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Asian Lives in Anthropological Perspective: Essays on Morality, Achievement and Modernity (WYSE Series in Social Anthropology #16)
by Susan BaylyContemporary Asian societies bear the imprint of the experience and afterlives of colonialism, revolutionary socialism and religious and secular nationalism in dramatically contrasting ways. Asian Lives in Anthropological Perspective draws together essays that demonstrate the role of these far-reaching transformations in the shaping of two Asian settings in particular – India and Vietnam. It traces historical and contemporary realities through a variety of compelling topics including the lived experience of India’s caste system and the ethical challenges faced by Vietnamese working women.
Asylum and Conversion to Christianity in Europe: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Drawing together previously disjointed scholarship on the topic of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity, this book shows how boundaries of belonging are negotiated between Middle Eastern ex-Muslim asylum seekers, church representatives, lawyers, legal decision-makers and policymakers. With case studies from European countries such as Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach including ethnographic and other qualitative research, discourse analysis and case law analysis, to explore the complexities of the phenomenon of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity.This book is an authoritative resource for academic scholars in fields as diverse as migration and refugee studies, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, law and socio-legal studies, as well as legal and religious practitioners.
Augustine, Rahner, and Trinitarian Exegesis: An Exploration of Augustine's Exegesis of Scripture as a Foundation for Rahner's Trinitarian Project and Rule (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology)
by Rev Dr Martin E. RobinsonThrough close and sustained analysis of Augustine's exegesis of Scripture, Robinson argues that Augustine's Trinitarian exegesis offers significant-though not inexhaustible-support for Rahner's Trinitarian project and, particularly, his Grundaxiom. Firstly, he posits that Augustine provides weighty, biblically rich, support for Rahner's Trinitarian agenda at exactly those points where Rahner is explicitly critical of Augustine and the “Augustinian-Western tradition”, overcoming various weaknesses detected in the later tradition, and pre-empting many of Rahner's later solutions. Secondly and consequently, Robinson suggests that Augustine offers a scriptural reading strategy that addresses the major exegetical difficulties perceived to emerge from Rahner's Rule. Thus, in Augustine's exegesis of Scripture, the Augustinian-Western tradition has always had the resources at its disposal to avoid or address the most poignant criticisms levelled both by and at Rahner.
Aum Shinrikyo and religious terrorism in Japanese collective memory (British Academy Monographs)
by Rin UshiyamaAum Shinriky?'s sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995 left an indelible mark on Japanese society. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive study of the competing memories of Aum Shinriky?'s religious terrorism. Developing a sociological framework for how uneven distributions of power and resources shape commemorative processes, this book explores how the Aum Affair developed as a 'cultural trauma' in Japanese collective memory following the Tokyo attack. Interrogating an array of sources including mass media reports and interviews with victims and ex-members, it reveals the multiple clashing narratives over the causes of Aum's violence, the efficacy of 'brainwashing' and 'mind control', and whether capital punishment is justified. It shows that although cultural trauma construction requires the use of moral binaries such as 'good vs. evil', 'pure vs. impure', and 'sacred vs. profane', the entrenchment of such binary codes in commemorative processes can ultimately hinder social repair and reconciliation.
Balancing Unity and Diversity in EU Legislation
Presenting cutting-edge insights into the current state of EU legislation, this book addresses the profound changes that the EU’s legislature has undergone in recent years and how these shape EU law. At the heart of this inquiry is how the strive for uniform EU legislation is balanced with the necessity to leave a certain degree of autonomy to member states, and how such tension between unity and diversity is reflected in the design of EU legislation.Featuring sectoral and cross-sectoral contributions from a diverse array of distinguished academics, the book examines how the tension between EU unity and national autonomy has evolved over time. In particular it considers the response to significant new developments in the EU constitutional and law-making framework. The chapters explore the legislative strategies that have been adopted across various fields of EU law and policy to shape unity and diversity, and the practical, conceptual, and constitutional issues that these engender. Case studies from different EU fields and member states are critically analysed alongside key concepts including harmonization, derogations, proportionality, and effectiveness.Both incisive and authoritative, this book will prove indispensable to academics, researchers and students with an interest in constitutional and administrative law, law and politics, and European law, politics and policy. Legal practitioners and policymakers wanting a better understanding of EU legislation and its impact on national legal orders will similarly benefit from the analysis and recommendations this important book makes.
