Books published by Manchester University Press

What went wrong with Britain? presents a comprehensive account of the devastating legacy left by the Conservative government. Shining a light into every dark corner, the book exposes the full extent of the damage inflicted on the country's economy, social fabric and political integrity. When the Conservatives were voted out of government in July 2024, they left behind a miserable record of rising poverty, inequality and division. This book reveals the forces that have driven the country to the point of crisis, from austerity and economic mismanagement to sheer political dysfunction. Each chapter offers new insights into the far-reaching consequences of government policies that prioritised ideology, personal ambition and party politics over the public good. Examining the rise of populism, the politics of Brexit, the UK's response to the pandemic and the steady erosion of public trust, this shocking account of the legacy of Conservative government from 2010 to 2024 is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand exactly what went wrong with Britain.

People in the Renaissance saw skin differently from how we do today. The Europe of 1500 to 1700 was a world of humours, and skin - the clothing of the body - was thought to be dangerously porous. In this landmark book, Evelyn Welch explores Renaissance skin as a bodily surface, as physical matter and as a generator of new knowledge. Ranging across anatomy, surgery and sausage making, she reveals how skin was managed by physicians as well as by glovemakers, butchers and parchment makers. How did people protect their health in a changing global environment, one where the air itself could be pathogenic? How did they see their bodies in a world where there was suddenly a multiplicity of skin colours and decorations? Addressing these questions and more, Welch show us what happens when you see skin differently, either in the marketplace, where men and women from far-away lands were put on display, or under the microscope. In doing so, she reveals that the past had a distinctive and very different way of understanding bodily experiences.

Cross-border intimacies draws on over a decade of frontline research to explore the lives of Chinese migrants who move to Taiwan for marriage. Spanning generations, it highlights the complex interplay between emotional and affective processes in shaping marriage migration between China and Taiwan. It argues that this phenomenon is the product of the interplay between the spheres of politics, the other, and the self. At the level of politics, cross-Strait marriage migration is manipulated by political actors to mobilise public opinion through a sentimental narrative legitimising inclusion and exclusion patterns. Cross-Strait marriage migration is also about the dynamic interactions between others - migrants and non-migrants, influenced by emotions and affect - in which meanings of family, inclusion, and integration are co-constructed and transformed over time. Finally, cross-Strait marriage migration is about the emotional and affective experiences of marriage migrants - the self - as they navigate discrimination and integration, develop a sense of belonging, and engage in intimate and homemaking practices. Importantly, this book demonstrates that as these three dimensions continually interact and negotiate with one another, they create new pathways, emotional and affective processes, and changing migration experiences, resulting in an ever-evolving phenomenon. This book contributes to empirical literature on marriage migration and emerging scholarship exploring the role of emotions and affect in migration phenomena.

This book offers a micro-global history of humanitarianism and medical care during the 'long' Second World War, which challenges the traditional and Eurocentric chronological boundaries of 1939/1945. It takes as its starting point the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which led to the progressive dislocation of the League of Nations, with the Japanese, German and Soviet departures in the 1930s. It ends with the termination of the Korean War in 1953, and the subsequent dismantlement of the first United Coalition and UN Peace enforcement operation. It considers the slow, messy and ambivalent transformation of humanitarian actors' relations to the suffering of distant others through a study of humanitarian encounters, practices, spaces and affects. Paying close attention to a variety of actors, such as French colonial doctors, Swiss ICRC delegates, Egyptian relief workers, Chinese-style physicians, Peruvian and Ecuadorian nurses or American member of the Unitarian Service Committee, the book provides a more holistic story of humanitarianism.

