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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2025The return of the housewife
Why women are still cleaning up
by Emma Casey
An illuminating look at the world of cleanfluencers that asks why the burden of housework still falls on women. Housework is good for you. Housework sparks joy. Housework is beautiful. Housework is glamorous. Housework is key to a happy family. Housework shows that you care. Housework is women's work. Social media is flooded with images of the perfect home. TikTok and Instagram 'cleanfluencers' produce endless photos and videos of women cleaning, tidying and putting things right. Figures such as Marie Kondo and Mrs Hinch have placed housework, with its promise of a life of love and contentment, at the centre of self-care and positive thinking. And yet housework remains one of the world's most unequal institutions. Women, especially poorer women and women of colour, do most low-paid and unpaid domestic labour. In The return of the housewife, Emma Casey asks why these inequalities matter and why they persist after a century of dramatic advances in women's rights. She offers a powerful call to challenge the prevailing myths around housework and the 'naturally competent' woman homemaker.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2021Religion, regulation, consumption
by John Lever, Johan Fischer
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Nature, the natural world (Children's/YA)March 2020Earth 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!
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2024At home with the poor
Consumer behaviour and material culture in England, c. 1650-1850
by Joseph Harley
This book opens the doors to the homes of the forgotten poor and traces the goods they owned before, during and after the industrial revolution (c. 1650-1850). Using a vast and diverse range of sources, it gets to the very heart of what it meant to be 'poor' by examining the homes of the impoverished and mapping how numerous household goods became more widespread. As the book argues, poverty did not necessarily equate to owning very little and living in squalor. In fact, its novel findings show that most of the poor strove to improve their domestic spheres and that their demand for goods was so great that it was a driving force of the industrial revolution.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2011Bourgeois consumption
Food, space and identity in London and Paris, 1850–1914
by Rachel Rich
Bourgeois Consumption looks at how the middle classes in late nineteenth-century London and Paris used food and dining as forms of social expression and identity. This engaging treatise about how class and gender informed people's eating habits focuses on the complex interactions between bodies, ritual and identity. Forgoing the traditional food history territory of recipes and ingredients in favor of how people ate in different circles, Bourgeois Consumption explores the role of real and imagined meals in shaping Victorian lives. The perception of the middle classes as rigid and upright, found in the extensive pages of their etiquette books, is contrasted with a more flexible and spontaneous bourgeoisie, gleaned from the pages of their own colorful memoirs, diaries and letters, leading us on a lively journey into eating spaces, mealtimes, manners, and social interactions between diners. Further, contrasting Paris with London reveals some of the ways each city shaped its inhabitants but, more surprisingly, throws up a range of similarities that suggest the middle classes were, in fact, a transnational class. Rachel Rich's work will be of interest to anyone intrigued by the history of food, consumption and leisure, as well as to a broader audience curious about how the Victorian middle classes distinguished themselves through daily life and manners. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2024Neither use nor ornament
A cultural biography of clutter and procrastination
by Tracey Potts
Neither use nor ornament is a book about personal productivity, told from the perspective of its obstacles: clutter and procrastination. It offers a challenge to the self-help promise of a clutter-free life, lived in a permanent state of efficiency and flow. The book reveals how contemporary projections of the good, productive life rely on images of failure. Riffing on the aphorism 'less is more' - a dominant refrain in present day productivity advice - it tells stories about streamlining, efficiency and tidiness over a time period of around 100 years. By focusing on the shadows of productivity advice, Neither use nor ornament seeks to unravel the moral narratives that hold individuals to account for their inefficiencies and muddles.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2014The domestic, moral and political economies of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland
What rough beast?
by Kieran Keohane, Rob Kitchin, Carmen Kuhling
This book provides an analysis of neo-liberal political economics implemented in Ireland and the deleterious consequences of that model in terms of polarised social inequalities, impoverished public services and fiscal vulnerability as they appear in central social policy domains - health, housing and education in particular. Tracing the argument into the domains where the institutions are sustained and reproduced, this book examines the movement of modern economics away from its original concern with the household and anthropologically universal deep human needs to care for the vulnerable - the sick, children and the elderly - and to maintain inter-generational solidarity. The authors argue that the financialisation of social relations undermines the foundations of civilisation and opens up a marketised barbarism. Civic catastrophes of violent conflict and authoritarian liberalism are here illustrated as aspects of the 'rough beast' that slouches in when things are falling apart and people become prey to new forms of domination. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Engendering whiteness
White women and colonialism in Barbados and North Carolina, 1627–1865
by Cecily Jones
Engendering whiteness represents a comparative analysis of the complex interweaving of race, gender, social class and sexuality in defining the contours of white women's lives in Barbados and North Carolina during the era of slavery. Despite their gendered subordination, their social location within the dominant white group afforded all white women a range of privileges. Hence, their whiteness, as much as their gender, shaped these women's social identities and material realities. Crucially, as the biological reproducers of whiteness, and hence the symbolic and literal embodiment and bearers of the state of freedom, they were critical to the maintenance and reproduction of the cultural boundaries of 'whiteness', and consequently the subjects of patriarchal measures to limit and control their social and sexual freedoms. Engendering whiteness draws on a wide variety of sources including property deeds, wills, court transcripts, and interrogates the ways in which white women could be simultaneously socially positioned within plantation societies as both agents and as victims. It also reveals the strategies deployed by elite and poor white women in these societies to resist their gendered subordination, to challenge the ideological and social constraints that sought to restrict their lives to the private domestic sphere, to protect the limited rights afforded to them, to secure independent livelihoods, and to create meaningful existences. A fascinating study that with be welcomed by historians of imperialism as well as scholars of gender history and women's studies.
