Your Search Results

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        February 2025

        Screening Sherlock

        A cultural history of the Great Detective on film and television

        by James Chapman

        Screening Sherlock is the first book-length academic study of the film and television career of the most famous detective in fiction. Chapman explores the contexts, adaptation strategies and critical reception of Sherlock Holmes (and Dr Watson) on film and television in Britain and the United States. The book includes case studies of such famous Holmes impersonators as William Gillette, Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch, as well as charting a path through many lesser-known productions. From early cinema to the Hollywood studio system, and from heritage drama to contemporary postmodern television, Screening Sherlock is an indispensible work for all aficionados of Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective of Baker Street.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2025

        England’s military heartland

        Preparing for war on Salisbury Plain

        by Vron Ware, Antonia Lucia Dawes, Mitra Pariyar, Alice Cree

        What is it like to live next door to a British Army base? England's military heartland provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide. Targeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK's global defence estate, the Salisbury 'super garrison' offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife. How does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? This book investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 2017

        Yu Wang Bei Mi

        by Mu Ling

        A fine collection of science fiction by children’s literature writer Mu Ling. Mu Ling’s science fictions pursue a scientific basis of “organic imagination”, has a positive outlook and good spirit of seeking truth. This series collects Mu Ling’s three masterpieces full of fantasy and humanistic concern: Dream Machine, Hei Wa, Yu Wang Bei Mi, which are rare sci-fi theme in children’s literature works of China. This series will lead children step by step to “hard science fiction” which is full of intellectual challenges through “light science fiction” and “soft science fiction”.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        September 2024

        The 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.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2023

        The penny politics of Victorian popular fiction

        by Rob Breton

        Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan's longest and most significant people's movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA

        The Secret of Crossing

        China Story Picture Books

        by Zhang Jie

        China Story Picture Books is the first set of children's picture books launched by the Bingxin Award Committee. This set of books covers the works of seven Bingxin Award-winning writers of different ages including children's literature masters and promising young writers. The illustrations are full of traditional Chinese cultural elements such as dragon lantern dance, paper cutting, oil paper umbrella, and bamboo. Powerful painters at home and abroad are invited to do illustrations, which brings interesting fusion and collision of Chinese and foreign cultures to the books. In addition to the original illustrations, the stories are more touching. Every child can harvest the courage and wisdom for growing up from these stories.   The series consists of 7 picture books: The Dragon Lantern, The Path of Golden Flowers, The Child in Three-Story Attic, The School Day Gifts, The Secret of Crossing, The Slope of Sisters.   The Secret of Crossing tells the story of the growth of children in villages and small towns. The mud road to the canteen is narrow, several places collapse from the foot of the wall, and one of them breaks into a big gap. Why not fill in the big gap? It's really a lion in the way, and the girl has to cross it carefully, with all her strength.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2025

        Invasions

        Fears and fantasies of imagined wars in Britain, 1871-1918

        by Christian K. Melby

        Invasions is an ambitious, new and authoritative study of one of the defining cultural products of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. By the outbreak of war in 1914 invasion-scare fiction had profoundly changed British society, becoming not just a vibrant part of popular culture, but a reference point among military planners, advertisers, and politicians. This intersection between politics and culture, between entertainment and war planning, sets invasion-scare stories apart as one of the most versatile and interesting fictional products in modern British history. Building on recent work in both history and literature studies, Invasions is the first study of invasion-scare fiction to examine both the form (that is, fiction) and the function (the political argument) of the genre.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        The secret life of romantic comedy

        by Celestino Deleyto

        The secret life of romantic comedy offers a new approach to one of the most popular and resilient genres in the history of Hollywood. Steering away from the rigidity and ideological determinism of traditional accounts of the genre, this book advocates a more flexible theory, which allows the student to explore the presence of the genre in unexpected places, extending the concept to encompass films that are not usually considered romantic comedies. Combining theory with detailed analyses of a selection of films, including To Be or Not to Be (1942), Rear Window (1954), Kiss Me Stupid (1964), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Before Sunset (2004), the book aims to provide a practical framework for the exploration of a key area of contemporary experience - intimate matters - through one of its most powerful filmic representations: the genre of romantic comedy. Original and entertaining, The secret life of romantic comedy is perfect for students and academics of film and film genre.

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA
        2020

        Ayélévi's Secret

        by Simon de Saint-Dzokotoe, Maryse Montron

        Little Ayélévi is very cunning. She always wins at the game of "Who would win the most beautiful flower." This situation intrigued his brother who wanted to understand the secret of these repeated successes. Ayélévi is very clever; will it still be for a long time?

