartheid. In My Land Obsession, she shares her colourful Christian upbringing, framed by the lived experiences of her grandparents, who endured land dispossession in the form of the Group Areas Act and the migrant labour system.
Bulelwa’s world was irrevocably altered when she encountered the disparities of life in a white-dominated school. Her ongoing interest in land justice informed her choice to study law at Wits, with the land question becoming central in her postgraduate studies. When Bulelwa joined the practice of law in the early 2000s as an attorney, she felt a strong need to build on her curiosity around land reform, moving on to
form and lead a practice centred on land reform at Werksmans Attorneys. She describes the role played by her mentors and the professional and personal challenges she faced.
My Land Obsession sets out notable legal cases Bulelwa has led and lessons that may be drawn from them, as well as detailing her contributions to national policy on land reform and her views on how the land question must be inhabited and owned by all South Africans.
This book explores commemoration practices and preservation efforts
in modern Britain, focusing on the years from the end of the First
World War until the mid-1960s. The changes wrought by war led
Britain to reconsider major historical episodes that made up its
national narrative. Part of this process was a reassessment of
heritage sites, because such places carry socio-political meaning
as do the memorials that mark them. This book engages the four-way
intersection of commemoration, preservation, tourism, and urban
planning at some of the most notable historic locations in England.
The various actors in this process-from the national government and
regional councils to private organizations and interested
individuals-did nothing less than engineer British national memory.
The author presents case studies of six famous British places,
namely battlefields (Hastings and Bosworth), political sites
(Runnymede and Peterloo), and world's fairgrounds (the Crystal
Palace and Great White City). In all three genres of heritage
sites, one location developed through commemorations and tourism,
while the other 'anti-sites' simultaneously faltered as they were
neither memorialized nor visited by the masses. Ultimately, the
book concludes that the modern social and political environment
resulted in the revival, creation, or erasure of heritage sites in
the service of promoting British national identity. A valuable read
for British historians as well as scholars of memory, public
history, and cultural studies, the book argues that heritage
emerged as a discursive arena in which British identity was
renegotiated through times of transitions, both into a democratic
age and an era of geopolitical decline.
 |
Krynki In Ruins
(Hardcover)
A Soifer; Translated by Beate Schutzmann-Krebs; Cover design or artwork by Nina Schwartz
|
R1,252
R1,062
Discovery Miles 10 620
Save R190 (15%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
|
The Sixties will be remembered for mini skirts and mini cars, The
Beatles and The Rolling Stones, boutiques and discotheques, and
England winning the World Cup. But The 1960s Scrapbook also covers
much more with its 1400 colourful items. Television gripped the
nation with Coronation Street and The Likely Lads, while children
were entertained by the Darlecks, Thunderbirds and The Man from
Uncle. Twiggy became the fashion icon and the E-type jaguar the
motoring aspiration for men. James Bond was the spy to emulate and
the space race caught everyones imagination, including a vast range
of space toys. There are now ten Scrapbooks in this series covering
the Victorian era up to the 1970s plus the Royal Scrapbook.
Together they form an invaluable resource of popular culture and
lifestyle.
|
|