Barbara Kingsolver's World: Nature, Art, and the Twenty-First Century, Revised Edition
by Prof Linda Wagner-MartinA revised edition of Linda Wagner-Martin's comprehensive study of the novels, stories, essays and poetry of American author Barbara Kingsolver. Now updated so that coverage runs from Kingsolver's first novel, The Bean Trees, through to her most recent, Demon Copperhead. Author of the only biography of Barbara Kingsolver and of a reader's guide to The Poisonwood Bible, Wagner-Martin has become the leading authority on this Pulitzer-prize-wining author. Here she covers every work in Kingsolver's oeuvre, emphasizing the writer's blend of the scientific method in which she was formally trained with her convincing understanding of the human characters that fill her books. What Kingsolver achieves throughout all her writing is a seamless blending of the various parts of human existence. She melds important themes through parts and pieces of the natural world-the African snakes, the Monarch butterflies, the coyotes in Deanna Wolfe's existence. Repeatedly Kingsolver writes to create both characters and the characters' worlds, bringing all these pieces into masterful, and whole, realities.This edition includes two new chapters - one on her 2018 novel, Unsheltered, and the second on her 2022 novel, Demon Copperhead - and is the first study of Kingsolver to publish since she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023.
Basic Anesthesia Review
Basic Anesthesia Review provides a comprehensive knowledge review for all second-year US Anesthesiology residents taking the American Board of Anesthesiology's (ABA) Basic Exam. A companion to Advanced Anesthesia Review, this essential review features concise and readable chapters covering the relevant knowledge and concepts as determined by the ABA's curriculum. While multiple books are available for board review, very few have published since the ABA restructured board examinations. Basic Anesthesia Review is organized topically according to the most recently published ABA curriculum and highlights ABA key words along with bulleted key points to reinforce key concepts and facts.
Beating Melanoma: A Five-step Survival Guide (A\johns Hopkins Press Health Book Ser.)
by Steven Q. Wang
Beauvoir and Belle: A Black Feminist Critique of The Second Sex (Philosophy of Race)
by Kathryn Sophia BelleKathryn Sophia Belle centers feminist frameworks, discourses, and vocabularies of Black women and other Women of Color that existed prior to and have continued to exist after The Second Sex. She centers and amplifies the voices of Black women and other Women of Color, such as Lorraine Hansberry, Angela Davis, Chikwenye Ogunyemi, Deborah King, Oy?r?nk? Oyw?m?, Mariana Ortega, Kathy Glass, bell hooks, Kyoo Lee, Stephanie Rivera Berruz, Patricia Hill Collins, and Alia Al-Saji. Special attention is also given to Claudia Jones and Audre Lorde, both of whom implicitly and indirectly engage with The Second Sex. Beauvoir and Belle demonstrates the myriad ways in which these frameworks both expose and surpass the limits of The Second Sex. Belle argues against the frameworks of oppression used by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, a foundational text of white feminist philosophy. She frames Beauvoir's analogies as limitations, and shows how Beauvoir either does not engage with Black women and other Women of Color-or engages with them in problematic ways. Belle explores how Black and other Women of Color have critically written and talked about The Second Sex, and in so doing exposes the ways in which the existing Beauvoir scholarship has mostly ignored these engagements, thereby replicating Beauvoir's exclusions.
