Society & Politics

Now, here, is the ultimate edition to celebrate the year of the everyday heroes, who changed our way of seeing the world of work (read more)

Now, here, is the ultimate edition to celebrate the year of the everyday heroes, who changed our way of seeing the world of work and heroism - a picture book without words, timeless, universal, and finally, both heart-breaking and ennobling. Frontline Heroes is the book to give to anyone who has known and appreciated these heroes, or who wants to recall the best part of ourselves, in the worst of times. With an Introduction by comic legend Geof Isherwood (Marvel illustrator of Dr Strange, Thor and other classic titles).
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We can survive the climate crisis. This book shows us how. We have two choices for our future, which is still unwritten. It will (read more)

We can survive the climate crisis. This book shows us how. We have two choices for our future, which is still unwritten. It will be shaped by who we choose to be right now. So, how can we change the story of the world?

The Future We Choose is a passionate call to arms from former UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and Tom Rivett-Carnac, senior political strategist for the Paris Agreement. We are still able to stave off the worst and manage the long-term effects of climate change, but we have to act now. We know what we need to do, and we have everything we need to do it. Practical, optimistic and empowering, The Future We Choose is a book for every generation, for all of us who feel powerless in the face of the climate crisis. This is the final hour: it can be our finest. But we must act now. (hide)

There are no easy answers to the general election disaster of 2019, only urgent questions. Grace Blakeley introduces a collective (read more)

There are no easy answers to the general election disaster of 2019, only urgent questions. Grace Blakeley introduces a collective stock-taking by leading voices on the British left. In Futures of Socialism, Novara editor Ash Sarkar and Unite's Andrew Murray debate where Labour went wrong, James Butler (also of Novara) evaluates Johnson's new-look Conservatives, and Cat Hobbs and James Meadway grapple with public ownership and the financialisation of the UK economy.

Published:8 Sep 2020 (hide)

Stocked 11 June - In 2004, Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for (read more)

Stocked 11 June - In 2004, Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. Together with his team, he invented electronic devices for under-resourced urban schools and developed digital platforms for remote agrarian communities.

But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own. Technologists and policy-makers love to boast about modern innovation, and in their excitement, they exuberantly tout technology's boon to society. But what have our gadgets actually accomplished? Over the last four decades, America saw an explosion of new technologies -- from the Internet to the iPhone, from Google to Facebook -- but in that same period, the rate of poverty stagnated at a stubborn 13%, only to rise in the recent recession. (hide)

Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Gender Matters in Global Politics is a comprehensive textbook for advanced undergraduates (read more)

Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Gender Matters in Global Politics is a comprehensive textbook for advanced undergraduates studying feminism & international relations, gender and global politics and similar courses. It provides students with an accessible but in-depth account of the most significant theories, methodologies, debates and issues. This textbook is written by an international line-up of established and emerging scholars from a range of theoretical perspectives, and brings together cutting-edge feminist scholarship in a variety of issue areas.

Key features and benefits of the book: * Introduces students to the wide variety of feminist and gender theory and explains the relevance to contemporary global politics * Explains the insights of feminist theory for a range of other disciplines including international relations, international political economy and security studies * Addresses a large number of key contemporary issues such as human rights, trafficking, rape as a tool of war, peacekeeping and state-building, terrorism and environmental politics * Features detailed pedagogical tools and resources - seminar exercises, text boxes, photographs, suggestions for further reading, web resources and a glossary of key terms * New chapters on - Environmental politics and ecology; War; Terrorism and political violence; Land, food and water; International legal institutions; Peacebuilding institutions and post-conflict reconstruction; Citizenship; Art, aesthetics and emotionality; and New social media and global resistance. This text enables students to develop a sophisticated understanding of the work that gender does in policies and practices of global politics. (hide)

This book offers a feminist analysis of military sacrifice and reveals the importance of a gender perspective in understanding the (read more)

This book offers a feminist analysis of military sacrifice and reveals the importance of a gender perspective in understanding the idea of honourable death. In present-day security discourses traditional masculinised obligations to die for the homeland and its women and children are challenged and renegotiated. Working from a critical feminist perspective, this book examines the political and societal justifications for sacrifice in wars motivated by human rights and an international responsibility to protect.

With original empirical research from six European countries, the volume demonstrates how gendered and nationalistic representations saturate contemporary notions of sacrifice and legitimate military violence. A key argument is that a gender perspective is necessary in order to understand, and to oppose, the idea of the honourable military death. Bringing together a wide range of materials - including public debates, rituals, monuments and artwork - to analyse the justifications for soldiers' deaths in the Afghanistan war (2002-14), the analysis challenges methodological nationalism.

Published:28 Feb 2019 (hide)

Having emerged from the end of the Cold War as a unified country, Germany has quickly become the second largest exporter in the world. (read more)

Having emerged from the end of the Cold War as a unified country, Germany has quickly become the second largest exporter in the world. Its economic might has made it the center of the Eurozone and the pivotal power of Europe. Like other geo-economic powers, Germany's foreign policy is characterized by a definition of the national interest in economic terms and the elevation of economic interests over non-economic values such as human rights or democracy promotion.

This strategic paradigm is evident in German's relationship with China, the Gulf States and Europe, but it is most important in regard to its evolving policies towards Russia. In this book, Stephen F. Szabo provides a description and analysis of German policy towards Russia, revealing how unified Germany is finding its global role in which its interests do not always coincide with the United States or its European partners.
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Life on earth will come to an end. It's just a matter of when. In this Very Short Introduction, Bill McGuire explores the many potential (read more)

Life on earth will come to an end. It's just a matter of when. In this Very Short Introduction, Bill McGuire explores the many potential catastrophes facing our planet and our species in the future, and looks at both the probability of these events happening and our chances of survival.

From the likely consequences of global warming to the inevitable destruction of the earth in the far future, McGuire considers a range of 'end of the world scenarios', including the New Ice Age, asteroid and comet impact, supervolcanoes, and mega-tsunami. Updated with a number of recent case studies from around the world, this new edition brings our understanding of global disasters and risk research up to date. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. (hide)

This anthology examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide. In a world shaped by mass migration (read more)

This anthology examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide. In a world shaped by mass migration and economic exchange on an ever-increasing scale, women are moving around the globe as never before. Every year, millions leave Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Eastern Europe to work in the homes, nurseries and brothels of the First World - from Vietnamese mail-order brides to Mexican nannies in LA, from Thai girls in Vietnamese brothels to Czech au pairs in the UK.

In the new global calculus, the female energy that flows to wealthy countries to ease a "care deficit", is subtracted from poor ones, often to the detriment of the families left behind. Is the main resource now extracted from the Third World no longer gold or silver, but love? (hide)

"This is a book about what it would mean to be a bit moody in the midst of being theological and political. Its framing assumption (read more)

"This is a book about what it would mean to be a bit moody in the midst of being theological and political. Its framing assumption is that neoliberal economics relies on narratives in which not being in the right mood means a cursed existence." So begins Grave Attending: A Political Theology for the Unredeemed, which mounts a challenge to neoliberal narratives of redemption. Mapping the contemporary state of political theology, Karen Bray brings it to bear upon secularism, Marxist thought, affect theory, queer temporality, and other critical modes as a way to refuse separating one's personal mood from the political or philosophical.

Published:3 Dec 2019 (hide)