Throughout time, from ancient Rome to modern Britain, the great empires built and maintained their domination through force of arms and political power. But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way -- through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The Routledge Companion to Freedom of Expression and Censorship offers a thorough exploration of the debates surrounding this contentious topic, considering the importance placed upon it in democratic societies and the reasons frequently proposed for limiting and constraining it. This volume addresses the various historical, philosophical, political and cultural parameters of censorship and freedom of expression as well as current debates involving technology, journalism and media regulation. Geographically, temporally and culturally diverse accounts of censorship and freedom of expression are discussed through a broad range of perspectives and case studies. This Companion covers core principles and concerns in addition to more specialist and controversial debates, including those surrounding hate speech, holocaust denial, pornography and so-called ‘cancel culture’. The collection pays particular attention to the role of the media in both facilitating and suppressing freedom of expression. Comprehensive, original and timely, The Routledge Companion to Freedom of Expression and Censorship is a go-to resource for scholars and advanced students of media, communication and journalism studies.

This collection of essays on cultural astronomy celebrates the life and work of Clive Ruggles, Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at Leicester University. Taking their lead from Ruggles' work, the papers present new research focused on three core themes in cultural astronomy: methodology, case studies, and heritage. Through this framework, they show how the study of cultural astronomy has evolved over time and share new ideas to continue advancing the field. Ruggles' work in these areas has had a profound impact on the way that scholars approach evidence of the role of sky in both ancient and modern cultures. While the papers span many time periods and regions, they are closely connected by these three major themes, presenting methodological investigations of how we can approach archaeological, textual, and ethnographic evidence; describing detailed archaeoastronomical case studies; or stressing the importance of global heritage management. This work will appeal to researchers and scholars interested in the history and development of cultural astronomy.

MUL.APIN, written sometime before the 8th century BC, was the most widely copied astronomical text in ancient Mesopotamia: a compendium including information such as star lists, descriptions of planetary phases, mathematical schemes for the length of day and night, a discussion of the luni-solar calendar and rules for intercalation, and a short collection of celestial omens. This book contains an introductory essay, followed by a new edition of the text and a facing-page transliteration and English translation. Finally, the book contains a new and detailed commentary on the text. This is a fascinating study, and an important resource for anyone interested in the history of astronomy.

This book provides an account of current work on letters to the editor from a range of different national, cultural, conceptual and methodological perspectives. Letters to the editor provide a window on the reflexive relationship between editorial and readership identities in historical and international contexts. They are a forum through which the personal and the political intersect, a space wherein the implications of contemporaneous events are worked out by citizens and public figures alike, and in which the meaning and significance of unfolding media narratives and events are interpreted and contested. They can also be used to understand the multiple and overlapping ways that particular issues recur over sometimes widely distinct periods. This collection brings together scholars who have helped open up letters to the editor as a resource for scholarship and whose work in this book continues to provide new insights into the relationship between journalism and its publics.

This volume explores how scholars wrote, preserved, circulated, and read knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia. It offers an exercise in micro-history that provides a case study for attempting to understand the relationship between scholars and scholarship during this time of great innovation. The papers in this collection focus on tablets written in the city of Uruk in southern Babylonia. These archives come from two different scholarly contexts. One is a private residence inhabited during successive phases by two families of priests who were experts in ritual and medicine. The other is the most important temple in Uruk during the late Achemenid and Hellenistic periods. The contributors undertake detailed studies of this material to explore the scholarly practices of individuals, the connection between different scholarly genres, and the exchange of knowledge between scholars in the city and scholars in other parts of Babylonia and the Greek world. In addition, this collection examines the archives in which the texts were found and the scribes who owned or wrote them. It also considers the interconnections between different genres of knowledge and the range of activities of individual scribes. In doing so, it answers questions of interest not only for the study of Babylonian scholarship but also for the study of ancient Mesopotamian textual culture more generally, and for the study of traditions of written knowledge in the ancient world.

