Social and cultural history

A witty and concise look at the beginnings of English history, when the nation consolidated after clashes between the Saxons and invading Vikings.In 871, three of England's four kingdoms were overrun by Vikings, the ruthless, all-conquering Scandinavian...

The Art of Wandering is a history of that curious hybrid, the writer as walker. From the Ancient world to the modern day, the role of the walker continues to evolve, from philosopher and pilgrim, vagrant and visionary, to experimentalist and radical...

**AVanity FairBest Book of 2022****Mosaic Magazine Best Book of 2022**The untold story of Leonard Cohen's concert tour to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War, including never-before-seen selections from an unfinished manuscript by Cohen and rare...

In Japan where there are more festivals than there are days of the year, it's no surprise that food is a daily celebration unto itself! The Food of Japan is a diverse compilation of 96 recipes collected and beautifully photographed in several regions of...

How does a secular, non-practising Jew who has lived most of her life outside the Jewish communitysuddenly find herself in the front rows of a Nazi war crimes tribunal?In 2015, the award-winning writer Judith Kalman was invited to Lneburg to testify at...

Now a film starring Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Greg Kinnear.Jennifer Hosten went to the 1970 Miss World pageant on a lark, representing the tiny Caribbean Island of Grenada, and came home with the crown and a place in history. What was supposed...

What is slime? We are well acquainted with its qualities in conjunction with certain things from which we tend to recoil but to which we are also at times fervently attracted. Despite being everywhere, slime is a surprisingly unexamined cultural...

Discover the magic and mysticism of bells around the world, including their political and religious power, their musicality, and their familiarity in daily life.We live in a world of bells but seldom notice them. However, bells have existed in all...

The book promotes a landscape approach as a method for understanding and addressing the complex interdependent issues of environmental and climatic change, ecological degradation, and socio-cultural inequalities. The twenty-three book essays are...

This amazingly wise and nimble collection investigates the horrors inflicted on so-called 'witches' of the pastThe Witch of Eye unearths salves, potions, and spells meant to heal, yet interpreted by inquisitors as evidence of evil. The author describes...

Tells how dozens of America's best-known restaurants began in California, and how they have shaped the state and country's history and food culture<BR><li>Author is a respected member of the culinary community and speaks at...

As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Anna Salton Eisen's memoir, Pillar of Salt: A Daughter's Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust, breaks down the barrier of silence that was intended as a protective shield for her parents and their children. From...

In autumn 1942, Anna Goldenberg's great-grandparents and one of their sons are deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hans, their elder son, hides in Nazi-controlled Vienna, and never sees his family again. Goldenberg reconstructs this unique...

This text examines the traditional Navajo relationship to the natural world. Specifically, how the tribe once related to a category of animals they collectively referred to as the "ones who hunt." These animals, like Native Americans, were once viewed as...

A Foundational Conservation Story RevivedAncient writers observed that forests always recede as civilizations develop and grow. The great Roman poet Ovid wrote that before civilization began, "even the pine tree stood on its own very hills" but when...

A full-colour graphic history of global dissent and historical activism, celebrating the possibilities of collective resistance-with an introduction by Charlene Carruthers and a foreword by Rebecca Solnit.Spanning nearly three thousand years of history -...

Public symbolism and private reflection: writer and urban explorer Attlee reads the signs appearing in windows and interviews a wide spectrum of peopleAs Britain entered lockdown in the spring of 2020, images and signs proliferated in its windows,...

The creation of large new tracts of forest, together with the development of a modern wood processing sector, was the single biggest transformation to occur in the Scottish countryside during the twentieth century. While the environmental and landscape...

We all know about giving and receiving gifts: they can be touching or puzzling, either strengthening bonds of friendship or becoming a burden. Gifts are an integral part of human societies and this volume explores how, over the centuries, books and...

'Buy my Dish of great Eeles, Any Old Iron take money for, Twelve Pence a Peck Oysters, Buy my fat Chickens, Fair Lemons & Oranges'Marcellus Laroon's The Cryes of the City of London drawne after the Life presents, in...

In the seventeenth century most English households had gardens. These gardens were not merely ornamental, even the most elaborate and fashionable gardens had areas set aside for growing herbs, fruit, vegetables, and flowers for domestic...

When did the British Government become the world's largest drugs pusher? What tree is frequently used to treat cancer? Which everyday condiment is the most widely traded spice on the planet?Plants are an indispensable part of our everyday life. From the...

'Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour.' - Talleyrand'He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.' - Jonathan Swift 'There is no love sincerer than the love of food' wrote George Bernard Shaw in 1903. Poets,...

'Iceland's 1100 Years' recounts the history of a society on the margin of Europe as well as on the margin of reaching the size and wealth of a proper state. Iceland is unique among the European societies in being founded as late as the Viking Age, and in...