Beekeeping for Gardeners: The complete step-by-step guide to keeping bees in your garden
by Richard RickittA comprehensive gardener's guide to sustainable beekeeping.Beekeeping has changed. While once it was a hobby that pursued the rich rewards of honey and wax, many new beekeepers now instead seek the gratification of knowing that they are aiding the survival of one of the world's most important creatures. Keeping bees today is as much about providing the right habitats and resources to help pollinators thrive as it is about chasing every drop of golden honey.This beautifully illustrated guide to the ancient hobby of beekeeping shows today's gardeners how to create beautiful gardens that are richly rewarding for people and bees alike. Flowers, shrubs, trees and vegetable plots can provide colourful beauty and delicious produce as well as vital pollen and nectar when bees need it the most. There are lists of the top-performing plants and how and where to grow them, including window boxes, lawns, borders, wild gardens and even ponds.Beekeeping for Gardeners looks at the pleasures and benefits of keeping honey bees in gardens of all types and sizes, both rural and urban. It explains the practicalities involved in keeping bees in the domestic garden setting, as well as on rooftops, allotments, parks, farmland and other locations. Importantly, and unlike any book before, this guide sets the delightful hobby of beekeeping within the context of the wider environment, asking how it can best serve the needs of all types of pollinator and the local ecology in general.Whether you're looking to attract more bumblebees and solitary bees or want to install a beehive, this wonderful book contains all the guidance you'll need to have a garden buzzing with bees.
Between Riverside and Crazy (Modern Plays)
by Stephen Adly Guirgis"Son, that girl, she's a nice girl, but she don't study accounting. Her lips move when she read the horoscope – that ain't the mark of a future accountant!"Since his wife died, ex-cop Walter 'Pops' Washington has filled his palatial rent-controlled apartment in one of Manhattan's most desirable areas with an oddball extended family of petty criminals. So now he's besieged by the landlords, who want him out, the NYPD, who want him to settle his lawsuit against them, and the ladies from the local church, who want to save his soul… But Pops, calm at the eye of the storm, is going to do precisely what Pops wants to do…Stephen Adly Guirgis' fast-moving Rabelaisian tragicomedy was a Broadway hit and won multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His other plays include Jesus Hopped the A-Train, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and The Motherf**ker with the Hat.This edition was published to coincide with the UK premiere at the Hampstead Theatre, London in May 2024.
Beyond Pain: The Anthropology of Body Suspensions
by Federica ManfrediThe practice of body suspension — piercing one’s own flesh with metal hooks and hanging from them — and its uniquely sprawling community challenge our cultural understanding of pain. The suspendees experience physical suffering to trigger altered states of consciousness that help them define and create an enhanced version of the self. Through experimental and practice-based methodology, Beyond Pain combines thirteen years of intermittent ethnographical fieldwork during suspension festivals and private events in Italy, Portugal, and Norway, along with online sites such as Facebook groups, to uncover the often silenced and misunderstood voices of the people who undertake this practice.
Beyond the Veil: Reflexive Studies of Death and Dying
by Aubrey Thamann Kalliopi M. ChristodoulakiLooking at the cultural responses to death and dying, this collection explores the emotional aspects that death provokes in humans, whether it is disgust, fear, awe, sadness, anger, or even joy. Whereas most studies of death and dying treat the subject from an objective viewpoint, the scholars in this collection recognize their inherent connection with death which allows for a new and more personal form of study. More broadly, this collection suggests a new paradigm in the study of death and dying.
The Bible in the Age of Empire: A Cultural History
The nineteenth century was a time of titanic change. At the very heart of that change – driving it, confounding it, complicating it – was a singular book reputed to be utterly unchanging in its true and perfect expression. This book was the Bible. No other book could rival its ubiquity or cultural potency. Neither was any other book quite so divisive. Many revered it. Others deplored it. Still others used it for creative inspiration or borrowed its authority to bring about particular economic or political ends. But whatever status it enjoyed, whatever purpose it served, it was never far from the centre of Victorian discourse. The essays in this book explore how the Bible shaped and was shaped by the social and cultural forces at work during the nineteenth century -- forces that drove both scientific discovery and the colonial project, provoked unprecedented economic gain and condemned countless workers to urban poverty, gave birth to women's rights movements and reinforced traditional gender norms. Ultimately, all the essays in this book demonstrate one thing: that the nineteenth century emerges in its greatest clarity only when we approach it as the Victorians themselves approached it: through the lens of the Bible.
