Books published by Manchester University Press

Explores the complexities of France's role in Africa over the past century -- .

Dust is a witty and highly original investigation into the development of modern history writing. This book considers how history writing belongs to the currents of thought shaping the modern world, and suggests that, like dust, the 'matter of history' can never go away or be erased. -- .

Many definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world. -- .

Gabriel García Márquez has been described as the greatest writer in Spanish since Cervantes, and El coronel no tiene quien le escriba is considered to be one of his best works. This reflective and atmospheric novel is set in a small Colombian town where the frustrated and stubborn Colonel, a veteran of the 'War of a Thousand Days', is still, after thirty years, waiting for the letter authorising payment of his war pension.The old soldier and his wife mourn the brutal killing of their only son, and the story of their struggle against poverty and sickness culminates in the Colonel's defiant refusal to part with his cherished fighting cock, however serious the consequences.The moving narrative pays tribute to the resilience of human nature and man's will to survive in the face of heavy odds. The novel also throws light on the turbulent religious and political troubles in Latin America.Now revised to include an updated chronology and bibliography, Giovanni Pontiero's acclaimed critical edition provides English-speaking students with an introduction to, and notes on the text, and a selected vocabulary.

James Baldwin Review (JBR) is an annual journal that brings together a wide array of peer-reviewed critical and creative work on the life, writings, and legacy of James Baldwin. This edition brings together all of the articles published in this year's volume.

Ruth's book is part of the My Voice Project, a collection of firsthand accounts of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. Ruth Lachs began life in Hamburg in 1936 and went on to live in Manchester and work in healthcare. -- .

Sam's book is part of the My Voice Project, a collection of firsthand accounts of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. Sam Laskier experienced terrible ordeals at labour camps and then Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was brought to Windermere in England after WWII for rehabilitation, and later settled in Manchester. -- .

A brilliant new account of John Singer Sargent and his relationship with the Wertheimers, an eminent Jewish family in Edwardian London. -- .

This book articulates an analytical framework for understanding how race, nature, and capitalism are co-constituted on a planetary scale. The framework of the 'political ecology of colonial capitalism' elucidates how the co-production of race and the society/nature distinction operates as a foundational structure of capitalism. In order to express the relationship between global inequality and planetary ecological crises, the book applies this framework to a theoretical and historical analysis of the 'global land grab', which refers to the intensification, beginning in the 2010s and continuing into the 2020s, of large scale transnational agricultural land acquisitions in the global South. It orients analytical attention towards how capitalist development has proceeded, over its long history, through a succession of accumulation cycles that rise and fall in correspondence with the racialized construction, and ultimate exhaustion, of frontiers of "unused" natures. At one level, the book foregrounds how colonialism materially opens, through violent dispossession of colonized peoples, frontiers provisioning the necessary cheap inputs for capitalist development. It then proceeds, on a second level, to reveal how the accompanying conceptualization of the frontier as an 'unused' nature distinct from human society is contingent upon a technology of race which re-presents Indigenous sovereign earth-worlds as unused and wasted virgin natures. The book thus demonstrates how the global land grab is driven by a systemic colonial-capitalist logic of racialized frontier re-generation attempting to overcome the crisis context marking the exhaustion of the neoliberal epoch of capitalism.

Women and madness in the early Romantic novel returns madness to a central role in feminist literary criticism by offering a close look at the novels of five early Romantic-period women authors. In an updated exploration of hysteria, melancholia, and love-madness, Weiss maintains that Mary Wollstonecraft, Eliza Fenwick, and Mary Hays created novels that exposed how medical models for mental disease and the popular sentimental figure of the love-mad maid (the woman who loses her mind when she loses her man) made it possible for men to hide their culpability for injuring women. Weiss demonstrates that in their novels, patriarchal structures of control are responsible for the protagonists' bouts of hysteria and their dangerous melancholia. Making careful and important distinctions between authors, Weiss shows how the popular and more mainstream authors such as Maria Edgeworth and Amelia Opie explored less gendered and less victimised models of causality, such as the shock of traumatic experience on the human psyche, misplaced passions, erroneous associations, and remorse. Taken as a whole, the book demonstrates that these authors' treatment of female madness played a key role in the development of the psychologically complex female heroine of the nineteenth-century novel. In so doing, Weiss makes a powerful case for focusing on women's mental health in eighteenth- and nineteenth- century literary criticism.

