Britain today is falling apart. One of the most dominant states in world history finds itself confronted with growing demands for nationalist secessionism. Brexit has already secured its break from the European Union while looming Scottish independence promises to undermine the integrity of the British state. Meanwhile, class, gender, regional and generational inequalities are deepening while endemic racism has been re-invigorated. How has it come to this? Britain in fragments traces how the historic pillars sustaining the democratic settlement have begun to crumble. This stability was constructed amid a century of imperial expansion abroad and working-class struggles for justice at home. The post-war welfare state was the apex of this historic arrangement; however, the ground beneath it began to shake as the processes of decolonisation and neoliberalism unfolded. This book traces how successive Labour and Conservative governments have incrementally dismantled the democratic settlement. A bipartisan commitment to neoliberalism has culminated in a historic crisis of representation and legitimacy, opening the door to competing nationalist forces.

The latest book in the long-running Britain at the Polls series provides an indispensable account of the fascinating 2017 British general election. It explains why the Conservatives lost their parliamentary majority and how Theresa May returned at the head of a minority government. Leading experts analyse the Conservatives' record in government, May's fateful decision to call an early election, Labour's shift to the left under Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats' ongoing problems, the collapse in UKIP's vote share, the SNP's diminished appeal in Scotland, and the role of gender and electoral integrity in the 2017 campaign. The book also addresses broader questions about the future of British politics against the backdrop of the 2016 Brexit referendum and ongoing austerity. Its coverage and accessible style make it of interest to general readers, students of British politics and professional political scientists.

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: An Invitation to the Seance1: Discovery of the Island of Mesmeria 2: Animal Magnetism Comes to London 3: Experimental Subjects as Scientific Instruments 4: Carnival, Chapel, and Pantomime 5: The Peripatetic Power of the "New Science" 6: Consultations, Conversaziones, and Institutions 7: The Invention of Anesthesia and the Redefinition of Pain 8: Colonizing Sensations in Victorian India9: Emanations from the Sickroom 10: The Mesmeric Cure of Souls 11: Expertise, Common Sense, and the Territories of Science 12: The Social Body and the Invention of Consensus Conclusion: The Day after the Feast Notes Bibliography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

This new collection focuses on the impact of sprawl on biodiversity and the measures that can be taken to alleviate it. Leading biological and social scientists, conservationists, and land-use professionals examine how sprawl affects species and alters natural communities, ecosystems, and natural processes. The contributors integrate biodiversity issues, concerns, and needs into the growing number of anti-sprawl initiatives, including the "smart growth" and "new urbanist" movements.

The anatomy of Britain on the edge of Brexit, by Orwell Prize winning journalist Since Britain’s 2016 referendum on EU membership, the nation has been profoundly split: one side fantasizing that the referendum will never be acted upon, the other entrenched in questionable assumptions about reclaimed sovereignty and independence. Underlying the cleavage are primal myths, deeper histories, and political folk-legends. James Meek, “the George Orwell of our times,” goes in search of the stories and consequences arising out of a nation’s alienation from itself. In Dreams of Leaving and Remaining, Meek meets farmers and fishermen intent on exiting the EU despite the loss of protections they will incur. He reports on a Cadbury’s factory shut down and moved to Poland in the name of free market economics, exploring the impact on the local community left behind. He charts how the NHS is coping with the twin burdens of austerity and an aging population. Dreams of Leaving and Remaining is urgent reporting from one of Britain’s finest journalists. James Meek asks what we can recover from the debris of an old nation as we head towards new horizons, and what we must leave behind. There are no easy answers, and what he creates instead is a masterly portrait of an anxious, troubled nation.

This volume of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain presents an overview of the century-and-a-half between the death of Chaucer in 1400 and the incorporation of the Stationers' Company in 1557. The profound changes during that time in social, political and religious conditions are reflected in the dissemination and reception of the written word. The manuscript culture of Chaucer's day was replaced by an ambience in which printed books would become the norm. The emphasis in this collection of essays is on the demand and use of books. Patterns of ownership are identified as well as patterns of where, why and how books were written, printed, bound, acquired, read and passed from hand to hand. The book trade receives special attention, with emphasis on the large part played by imports and on links with printers in other countries, which were decisive for the development of printing and publishing in Britain.

Britain's pagan past, with its mysterious monuments, atmospheric sites, enigmatic artifacts, bloodthirsty legends, and cryptic inscriptions, is both enthralling and perplexing to a resident of the twenty-first century. In this ambitious and thoroughly up-to-date book, Ronald Hutton reveals the long development, rapid suppression, and enduring cultural significance of paganism, from the Paleolithic Era to the coming of Christianity. He draws on an array of recently discovered evidence and shows how new findings have radically transformed understandings of belief and ritual in Britain before the arrival of organized religion. Setting forth a chronological narrative, Hutton along the way makes side visits to explore specific locations of ancient pagan activity. He includes the well-known sacred sites—Stonehenge, Avebury, Seahenge, Maiden Castle, Anglesey—as well as more obscure locations across the mainland and coastal islands. In tireless pursuit of the elusive “why” of pagan behavior, Hutton astonishes with the breadth of his understanding of Britain’s deep past and inspires with the originality of his insights.

When Great Britain abolished slavery in 1833, sugar planters in the Caribbean found themselves facing the prospect of paying working wages to their former slaves. Cheaper labor existed elsewhere in the empire, however, and plantation owners, along with the home and colonial governments, quickly began importing the first of what would eventually be hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers from India. Madhavi Kale draws extensively on the archival materials from the period and argues that imperial administrators sanctioned and authorized distinctly biased accounts of postemancipation labor conditions and participated in devaluing and excluding alternative accounts of slavery. As she does this she highlights the ways in which historians, by relying on these biased sources, have perpetuated the acceptance of a privileged perspective on imperial British history.

This book is one of Gildas' most important works. It is a sermon condemning the secular and religious behavior of his contemporaries. The author Saint Gildas is an outstanding member of the British Celtic Christian Church. His famous knowledge and literary style earned him the title of Gildas the Wise.