Biopolitics as a System of Thought
by Dr Serene RichardsOur contemporary mode of life is characterised by what Serene Richards in Biopolitics as a System of Thought calls: Smart Being. Smart Being believes in the solutions of techno-capital where living is always at stake and directed to survival. Armed with this concept, this book examines how we arrived at this mode of being and asks how it could be that, while the material conditions of our lives have increasingly worsened, our capacities for effective political action, understood as the capacity for transforming our existing social relations, appear to be diminishing.Drawing from jurists and philosophers such as Pierre Legendre, Yan Thomas, Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, Richards argues that biopolitics intervenes at the most minute level of our everyday lives. She argues that there are conceptual truths presupposed in the mode of biopolitics' functioning, for instance that life can be assigned a value for the purpose of intervention, abandonment, or death, which have implications for our politics. In exciting engagements with political movements such as the post-May 1968 Mouvement des travailleurs Arabes (MTA), Richards shows how demands to transform our system of social relations are undermined by institutional models that proffer to offer rights protection while simultaneously annihilating the living altogether. Through a reappraisal of law, governance and capital, Richards seeks to reconceptualise our collectivity of thought, arguing for a politics of destitution that could form the basis of a communism to come.
Blackstone's Guide to the Human Rights Act 1998 (Blackstone's Guides)
by John Wadham Helen Mountfield KC Raj Desai Sarah Hannett KC Jessica Jones Eleanor Mitchell Aidan WillsBlackstone's Guide to the Human Rights Act 1998 provides clear, concise coverage of the operation and application of the Human Rights Act 1998, including the development of human rights jurisprudence in the domestic courts and in Strasbourg. It also sets out the recent erosion of the universal applicability of the remedies in the Human Rights Act by the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and other recent changes to the statutory scheme such as the amendment to the limitation period for claims involving the armed forces. The Guide considers the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the impact of Convention rights in landmark domestic judgments across a wide range of areas, including terrorism, privacy, discrimination, and criminal law. It explains the interpretive techniques employed by the courts to read legislation compatibly with Convention rights and the jurisdiction to declare legislation incompatible with Convention rights. Finally, the last chapter sets out how to make an application to the Strasbourg Court and sets out in detail how that court works. The new edition of this popular Guide considers the key developments since the publication of the previous edition 9 years ago. It sets out recent reviews of the Human Rights Act and puts the threats to the Act, especially the Bill of Rights, in the context of the recent history of human rights in the UK. It also considers significant developments in the law relating to the extra-territorial reach and applicability of the Convention under Article 1 ECHR, following Al Skeini, Georgia v Russia, Guzelyurtlu, Hanan and HF. The book contains an up to date copy of the Human Rights Act 1998, and the text of the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights which are now a central part of UK law. The Blackstone's Guide series delivers concise and accessible books covering the latest legislative changes and amendments. Published soon after enactment, they offer expert commentary by leading names on the scope, extent and effects of the legislation, plus a full copy of the Act itself. They offer a cost-effective solution to key information needs and are the perfect companion for any practitioner needing to get up to speed with the latest changes.
Bloody Tuesday: The Untold Story of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa
by John M. GiggieThe dramatic story of one of the most violent episodes of the civil rights movement and its role in the ongoing reckoning with racial injustice in the United States. On Bloody Sunday, activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and faced attacks by oncoming state troopers. Footage of the violence shocked the nation, galvanized the fight against racial injustice, and made it an iconic event in the nation's history. Yet the previous year an even more brutal incident dubbed Bloody Tuesday took place in Tuscaloosa. On Tuesday, June 9, 1964, police attacked more than 600 Black men, women, and children inside First African Baptist Church, where Reverend Martin Luther King had launched the Tuscaloosa campaign for integration three months earlier. As the group gathered to march, they faced over seventy law enforcement officers and hundreds more deputized white citizens and Klansmen eager to end their protests for good. Police smashed the historic church's stained-glass windows with water hoses and fired rounds of tear gas inside. As demonstrators streamed from the church, many choking and soaked, they beat them with nightsticks, cattle prods, and axe handles, arrested nearly a hundred, and sent over thirty to the hospital. Here this event is recounted through the eyes of locals--a charismatic Black preacher trained by Rev. King, an aging police chief, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and Black women who were the backbone of the protests. It was a pivotal moment in a southern city unwilling to shed its long history of racial control and Klan brutality until forced to do so by armed Black self-defense groups, a bus boycott, and the federal government. In Bloody Tuesday, John Giggie powerfully recovers one of the last great untold stories of the civil rights movement and its role in the reckoning with America's ongoing struggle for racial justice.
