In The Arab Thieves, Peter Webb critically explores the classic tales of pre-Islamic Arabian outlaws in Arabic Literature. A group of Arabian camel-rustlers became celebrated figures in Muslim memories of pre-Islam, and much poetry ascribed to them and stories about their escapades grew into an outlaw tradition cited across Arabic literature. The ninth/fifteenth-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi arranged biographies of ten outlaws into a chapter on 'Arab Thieves' in his wide-ranging history of the world before Muhammad. This volume presents the first critical edition of al-Maqrizi's text with a fully annotated English translation, alongside a detailed study that interrogates the outlaw lore to uncover the ways in which Arabic writers constructed outlaw identities and how al-Maqrizi used the tales to communicate his vision of pre-Islam. Via an exhaustive survey of early Arabic sources about the outlaws and comparative readings with outlaw traditions in other world literatures, The Arab Thieves reveals how Arabic literature crafted lurid narratives about criminality and employed them to tell ancient Arab history.

The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity-its merits, values, and origins-at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era. In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of being Arab had begun to decline. Although his own family originally hailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabs and their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of an extended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-Islamic Arabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horse husbandry, and poetry. And by incorporating extensive excerpts from the poetic heritage-"the archive of the Arabs"-Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate that poetry is itself sufficient corroboration of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean to be Arab? A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

This book provides an 'insider' view of worlds of popular music. It shows the relationship between music, creativity, ideas and localities by looking at cities, independents, genre, globalization and musician's relationships with each other. Webb examines groups of musicians, audiences and people involved in the music industry and shows the articulation of their position as well as how to understand this theoretically by looking at the city as a centre for music production; the industrial music inspired neo-folk genre; independence and its various meanings as a productive position in the music industry; the globalization of music; and musicians own narratives about working together and dealing with the industry. Utilizing case studies of a variety of different cities -- Bristol, London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin -- and genres -- Trip-hop, Hip-hop, Industrial, Neo-folk -- this volume is a landmark in popular music studies.

This book brings together historians, sociologists and social scientists to examine aspects of youth culture. The book's themes are riots, music and gangs, connecting spectacular expression of youthful disaffection with everyday practices. By so doing, Youth Culture and Social Change maps out new ways of historicizing responses to economic and social change: public unrest and popular culture.

This book assesses the legacy of Dick Hebdige and his work on subcultures in his seminal work, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979). The volume interrogates the concept of subculture put forward by Hebdige, and asks if this concept is still capable of helping us understand the subcultures of the twenty-first century. The contributors to this volume assess the main theoretical trends behind Hebdige's work, critically engaging with their value and how they orient a researcher or student of subculture, and also look at some absences in Hebdige's original account of subculture, such as gender and ethnicity. The book concludes with an interview with Hebdige himself, where he deals with questions about his concept of subculture and the gestation of his original work in a way that shows his seriousness and humour in equal measure. This volume is a vital contribution to the debate on subculture from some of the best researchers and academics working in the field in the twenty-first century.

This book provides an `insider' view of worlds of popular music. It shows the relationship between music, creativity, ideas and localities by looking at cities, independents, genre, globalization and musician's relationships with each other. Webb examines groups of musicians, audiences and people involved in the music industry and shows the articulation of their position as well as how to understand this theoretically by looking at the city as a centre for music production; the industrial music inspired neo-folk genre; independence and its various meanings as a productive position in the music industry; the globalization of music; and musicians own narratives about working together and dealing with the industry. Utilizing case studies of a variety of different cities -- Bristol, London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin -- and genres -- Trip-hop, Hip-hop, Industrial, Neo-folk -- this volume is a landmark in popular music studies.

This book assesses the legacy of Dick Hebdige and his work on subcultures in his seminal work, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979). The volume interrogates the concept of subculture put forward by Hebdige, and asks if this concept is still capable of helping us understand the subcultures of the twenty-first century. The contributors to this volume assess the main theoretical trends behind Hebdige's work, critically engaging with their value and how they orient a researcher or student of subculture, and also look at some absences in Hebdige's original account of subculture, such as gender and ethnicity. The book concludes with an interview with Hebdige himself, where he deals with questions about his concept of subculture and the gestation of his original work in a way that shows his seriousness and humour in equal measure. This volume is a vital contribution to the debate on subculture from some of the best researchers and academics working in the field in the twenty-first century.