In the Western cultural production that puts individual or collective fear at its centre, East and Central Europe has been portrayed as an othered space of horror - lawless, frightening zones where anything can happen. Despite social and political changes in the region after the fall of communism that sparked hopes for the Easterners to join the modernised (and much desired) West, East/Central Europe remained a 'cursed zone.' Contemporary Slavic horror across media: Cursed zones is the first scholarly volume solely devoted to Slavic horror fiction. Focusing on the mid-20th century through the present, the book assesses current trends in Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian, and East/Central European horror media. With threefold objectives - educational, methodological, and critical - in mind, the politics and history of the region are the main frameworks for the anthology. Our contributors focus on crucial questions we face today, such as the migration crisis, war subjectivities in the post-Soviet context, modern forms of misogyny, and contemporary variants of emancipation, as well as rewriting East/Central European historical events through a diversity of media, including film, literature, video games, music, music videos, and visual art. We aim to problematise these issues through a careful examination of how horror is manufactured, distributed, and manipulated in Slavic regions. By doing so, we hope to tame 'the Easterner Other' and exorcise 'monstrous' East/Central Europe.

Joining Up examines how the cultural legacy of the First World War affected young men's attitudes to service and subjective conceptions of wartime masculinity during the Second World War.Morley uses original and archival oral histories and the Mass Observation Archive to explore how young men in interwar Britain encountered and understood representations of the Great War in popular culture and day-to-day life. Interactions with Great War veterans are shown to be more important than previously acknowledged. By demonstrating the breadth of representations through which the cultural memory of the Great War was transmitted and the diversity of young men's responses Joining Up makes a significant intervention in the cultural history of the Great War.>Joining Up makes important contributions to, and connects, the history of the legacy of the First World War, and the history of gender and service in the Second World War.

The first comprehensive study of Sally Wainwright, this book examines the celebrated British screenwriter, director and producer through the lens of feminist television criticism and the concept of emotion, offering a detailed exploration of Wainwright's significant contributions to British television drama. Drawing on original interview material with Wainwright, the book opens with a biographical overview, situating Wainwright's work and sensibilities in Northern England alongside other Northern women writers such as Key Mellor and Lynda LaPlante. A central focus of the study is Wainwright's creation of heroic female characters, exemplified by Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley and Janet Scott and Rachel Bailey in Scott & Bailey. The book focuses extensively on the global success of Gentleman Jack, not only considering the contribution Wainwright has made to feminist and lesbian history but also the impact the series had on its fans through a discussion on Gentleman Jack Changed my Life. The book concludes by examining Wainwright's structuring of 'home' in both regional and national contexts.Essential reading for scholars of feminist television, British television, and drama, as well as fans of Sally Wainwright, this book illuminates how Wainwright's influential work engages with and contributes to feminist discourse in television.

Spirits of extraction reexamines the entangled histories of racism, Christianity, and humanitarian biopolitics in the long nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective on the intersection of extractive industries, evangelical revivalism, and the violent civilisational metaphysics of race. Moving across eighteenth-century industrialising Bristol, the Cornish mining diaspora of the expanding British Empire, and the contested lands of Anishinaabewaki/Upper Canada/Ontario, this book traces how evangelical Christianity helped shape the colonial world through processes of extraction - of resources, bodies, and souls. Blending historical narrative with critical theory, the book makes two key interventions. Firstly, it repositions colonial religion and educational/cultural racism as central to the biopolitical project, analysing the wounding effects of 'truly Christian' education and exorcism in evangelical subject formation. Secondly, it extends thinking on the 'geology of race' by highlighting the extractive industries as the affective scene through which modern evangelical Christianity came to life. By showing how mining and missionary practices co-constituted racial hierarchies and modes of sovereignty, Spirits of extraction offers a major contribution to thinking about the politics of life and resource extraction. Evangelical experiences of salvation, exorcism, and the transformative power of faith, the book argues, resonate through geological consciousness and the logics of extraction, sustaining a quasi-divine force that continues to structure lives and landscapes today.

