When Tony Berry received an email from a hitherto unheard-of cousin researching her family history it set him off on an unexpected journey from his home in Australia to the valleys of Wales, the mill towns of Yorkshire and the Sussex coast. Along the way - and hand in hand with his cousin now his partner - he discovered unknown relatives in New Zealand, Norway and the USA. Stories were uncovered of abject poverty, sudden workplace deaths, hardship and perseverance. Instead of the hoped-for landed gentry and honoured dignitaries they found a family tree of labourers, tidewaiters, shipwrights, preachers, weavers, cotton pickers, maids, servants and paupers. This is their story ...written from the author's new home on the other side of the world.

This book is a memoir with a ‘double heartbeat’. At its centre is the author’s relationship with the late Zimbabwean writer, Dambudzo Marechera, whose award-winning book The House of Hunger marked him as a powerful, disruptive, perhaps prophetic voice in African literature.

Flora Veit-Wild is internationally recognised for her significant contribution to preserving Marechera’s legacy. What is less known about Marechera and Veit-Wild is that they had an intense, personal and sexual relationship. This memoir explores this: the couple’s first encounter in 1983, amidst the euphoria of the newly independent Zimbabwe; the tumultuous months when the homeless writer moved in with his lover and her family; the bouts of creativity once he had his own flat followed by feelings of abandonment; the increasing despair about a love affair that could not stand up against reality and the illness of the writer and his death of HIV related pneumonia in August 1987.

What follows are the struggles Flora went through once Dambudzo had died. On the one hand she became the custodian of his life and work, on the other she had to live with her own HIV infection and the ensuing threats to her health.

In August 1941 Winston Churchill (1874-1965) and President Roosevelt (1882-1945) met secretly on HMS Prince of Wales, moored just off the coast of Newfoundland. H. V. Morton and Howard Spring (author of Fame is the Spur) were invited to accompany the Prime Minister and his entourage, a trip, which was not without its hazards. Only a handful of people knew Churchill had left Britain and in America the press merely reported that Roosevelt was enjoying a few days' away from Washington, fishing. The Prince of Wales set off from Scrabster on 4th August 1941 and reached her destination at Newfoundland on 9th August 1941. A routine was quickly established on board and the crew soon became used to the Prime Minister's timetable and requirements, especially his regular film nights. Together with the Prime Minister's bodyguard, Thompson, a number of key personnel accompanied Churchill on this mission, including Lord Beaverbrook who joined the ship by flying to Newfoundland's Placentia Bay. The Atlantic Treaty, whilst not achieving all that Churchill had hoped for, was a key document in the development of the war and post-war strategy.Churchill had hoped that at the resolution of the meeting America would join the war during the summer of 1941 but this was not to be. America did finally join the war in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on the US base at Pearl Harbour. H. V. Morton's account was not released for publication until 1943 and subsequently numerous documents have been made available at the National Archives. Atlantic Meeting is a unique account of the events leading up to Churchill's discussions with Roosevelt and a fascinating account of the practicalities - and occasionally humour - involved in such a perilous journey.

Ben Viljoen (1868–1917) was ’n prominente jonger generaal in die Anglo-Boereoorlog, maar ná die oorlog is hy nie opgeneem in die nuwe politieke elite van die Afrikaners nie. Nadat hy die eed van getrouheid op St. Helena onderteken het, het hy noot weer permanent na Suid-Afrika teruggekeer nie.

Carel van der Merwe het besluit om Viljoen se spore te volg na Brittanje, Nederland, Mexiko en Amerika en te gaan uitvind hoe dit gebeur het dat dié Boereoorloggeneraal burgerskap van vier verskillende lande gehad het, die ster was van ’n Boereoorlogskouspel, aan ’n Mexikaanse revolusie deelgeneem het, as vredeskommissaris tussen die Yaqui-Indiane opgetree het en voor sy dood op die punt was om ’n film in Hollywood te vervaardig.