Is there a 'tradition' of British anti-racism? This volume brings together new, original scholarship to demonstrate that, if there is a meaningful tradition of 'British' anti-racism, it was created by citizens and subjects and it has been shaped by shifting imperial and transnational politics as well as national and local contexts. The volume traces how the history of anti-racism in Britain has been characterised at one end of the spectrum by paternalism and at the other end by solidarity, identifying this paternalistic-solidaristic spectrum as a major axis within British political culture. It examines the anti-racist and anti-imperialist alliances forged during the late nineteenth century, explores how anti-racist action shifted to decolonial state resistance and organising in the embers of empire, and analyses how histories and memories of racism and anti-racism were reframed and expressed at the turn of the millennium. Contributors identify moments of multi-ethnic solidarity between a range of communities and organisations, from trade unions to community 'self-help'. Chapters in this volume also pay attention to how cultural forms play a role in racial formation and anti-racist activism and alliances. Crucially, this volume explores anti-racism as a shifting and ongoing project of resistance with multiple points of geographic, intellectual and political origin and highlights a number of key continuities and fractures in the history of anti-racism in Britain.

Beyond nationalism presents a comprehensive theory of the common good of the European Union (EU) and proposes concrete policies and institutional reforms to improve its achievement. It commences with a discussion of the public values jointly endorsed by EU member states, which are seen to provide a basis for identifying a transnational common good. Labareda discusses the distinctive nature of the EU common good, which he associates with three main conditions: maintaining liberal democracy, enabling decent standards of social welfare, and ensuring a high level of environmental protection. Relying on a constructivist understanding of national interests, the author proposes a set of reforms that would allow the EU common good to be more strongly represented in the process of national interest formation in domestic politics. At the same time, he proposes significant changes in the Brussels institutional apparatus aimed at democratising the pursuit of the common good, including the creation of an EU Citizens' Assembly and the election of the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council. The book takes on board the idea that a willingness by EU citizens to recurrently sacrifice their interests for the sake of an EU common good would require stronger bonds of civic friendship among them. It proposes several policies to achieve this goal, including reducing socioeconomic inequalities in the EU, curtailing barriers against freedom of movement, and creating a transnational curriculum on EU citizenship.

Popular discourse around British Muslims has often been dominated by a focus on Muslim women and their sartorial choices, particularly the hijab and niqab. This book takes a different angle and focuses on Muslim men, examining how factors like the global war on terror influenced and changed their sartorial choices and use of language. The book denaturalises the ubiquitous and deeply problematic security lens through which knowledge of Muslims has been produced in the past two decades. British Bangladeshi Muslims in the East End offers an alternative reading of these communities and how their political subjectivities emerge. Drawing on historical events, field research and existing academic work, the book aims to address the multiple ways British Bangladeshi Muslim men and women create their relationship with dress and language. This is the first book to empirically examine how dress and language shape the identities of British Bangladeshi Muslims in the East End, using in-depth analysis useful for anyone interested in the study of British Muslims broadly. While the book focuses on a specific Muslim community, the emerging themes demonstrate the interconnectedness of Muslims locally and globally and how they manifest their identities through dress and language.

This book illuminates the history of one of Manchester's most influential families. Charting the lives of Henry, Emily, Ernest and Shena Simon, it demonstrates their significance through tracing their work in engineering innovation, enriching Manchester's civic culture, and in shaping local government, housing and education. -- .

This volume provides a significant new commercial perspective on contraception in modern Britain. It is the first book-length study to examine contraceptives as commodities and to demonstrate the significance of the contraceptive industry in shaping sexual knowledge alongside the medical profession, the birth control movement, and the state before the emergence of the contraceptive pill. -- .

The crisis that befell Ireland in the 1640s has always fascinated historians. This volume of essays presents cutting-edge research on various aspects of the Irish wars, notably regionalism, the nature of English interventions, popular politics and the problems of allegiance, authority and legitimacy in church and state. The chapters include studies of the earl of Cork in Munster, the earl of Clanricarde in Connacht and Lord Montgomery in Ulster, as well as the Confederate Catholic engagement with popular politics. The role of the marquess of Ormond, the Irish Parliament and the Church of Ireland are also examined in new ways, and the volume ends with a fresh look at the war of words between Oliver Cromwell and the Catholic Church. Ireland in crisis presents a very different view of the period that challenges existing assumptions. It will appeal to lecturers, students and the general reader.

