Negotiation is a key skill for your job, your closest relationships, and even your everyday life, but often people shy away from it, feeling like they're marching into battle or that they're settling for less. Enter Alexandra Carter, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Mediation Program at Columbia University, NYC, who has taught students, business professionals and even the United Nations for more than a decade on this very topic. In Ask for More: Ten Questions to Improve Your Negotiations, Your Relationships and Your Life, Carter brings her breadth of knowledge to help anyone, regardless of their situation, ask for - and get - more. Rather than adhering to the popular narrative that only the loudest and most assertive among us get what they want, Carter invites readers to rethink negotiation entirely. Through asking open-ended questions rather than panicked ones, you'll be better able to steer a conversation, a negotiation, and ultimately a relationship for long-term success. She teaches a simple, yet powerful, ten-question framework for successful negotiation. The first five questions are the ones you first need to ask yourself (called 'mirror' questions) and the last five are the ones you ask who you're negotiating with (called 'window' questions). The responses to such questions as "what's brought me here?", "how do I feel?" and "what do I need?" will pave the way for a productive conversation based on values and needs. Carter's method helps readers go far beyond one "yes" or handshake to create value that lasts a lifetime. Accessible, powerful, and inspiring, Ask for More gives readers the tools to bring clarity and perspective to any important discussion.

First published in 2005. The Victorian and Edwardian music hall ballet has been a neglected facet of dance historiography, falling prey principally to the misguided assumption that any ballet not performed at the Opera House or 'legitimate' theatre necessarily meant it was of low cultural and artistic merit. Here Alexandra Carter identifies the traditional marginalization of the working class female participants in ballet historiography, and moves on to reinstate the 'lost' period of the music hall ballet and to apply a critical account of that period. Carter examines the working conditions of the dancers, the identities and professional lives of the ballet girls and the ways in which the ballet of the music hall embodied the sexual psyche of the period, particularly in its representations of the ballet girl and the ballerina. By drawing on newspapers, journals, theatre programmes, contemporary fiction, poetry and autobiography, Carter firmly locates the period in its social, economic and artistic context. The book culminates in the argument that there are direct links between the music hall ballet and what has been termed the 'birth' of British ballet in the 1930s; a link so long ignored by dance historians. This work will appeal not only to those interested in nineteenth century studies, but also to those working in the fields of dance studies, gender studies, cultural studies and the performing arts.

First published in 2005. The Victorian and Edwardian music hall ballet has been a neglected facet of dance historiography, falling prey principally to the misguided assumption that any ballet not performed at the Opera House or 'legitimate' theatre necessarily meant it was of low cultural and artistic merit. Here Alexandra Carter identifies the traditional marginalization of the working class female participants in ballet historiography, and moves on to reinstate the 'lost' period of the music hall ballet and to apply a critical account of that period. Carter examines the working conditions of the dancers, the identities and professional lives of the ballet girls and the ways in which the ballet of the music hall embodied the sexual psyche of the period, particularly in its representations of the ballet girl and the ballerina. By drawing on newspapers, journals, theatre programmes, contemporary fiction, poetry and autobiography, Carter firmly locates the period in its social, economic and artistic context. The book culminates in the argument that there are direct links between the music hall ballet and what has been termed the 'birth' of British ballet in the 1930s; a link so long ignored by dance historians. This work will appeal not only to those interested in nineteenth century studies, but also to those working in the fields of dance studies, gender studies, cultural studies and the performing arts.