Journalism and Free Speech brings together for the first time an historical and theoretical exploration of journalism and its relationship with the idea of free speech. Though freedom of the press is widely regarded as an essential ingredient to democratic societies, the relationship between the idea of freedom of speech and the practice of press freedom is one that is generally taken for granted. Censorship, in general terms is an anathema.

This book explores the philosophical and historical development of free speech and critically examines the ways in which it relates to freedom of the press in practice. The main contention of the book is that the actualisation of press freedom should be seen as encompassing modes of censorship which place pressure upon the principled connection between journalism and freedom of speech. Topics covered include:

• The Philosophy of Free Speech
• Journalism and Free Speech
• Press Freedom and the Democratic Imperative
• New Media and the Global Public Sphere
• Regulating Journalism
• Privacy and Defamation
• National Security and Insecurity
• Ownership
• News, Language Culture and Censorship

This book introduces students to a wide range of issues centred around freedom of speech, press freedom and censorship, providing an accessible text for courses on journalism and mass media.

The Routledge Companion to British Media History provides a comprehensive exploration of how different media have evolved within social, regional and national contexts. The 50 chapters in this volume, written by an outstanding team of internationally respected scholars, bring together current debates and issues within media history in this era of rapid change, and also provide students and researchers with an essential collection of comparable media histories. The first two parts of the Companion comprise a series of thematic chapters reflecting broadly on historiography, providing historical context for discussions of the power of the media and their social importance, arranged in the following sections: Media history debates Media and society The subsequent parts are made up of in-depth sections on different media formats, exploring various approaches to historicizing media futures, divided as follows: Newspapers Magazines Radio Film Television Digital media The Routledge Companion to British Media History provides an essential guide to key ideas, issues, concepts and debates in the field. Chapter 40 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at www.tandfebooks.com/openaccess. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license.

At the turn of the 20th century, the significant social, political, and technological changes that were occurring in society also heralded new roles and functions for journalism as a profession and as an aspect of a burgeoning mass mediated society. Redefining Journalism in the Era of the Mass Press, 1880-1920 examines journalism's roles, products, and practices during an era of rapid change and transformation, and how these changes within the field reflected broader social, political, economic, and technological changes. The era of the mass press was one within which the speed and impact of change both reflected and contributed to transformations in journalism - transformations that would endure until the rise of the Internet disrupted the field once again. This book was originally published as a special issue of Media History.

This collection of essays on cultural astronomy celebrates the life and work of Clive Ruggles, Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at Leicester University. Taking their lead from Ruggles' work, the papers present new research focused on three core themes in cultural astronomy: methodology, case studies, and heritage. Through this framework, they show how the study of cultural astronomy has evolved over time and share new ideas to continue advancing the field. Ruggles' work in these areas has had a profound impact on the way that scholars approach evidence of the role of sky in both ancient and modern cultures. While the papers span many time periods and regions, they are closely connected by these three major themes, presenting methodological investigations of how we can approach archaeological, textual, and ethnographic evidence; describing detailed archaeoastronomical case studies; or stressing the importance of global heritage management. This work will appeal to researchers and scholars interested in the history and development of cultural astronomy.

The modern world, 1979. As the first waves of punk splinter into scores of new directions, a Mod renewal is bursting onto the streets of London and Chris Davis and his mates are at its epicentre. These are fast times for the new breed of modernists and the days and nights speed by in a glorious haze of pills, music, sex, gang violence and scooter fumes.There are kicks to be had but also kicks to receive as the backstreets of Breadline Britain seethe with rival subcultures. Skinheads, Teds and football hooligans are all desperate to cut these sharp, young newcomers down to size with a blood-thirsty glee. Chris finds love and a sense of belonging in the Mod scene but the spectre of the August Bank holiday pilgrimage toSouthend is on the horizon and events are about to take a dark turn. This is the time for action.

Journalism and Free Speech brings together for the first time an historical and theoretical exploration of journalism and its relationship with the idea of free speech. Though freedom of the press is widely regarded as an essential ingredient to democratic societies, the relationship between the idea of freedom of speech and the practice of press freedom is one that is generally taken for granted. Censorship, in general terms is an anathema.

