Your Search Results

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2018

        Noble society

        Five lives from twelfth-century Germany

        by Jonathan R. Lyon

        This book provides scholars and students alike with a set of texts that can deepen their understanding of the culture and society of the twelfth-century German kingdom. The sources translated here bring to life the activities of five noblemen and noblewomen from Rome to the Baltic coast and from the Rhine River to the Alpine valleys of Austria. To read these five sources together is to appreciate how interconnected political, military, economic, religious and spiritual interests could be for some of the leading members of medieval German society-and for the authors who wrote about them. Whether fighting for the emperor in Italy, bringing Christianity to pagans in what is today northern Poland, or founding, reforming and governing monastic communities in the heartland of the German kingdom, the subjects of these texts call attention to some of the many ways that noble life shaped the world of central medieval Europe.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        November 2007

        Court and civic society in the Burgundian Low Countries c.1420–1520

        by Andrew Brown, Graeme Small, Rosemary Horrox, Simon Maclean

        This volume is the first ever attempt to unite and translate some of the key texts which informed Johan Huizinga's famous study of the Burgundian court, The Waning of the Middle Ages, a work which has never gone out of print. It combines these texts with sources that Huizinga did not consider, those that illuminate the wider civic world that the Burgundian court inhabited and the dynamic interaction between court and city. Through these sources, and an introduction offering new perspectives on recent historiography, the book tests whether Huizinga's controversial vision of the period still stands. Covering subjects including ceremonial events, such as the spectacles and gargantuan banquets that made the Burgundian dukes the talk of Europe, the workings of the court, and jousting, archery and rhetoric competitions, the book will appeal to students of late medieval and early modern Europe and to those with wider interests in court culture, ritual and ceremony. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        2019

        History of the Throw-Away Society

        The drawback of consumption

        by Wolfgang König

        Sooner or later everything is thrown away. In the consumer society, however, usable and serviceable products that may be as good as new are also thrown away. Such behaviour is the result of a long-term process that has developed over a period of one-and-a-half centuries. The change was led by the USA, and the Federal Republic of Germany followed. It started at the turn of the last century with personal hygiene: articles such as toilet paper, sanitary towels, nappies and paper handkerchiefs. After the Second World War, a large number of other disposable articles were soon added, such as paper cups and plastic dishes, nylon stockings and pens, razor blades, beverage cans and much more besides. Wolfgang König shows how business and consumers have together made throwing things away perfectly normal – and discusses how the throwaway society may be overcome.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2002

        American society today

        by Edward Ashbee, Bill Jones

        American society today provides a balanced introduction to the defining features of contemporary American society. Includes the ways in which the US can be considered 'exceptional' - the character of the 'American dream', the role of ethnicity and race, and the differences between the regions. Considers in depth a number of contemporary debates including the claim that the US economy has lost its capacity to generate wealth and stimulate mobility, that there has been a process of civic disengagement as voluntary organisations have lost members, and that the traditional family is in decline. Includes a thorough investigation of the effects of the terrorist attacks of September 11 and their aftermath. Looks at the arguments put forward by those who assert that a common American identity has given way to a multitude of conflicting identities structured around factors such as race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2017

        Visions of empire

        Patriotism, popular culture and the city, 1870–1939

        by Brad Beaven

        The emergence of a vibrant imperial culture in British society from the 1890s both fascinated and appalled contemporaries. It has also consistently provoked controversy among historians. This book offers a ground-breaking perspective on how imperial culture was disseminated. It identifies the important synergies that grew between a new civic culture and the wider imperial project. Beaven shows that the ebb and flow of imperial enthusiasm was shaped through a fusion of local patriotism and a broader imperial identity. Imperial culture was neither generic nor unimportant but was instead multi-layered and recast to capture the concerns of a locality. The book draws on a rich seam of primary sources from three representative English cities. These case studies are considered against an extensive analysis of seminal and current historiography. This renders the book invaluable to those interested in the fields of imperialism, social and cultural history, popular culture, historical geography and urban history.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 1999

        French society in revolution 1789–1799

        by David Andress, Mark Greengrass

        French society in revolution aims to retrieve the social history of the French Revolution from unjustified neglect. This study examines both the structural and cultural elements behind the breakdown of the eighteenth-century monarchic state and its aris. . . . ;

      • Business, Economics & Law
        April 1905

        The Acquisitive Society

        by R.H. Tawney

        This 1926 survey, written by a distinguished social and economic historian, examines the role of religion in the rise of capitalism. Arguing that material acquisitiveness is morally wrong and a corrupting social influence, the author draws upon his profound knowledge of labor and politics to show how concentrated wealth distorts economic policies. Colorful but credible, this study offers a timeless vision of alternative means toward a just economic, social, and intellectual order.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2013

        The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages

        by Trevor Dean

        The towns of Italy in the later middle ages presents over one hundred fascinating documents, carefully selected and coordinated from the richest, most innovative and most documented society of the European Middle Ages. No other English language sourcebook has the same geographical or chronological range. This collection is carefully structured around the crisis of the fourteenth century and arranged in contrasting groups of texts. By connecting documents in translation to recent scholarship and debates, it addresses five key areas of medieval urban history: the physical environment, civic religion, economy, society and politics. Offers students well-translated and effectively contextualised documents along with some guidance to the secondary work of Italian scholars which is largely inaccessible to undergraduate students.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2011

