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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
The long eighteenth century was a period of major transformation
for Europe and India as imperialism heralded a new global order.
Eschewing the reductive perspectives of nation-state histories and
postcolonial 'east vs west' oppositions, contributors to India and
Europe in the global eighteenth century put forward a more nuanced
and interdisciplinary analysis. Using eastern as well as western
sources, authors present fresh insights into European and Indian
relations and highlight: how anxieties over war and piracy shaped
commercial activity; how French, British and Persian histories of
India reveal the different geo-political issues at stake; the
material legacy of India in European cultural life; how novels
parodied popular views of the Orient and provided
counter-narratives to images of India as the site of corruption;
how social transformations, traditionally characterised as 'Mughal
decline', in effect forged new global connections that informed
political culture into the nineteenth century.
The Communist Temptation: Rolland, Gide, Malraux, and Their Times
traces the evolution of the committed left-wing public intellectual
in the interwar period, specifically in the 1930s, and focuses on
leading left-wing intellectuals, such as Romain Rolland, Andre
Gide, and Andre Malraux, and their relationships with communism and
the broader anti-fascist movement. In that turbulent decade, Paris
also welcomed a growing number of Russian, Austrian, Italian,
Dutch, Belgian, German, and German-speaking Central European
refugees-activists, writers, and agents, among them Willi
Munzenberg, Mikhail Koltsov, Eugen Fried, Ilya Ehrenburg, Manes
Sperber, and Arthur Koestler-and Paris once again became a hotbed
of international political activism. Events, however, signaled a
decline in the high ethical standards set by Emile Zola and the
Dreyfusards earlier in the twentieth century, as many pro-communist
intellectuals acted in bad faith to support an ideology that they
in all likelihood knew to be morally bankrupt. Among them, only
Gide rebelled against Moscow, which caused ideological lines to
harden to the point where there was little room for critical reason
to assert itself.
New perspectives on Anglo-Jewish history via the poetry and song of
Yiddish-speaking immigrants in London from 1884 to 1914. Archive
material from the London Yiddish press, songbooks, and satirical
writing offers a window into an untold cultural life of the Yiddish
East End. Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song
and Verse, London 1884-1914 by Vivi Lachs positions London's
Yiddish popular culture in historical perspective within
Anglo-Jewish history, English socialist aesthetics, and music-hall
culture, and shows its relationship to the transnational
Yiddish-speaking world. Layers of cultural references in the
Yiddish texts are closely analysed and quoted to draw out the
complex yet intimate histories they contain, offering new
perspectives on Anglo-Jewish historiography in three main areas:
politics, sex, and religion. The acculturation of Jewish immigrants
to English life is an important part of the development of their
social culture, as well as to the history of London. In the first
part of the book, Lachs presents an overview of daily immigrant
life in London, its relationship to the Anglo-Jewish establishment,
and the development of a popular Yiddish theatre and press,
establishing a context from which these popular texts came. The
author then analyzes the poems and songs, revealing the hidden
social histories of the people writing and performing them. Lachs
also explores how themes of marriage, relationships, and sexual
exploitation appear regularly in music-hall songs, alluding to the
changing nature of sexual roles in the immigrant London community
influenced by the cultural mores of their new location. In the
theme of religion, Lachs examines how ideas from Jewish texts and
practice were used and manipulated by the socialist poets to
advance ideas about class, equality, and revolution; and satirical
writings offer glimpses into how the practice of religion and
growing secularization was changing immigrants' daily lives in the
encounter with modernity. The detailed and nuanced analysis found
in Whitechapel Noise offers a new reading of Anglo-Jewish, London,
and immigrant history. It is a must-read for Jewish and
Anglo-Jewish historians and those interested in Yiddish, London,
and migration studies.
In the wake of 9/11, the United States government rediscovered the
value of culture in international relations, sending cultural
ambassadors around the world to promote the American way of life.
This is the most recent effort to use American culture as a means
to convince others that the United States is a land of freedom,
equality, opportunity, and scientific and cultural achievements to
match its material wealth and military prowess. In The History of
United States Cultural Diplomacy Michael Krenn charts the history
of the cultural diplomacy efforts from Benjamin Franklin's service
as commissioner to France in the 1770s through to the present day.
He explores how these efforts were sometimes inspiring, often
disastrous, and nearly always controversial attempts to tell the
'truth' about America. This is the first comprehensive study of
America's efforts in the field of cultural diplomacy. It reveals a
dynamic conflict between those who view U.S. culture as a means to
establish meaningful dialogues with the rest of the world and those
who consider American art, music, theater as additional propaganda
weapons.
