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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2022

        Class, work and whiteness

        Race and settler colonialism in Southern Rhodesia, 1919–79

        by Nicola Ginsburgh

        This book offers the first comprehensive history of white workers from the end of the First World War to Zimbabwean independence in 1980. It reveals how white worker identity was constituted, examines the white labouring class as an ethnically and nationally heterogeneous formation comprised of both men and women, and emphasises the active participation of white workers in the ongoing and contested production of race. White wage labourers' experiences, both as exploited workers and as part of the privileged white minority, offer insight into how race and class co-produced one another and how boundaries fundamental to settler colonialism were regulated and policed. Based on original research conducted in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK, this book offers a unique theoretical synthesis of work on gender, whiteness studies, labour histories, settler colonialism, Marxism, emotions and the New African Economic History.

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        History
        April 2017

        Dancing in the English style

        Consumption, Americanisation, and national identity in Britain, 1918–50

        by Allison Abra. Series edited by Jeffrey Richards

        Dancing in the English style explores the development, experience, and cultural representation of popular dance in Britain from the end of the First World War to the early 1950s. It describes the rise of modern ballroom dancing as Britain's predominant popular style, as well as the opening of hundreds of affordable dancing schools and purpose-built dance halls. It focuses in particular on the relationship between the dance profession and dance hall industry and the consumers who formed the dancing public. Together these groups negotiated the creation of a 'national' dancing style, which constructed, circulated, and commodified ideas about national identity. At the same time, the book emphasizes the global, exploring the impact of international cultural products on national identity construction, the complexities of Americanisation, and Britain's place in a transnational system of production and consumption that forged the dances of the Jazz Age.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        May 2014

        The Centennial History of Chinese Art (1900-2000)

        by Yin Hong, Ling Yan, etc.

        This book series contain 5 volumes: The Centennial History of Chinese Cinematography (1900-2000) The Centennial History of Chinese Fine Arts (1900-2000) The Centennial History of Chinese Dancing (1900-2000) The Centennial History of Chinese Drama (1900-2000) The Centennial History of Chinese Music (1900-2000) A period historical works of the Chinese Art for the last hundred years (1900-2000),offering a profound analysis of the underlying interaction between the development of the centenial history of fine arts and society, economy, thoughts and cultural vicissitudes through the narration of the conditions of the development of Chinese art.

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        Nature, the natural world (Children's/YA)
        March 2020

        Earth Takes a Break

        by House, Emily

        From children's book author Emily House comes a wonderful story that re-connects us with our planet. A modern fable inspired by recent events, Earth Takes a Break is a touching picture book jam-packed with fun illustrations and woven together with a message of hope. When Earth feels unwell, she goes to the doctor to ask for help. What the doctor prescribes seems impossible to Earth, until she wakes the next day to find a surprising change!

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2020

        Class, work and whiteness

        by Nicola Ginsburgh, Alan Lester

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        The Arts

        Complete Works of Yungang Grottoes

        by Zhang Zhuo

        The Complete Works of Yungang Grottoes is a collection of photographic materials reflecting different periods, different caves, different artistic styles and artistic characteristics of Yungang Grottoes. It contains 20 volumes, each presenting a single Yungang cave with more than 400 pictures and several professional academic papers on the cultural and artistic characteristics of caves.   As a royal art project symbolizing the imperial power of Tuoba in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Yungang Grottoes are large in scale, rich in content, exquisite in carving, and vivid in appearance. They absorb and integrate the diverse cultures of ancient nationalities, and represent the highest level of carving in the world in the 5th century. In 2001, the Yungang Grottoes were listed on the World Heritage List.   The Complete Works of Yungang Grottoes displays the treasures of the Yungang Grottoes in an unprecedented scale, high-definition, and panoramic view, which is regarded as a recording and preserving archive of great values. For more than 1500 years, the statues of the Yungang Grottoes have been weathered and ruined by wind and rain. In the past, most of the photography focused on the contemporarily perfect Buddha statues, but the remaining statues, even the best-preserved ones, are disappearing year by year from people's sight. The Complete Works of Yungang Grottoes collects image data of them, makes the documentary files, and has them published to the public, in this way retaining the perfect art in changes.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        January 2016

        The Autumn of Innocence

        by Abbas Beydoun

        In his novel, The Autumn of Innocence, prominent Lebanese poet and novelist Abbas Beydoun artfully weaves a tragic story of a father-son relationship that ends disastrously with the son's violent death. This story unfolds along with the Arab Spring movement and explores the motivations behind religious extremism and questions cultural constructs of masculinity.   The novel opens with a letter from Ghassan to his cousin, describing how his father Massoud strangled his mother to death when Ghassan was just three years old. Afterward, Massoud flees the village in southern Lebanon. For 18 years, no one hears from him, and Ghassan grows up stigmatized by his father's violent crime.   In time, Ghassan's aunt Bushra-Massoud's sister-makes a confession: She encouraged Massoud to kill his wife, believing that his wife's low socioeconomic status would bring embarrassment to their wealthy family. Bushra also reveals that Massoud was driven to kill his wife because he feared that she would tell someone that he was impotent, undermining his sense of manhood and social status.   Meanwhile, Massoud has moved to southern Syria, where he remarried and had two more sons. During the Arab Spring, the militant groups fighting the Syrian regime transform him into a religious extremist.   In the second half of the novel, Massoud return to the village in southern Lebanon. He brings with him a group of men. Together they seize control of the village and terrorize its inhabitants. After killing the dogs, they begin murdering the villagers in the name of religion. One of Ghassan's friends is among the victims, and Massoud also threatens his family. Ghassan decides that he must kill his father, avenging the death of his friend and the deaths of the other villagers. In the end, he fails and is beheaded by Bushra's son, his cousin, who is has joined Massoud's thugs.   Beydoun captures the shifting points of view in a family shattered by the tyranny of normative masculinity and the resulting violence. The victims are women, of course, but also the men like Ghassan who reject these social and cultural expectations. The novel also portrays the rise of religious extremism and the terrorism it can inspire, which wreaks havoc on the lives of ordinary people. Beydoun's engaging language imbues the characters and the places they inhabit with a vibrancy and vitality that transcends the difficult subject matter.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        April 2025