’n Prentjie van ’n komplekse persoonlikheid kom na vore wat herinner aan ’n deel van die huidige generasie Afrikaners – minder godvresend, gemaklik in verskillende kulture, en bereid om te emigreer wanneer hulle dink dit tot hul voordeel is.

Tracing the interwoven traditions of modern welfare states in Europe over five centuries, Thomas McStay Adams explores social welfare from Portugal, France, and Italy to Britain, Belgium and Germany. He shows that the provision of assistance to those in need has faced recognizably similar challenges from the 16th century through to the present: how to allocate aid equitably (and with dignity); how to give support without undermining autonomy (and motivation); and how to balance private and public spheres of action and responsibility. Across two authoritative volumes, Adams reveals how social welfare administrators, critics, and improvers have engaged in a constant exchange of models and experience locally and across Europe. The narrative begins with the founding of the Casa da Misericordia of Lisbon in 1498, a model replicated throughout Portugal and its empire, and ends with the relaunch of a social agenda for the European Union at the meeting of the Council of Europe in Lisbon in 2000. Volume 1, which focuses on the period from 1500 to 1700, discusses the concepts of 'welfare' and 'tradition'. It looks at how 16th-century humanists joined with merchants and lawyers to renew traditional charity in distinctly modern forms, and how the discipline of religious reform affected the exercise of political authority and the promotion of economic productivity. Volume 2 examines 18th-century bienfaisance which secularized a Christian humanist notion of beneficence, producing new and sharply contested assertions of social citizenship. It goes on to consider how national struggles to establish comprehensive welfare states since the second half of the 19th century built on the power of the vote as politicians, pushed by activists and advised by experts, appealed to a growing class of industrial workers. Lastly, it looks at how 20th-century welfare states addressed aspirations for social citizenship while the institutional framework for European economic cooperation came to fruition

Here we are again our second journey into Wednesfield's past. Our first journey produced a fantastic response from the folk of Wednesfield and indeed from other areas around the country and that is the reason for this second book and obviously my passion for Wednesfield's past. It's been really great giving talks to the kids at Wodensfield and St Patricks schools, and also at Long Knowle library and not forgetting the talks given in the Vine Inn on 6th August 2010 to celebrate the battle of Wednesfield's 1100th anniversary. Take this next journey with me into Wednesfield's past and be assured that it will bring back memories of your own journey. This 206 page book contains more than 138 photographs.

The melodramatic and romantic cliche s that pervade popular conceptions of working-class Londoners in the 19th and 20th century are debunked in this innovative expose of proletariat London. The individual stories of muted historical figures, including an illiterate silk weaver, a grandmother in an asylum, a deserted family, an abused daughter, and a dead child, are brought to light through interpretations of the scraps they left behind-- gravestone inscriptions, photographs and certificates, the grimy contents of hidden cubbyholes, and even childhood recollections that have been passed down through the generations. The unusual contents of these stories intertwine to evoke a haunting and original picture of working-class London that adds a much-needed, though bleak facet to the city's social history.

On 20 January 1973, the Bissau-Guinean revolutionary Amílcar Cabral was killed by militants from his own party. Cabral had founded the PAIGC in 1960 to fight for the liberation of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde. The insurgents were Bissau-Guineans, aiming to get rid of the Cape Verdeans who dominated the party elite.

Despite Cabral’s assassination, Portuguese Guinea became the independent Republic of Guinea-Bissau. The guerrilla war that Cabral had started and led precipitated a chain of events that would lead to the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, toppling the forty-year-old authoritarian regime. This paved the way for the rest of Portugal’s African colonies to achieve independence.

Written by a native of Angola, this biography narrates Cabral’s revolutionary trajectory, from his early life in Portuguese Guinea to his death. It details his quest for national sovereignty, beleaguered by the ethnic-based identity conflicts the national liberation movement struggled to overcome.