        Democratic Participation and Civil Society in the European Union

        by Dawid Friedrich, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        Can the participation of civil society organisations democratise policy making in the European Union? This book challenges the widespread optimism about civil society participation in European governance and offers a nuanced and realistic evaluation of its democratic potential. Friedrich argues that the participation of these groups is only of democratic value if participatory patterns are democratised through appropriate institutional means. This book systematically brings together insights from normative democratic theory with an empirical evaluation of concrete policy-processes. It demonstrates that the participation of civil society organisation cannot be conceived as a panacea for the European Union's democratic deficit, because the participatory pattern of EU policy-making violates the key democratic value of political equality. This book will be of interest to all of those concerned about the future of European democracy, those studying and teaching European politics, the European Union, international relations and democratic theory. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        Crime, Law and Society in the Later Middle Ages

        by Anthony Musson, Edward Powell

        This book provides an accessible collection of translated legal sources through which the exploits of criminals and developments in the English criminal justice system (c.1215-1485) can be studied. Drawing on the wealth of archival material and an array of contemporary literary texts, it guides readers towards an understanding of prevailing notions of law and justice and expectations of the law and legal institutions. Tensions are shown emerging between theoretical ideals of justice and the practical realities of administering the law during an era profoundly affected by periodic bouts of war, political in-fighting, social dislocation and economic disaster. Introductions and notes provide both the specific and wider legal, social and political contexts in addition to offering an overview of the existing secondary literature and historiographical trends. This collection affords a valuable insight into the character of medieval governance as well as revealing the complex nexus of interests, attitudes and relationships prevailing in society during the later Middle Ages.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Science and society in southern Africa

        by Saul Dubow

        This collection, dealing with case studies drawn from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Mauritius, examines the relationship between scientific claims and practices, and the exercise of colonial power. It challenges conventional views that portray science as a detached mode of reasoning with the capacity to confer benefits in a more or less even-handed manner. That science has the potential to further the collective good is not fundamentally at issue, but science can also be seen as complicit in processes of colonial domination. Not only did science assist in bolstering aspects of colonial power and exploitation, it also possessed a significant ideological component: it offered a means of legitimating colonial authority by counter-poising Western rationality to native superstition and it served to enhance the self-image of colonial or settler elites in important respects. This innovative volume ranges broadly through topics such as statistics, medicine, eugenics, agriculture, entomology and botany.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        May 2019

        New Journey of Great Powers

        From Economic Gaint to Economic Power

        by Zhang Zhanbin

        This book provides a general explanation of new theoretical trees, new development goals, new contradictions, and new historical missions. As a world power, how China, guided by the spirit of the Party ’s 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, “decided to build a well-off society in an all-round way and start to build a comprehensive socialism. The new journey of a modern country "vividly demonstrates China's image as a great power.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2012

        Lesbian Inscriptions in Francophone Society and Culture

        by Edited by Renante Güntner and Wendy Michallat

        This book represents the first comprehensive collection of essays in English dedicated entirely to the study of lesbian inscriptions in francophone society and culture. Spanning the period from the early nineteenth to the twenty-first century, the volume offers a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on ways in which lesbianism has been represented and represented itself, with essays on poetry and the novel, contemporary film and television, photography and architecture. These essays will appeal to students and scholars of gender studies and French literature and culture. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2022

        Civic identity and public space

        Belfast since 1780

        by Dominic Bryan, Sean J. Connolly, John Nagle

        Civic identity and public space, focussing on Belfast, and bringing together the work of a historian and two social scientists, offers a new perspective on the sometimes lethal conflicts over parades, flags and other issues that continue to disrupt political life in Northern Ireland. It examines the emergence during the nineteenth century of the concept of public space and the development of new strategies for its regulation, the establishment, the new conditions created by the emergence in 1920 of a Northern Ireland state, of a near monopoly of public space enjoyed by Protestants and unionists, and the break down of that monopoly in more recent decades. Today policy makers and politicians struggle to devise a strategy for the management of public space in a divided city, while endeavouring to promote a new sense of civic identity that will transcend long-standing sectarian and political divisions.

      • Trusted Partner
        March 2021

        Right to Dementia

        A plea

        by Thomas Klie

        People are living longer, and people are developing dementia. But our consumer society, which is optimised for working silently, is helpless in the face of those who have gone mad from its midst. The burden of caring for them is borne largely by their dependants and by carers from Eastern Europe. In his extremely stirring book, Professor Thomas Klie argues that we should include people with dementia as part of our lives and recognise that it is possible to live a happy and fulfilled life even with dementia – under the right conditions. Especially in the light of societal conflicts over income distribution fuelled by the corona pandemic, Klie is convinced that the dominant culture is measured by how it treats the subject of dementia.

      • Trusted Partner

      Subscribe to our

      newsletter