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March 2021Bonbon and Blanket
by Emily House
A new children's picture book by author Emily House (of Earth Takes a Break) brings us the heartwarming tale of Bonbon and Blanket and the lengths we'll go to hold onto those we love. A great pick for a kids' bedtime storybook! Bonbon and Blanket’s friendship is full of fun and adventure, but the pair very soon discover that not every adventure is of their own choosing!
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Servants of the empire
The Irish in Punjab 1881–1921
by Patrick O'Leary, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
Punjab, 'the pride of British India', attracted the cream of the Indian Civil Service, many of the most influential of whom were Irish. Some of these men, along with Irish viceroys, were inspired by their Irish backgrounds to ensure security of tenure for the Punjabi peasant, besides developing vast irrigation schemes which resulted in the province becoming India's most affluent. But similar inspiration contributed to the severity of measures taken against Indian nationalist dissent, culminating in the Amritsar massacre which so catastrophically transformed politics on the sub-continent. Setting the experiences of Irish public servants in Punjab in the context of the Irish diaspora and of linked agrarian problems in Ireland and India, this book descrides the beneficial effects the Irish had on the prosperity of India's most volatile province. Alongside the baleful contribution of some towards a growing Indian antipathy towards British rule. Links are established between policies pursued by Irishmen of the Victorian era and current happenings on the Pakistan-Afghan border and in Punjab.
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March 2019I will Help You
by Guangzhou Childhood Arts
This book tells 23 vivid and interesting animal stories. The story conveys the values of being kind and help others and help children grow happily.
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Journey in Trumplandia: The Rise of Populism in America
by Tiberiu Dianu
The book is a collection of essays about the transformation of America, which has turned from a united nation to one more divided than ever. Some pundits predict that, if things don’t change, another civil war could occur. Have we reached a point of no return? Hopefully, America is mature enough to learn from its mistakes and avoid further scars along its evolving history. "Trumplandia is a welcome addition toward understanding current events, Washington’s international policy, and the present American society; a society polarized and divided as it has not been since the Civil War.” NICHOLAS DIMA, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor and Research Associate, Nelson Institute, James Madison University, Virginia. "The book is fascinating. It provides background to, and insights into [the] current and past political history as well as offering a personal view... of the country and society. Presented in thematic form in chapters and sections, the insights offered provide a suggestive radiography...” Dr. DENNIS DELETANT, OBE, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC. "There has been this backsliding in... what a truly functioning rule-of-law state is, that has proper separation of co-equal powers, which, if you don’t keep working on that, you backslide. And I am even worried about that here, in the United States right now, about backsliding.” OBIE MOORE, Esq., OLM Advisors LLC, Washington DC “Indeed, Trumplandia should be a welcome addition to any scholar, student or layman’s library, especially in its international edition. If anyone loses sleep over its challenging assertions, then it will have been well worth it.” ERNESTO MORALES HIZON, Ph.D. Candidate in American and Comparative Politics at Claremont Graduate University, Member, Integrated Bar of the Philippines ABOUT THE AUTHOR: TIBERIU DIANU has practiced law in Romania (as a corporate lawyer, judge, senior counselor at the Ministry of Justice, university professor and senior legal researcher), and in the United States (as a legal expert for the judiciary). He published several books and a host of articles in law, politics, and post-communist societies. Tiberiu currently lives and works in Washington, DC.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2021Feeling 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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Sport & leisure industriesSeptember 2006Tourism, Consumption and Representation
Narratives of Place and Self
by Edited by Kevin Meethan, Alison Anderson, Steve Miles
This book addresses the practices of consumption in tourism, a major theme in the sociology of tourism. To date, most tourism analysis has tended to concentrate on the production of tourist space, and assume that tourism consumption simply mirrors the intentions of the producers. By focussing on a number of relevant sub-themes, such as age, gender, religion and sexual orientation, the chapters within this book critically examine such assumptions in terms of the interplay between the production and consumption of tourist spaces, and how patterns of tourism consumption are negotiated on an individual level.