The tremendous growth in foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa comes at a time when the field of international investment law and arbitration is witnessing a renewal. The investment has led to big business for law firms in the area of investment arbitration and the last decade has witnessed an increased number of investment treaties, proliferating investment disputes, the rise of mega- regional trade agreements and the negotiation of mega- regional infrastructure projects. Yet, while the argument in support of investment treaties as instruments to attract foreign direct investment is highly contested, many African countries are no doubt becoming more aware of the need to reshape the international investment architecture. This volume explores trends in FDI on the African continent, the benefits and challenges that FDI presents for African States, and Africa's participation in the international investment law regime. Featuring contributions from leading African international lawyers, arbitrators, jurists, academics, and litigation experts, this landmark volume is the first of its kind of explore African perspectives in international investment law. Hodu and Mbengue bring together non-mainstream approaches to the debate on the nexus between foreign investment and development, addressing key conceptual issues that will define contemporary international investment law for decades to come. With insights and critical comments on the challenges of Africa's foreign investment climate and international investment law, this timely collection is essential reading for academics, students, and practitioners alike.

This book is an oral history of the punk scene in Belfast from the mid-1970s to the mid-80s. It explores what it was like to be a punk in a city shaped by the violence of the Troubles, and how this differed from being a punk elsewhere. It also asks what it means to have been a punk - how punk unravels as a thread throughout the lives of the people interviewed, and what that unravelling means in the context of post-peace-process Northern Ireland. In doing so, it suggests a critical understanding of sectarianism, subjectivity and memory politics in the North, and argues for the importance of placing punk within the segregated structures of everyday life described by the interviewees. Belfast punk and the Troubles is an intervention in Northern Irish historiography stressing the importance of history from below, and will be compelling reading for historians of Ireland and of punk, as well as those interested in innovative approaches to oral history.

This book analyses the international phenomenon of private peace entrepreneurs. These are private citizens with no official authority who initiate channels of communication with official representatives from the other side of a conflict in order to promote a conflict resolution process. It combines theoretical discussion with historical analysis, examining four cases from different conflicts: Norman Cousins and Suzanne Massie in the Cold War, Brendan Duddy in the Northern Ireland conflict and Uri Avnery in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The book defines the phenomenon, examines the resources and activities of private peace entrepreneurs and their impact on the official diplomacy, and examines the conditions under which they can play an effective role in peace-making processes.This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16, Peace, justice and strong institutions.

The 'War on Terror' ushered in a new era of anti-Muslim bias and racism. Anti-Muslim racism, or Islamophobia, is influenced by local economies, power structures and histories. However, the War on Terror, a conflict undefined by time and place, with a homogenised Muslim 'Other' framed as a perpetual enemy, has contributed towards a global Islamophobic narrative. This edited international volume examines the connections between interpersonal and institutional anti-Muslim racism that have contributed to the growth and emboldening of nativist and populist protest movements globally. It maps out categories of Islamophobia, revealing how localised histories, conflicts and contemporary geopolitical realities have textured the ways that Islamophobia has manifested across the global North and South. At the same time, it seeks to highlight activism and resistance confronting Islamophobia.

A fascinating historical account of how and why the U.S. cultural penetration in Yugoslavia became a key feature for the attainment of Washington's short, middle and long-term policy goals there. -- .

This is the first book to examine the shifting relationship between humanitarianism and the expansion, consolidation and postcolonial transformation of the Anglophone world across three centuries, from the antislavery campaign of the late eighteenth century to the role of NGOs balancing humanitarianism and human rights in the late twentieth century. Contributors explore the trade-offs between humane concern and the altered context of colonial and postcolonial realpolitik. They also showcase an array of methodologies and sources with which to explore the relationship between humanitarianism and colonialism. These range from the biography of material objects to interviews as well as more conventional archival enquiry. They also include work with and for Indigenous people whose family histories have been defined in large part by 'humanitarian' interventions.