"Who's Who in British Climbing" contains nearly 700 mini biographies of climbers - the romantics, eccentrics and buffoons that have made British Climbing what it is: dissolute and hungover most of the time, with the odd unexpected burst of brilliance.They form a world class cast of eccentrics ranging from the most virtuous to the most hedonistically barbarous characters one could ever hope to meet. At one end of the moral spectrum we have Archdeacon Hudson Stuck solemnly tutoring his native charges on ecclesiastical history while making the first ascent of Denali. At the other there's Satan-loving Aleister Crowley pleasuring himself in his tent on Kangchenjunga while his helpless avalanched companions were crying for help a few yards away. In between are the usual sprinkling of psychotic nut jobs, consummate show-offs and infuriatingly brilliant athletes.The selection of folk gracing the pages has been anything but scientifically objective. The intention has been to include anyone who was born in Britain who happened to do something significant or interesting anywhere, not just in the UK.

Comprising five microhistories, this book proposes that the French Revolution's religious politics in small towns weakened democratic society to such an extent that it precluded political democracy. It details two revolutionary dynamics that damaged the civic life of small towns: social polarisation and the loss of local institutions that had been a source of social capital as well as a common good. Detailed narratives about Pont-a-Mousson, Gournay-en-Bray, Vienne, Haguenau and Is-sur-Tille also reveal that contrary to the view upheld by many scholars, small-town religious politics extended far beyond the pivotal Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791. Other developments - the nationalisation of Church property, the dissolution of religious orders, and the elimination of bishoprics, chapters, parishes and collegial churches - also adversely affected the wellbeing of these small urban communities not only in the Revolution but also in the two centuries that followed. -- .