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 end of the eighteenth century saw the end of the witch trials everywhere. This volume charts the processes and reasons for the decriminalisation of witchcraft but also challenges the widespread assumption that Europe has been 'disenchanted'. For the first time surveys are given of the social role of witchcraft in European communities down to the end of the nineteenth century and of the continued importance of witchcraft and magic as topics of debate among intellectuals and other writers

Africa Reimagined is a passionately argued appeal for a rediscovery of our African identity. Going beyond the problems of a single country, Hlumelo Biko calls for a reorientation of values, on a continental scale, to suit the needs and priorities of Africans. Building on the premise that slavery, colonialism, imperialism and apartheid fundamentally unbalanced the values and indeed the very self-concept of Africans, he offers realistic steps to return to a more balanced Afro-centric identity.

Historically, African values were shaped by a sense of abundance, in material and mental terms, and by strong ties of community. The intrusion of religious, economic and legal systems imposed by conquerors, traders and missionaries upset this balance, and the African identity was subsumed by the values of the newcomers. Biko shows how a reimagining of Africa can restore the sense of abundance and possibility, and what a rebirth of the continent on Pan-African lines might look like. This is not about the churn of the news cycle or party politics – although he identifies the political party as one of the most pernicious legacies of colonialism. Instead, drawing on latest research, he offers a practical, pragmatic vision anchored in the here and now.

By looking beyond identities and values imposed from outside, and transcending the divisions and frontiers imposed under colonialism, it should be possible for Africans to develop fully their skills, values and ingenuity, to build institutions that reflect African values, and to create wealth for the benefit of the continent as a whole.

Prior to the 1870s, Association Football tended to be enjoyed as a form of exercise at public schools or a game between friends in a local park. However, with the administrative skills of the likes of Charles Alcock, Francis Marindin, Arthur Kinnaird and William McGregor, the game grew to such an extent that it became an important part in the lives of both players and spectators as the century reached its end.The history of the early clubs, international games, as well as the growth of the professional clubs, are all encompassed in this book, including the likes of Aston Villa, Manchester United and Liverpool, when they started out as struggling little clubs.

A magisterial history of South Africa, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present.

Leonard Thompson, a leading scholar in southern African history and politics, provides a fresh and penetrating exploration of the country's history, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present, focusing primarily on experiences of its black inhabitants.

The Fourth Edition of this classic text brings South Africa's history up to date with a new chapter chronicling the first presidential term of Mbeki and ending with the funeral of Nelson Mandela.

The untold story of Wilhelm Reich and the dawn of the sexual revolution. An illuminating, startling, at times bizarre story of sex and science, ecstasy and repression. In the middle of the 20th century, the United States became an adoptive home for dozens of expatriated European thinkers, who saw this rich, young country ripe for sexual liberation. One of the most left-field of them was the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a disciple of Freud's who had broken with the master. Reich's own approach was based on his theories of the orgasm and sexual energy, which he dubbed 'orgone energy'. Instead of the couch, he made use of a tall, slender construction of wood, metal, and steel wool, which he called the orgone box. A highly sexed man himself, Reich thought that a person who sat in the box could elevate their 'orgastic potential' ridding the body of repressive forces, improving sexual potency, and enhancing overall health. After World War Two, Reich's theories caught on among writers and artists, the early adopters of the counter-culture. Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow were amongst those for whom the orgone box represented a yearned-for synthesis of sexual and political liberation, and of physical science and psychology. Meanwhile, Reich himself faced one debacle after another. Albert Einstein heard him out before rebuffing him. The FBI investigated him as a Communist sympathizer: it turned out that they were hunting the wrong man. The federal government banned the orgone box and tagged Reich as a fraud. There were claims of sexual misdeeds, and bouts of Reich's own mental instability. This is the story of the blossoming of the 20th century's sexual revolution, and the unshackling of a repressed society, and sex before science.

The Ancient Schools of Gloucester traces the history of education in the City of Gloucester from its origins in the cloister school of St Peter's Abbey about a thousand years ago. Starting in the early Middle Ages, the rivalries between the two Gloucester grammar schools maintained by St Oswald's and Llanthony priories are described. The contributions of the Benedictines, Augustinian canons and founders of the medieval chantries are assessed. The creation of new grammar schools in the reign of Henry VIII at the Crypt and King's is fully documented along with the development of these schools through the pivotal years of the Civil War and into the 18th century. There is a special focus on the career of Maurice Wheeler, Gloucester's most distinguished schoolmaster. As the country began to move towards mass education during the 18th century, the role of other initiatives, such as private schools for girls, Sunday Schools and Sir Thomas Rich's Bluecoat school for apprentice boys, is also covered. Whilst several histories have been published in the past of individual schools, this chronological and fully illustrated study is the first time an author has brought together the early histories of the ancient schools of the City into a single volume, which sets the Gloucester experience in its national context.

By 1955 Sally and John Seymour had both seen a number of countries but practically nothing of their own. As for some years they had lived in a 34-ton Dutch sailing yacht they decided to dispel their ignorance of England by travelling round as much of it as they had time for in this vessel. Sailing Through England is an account of that voyage. Setting out from Portsmouth the Seymours would navigate the rivers and canals of East Anglia, the Midlands and the North, penetrating as far inland as Leeds and Bradford, finally crossing the country by a canal climbing right over the Pennine chain to Liverpool and the Irish Sea. Their account is both a vivid panorama of England's contrasts and a fascinating exploration of a navigational challenge, and along the way a wealth of real-life characters are encountered and brilliantly described on the page, accompanied by Sally Seymour's delightful drawings.

It’s easy to imagine that state capture began with Jacob Zuma and the Guptas. But you’d be wrong.

Born out of the ANC Women’s League 20 years ago, Bosasa has come to be described as the ANC’s ‘Heart of Darkness’. At its helm today is Gavin Watson, a struggle-rugby-player-turned-tenderpreneur who made it his business to splash out on gifts and cash to get up close and personal with the country’s top politicians and civil servants. In return, Bosasa won tenders to the tune of billions of rands and – with friends in high places – stayed clear of prosecution. Adriaan Basson has been investigating Bosasa since he was a rookie journalist 13 years ago. He has been sued, intimidated and threatened, but has stuck to the story like a bloodhound. Now, in the wake of the explosive findings of the Zondo commission, he has weaved the threads of Bosasa’s story together.

Blessed by Bosasa is a riveting in-depth investigation into an extraordinary story of high-level corruption and rampant pillage, of backdoor dealings and grandiose greed. Through substantial research and a number of interviews with key individuals, Basson unveils the shady, cult-like underbelly of the criminal company that held the Zuma government in the palm of its hand.

Off-beat, irreverent and subversive – a Jewish family memoir about convenient delusions and unsayable truths, from the acclaimed author of the cult classic novel, Submarine.

Joe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home.

The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life – an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knew…

Thus begins a mystery which stretches across the twentieth century and around the world, from Berlin to Ankara, New York, Glasgow and eventually London – a mystery about the production of something much more sinister than toothpaste. On the trail of one ‘jolly grandpa’ with a patchy psychiatric history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of poison gases, Joe Dunthorne is forced to confront the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family. Can we ever understand where we come from? Is every family in the end a work of fiction? And even if the truth can be found – will we be able to live with it?

Children of Radium is a remarkable, searching meditation on individual and collective inheritance. Witty and wry, deeply humane and endlessly surprising, it considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.