The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text, and the main theoretical work of the situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960's up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the late 20th century. This new edition is the Ken Knabb translation. Certainly it has the most "modern" design of all three editions, as well as a short new introduction from the translator.

From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author - the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

A rich cast of complex characters form the beating heart of the story. Some are well-known leaders, from Alexander the Great, Attila, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan to Hitler, Thatcher, Obama, Putin and Zelensky. Some are creative, from Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare to Newton, Mozart, Balzac, Freud, Bowie and Tim Berners-Lee.

Gidon Lev, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, has lived an extraordinary life. At the age of six, he was imprisoned in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Liberated when he was ten, he lost at least 26 members of his family, including his father and grandfather.

But Gidon’s life is extraordinary not only because he is one of the few living survivors remaining but because of his lessons learned over nearly a century. His enduring message is of hope and opportunity – to make things better. By sharing his timeless simple belief and truths, Gidon reminds us that we have the power to incrementally improve what is in front of us and leave something better behind us.

His life is a lesson of how to do it, even in the face of astonishing adversity, and Let’s Make Things Better is the calling card of an indomitable spirit.

Claudia Garcia crossed the border because her toddler, Natalia, could not hear. Leaving behind everything she knew in Mexico, Claudia recounts the terror of migrating alone with her toddler and the incredible challenges she faced advocating for her daughter's health in the United States. When she arrived in Texas, Claudia discovered that being undocumented would mean more than just an immigration status--it would be a way of living, of mothering, and of being discarded by even those institutions we count on to care. Elizabeth Farfan-Santos spent five years with Claudia. As she listened to Claudia's experiences, she recalled her own mother's story, another life molded by migration, the US-Mexico border, and the quest for a healthy future on either side. Witnessing Claudia's struggles with doctors and teachers, we see how the education and medical systems enforce undocumented status and perpetuate disability. At one point, in the midst of advocating for her daughter, Claudia suddenly finds herself struck by debilitating pain. Claudia is lifted up by her comadres, sent to the doctor, and reminded why she must care for herself. A braided narrative that speaks to the power of stories for creating connection, this book reveals what remains undocumented in the motherhood of Mexican women who find themselves making impossible decisions and multiple sacrifices as they build a future for their families.

The digital storytelling project Humanizing Deportation invites migrants to present their own stories in the world's largest and most diverse archive of its kind. Since 2017, more than 300 community storytellers have created their own audiovisual testimonial narratives, sharing their personal experiences of migration and repatriation. With Migrant Feelings, Migrant Knowledge, the project's coordinator, Robert Irwin, and other team members introduce the project's innovative participatory methodology, drawing out key issues regarding the human consequences of contemporary migration control regimes, as well as insights from migrants whose world-making endeavors may challenge what we think we know about migration. In recent decades, migrants in North America have been treated with unprecedented harshness. Migrant Feelings, Migrant Knowledge outlines this recent history, revealing stories both of grave injustice and of seemingly unsurmountable obstacles overcome. As Irwin writes, "The greatest source of expertise on the human consequences of contemporary migration control are the migrants who have experienced them," and their voices in this searing collection jump off the page and into our hearts and minds.

Shortlisted for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize 2022 for Nature Writing - Highly Commended Winner for the Richard Jefferies Award 2021 for Best Nature Writing 'A rural, working-class writer in an all too rarefied field, Chester's work is unusual for depicting the countryside as it is lived on the economic margins.' The Guardian 'An important portrait of connection to the land beyond ownership or possession.' Raynor Winn 'It's ever so good. Political, passionate and personal.' Robert Macfarlane 'Evocative and inspiring...environmental protest, family, motherhood and...nature.' Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground, Costa Novel Award Winner 2021 Nature is everything. It is the place I come from and the place I got to. It is family. Wherever I am, it is home and away, an escape, a bolt hole, a reason, a place to fight for, a consolation, and a way home. As a child growing up in rural England, Guardian Country Diarist Nicola Chester was inexorably drawn to the natural landscape surrounding her. Walking, listening and breathing in the nature around her, she followed the call of the cuckoo, the song of the nightingale and watched as red kites, fieldfares and skylarks soared through the endless skies over the chalk hills of the North Wessex Downs: the ancient land of Greenham Common which she called home. Nicola bears witness to, and fights against, the stark political and environmental changes imposed on the land she loves, whilst raising her family to appreciate nature and to feel like they belong - core parts of who Nicola is. From protesting the loss of ancient trees to the rewilding of Greenham Common, to the gibbet on Gallows Down and living in the shadow of Highclere Castle (made famous in Downton Abbey), On Gallows Down shows how one woman made sense of her world - and found her place in it.

