Society & Politics

"My story starts at the very end of the journey to equal marriage rights. I stand on the shoulders of giants..."In the future, people (read more)

"My story starts at the very end of the journey to equal marriage rights. I stand on the shoulders of giants..."In the future, people will find it difficult to believe that until 2014, somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of Britain's population were excluded from marriage.As Equalities Minister during the coalition government, Lynne Featherstone played a fundamental role in rectifying this. From setting the wheels in motion within government, to her experiences of the abuse with which the gay community is regularly confronted, through her rebuttals against the noise and fury of her opponents, and finally to the making of history, Lynne details the surprising twists and turns of the fight.

Filled with astonishing revelations about finding allies in unexpected places and encountering resistance from unforeseen foes, Equal Ever After is an honest account of one woman's pivotal efforts during the turbulent final mile.This is real, lived history - recent history. Many of us celebrated on the day the dream became reality; many of us know people whose lives were changed by the events described here.In this inside story, Lynne reveals the emotional lows and the exhilarating highs involved in turning hard-won social acceptance into tangible legal equality. (hide)

Essential Public Affairs for Journalists is the definitive handbook for journalism students and practising journalists. It guides (read more)

Essential Public Affairs for Journalists is the definitive handbook for journalism students and practising journalists. It guides readers through the constitutional framework and the governing institutions of the United Kingdom before considering the electoral system and the principal political parties. A number of key topics are discussed in turn including the National Health Service, education, utilities and industry, and social security.

The author examines both how these services operate and how they can generate a wealth of reports for the student and professional journalist alike. The text is supported by an Online Resource Centre featuring: - Web links - Additional topical feature ideas - Tables to accompany the text - News feeds
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The essential Pelican introduction to the European Union - its history, its politics, and its role today For most of us today, 'Europe' (read more)

The essential Pelican introduction to the European Union - its history, its politics, and its role today For most of us today, 'Europe' refers to the European Union. At the centre of a seemingly never-ending crisis, the EU remains a black box, closed to public understanding. Is Europe ruled by Germany or by European bureaucrats? Does a single European economy exist after all these years of economic integration? And should the EU have been awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2012? Critics tell us the EU undermines democracy.

Are they right? In this provocative volume, political scientist Chris Bickerton provides an answer to all these key questions and more at a time when understanding what the EU is and what it does is more important than ever before. (hide)

Ruth Winstone retells Britain's history through the great diarists of the last century, drawing back the curtain on the lives of (read more)

Ruth Winstone retells Britain's history through the great diarists of the last century, drawing back the curtain on the lives of political classes, their doubts, ambitions, and emotions. She moves deftly among those in the thick of it, showing the elation, anger, doubts, jealousy, joys and fears of people as they record their own and the nation's triumphs and disasters. To this potent mix she adds the mordant perceptions of observers like Virginia Woolf, Cecil Beaton, Peter Hall and Roy Strong, and the vivid records of everyday life found in the diaries of otherwise ordinary men and women.

Events, Dear Boy, Events reveals Britain's recent past in the words of the actors who were shaping the events of the day. This is living real-time history. (hide)

This book contributes to emerging debates in political science and sociology on institutional change. Its introductory essay proposes (read more)

This book contributes to emerging debates in political science and sociology on institutional change. Its introductory essay proposes a new framework for analyzing incremental change that is grounded in a power-distributional view of institutions and that emphasizes ongoing struggles within but also over prevailing institutional arrangements. Five empirical essays then bring the general theory to life by evaluating its causal propositions in the context of sustained analyses of specific instances of incremental change.

These essays range widely across substantive topics and across times and places, including cases from the United States, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The book closes with a chapter reflecting on the possibilities for productive exchange in the analysis of change among scholars associated with different theoretical approaches to institutions. (hide)

This book concentrates on the role of commercialized intermediary actors in migration. It seeks to understand how these actors shape (read more)

This book concentrates on the role of commercialized intermediary actors in migration. It seeks to understand how these actors shape migration and mobility patterns through the services they offer. In addressing the role that migration industries play in migration, the book uses diverse examples such as labour market brokers and recruitment agencies from Eastern Europe to the United Kingdom; Latvian migration to Norway; super-rich lifestyle brokers; international students agents; the Global Mobility Industry for corporate expatriates; skilled migrant intermediaries; and those providing services to West African migrants coming to Europe or Indonesians leaving for Malaysia.
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Sixty-five million years ago the dinosaurs were destroyed in a mass extinction that remains unexplained. Out of that devastation, (read more)

Sixty-five million years ago the dinosaurs were destroyed in a mass extinction that remains unexplained. Out of that devastation, new life developed and the world regained its equilibrium. Until now.

Employing radically new perspectives on the science of life, scientists are beginning to uncover signs of a similar event on the horizon: the end of man. In telling the story of the last sixty-five million years, Michael Boulter reveals extraordinary new insights that scientists are only now beginning to understand about the fossil record, the rise and fall of species, and the nature of life. According to Boulter, nature is a self-organizing system in which the whole is more important than its parts.

Published:29 Apr 2019

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'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES*BBC Radio (read more)

'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*'Hans Rosling tells the story of "the secret silent miracle of human progress" as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.' MELINDA GATESFactfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and a man who can make data sing, Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens, and reveals the ten instincts that distort our perspective. (hide)

Established in the wake of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-8 by British officer Major General Robert Cawthorne, then Deputy Chief (read more)

Established in the wake of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-8 by British officer Major General Robert Cawthorne, then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for years remained an under-developed and obscure agency. In 1979, the organisation's growing importance was felt during the Soviet war in Afghanistan , as it worked hand in glove with the CIA to support the mujahideen resistance, but its activities received little coverage in news media.Since that time, the ISI has projected its influence across the region - in 1988 its involvement in Indian Kashmir came under increasing scrutiny, and by 1995 its mentoring of what became the Afghan Taliban was well attested. But it was the organisation's alleged links with Al Qaeda and the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, at the heart of Pakistan's military zone, that really threw it under the spotlight.

These controversies and many more have dogged the ISI, including its role in Pakistan's testing of a nuclear weapon in 1998 and its links with A.Q. Khan.Offering fresh insights into the ISI as a domestic and international actor based on intimate knowledge of its inner workings and key individuals, this startlingly original book uncovers the hitherto shady world of Pakistan's secret service. (hide)

Faithonomics uses economic theory to provide a new and unorthodox view of religion in today's world. Drawing on state-of-the-art (read more)

Faithonomics uses economic theory to provide a new and unorthodox view of religion in today's world. Drawing on state-of-the-art research and on case studies from around the globe, this book shows that religion should be analysed as a market similar to markets for other goods and services, like bottled water or haircuts. Faithonomics is about today's religious markets, but in sweeping detours through the histories of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, Brekke shows us the religious markets of the past, although these were sometimes heavily regulated by states.

He argues that government 'control' over religious markets is often the cause of unforeseen and negative consequences. Many of today's problems related to religion, like religious terrorism or rent-seeking by religious political parties, are easier to understand if we think like economists. Religious markets work best when they are relatively free. (hide)