Boaters of London: Alternative Living on the Water (Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories #5)
by Ben BowlesLondon and the Southeast of England is home to an alternative community of people called 'boaters': individuals and families who live on narrowboats, cruisers and barges, along a network of canals and rivers. Many of these people move from place to place every two weeks due to mooring rules and form itinerant communities in the heart of some of the UK’s most built-up and expensive urban spaces. Boaters of London is an ethnography that delves into the process of becoming a boater, adopting an alternative lifestyle on the water and the political impact that this travelling population has on the state.
Borges's Creative Infidelities: Translating Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner
by Dr. Leah Leone AndersonUsing comparative analyses of source and target texts, Leone Anderson examines Jorge Luis Borges's residual presence in his Spanish-language translations of works by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.Argentine writer and critic Jorge Luis Borges did not see translation as an inferior form of artistic production to be defined primarily in terms of loss or unfaithfulness, but rather as a vast and rich source for literary innovation and aesthetic inquiry. Borges's Creative Infidelities: Translating Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner explores what this view may have implied for his translations of Anglophone Modernist fiction: the last two pages of James Joyce's Ulysses; Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Orlando; and William Faulkner's If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem [The Wild Palms]. Through full-length, manual comparisons of the English and Spanish texts, this book reveals the ways Borges inscribed his tastes, values and judgments–both about the individual works and about Modernist literature in general–onto his translations and how in doing so, he altered the identities of their characters, the ethical and rhetorical positioning of their narrators, their plots and even their genres. This book is driven by storytelling: the stories of each texts' origin and reception in English; of how they ended up in Borges's hands and of his translation processes; of how, through his translations, the texts' narratives were made to tell new stories; and of the extraordinary legacies of Borges's Spanish translations of Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner.
Boys from the Blackstuff (Modern Plays)
by Mr James GrahamGizza job. Go on, gizzit, go 'head, giz it if you've got it, giz it, I can do it. Giz it then. Go 'head, gizza job.80s' Liverpool. Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser are used to hard work and providing for their families. But there is no work and there is no money. What are they supposed to do? Work harder, work longer, buy cheaper, spend less? They just need a chance. Life is tough but the lads can play the game. Find the jobs, avoid the 'sniffers' and see if you can have a laugh along the way. 40 years after Alan Bleasdale's ground-breaking television series of the same name was essential viewing, this edition is published to coincide with the co-production between the Liverpool Royal Court and London's National Theatre, in April 2024.
Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work
by Layla McCayA compelling look at the challenges facing LGBTQ+ professionals as they navigate their careers – with advice from many senior figures who have smashed their own rainbow ceilings.There are currently only four LGBTQ+ CEOs across all Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies who are out at work, and just 0.8% of Fortune 500 board positions are filled by LGBTQ+ people. This deficit, occurring across sectors and around the world, reveals a diversity gap playing out in today's workplace: LGBTQ+ people are less likely to reach the top jobs. But what is holding LGBTQ+ people back at work – and what can be done?Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling explores the hidden differences that cause LGBTQ+ people to be underrepresented at the most senior levels of professional life. Combining data with personal insights from over 40 prominent LGBTQ+ trailblazers, from CEOs to Ambassadors, Layla McCay reveals the challenges that LGBTQ+ people commonly encounter as they find their way in work environments, and provides the practical strategies that can help empower LGBTQ+ people to reach their full professional potential.The book explores how everyone – from boards, CEOs, managers, HR professionals and colleagues, through to LGBTQ+ people navigating their own career paths – can recognize and address the barriers, achieve their career goals, and build a more inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and succeed.