In 1884 begin Hendrik Witbooi en sy Namavolk met 'n profetiese trek na die vrugbare noorde om aan die droogte van die Kalahariwoestyn te ontsnap. Terselfdertyd stap die keiserlike afgevaardigde dr. Göring sowat 'n honderd kilometer daarvandaan aan land in die nuwe Duitse kolonie Suidwes-Afrika - die huidige Namibië.

Daarop volg 'n stryd om lewe en dood tussen die Duitse Schutztruppe en die Afrikane wat vir hul onafhanklikheid veg.

Die honderde briewe wat deur Hendrik Witbooi aan Duitse goewerneurs, Engelse magistrate en Afrikaleiers geskryf is, het aan Conny Braam unieke insig gegee in die wêreld van Witbooi: sy liefde vir die ou volk van die Khoisan, die leringe van sendeling Olpp, sy verontrusting oor die Westerse kredietstelsel wat van sy volk slawe sou maak en sy intense verdriet toe hy besef dat keiser Wilhelm II die totale vernietiging van die opstandige inheemse bevolking eis.

In 1904 lei die tagtigjarige Hendrik nog een keer die opstand teen die Duitse koloniale leër. Hy sou die geskiedenis ingaan as een van die grootste vryheidstryders wat Afrika geken het.

“'n Verhaal wat onder geen omstandighede vergeet mag word nie.” - Trouw

Witchcraft continues to play a role in the modern European imagination and in its cultures. This book brings together studies of its most important modern manifestations. The volume includes a major new history of the origins and development of English 'Wicca', an account of satanic abuse mythology in the Twentieth Century and a survey of the continued existence of traditional witchcraft.

Sapiens showed us where we came from. In uncertain times, Homo Deus shows us where we’re going.

Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century and beyond – from overcoming death to creating artificial life.

It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?

'Homo Deus will shock you. It will entertain you. It will make you think in ways you had not thought before’ Daniel Kahneman, bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Is Latinidad a racial or an ethnic designation? Both? Neither? The increasing recognition of diversity within Latinx communities and the well-known story of shifting census designations have cast doubt on the idea that Latinidad is a race, akin to white or Black. And the mainstream media constantly cover the "browning" of the United States, as though the racial character of Latinidad were self-evident. Many scholars have argued that the uncertainty surrounding Latinidad is emancipatory: by queering race--by upsetting assumptions about categories of human difference--Latinidad destabilizes the architecture of oppression. But Laura Grappo is less sanguine. She draws on case studies including the San Antonio Four (Latinas who were wrongfully accused of child sex abuse); the football star Aaron Hernandez's incarceration and suicide; Lorena Bobbitt, the headline-grabbing Ecuadorian domestic-abuse survivor; and controversies over the racial identities of public Latinx figures to show how media institutions and state authorities deploy the ambiguities of Latinidad in ways that mystify the sources of Latinx political and economic disadvantage. With Latinidad always in a state of flux, it is all too easy for the powerful to conjure whatever phantoms serve their interests.

‘How can there be only one dedicated hospital in the country for our children?’

When Madiba asked this question, he sowed the seeds of a challenge that would grow into a legacy.