This book explores the philosophical and historical development of free speech and critically examines the ways in which it relates to freedom of the press in practice. The main contention of the book is that the actualisation of press freedom should be seen as encompassing modes of censorship which place pressure upon the principled connection between journalism and freedom of speech. Topics covered include:

• The Philosophy of Free Speech
• Journalism and Free Speech
• Press Freedom and the Democratic Imperative
• New Media and the Global Public Sphere
• Regulating Journalism
• Privacy and Defamation
• National Security and Insecurity
• Ownership
• News, Language Culture and Censorship

This book introduces students to a wide range of issues centred around freedom of speech, press freedom and censorship, providing an accessible text for courses on journalism and mass media.

Today, in a world in which news flashes around the globe in an instant, time lags are inconceivable. In the mid-nineteenth century, communication between the United States and Europe -- the center of world affairs -- was only as quick as the fastest ship could cross the Atlantic, making the United States isolated and vulnerable.

But in 1866, the Old and New Worlds were united by the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic. John Steele Gordon's book chronicles this extraordinary achievement -- the brainchild of American businessman Cyrus Field and one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century. An epic struggle, it required a decade of effort, numerous failed attempts, millions of dollars in capital, a near disaster at sea, the overcoming of seemingly insurmountable technological problems, and uncommon physical, financial, and intellectual courage. Bringing to life an overlooked story in the annals of technology, John Steele Gordon sheds fascinating new light on this American saga that literally changed the world.

MUL.APIN, written sometime before the 8th century BC, was the most widely copied astronomical text in ancient Mesopotamia: a compendium including information such as star lists, descriptions of planetary phases, mathematical schemes for the length of day and night, a discussion of the luni-solar calendar and rules for intercalation, and a short collection of celestial omens. This book contains an introductory essay, followed by a new edition of the text and a facing-page transliteration and English translation. Finally, the book contains a new and detailed commentary on the text. This is a fascinating study, and an important resource for anyone interested in the history of astronomy.

The Routledge Companion to British Media History provides a comprehensive exploration of how different media have evolved within social, regional and national contexts. The 50 chapters in this volume, written by an outstanding team of internationally respected scholars, bring together current debates and issues within media history in this era of rapid change, and also provide students and researchers with an essential collection of comparable media histories. The first two parts of the Companion comprise a series of thematic chapters reflecting broadly on historiography, providing historical context for discussions of the power of the media and their social importance, arranged in the following sections: Media History Debates Media and Society The subsequent parts are made up of in-depth sections on different media formats, exploring various approaches to historicizing media futures, divided as follows: Newspapers Magazines Radio Film Television Digital Media The Routledge Companion to British Media History provides an essential guide to key ideas, issues, concepts and debates in the field.

This book provides an account of current work on letters to the editor from a range of different national, cultural, conceptual and methodological perspectives. Letters to the editor provide a window on the reflexive relationship between editorial and readership identities in historical and international contexts. They are a forum through which the personal and the political intersect, a space wherein the implications of contemporaneous events are worked out by citizens and public figures alike, and in which the meaning and significance of unfolding media narratives and events are interpreted and contested. They can also be used to understand the multiple and overlapping ways that particular issues recur over sometimes widely distinct periods. This collection brings together scholars who have helped open up letters to the editor as a resource for scholarship and whose work in this book continues to provide new insights into the relationship between journalism and its publics.

The Greeks and Romans lived according to a distinctively Hellenic conception of time as an aspect of cosmic order and regularity. Appropriating ideas from Egypt and the Near East, the Greeks integrated them into a cosmological framework governed by mathematics and linking the cycles of the heavenly bodies to the human environment. From their cosmology they derived instruments for measuring and tracking the passage of time that were sophisticated embodiments of scientific reasoning and technical craft, meant not solely for the study of specialists and connoisseurs but for the public gaze. Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity, the accompanying catalogue for the exhibition at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, explores through thematic essays and beautiful illustrations the practical as well as the artistic, ideological, and spiritual role of time technology and time imagery in the Mediterranean civilizations. Highlights among the more than one hundred objects from the exhibition include marvelously inventive sundials and portable timekeeping devices, stone and ceramic calendars, zodiac boards for displaying horoscopes, and mosaics, sculptures, and coins that reflect ancient perceptions of the controlling power of time and the heavens. Contributors include James Evans, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Stephan Heilen, Alexander Jones, Daryn Lehoux, Karlheinz Schaldach, John Steele, and Bernhard Weisser. Exhibition Dates: October 19, 2016-April 23, 2017 Cover photograph (c) Bruce M. White, 2016