Global networks of Indigeneity assembles collective visions of Indigenous futures, contemplations of the potential of digital technologies, and considerations of Indigenous intimacies, relationalities and manners in which we locate ourselves in an increasingly global and connected world. Global Indigeneity is a term that characterises a shared recognition of sovereignty among Indigenous peoples. This edited volume brings together a range of Indigenous perspectives, uniting a global network of writers, thinkers and scholars to discuss connected Indigenous futures. This kind of transnational solidarity results in collective activism and envisioning, or a joint investment in futures free of the tyrannies imposed by settler-colonialism. We recognise each other's resilience and ongoing connections to place through ancestry. This edited volume proposes that Indigenous networks of relationality are growing due to an avid uptake of digital technologies and social media. These global networks of Indigeneity do not undermine local identities and relationships - they fortify them. Relationships and connections, strengthened by global networks and digital technologies, enable us to respond en masse to the different but comparative colonial systems that harm Indigenous peoples all over the world. Together, we present possibilities and the practicalities required to bring them to fruition.

Transnational solidarity excavates the forgotten histories of solidarity that were vital to radical political imaginaries during the 'long' 1960s. It decentres the conventional Western focus of this critical historical moment by foregrounding transnational solidarity with, and across, anticolonial and anti-imperialist liberation struggles. The book traces the ways in which solidarity was conceived, imagined and enacted in the border crossings -- of nation, race and class -- made by grassroots activists. This diverse collection draws links between exiled revolutionaries in Uruguay, post-colonial immigrants in Britain, and Greek communist refugees in East Germany who campaigned for their respective causes from afar while identifying and linking up with wider liberation struggles. Meanwhile, Arab immigrants in France, Pakistani volunteers and Iraqi artists found myriad ways to express solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Neglected archives also reveal Tricontinental Cuban-based genealogies of artistic militancy, as well as transnational activist networks against Portuguese colonial rule in Africa. Bringing together original research with contributions from veteran activists and artists, this interdisciplinary volume explores how transnational solidarity was expressed in and carried through the itineraries of migrants and revolutionaries, film and print cultures, art and sport, political campaigns and armed struggle. It presents a novel perspective on radical politics of the global sixties which remains crucial to understanding anti-racist solidarity today.

'As the pursuit of profit becomes increasingly surreal, virtual, and exotic by the day, the symbiosis between libidinal and financial flows demands to be rethought. Clickbait capitalism offers a stimulating and game-changing introduction to how the current confluence of economy and desire pre-empts our behaviour, structures our identity, influences our decisions, and tugs at our wallets.'>'Lie back on the couch with this book and let it analyse your triggers and traumas about debt and inequality. Ramble down the royal road of the unconscious, interpreting the collective delirium from Cryptokitties to cryogenics, Squid Game to GameStop. These bracing chapters, invoking theorists from Adorno to Zizek, fuse psychology and economics to diagnose the neuroses of our moment. The results are electric!'> Desire plays a crucial yet poorly understood role within economic life. This is increasingly untenable as potent new cultures of desire take shape around the intersection of digital technology and finance. Clickbait capitalism stages an encounter between psychoanalysis, political economy, and the calling cards of twenty-first-century capitalism. Drawing on a theoretical tradition known as 'libidinal economy', the book engages digital-economic life as a site of ongoing psychological capture and release. What emerges is a unique survey of the moods and structures of feeling that underwrite capitalism today, from online paranoia and the ecstatic mania of the crypto-boom to the escape and revenge fantasies of the indebted young. Adopting a pluralistic approach, the book offers a range of new perspectives on the psychological foundations and ongoing viability of capitalism as a social formation and economic system.