From the presenter of BBC One's Scotland from the Sky You scramble
up over the dunes of an isolated beach. You climb to the summit of
a lonely hill. You pick your way through the eerie hush of a
forest. And then you find them. The traces of the past. Perhaps
they are marked by a tiny symbol on your map, perhaps not. There
are no plaques to explain their fading presence before you, nothing
to account for what they once were - who made them, lived in them
or abandoned them. Now they are merged with the landscape. They are
being reclaimed by nature. They are wild history. In this book
acclaimed author and presenter James Crawford introduces many such
places all over the country, from the ruins of prehistoric forts
and ancient, arcane burial sites, to abandoned bothies and
boathouses, and the derelict traces of old, faded industry.
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.
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.
Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club choice New York Times
bestseller 'Fascinating.' Sunday Times 'Thrilling.' Mail on Sunday
All they wanted was the chance to shine. Be careful what you wish
for... 'The first thing we asked was, "Does this stuff hurt you?"
And they said, "No." The company said that it wasn't dangerous,
that we didn't need to be afraid.' As the First World War spread
across the world, young American women flocked to work in
factories, painting clocks, watches and military dials with a
special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job,
lucrative and glamorous - the girls shone brightly in the dark,
covered head to toe in dust from the paint. However, as the years
passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling
illnesses. It turned out that the very thing that had made them
feel alive - their work - was slowly killing them: the radium paint
was poisonous. Their employers denied all responsibility, but these
courageous women - in the face of unimaginable suffering - refused
to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to
fight for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished diaries,
letters and interviews, The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative
of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group
of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned
how to roar. Further praise for The Radium Girls 'The importance of
the brave and blighted dial-painters cannot be overstated.' Sunday
Times 'A perfect blend of the historical, the scientific and the
personal.' Bustle 'Thrilling and carefully crafted.' Mail on Sunday
This book provides a holistic overview of the history of
sustainable development in Denmark over the last fifty years,
covering a host of issues central to the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs): ending poverty; ensuring inclusive and equitable
education; reducing inequality; making cities and settlements
inclusive, safe and resilient; and fostering responsible production
and consumption patterns, to name a few. It argues for a new
framework of sustainability history, one that is truly global in
outlook. As such, it explores what truly global sustainable
development would look like. It considers how economic growth has
been the driver for prosperity in the global north, and considers
whether sustainable development and continued economic growth are
irreconcilable, and what the future of sustainable development
initiatives in Denmark might look like.
This book challenges long-accepted historical orthodoxy about
relations between the Spanish and the Indians in the borderlands
separating what are now Mexico and the United States. While most
scholars describe the decades after 1790 as a period of relative
peace between the occupying Spaniards and the Apaches, Mark
Santiago sees in the Mescalero Apache attacks on the Spanish
beginning in 1795 a sustained, widespread, and bloody conflict. He
argues that Commandant General Pedro de Nava's coordinated
campaigns against the Mescaleros were the culmination of the
Spanish military's efforts to contain Apache aggression,
constituting one of its largest and most sustained operations in
northern New Spain. A Bad Peace and a Good War examines the
antecedents, tactics, and consequences of the fighting. This
conflict occurred immediately after the Spanish military had
succeeded in making an uneasy peace with portions of all Apache
groups. The Mescaleros were the first to break the peace,
annihilating two Spanish patrols in August 1795. Galvanized by the
loss, Commandant General Nava struggled to determine the extent to
which Mescaleros residing in ""peace establishments"" outside
Spanish settlements near El Paso, San Elizario, and Presidio del
Norte were involved. Santiago looks at the impact of conflicting
Spanish military strategies and increasing demands for fiscal
efficiency as a result of Spain's imperial entanglements. He
examines Nava's yearly invasions of Mescalero territory, his
divide-and-rule policy using other Apaches to attack the
Mescaleros, and his deportation of prisoners from the frontier,
preventing the Mescaleros from redeeming their kin. Santiago
concludes that the consequences of this war were overwhelmingly
negative for Mescaleros and ambiguous for Spaniards. The war's
legacy of bitterness lasted far beyond the end of Spanish rule, and
the continued independence of so many Mescaleros and other Apaches
in their homeland proved the limits of Spanish military authority.
In the words of Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez, the Spaniards had
technically won a ""good war"" against the Mescaleros and went on
to manage a ""bad peace.
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Raving
(Paperback)
McKenzie Wark
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R410
R367
Discovery Miles 3 670
Save R43 (10%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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What is an art of life for what feels like the end of a world? In
Raving McKenzie Wark takes readers into the undisclosed locations
of New York's thriving underground queer and trans rave scene.
Techno, first and always a Black music, invites fresh sonic and
temporal possibilities for this era of diminishing futures. Raving
to techno is an art and a technique at which queer and trans bodies
might be particularly adept but which is for anyone who lets the
beat seduce them. Extending the rave's sensations, situations, fog,
lasers, drugs, and pounding sound systems onto the page, Wark
invokes a trans practice of raving as a timely aesthetic for
dancing in the ruins of this collapsing capital.
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