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA
        August 2020

        Cryptos

        by Poznanski, Ursula

        Where do we go when Nowhere is the only destination left?   Kerrybrook is Jana‘s favourite virtual escape. An idyllic fishing village with beautiful nature and, every now and then, a breeze of fresh air from the nearby sea. Jana, is this world‘s designer and person in power, she’s satisfied with her masterpiece. Best job so far. Until one day, a dead body is found, in both, ’Virtual Reality‘ and the real world. In times of climate change, VR is the only safe place for humankind. That‘s why Jana needs to solve the crime, she’s responsible for stopping the destruction.   • CliFi Thriller (Climate Fiction): Climate change & virtual reality • For fans of Black Mirror (Netflix) • All age readers • Strong, female protagonist • Highly relevant topic   WHITE RAVENS recommendation (2021):   "In the not too distant future, the world is an inhospitable place: droughts, storms, floods. That’s why world designers construct »alternative realities«, such as landscapes populated by dinosaurs, life at court in the Middle Ages, and surfing and chilling out on a beach. People can switch between these worlds at will and, when they die there, they are not truly dead; instead, they merely return to the »real world« – same as at night when they sleep. Then they are reunited with their body, which is lying inside a capsule.   In »Cryptos«, Ursula Poznanski pulls out all the stops of storytelling: She embeds numerous references to human and intellectual history in an action-packed and extremely suspenseful thriller plot. In the process, she raises central existential and ontological questions that result from the interplay between the real and the virtual worlds. This complex dystopian novel is narrated in such an enjoyable way that readers will hardly notice their brains going into overdrive as they devour it."

      • Trusted Partner
        Politics & government
        December 2016

        Intelligence, security and the Attlee governments, 1945–51

        An uneasy relationship?

        by Daniel W. B. Lomas

        Drawing on recently released documents and private papers, this is the first book-length study to examine the intimate relationship between the Attlee government and Britain's intelligence and security services at the start of the Cold War. Often praised for the formation of the modern-day 'welfare state', Attlee's government also played a significant, if little understood, role in combating communism at home and overseas, often in the face of vocal, sustained opposition from its own backbenches. This book tells the story of Attlee's Cold War. From Whitehall vetting to secret operations in Eastern Europe and the fallout of Soviet atomic espionage on both sides of the Atlantic, it provides a fresh interpretation of the Attlee government, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Labour Party, intelligence, security and Britain's foreign and defence policy at the start of the Cold War.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2022

        Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 98/1

        The Artist of the Future Age: William Blake, Neo-Romanticism, Counterculture and Now

        by Douglas Field

        This special issue of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library is devoted to William Blake. It explores the British and European reception of Blake's work from the late nineteenth century to the present day, with a particular focus on the counterculture. Opening with two articles by the late Michael Horovitz, an important figure in the 'Blake Renaissance' of the 1960s, the issue goes on to investigate the ideological struggle over Blake in the early part of the twentieth century, with particular reference to W. B. Yeats. This is followed by articles on the artistic avant-garde and underground of the 1960s and on Blake's significance for science fiction authors of the 1970s. The issue closes with an article on the contemporary Belgian art collective maelstrÖm reEvolution.

      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        October 2023

        Crafting crime fiction

        by Henry Sutton

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2018

        How to save politics in a post-truth era

        by Ilan Zvi Baron

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA
        2020

        Daddy Has A Secret

        by Avianti Armand

        My daddy has a secret. His secret was in the form of little men, locked in a box in the middle of a dark room. Sometimes, the little men disturb my father, until Father has to run away. I want to help Father, I'm going to. But how?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2024

        Neither 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.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        2014

        History of Ukraine from KGB Secret Files

        by Volodymyr Viatrovych

        The unknown and classified KGB history of the largest country in Europe - Ukraine is the history of people, events, documents and files. The files have answers to many questions. The most important of which - why did a war begin again in Europe? Why is it so important for Russia to conquer Ukraine? Why are Ukrainians putting up such a powerful resistance? Historian Volodymyr Viatrovych, who declassified the secret archives of the Soviet special services from the Cheka to the KGB, talks about the history of Ukraine, the USSR and Eastern Europe from 1918 to 1991. The reader, is offered, along with various heroes and traitors, those who thought they were in control of events, and those who thought they had no power over them, to recreate the nearly century-old chess game between the Ukrainian liberation movement and the creators of the "prison of nations." Described in reports and recreated by a historian, this work looks at the cunning “special operations”, deadly moves, information wars and complex games among several players that are all an attempt to find an answer to the question: what creates our destiny - human will or circumstances?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2021

        Post-everything

        An intellectual history of post-concepts

        by Herman Paul, Adriaan van Veldhuizen

        Postmodern, postcolonial and post-truth are broadly used terms. But where do they come from? When and why did the habit of interpreting the world in post-terms emerge? And who exactly were the 'post boys' responsible for this? Post-everything examines why post-Christian, post-industrial and post-bourgeois were terms that resonated, not only among academics, but also in the popular press. It delves into the historical roots of postmodern and poststructuralist, while also subjecting more recent post-constructions (posthumanist, postfeminist) to critical scrutiny. This study is the first to offer a comprehensive history of post-concepts. In tracing how these concepts found their way into a broad range of genres and disciplines, Post-everything contributes to a rapprochement between the history of the humanities and the history of the social sciences.

      Subscribe to our

      newsletter