Grafton Elliot Smith rose from a colonial Australian background to dizzying heights in the British scientific establishment. He became a world authority on neuroanatomy and human prehistory, holding chairs at Cairo, Manchester and University College, London. He was best known publicly for his challenging theory of cultural diffusion, crossing the boundaries of anthropology, archaeology and history, stemming from his expert knowledge of evolution. Most controversy raged about his "Egyptian" theory, which placed ancient Egypt as the dynamic source from which major elements of civilisation were spread by the migration of peoples and mores. This vision stemmed from his ground-breaking dissection of thousands of mummies in Egypt during the great excavations of the 1900s. His speculations, made in association with thinkers such as W H R Rivers and W J Perry, bore fruit in a spate of publications that sparked global debate, arousing particular anger from American ethnologists opposed to ideas of foreign influence upon Mesoamerican cultures. Elliot Smith's ideas were regarded at the time as authentic, if problematic, approaches to important issues in human history. They were subsequently to be caricatured or ignored in anthropological and archaeological disciplines that had moved on to other paradigms. Paul Crook shows how his ideas were developed in the context of his life and times, examining the debates they aroused, his attempts to incorporate anthropology within a broader interdisciplinary school under his leadership in London, and his opposition to Nazi race theory in the 1930s. There has been no full-scale biography of Elliot Smith and little of substance analysing his works. Despite shortcomings, his theory and reputation deserve rehabilitation. An Afterword brings general readers up to date about the whole "diffusion" debate.

An expert's guide to tracing ancestry in the Caribbean islands By a genealogist who has dedicated more than 11 years of his life to uncovering the saga of his African slave ancestors comes a guide for others to capitalise on his informed techniques and discover just what it means to know where one is from. Offering ground-breaking insights into how to delve into one's past, this book is intended both for beginners, educationalists and experienced researchers and provides inspiration to those who believe that their search may be hampered by having mixed parentage or a history of migration through the ages. An instructive guide for those interested in finding out more about their family connections with the Caribbean islands, it offers techniques and approaches that can be applied to any one researching their ancestors around the world.

Darwin's evolutionary ideas have been of immense social and political significance, filtering into an amazing galaxy of ideologies and agendas. This book focuses upon Social Darwinism, analyzing the concept, exploring its social origins, showing how people metaphorically sat upon Darwin's « coat-tails to further their own campaigns, justifying everything from capitalism to socialism, war to peace, race and empire to Nazi-style eugenics. These reflective essays showcase the author's many years of Darwinian research and cover the period from 1859 to World War II (mainly in the British arena). Darwin's Coat-Tails also sheds light on current challenges, from « ethnic cleansing to genetic engineering.

This book challenges the received view that Darwinism generated essentially aggressive and warlike social values and pugnacious images of humankind. Paul Crook reconstructs the influential discourse of "peace biology," whose liberal vision was of a basically free humanity, not fettered by iron laws of biological necessity or governed by violent genes. By exploring a gamut of Darwinian readings of history and war, mainly in the English-speaking world prior to 1919, this study throws important new light on militarism, peace movements, the origins of World War I and British social thought.

A gripping story of the author's search for his family tree. In the early '90s Paul Crooks undertook an amazing journey from London to the Caribbean and from there to the Gold Coast of Africa where his story began 300 years earlier. His journey to trace lost ancestors is the compelling theme of this novel-fiction based on terrible fact.

This new publication focuses on ten key murals in London - ranging from the well-known and visible such as The Battle of Cable Street in East London to the forgotten and hidden - to examine how these public paintings have changed over time and how the spaces around them have transformed. The murals are presented through newly-commissioned photographs, each accompanied by a text by The Work in Progress (Benedict Drew, Emma Hart, Dai Jenkins, Dean Kenning and Corinna Till) which draws on and reflects on the broader questions of the project. How does making a mural in a local community alter artistic decision-making? Why confront the difficulties of making an image collectively? How have changes in the distribution of art funding in recent decades affected mural production? With an introduction by the curators of the project and an essay by writer Owen Hatherley, Reclaim the Mural offers a unique insight into a long-term, artist-led project. It is the only publication which looks critically at the legacy of the mural and community arts movement of the late seventies and provides an important analogy with contemporary questions surrounding the social function of art.