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Science & MathematicsMay 2020Optical Manipulation of Pests and Beneficial Arthropods
by David Ben-Yakir, Antoine Abrieux, Joanna C. Chiu, Joseph E. Funderbunk, Daphna Gottlieb, Gábor Horváth, Simcha Lev-Yadun, Un Taek Lim, Xavier Martini, Masami Shimoda, Robert van Tol
Arthropod pests, pollinators, and natural enemies of pests have a great economic importance to human health and food supply worldwide. Arthropods use optical cues to find food and suitable oviposition sites, daily and seasonal activities, orientation and navigation. Most arthropods have compound eyes with receptors for UV light (peak sensitivity at 360 nm) and for green-yellow light (peak sensitivity at 520-540 nm). Many arthropods also have simple eyes (ocelli) that respond to changes in light intensity. Some arthropods can detect linearly polarized light and use it as an optical cue for oviposition sites, finding of hosts and navigation.The properties of the optical cue, such as wavelength, intensity, polarization, size, shape and contrast, greatly affect their response to the optical cue. Therefore, manipulation of optical cues can interfere or enhance arthropods' activities and development. UV light has been used to attract insects for monitoring and control. The patterns of UV reflected from flowers and plants affect arthropods' preference to visit them. The absence of UV light often deters arthropods and decreases their dispersal rate. UVB induces general stress in plants which may increase their resistance to arthropod pests. Green-yellow color induces landing and favors settling (arresting) of many plant feeding arthropods. High levels of reflected sunlight (above 25% of sun radiation) deters arthropods' landing and reduces settling. The recent use of monochromatic lights to increase crop yield, or to induce desirable plant characteristics, is expected to affect the activity of the associated arthropds as well. Optical manipulations are proposed as a part of an integrated pest management (IPM) program for open-field and protected crops, and for protecting the health of humans and domestic animals. This book contains up-to-date reviews of the published literature, some unpublished results of the authors, and suggestions for future research and development of this method.
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Teaching, Language & ReferenceMay 2025US diplomacy and the Good Friday Agreement in post-conflict Northern Ireland
by Richard Hargy
Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss, as autonomous diplomats in the George W. Bush State Department, were able to alter US intervention in Northern Ireland and play critical roles in the post-1998 peace process. Their contributions have not been fully appreciated or understood. The restoration of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government in 2007 was made possible by State Department-led intervention in the peace process. There are few references to Northern Ireland in work examining the foreign policy legacy of the George W. Bush presidency. Moreover, the ability to control US foreign policy towards the region brought one of George W. Bush's Northern Ireland special envoys into direct diplomatic conflict with the most senior actors inside the British government. This book will uncover the extent of this fall-out and provide original accounts on how diplomatic relations between these old allies became so fraught.
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MedicineJanuary 2025
Nursing the English from plague to Peterloo, 1665-1820
by Alannah Tomkins
This book studies the negative stereotypes around the women who worked as sick nurses in this period and contrasts them with the lived experience of both domestic and institutional nursing staff. Furthermore, it integrates nursing by men into the broader history of care as a constant if little-recognised presence. It finds that women and men undertook caring work to the best of their ability, and often performed well, despite multiple threats to nurse reputations on the grounds of gender norms and social status. Chapters consider nursing in the home, in general hospitals, in specialist institutions like the Royal Chelsea Hospital and asylums, plus during wartime, illuminated by multiple accounts of individual nurses. In these settings, it employs the sociological concept of 'dirty work' to contextualise the challenges to nurses and nursing identities.
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The ArtsSeptember 2024The renewal of post-war Manchester
Planning, architecture and the state
by Richard Brook
A compelling account of the project to transform post-war Manchester, revealing the clash between utopian vision and compromised reality. Urban renewal in Britain was thrilling in its vision, yet partial and incomplete in its implementation. For the first time, this deep study of a renewal city reveals the complex networks of actors behind physical change and stagnation in post-war Britain. Using the nested scales of region, city and case-study sites, the book explores the relationships between Whitehall legislation, its interpretation by local government planning officers and the on-the-ground impact through urban architectural projects. Each chapter highlights the connections between policy goals, global narratives and the design and construction of cities. The Cold War, decolonialisation, rising consumerism and the oil crisis all feature in a richly illustrated account of architecture and planning in post-war Manchester.
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Fiction2015The House in Baiting Hollow
by Vasyl Makhno
Events, described by Vasyl Makhno in a debut collection of short prose, are happening at different times and in different places, and no matter who the storyteller is – a man over fifty, a grey-headed widow or a little boy – you believe them; because there are no author’s generalizations, conclusions or guidelines. These impartial stories tell us about fates of completely different people, honestly and without pathos. It is honesty and simplicity that make this prose so different; common and simple details, at first sight, add mystery and hold the reader in suspense throughout the entire book.
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