A seed may be small but its size is disproportionate to what it can become over time. The Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital was a project that seemed impossible when it was just an idea that started with ten people seated around a dinner table. As they discussed the state of healthcare in the country and shared their experiences, they realised that it was the children of Southern Africa who were the most disadvantaged by the lack of dedicated paediatric facilities. At the end of the evening a statement by the late Dr Nthato Motlana took hold and became the catalyst for a remarkable journey: ‘I will speak to Nelson,’ he said.

With South Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela’s backing, the board of the Children’s Fund was inspired to take up the challenge to address this vital need. After years of global research and advice from experts in numerous different fields a Trust was formed to oversee the project and, critically, to set about raising the one billion rand it would take to build, equip and staff a state-of-the-art children’s hospital.

The stories behind the planning for, fundraising and building of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital are inspiring, personal, and sometimes heart-breaking. It was a long and arduous journey, beset with difficulties, but the dedicated team’s commitment and courage prevailed to create a living legacy that will truly impact the lives of children for generations to come.

Today, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital in Johannesburg is a proud testimony to a uniquely African story which honours the memory of a great statesman and celebrates the children for whom he cared so deeply.

Journey through thousands of years of human history (now with the women put back in).

From the earliest human civilizations through to the present day, the stories of countless influential women – leaders, artists, warriors, scientists and more – have been ignored, forgotten, or actively suppressed. You may not have encountered the likes of Fatima al-Fihri (an Islamic World visionary who founded the world's first university), Ching Shih (the most successful pirate in history), or Huda Sha'arawi (a pioneering Egyptian feminist leader, suffragist, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union), but that's about to change.

In What’s Her Name: A History of the World in 80 Lost Women, authors – and sisters – Olivia Meikle and Katie Nelson weave together the captivating stories of these fascinating figures to tell an alternative, enthralling and deeply researched historical narrative. A truly global history, What’s Her Name features biographies of incredible women spanning six continents and thousands of years, from Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire to imperial China, the Americas and post-war Europe.

Drawing on years of study and interviews with dozens of experts, this is an entertaining, thought-provoking look at the trailblazing women you may not have heard of (but should have).

THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year Award 2019

'Easily the most important book to be published this century. I find it hard to take any young activist seriously who hasn't at least familarised themselves with Zuboff's central ideas.' - Zadie Smith, The Guardian

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control us.

The heady optimism of the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions. Tech companies gather our information online and sell it to the highest bidder, whether government or retailer. Profits now depend not only on predicting our behaviour but modifying it too. How will this fusion of capitalism and the digital shape our values and define our future?

Shoshana Zuboff shows that we are at a crossroads. We still have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in, and what we decide now will shape the rest of the century. Our choices: allow technology to enrich the few and impoverish the many, or harness it and distribute its benefits.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deeply-reasoned examination of the threat of unprecedented power free from democratic oversight. As it explores this new capitalism's impact on society, politics, business, and technology, it exposes the struggles that will decide both the next chapter of capitalism and the meaning of information civilization. Most critically, it shows how we can protect ourselves and our communities and ensure we are the masters of the digital rather than its slaves.

Son Jarocho was born as the regional sound of Veracruz but over time became a Mexican national genre, even transnational, genre-a touchstone of Chicano identity in the United States. Mario Barradas and Son Jarocho traces a musical journey from the Gulf Coast to interior Mexico and across the border, describing the transformations of Son Jarocho along the way. This comprehensive cultural study pairs ethnographic and musicological insights with an oral history of the late Mario Barradas, one of Son Jarocho's preeminent modern musicians. Chicano musician Francisco Gonzalez offers an insider's account of Barradas's influence and Son Jarocho's musical qualities, while Rafael Figueroa Hernandez delves into Barradas's recordings and films. Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez examines the interplay between Son Jarocho's indigenous roots and contemporary role in Mexican and US society. The result is a nuanced portrait of a vital and evolving musical tradition.