The emancipation of women cannot be complete unless it is coupled with the emancipation of men. This can only be accomplished by drawing our social values from the Qur'an and the sunnah. In this volume, the author shows that mixed social life was the...

This is the untold story of black music its triumph over racism, segregation, undercapitalised record labels, media discrimination and political anxiety told through the perspective of the most powerful office in the world: from Louis...

In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with soul music. It was a deeply segregated city, ill at...

Detroit 67 is the story of Motor City in the year that changed everything. Twelve chapters take you on a turbulent year-long journey through the drama and chaos that ripped through the city in 1967 and tore it apart in personal, political and interracial...

There is more to St Helena than an exiled emperor; the tiny island in the middle of the wild South Atlantic Ocean has a rich garden heritage and an extraordinarily diverse flora, both exotic and endemic. This was the consequence of St Helena being the...

Bringing together messages from vintage Kew postcards with new prose reflections,Love from Kewis a one-of-a-kind look at the enduring needs for human connection - with each other as much as the natural world.In 2020, the United Kingdom recognised the...

*Winner of the NSW Premier's History Award - General History*Roses, jasmine, fuchsia, chrysanthemums, and rhododendrons bloom in gardens across the world, and yet many of the most common varieties have root in Asia. How is this global flowering...

This is the first culinary history of a truly remarkable fish. Elisabeth Townsend follows cod around the globe, showing how its pursuit began with the Vikings, and exploring its influence on human affairs ever since. The book looks at the different ways...

Our penchant for keeping houseplants is an ancient practice dating back to the Pharaohs. House Plants explores the stories behind the plants we bring home and how they were transformed from wild plants into members of our households.A billion-dollar...

A trenchant expose of the effects of automation on worker's livesIn recent decades digital devices have reshaped daily life, while tech companies' stock prices have thrust them to the forefront of the business world. In this rapid, global development,...

Traces the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities over 300 yearsThe Idiot traces the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities from the communities of eighteenth-century England to the nineteenth-century asylum and care in...

Fat. Such a little word evokes big responses. While 'fat' describes the size and shape of bodies - their appearance - our negative reactions to corpulence also depend on something tangible and tactile. As this book argues, there is more to fat than meets...

All aboard for a delicious ride on nine legendary railway journeys! Meals associated with train travel have been an important aspect of railway history for more than a century - from dinners in dining cars to lunches at station buffets to foods purchased...

How did a venerable Indian spiritual discipline turn into a 20 billion-a-year mainstay of the wellness industry? What happened along yoga's winding path from the caves and forests of the sages to the gyms, hospitals and village halls of the modern...

Based on the popular research project Whores of Yore and written with her distinctive humour and wit, A Curious History of Sex draws upon Dr. Kate Lister's extensive knowledge of sex history. From medieval impotence tests to twentieth-century testicle...

A documentary-style collection of stories, poems, essays, and interviews by Southeastern Native American women.Upon Her Shouldersis a collection of stories, poems, and prose by Southeastern Native American women whose narratives attest to the hard work...

A timely story of a forgotten emotionCheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History tells a new story about the cultural imagination of the West wherein cheerfulness - a momentary uptick in emotional energy, a temporary lightening of spirit - functions as...

England's Lionesses are on the front and back pages; their stars feature on prime-time television; they are named in the national honours lists for their contribution to their sport and to society. The names of Lucy Bronze, Steph Houghton and...

When people think of Russian food they generally think either of opulent luxury, signified above all by caviar, or of poverty and hunger - of cabbage and potatoes and porridge. Both of these visions have a basis in reality, but both of them are...

Renowned historian Joanna Bourke explores the modern history of bestialitySex with animals is one of the last taboos but, for a practice that is generally regarded as abhorrent, it is remarkable how many books, films, plays, paintings, and photographs...

This book presents rare evidence about the lives of three African women in the sixteenth century--the very period from which we can trace the origins of global empires, slavery, capitalism, modern religious dogma and anti-Black violence. These features...

This is a comprehensive history of a legendarily proud and passionate but lonely people. Much of Europe once knew them as 'child-devouring cannibals' and 'bloodthirsty Huns', but it was not long before the Hungarians became steadfast defenders of...

This book is the first documentation of the entire journey of Pakistan's women's international cricket team, serving to fill that void in the story of Pakistan cricket and in so doing adding a vital tome to the history of women's sport...

Strawberry daiquiris. Skinny martinis. Vodka sodas with lime. These are the cocktails that come in sleek-stemmed glasses, bright colours and fruity flavours - these are the Girly Drinks.From the earliest days of civilization, alcohol has been at the...