'This book, written in crystal-clear style, develops the most profound philosophical discussion ever held of ecological economics.'>'A brilliant contribution to a radical paradigm of social ecological economics concerned with both disciplinary and social-ecological transformation as necessary conditions for achieving a world in which we all, and all other species, can flourish.'>'The book is deeply rooted in the theory of science, offering a very enlightening text about fundamental issues for science that too often are glossed over or misunderstood.'>Exploring radical dissent from orthodox mainstream economics, this book presents a theoretically grounded vision for the emerging paradigm of social ecological economics. At its heart lies the paradigm-shifting acknowledgement that economies are inextricably embedded in biophysical reality and social structure. The struggle for revisioning in the face of environmental crises is articulated through a critical examination of economic thought, and a nuanced evaluation of contributions from Marxists, socialists, critical institutionalists, feminists and Post Keynesians. Synthesising diverse insights, the book navigates the philosophical underpinnings of a critical and realist revolutionary transformative science, emphasising the pivotal role of values and ideology. These radical and philosophical foundations establish a new preanalytic vision of economics, dismantling entrenched notions of growth and efficiency in favour of social provisioning and needs embedded in ethics. An agenda emerges that requires social ecological transformation and diverse alternative economies. This book provides a compelling call to action in the face of contemporary crises.

Based on award-winning research, Love and revolution brings classical and contemporary anarchist thought into a mutually beneficial dialogue with a global cross-section of ecological, anti-capitalist, feminist and anti-racist activists - discussing real-life examples of the loving-caring relations that underpin many contemporary struggles. Such a (r)evolutionary love is revealed to be a common embodied experience among the activists contributing to this collective vision, manifested as a radical solidarity, as political direct action, as long-term processes of struggle, and as a deeply relational more-than-human ethics. The theory developed in this book is brought to life through the voices of Tom at the G20 protests in Toronto, Maria and her permaculture community in Mexico, Hassan on the streets in Syria, Angelo and his comrades occupying squares in Brazil, Dembe and his affinity group in Kampala, and many more. Love and revolution provides an essential resource for all those interested in building a free society grounded in solidarity and care, and offers a timely contribution to contemporary movement discourse.

'This edited collection explores how living, thinking and writing with water can act as a vehicle for exploring emerging and persistent social and ecological issues. The contributions are methodologically and textually diverse, ranging from the personal and confessional to the figurative, theoretical and critical. As a reading experience, it is delightful.'>'By diving into this beautifully polymorphous collection of emotional, intoxicating, playful, and daring storytelling, you will be carried away by waves of analysis that will in turn alarm you, send shivers of joy across your skin, prompt deep introspection, and leave you with a deeply embodied sense of contentment.'> Living with water brings together sociologists, geographers, artists, writers and poets to explore the ways in which water binds, immerses and supports us. Drawing from international research on ferry crossings, boat dwelling, sea fishing and wild swimming, and navigating urban rivers, glacial lagoons, barrier reefs and disappearing tarns, the collection illuminates the ways that we live with and without water, and explores how we can think and write with water on land. By approaching water from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives, Living with water opens up discussions that reinvigorate and renew previously landlocked debates.

This is the first book which explicitly addresses the issue of urban gardening and spatial justice. As urban gardening initiatives have mushroomed worldwide, they have targeted a wide range of disparate goals, the majority of which are proven to be socio-political, rather than merely environmental, ecological or economic. By combining scholarly perspectives with real cases, the essays in this collection focus on how urban gardening practices are able to address the most fundamental issues of spatial justice, social cohesion, inclusiveness, social innovations and equity in cities. The first section of the book focuses on the political reading of urban gardening by presenting a comprehensive overview of the different trajectories and forms it takes. Sitting in the broader context of political gardening, the second section presents a rich and insightful array of real-life cases. These explore the daily practices of urban gardeners in transforming neglected spaces into vibrant and inclusive spaces of justice in the city. The third section critically scrutinises the consequences of urban gardening initiatives in terms of injustice mitigation in the city, by assessing their potential for place revitalisation and community engagement. The book will be of particular interest to the research community and engaged scholars. It will also appeal to civic associations, gardeners, urban policy-makers and planners outside academia who want to gain a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of urban gardening, and look at its potential beyond an idea of simply greening the city.