        Studio Electrophonique

        The Sheffield space age, from The Human League to Pulp

        by Jamie Taylor

        The amazing story of the home studio that helped launch some of Britain's most beloved bands. The Sheffield space age began in 1961, when local mechanic Ken Patten won a tape-recording competition by recreating the sound of a rocket launch using a pencil and a bicycle pump. In the decades that followed, the makeshift home studio he constructed became the launch pad for a group of young musicians who would shape the futuristic sound of 1980s pop. The Human League, Heaven 17, Pulp, ABC and others made their early recordings with Ken, whose DIY ethic was the perfect fit for a city facing industrial decline but teeming with ideas. Studio Electrophonique tells the story of a generation seeking new frontiers in music, using everything they could lay their hands on - from science fiction novels to glam rock, Dada art and cheap electronics - to get there. Drawing on original interviews with Jarvis Cocker, Martyn Ware, Mark White and others, it brings to light a world of humour, charm, creativity and unfounded yet undaunted self-belief.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2024

        Off white

        Central and Eastern Europe and the global history of race

        by Catherine Baker, Bogdan C. Iacob, Anikó Imre, James Mark

        This volume foregrounds racial difference as a key to an alternative history of the Central and Eastern European region, which revolves around the role of whiteness as the unacknowledged foundation of semi-peripheral nation-states and national identities, and of the region's current status as a global stronghold of unapologetic white, Christian nationalisms. Contributions address the pivotal role of whiteness in international diplomacy, geographical exploration, media cultures, music, intellectual discourses, academic theories, everyday language and banal nationalism's many avenues of expressions. The book offers new paradigms for understanding the relationships among racial capitalism, populism, economic peripherality and race.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2024

        White before whiteness in the late Middle Ages

        by Wan-Chuan Kao

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        Do a Little Detective

        by Su Mei

        The Lightning Bear and Awu Dragon Series is the newest knowledge fairy tale of Ms. Su Mei, the winner of the Bing Xin Children's Literature Award. This series has 6 volumes, shaping two very vivid fairy tale characters Lightning Bear and Awu Dragon, and the strict natural science knowledge, physical science knowledge, mathematical knowledge, necessary safety awareness, etiquette norms are integrated into the wisdom of life. The stories are imaginative, humorous and fun which will leaving a deep impression on children, allowing them to learn more and develop more abilities in the stories.

      • Trusted Partner

        To Love Life

        by Alawiya Sobh

        The novel revolves around the heroine Basma, who suffers from a neurological disease. The sedative medications prescribed by her doctor have affected her memory and so she has become confused. She tries to restore her memory and her body, which has been plagued by painful spasms – something difficult for someone like her, a dancer and choreographer.   The novel unfolds inconsistently, telling the story of Basma from childhood on, experiences with her first boyfriend, Ahmad, and her sickness after following the tragic departure of him and her father during the Lebanese civil war. In addition to Basma’s story, we read about the lives of the people she knew and liked throughout her life, including her friend, Anisa, and her emotionally and financially tight husband, and how writing changed her life and helped her fight her disability. We also read about Amina, who is emotionally hungry, and Nizar who investigated different politics and beliefs, ending up insane. In addition to other characters with stories that run in parallel with the main character, Basma, whose life centres on her relationship with her lover and husband, Youssef. A creative painter, his shifts towards fundamentalism lead her to separate from him as she is passionate about life, love and dancing.   The novel accurately describes the similarities between her sick body and that of Arab cities collapsed due to the sectarian wars that took place after the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. The heroine documents her sickness to a virtual friend, describing what made her sick and how she resists her illness with will and determination. Her narrative expresses her rejection of religious, sectarian and terrorist extremism of all sects and religions, especially those that diverged from the true Islamic religion and its compassionate teachings.   In this novel we find poignant human details and a graceful narration full of expressions that make the reader anxious to know more about the destinies of all its characters. Between the memory of a past saturated with loss and love, and a crueler present witnessed in collapsing cities, Basma clings to her body that keeps on betraying her.   Who said that our lives and our bodies are different from the stories of our cities? Who among us knows if our most recent dance was the farewell dance, or a new beginning?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2019

        Dancing in the English style

        by Allison Abra, Jeffrey Richards

      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        February 2023

        Taking place

        by Erin Silver

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2022

        I want to break free

        by Matt Qvortrup

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2021

        Feeling the strain

        A cultural history of stress in twentieth-century Britain

        by Jill Kirby

        Examining the popular discourse of nerves and stress, this book provides a historical account of how ordinary Britons understood, explained and coped with the pressures and strains of daily life during the twentieth century. It traces the popular, vernacular discourse of stress, illuminating not just how stress was known, but the ways in which that knowledge was produced. Taking a cultural approach, the book focuses on contemporary popular understandings, revealing continuity of ideas about work, mental health, status, gender and individual weakness, as well as the changing socio-economic contexts that enabled stress to become a ubiquitous condition of everyday life by the end of the century. With accounts from sufferers, families and colleagues it also offers insight into self-help literature, the meanings of work and changing dynamics of domestic life, delivering a complementary perspective to medical histories of stress.

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