'HARD-BOILED AND CRACKLING WITH INTENSITY. JOHN STEELE GETS UNDER THE SKIN OF THE NYPD AS WELL AS ANYONE WRITING TODAY' T. J. English 'DARK, HARD-HITTING AND FAST MOVING' Thomas Mullen *** HIS BIGGEST CASE YET. BUT IT COULD BE HIS LAST... NYPD officer Callum Burke is on a routine drugs raid when he bursts in on a scene of monstrous horror - and two killers about to get away. The men are caught but they won't talk. All the cops learn is that they're Russian and extremely dangerous which means this could be the start of a savage new gang war. Callum Burke is assigned to the investigation. It's Manhattan in 1997 and the city is being cleaned up. The pressure is on. But when Callum discovers there might be more to the Russian involvement than just criminal gangs, he finds himself in deeper trouble than he's ever known... *** 'Hard and intriguing. Callum Burke is a cop on the edge' David Albertyn 'The Sky Turned Black will make your head spin' T. J. English 'A crime saga that combines gritty detail with a global scope' Thomas Mullen

New York, 1995 Cop Callum Burke arrives in New York from Hong Kong, drafted in as part of an international investigation into organised crime. With the handover of Hong Kong to China only a couple of years away, gangsters are moving their operations out of the territory and into New York ahead of the looming deadline. Burke's experiences with East Asian crime and the Triads' links to the Irish Mob make him the perfect man to send in undercover. But as he infiltrates these vast and lethal criminal networks, bodies start to pile up in his wake and his conscience threatens to send him over the edge. And when Burke's NYPD handlers push him to continue the investigation at all costs, he may have to cross the line from cop to criminal just to stay alive... Readers of Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, Steve Cavanagh, Richard Price and John Sandford will love this dark and morally complex novel which presents a searing portrait of mid-1990s New York as you've never seen it before.

When ex-undercover agent Jackie Shaw visits northern Japan for a holiday, he is in search of relaxation, an escape from the brutality and tragedy of his past. But when a local man is butchered as he spies on a young woman in the seedy heart of Sapporo's entertainment district, Jackie is dragged into the hunt for a terrifying serial killer and begins a long and bloody battle with vicious yakuza gangs. From the twisted underbelly of one of Japan's largest cities to the vast, unforgiving wilderness of the northern territories of Hokkaido, Dry River is a uniquely menacing and compulsive thriller which will take you to places you've never been before. Under attack from Japanese killers and his own demons, will Jackie Shaw get out alive?

Seven Skins - two words scrawled above a hit-list. Six names - targets for assassination by bomb, bullet or blade. Three killers - two vicious professionals and an idealistic young terrorist. Two Security Service officers - confused and at each other's throats. One lost girl - abused and on the run. And Jackie Shaw - outnumbered, disavowed and ready to tear an entire city apart. When a series of apparently random assassinations hit London, MI5 and GCHQ deduce that the killers are working through a hit-list of retired security forces operatives and that their next target is an ex-police officer from Belfast now living rough in the capital. Desperate to find the officer before he too is eliminated, the Security Services coerce Jackie Shaw, a man steeped in the violent history of Northern Ireland, into working for them. While the three killers stalk their next victim, Jackie trawls the city's underbelly in search of their target as he tries to protect a girl who is desperate to escape a gang of brutal traffickers. After all their paths converge on a dark Soho street, Jackie and the girl find themselves alone and on the run, fighting not just to uncover who or what the Seven Skins are but for their own lives.