This graduate-level text provides a thorough grounding in the representation theory of finite groups over fields and rings. The book provides a balanced and comprehensive account of the subject, detailing the methods needed to analyze representations that arise in many areas of mathematics. Key topics include the construction and use of character tables, the role of induction and restriction, projective and simple modules for group algebras, indecomposable representations, Brauer characters, and block theory. This classroom-tested text provides motivation through a large number of worked examples, with exercises at the end of each chapter that test the reader's knowledge, provide further examples and practice, and include results not proven in the text. Prerequisites include a graduate course in abstract algebra, and familiarity with the properties of groups, rings, field extensions, and linear algebra.

The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity-its merits, values, and origins-at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era. In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of being Arab had begun to decline. Although his own family originally hailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabs and their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of an extended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-Islamic Arabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horse husbandry, and poetry. And by incorporating extensive excerpts from the poetic heritage-"the archive of the Arabs"-Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate that poetry is itself sufficient corroboration of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean to be Arab? A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs' role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history by marshalling the widest array of Arabic sources employed hitherto, and by closely interpreting the evidence with theories of identity and ethnicity, Imagining the Arabs proposes new answers to the riddle of Arab origins and fundamental reinterpretations of early Islamic history. This book reveals that the time-honoured stereotypes which depict Arabs as ancient Arabian Bedouin are entirely misleading because the essence of Arab identity was in fact devised by Muslims during the first centuries of Islam. Arab identity emerged and evolved as groups imagined new notions of community to suit the radically changing circumstances of life in the early Caliphate. The idea of 'the Arab' was a device which Muslims utilised to articulate their communal identity, to negotiate post-Conquest power relations, and to explain the rise of Islam. Over Islam's first four centuries, political elites, genealogists, poetry collectors, historians and grammarians all participated in a vibrant process of imagining and re-imagining Arab identity and history, and the sum of their works established a powerful tradition that influences Middle Eastern communities to the present day.

The callous taking of two lives by an act of pure self-interest brings together DCI Arnold, WPC Desai, Linden Lea, the twin to one of the victims, and Jasper, the deceased's terrier. This coalition of the willing pursue events, both global and personal, past and present, through the jungle of media and politics and into the inner sanctum of the English aristocracy. During their investigations they find redemption for some, retribution for others and discover that revenge is not exclusively a human trait; they confirm the certain knowledge that what goes around comes around.

Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs' role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history by marshalling the widest array of Arabic sources employed hitherto, and by closely interpreting the evidence with theories of identity and ethnicity, Imagining the Arabs proposes new answers to the riddle of Arab origins and fundamental reinterpretations of early Islamic history. This book reveals that the time-honoured stereotypes which depict Arabs as ancient Arabian Bedouin are entirely misleading because the essence of Arab identity was in fact devised by Muslims during the first centuries of Islam. Arab identity emerged and evolved as groups imagined new notions of community to suit the radically changing circumstances of life in the early Caliphate. The idea of 'the Arab' was a device which Muslims utilised to articulate their communal identity, to negotiate post-Conquest power relations, and to explain the rise of Islam. Over Islam's first four centuries, political elites, genealogists, poetry collectors, historians and grammarians all participated in a vibrant process of imagining and re-imagining Arab identity and history, and the sum of their works established a powerful tradition that influences Middle Eastern communities to the present day.

On Barn Tor, as on any English sporting estate, the poacher/gamekeeper dynamic has developed, over centuries, into its present state of poorly concealed dislike and with one unwritten, explicit rule; do not cross the line. So, what do you do when someone you love ceases to abide by these rules? The Quarry follows the lives of two families and finds that, when affairs of the estate are blurred by affairs of the heart, the idyllic country-life veneer is soon stripped away and it will only take one slip, one slight misreading of just who and what the quarry is, to ignite a volatile cocktail of suppressed emotions, raw passion and explosive confrontation.

Spanning three centuries and two countries, Ladies of the Shire weaves together the lives of eight individuals on their unforgettable, epic journey from the hay-meadows of Leicestershire, England to the mud and bloody artistry of 1914-18 France. From these trenches rises a retribution that will claim all they hold precious, demanding a sacrifice none ever thought would be asked of them......

A wild tale of space and technology, of justice and emotions, of war, romance and travel. Where the truth will get you killed, and where escape seems the only freedom.