Brief Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy 2e
by Prof Alessandra Lemma Prof Mary Hepworth Prof Peter Fonagy Prof Patrick Luyten Ms Deborah AbrahamsDynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) is a brief psychodynamic psychotherapy developed for the treatment of mood disorders. It is now offered in the UK in NHS for the treatment of depression and has been applied worldwide in public health care settings as well as private settings. This book is a user-friendly, practical guide for the implementation of a brief psychodynamic intervention in routine clinical practice as well as in research protocols. It has been substantially updated since the first edition in 2011 with the addition of 5 new chapters to reflect new applications of the model in complex care, for patients with functional and somatic disorders and for internet delivered DIT and it outlines the changes in the training of DIT practitioners . It sets out clearly the theoretical framework, as well as the rationale and strategies for applying DIT with patients presenting with mood disorders (depression and anxiety). Throughout, it is illustrated with detailed examples that help the reader to implement the approach in their practice. The book will be required reading to support training initiatives in DIT, as well as providing a resource for mental health professionals specialising in psychodynamic psychotherapy and wishing to work within a limited time frame.
The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria (Modern Plays)
by Sasha Wilson Joseph CullenYour country, sir. Your people. Your responsibility.It rather does fall to you to make things right.Clean up your father's mess.Winner of the 2023 Off West End 'Best Ensemble' AwardRunner Up for the 2023 BBC Writersroom Popcorn Award for Best New WritingWinner of the 2020 VAULT Festival Origins AwardThe year is 1943 and Bulgaria has just told Hitler where to stick it. Europe's major powers are at war and King Boris III must choose a side or be swept away. A raucous and poignant tale in which a bunch of underdogs use every trick in the book to outwit the Nazis and save nearly 50,000 Jewish lives.Award-winning Out Of The Forest Theatre's irreverent comedy - featuring live music inspired by Bulgarian and Jewish folk tunes - tells the incredible true story that the world forgot.This is a unique story in 20th century European history. Prepare to be enthralled as The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria weaves a tale that delves deep into history, leaving you both informed and spellbound.This edition was published to coincide with the initial run at New York City's Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theatre in May 2024, before the show toured the UK in June 2024.
Britain's Slavery Debt: Reparations Now!
by Michael BannerA concise, reasoned, practical case for why Britain should pay reparations for historic wrongs to present Caribbean inhabitants. Britain owes reparations to the Caribbean. The exploitation of generations of those trafficked from Africa, or born into enslavement, to work the immensely profitable sugars plantations, enriched both British individuals and the British nation. Colonialism, even after emancipation, perpetuated the exploitation. The Caribbean still suffers, and Britain still benefits, from these historic wrongs. There are some fairly standard objections to reparations -- 'slavery ended a long time ago'; 'Britain should be celebrating its role in abolishing slavery'; 'slavery was legal back then and we shouldn't judge the past by the standards of the present'; 'you shouldn't visit the sins of the fathers on the sons'; and so on. And there is a sense that the practical problems of who should pay what to whom are immensely difficult. Michael Banner carefully considers and answers these objections. He argues that reparations are not about punishment, but about the restoration of wrongful gains. In Reparations Now! he makes a specific and practical proposal regarding reparations, picking up on the programme suggested by Caribbean countries (through CARICOM), and taking as a starting point the nearly ?20 million paid as compensation by the British government at abolition, not to those who had suffered slavery, but to those who lost enslaved labourers. Reparations Now! discusses what can be done, here and now, by individuals and institutions, to advance the case for reparations between national governments.
British Architecture: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by Dana ArnoldVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring British Architecture: A Very Short Introduction presents an original and engaging overview of the architecture of the British Isles, from medieval times to the present day. Avoiding the traditional approach of a chronological survey of architects and architectural style, each chapter presents a thematic exploration of key aspects of British architecture that endure across time and still have relevance today. Arnold uses illustrated chapters to aid appreciation of the artistic and cultural significance of British architecture and how it operates as a barometer of social trends. Arnold also highlights the ways in which architecture can project national and regional identities. British architecture tells of the intrinsic nature of Britishness and is an important means of understanding Britain's connection with the rest of the world. There is no doubt about the international significance of the work of recent and contemporary British architects. But Arnold also relates how a preoccupation with the past has been a constant theme in design thinking and practice. A thematic, historical understanding of British architecture in terms of its form and purpose explains much about the society and culture for which it was built. Architecture continues to shape patterns of living and social interaction and responds to new demands. Equally, debates about how best to express the nation through its architecture reveal much about Britain's perception of itself and how this is expressed at home and abroad. Finally, Arnold explores how subsequent generations can offer new interpretations and meanings that change our view of British architecture's legacy. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.