This study of poet Robert Burns's politics uncovers the intellectual context of the poet's political radicalism. Burns is revealed as a sophisticated political poet whose work draws on the democratic, contractarian ideology of Scottish Presbyterianism; the English and Irish Real Whig tradition; and the political theory of the Scottish Enlightenment. Casting new light on the poet's education and his early reading, this book provides detailed new readings of Burns's major poems and offers research on his links with Irish poets and radicals, providing a major reinterpretation of the man who is coming to be recognized as the poet laureate of the radical Enlightenment.

This unconventional cultural history explores the lifecycle of the radical historical Jesus, a construct created by the freethinkers, feminists, socialists and anarchists who used the findings of biblical criticism to mount a serious challenge to the authority of elite liberal divines during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

The first full-length biography of Lola Ridge, a trailblazer for women, poetry, and human rights far ahead of her time This rich and detailed account of the life and world of Lola Ridge, poet, artist, editor, and activist for the cause of women's rights, workers' rights, racial equality and social reform. From her childhood as a newly arrived Irish immigrant in the grim mining towns of New Zealand to her years as a budding poet and artist in Sydney, Australia, to her migration to America and the cities of San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. At one time considered one of the most popular poets of her day, she later fell out of critical favor due to her realistic and impassioned verse that looked head on at the major social woes of society. Moreover, her work and appearances alongside the likes of Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Will Durant, and other socialists and radicals put her in the line of fire not only of the police and government, but also the literary pundits who criticized her activism as being excessive and melodramatic. This lively portrait gives a veritable who's who of all the key players in the arts, literature, and radical politics of the time, in which Lola Ridge stood front and center.

James Orr was the foremost of the Ulster Weaver poets and has been favourably compared to his near contemporary Robert Burns. Baraniuk looks at Orr's life and work, examining the changing social, political and theological context of his writing and reassessing his contribution to radical literature and culture during the Romantic era.

Robert Burns and Pastoral is a full-scale reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759-1796), arguably the most original poet writing in the British Isles between Pope and Blake, and the creator of the first modern vernacular style in British poetry. Although still celebrated as Scotland's national poet, Burns has long been marginalised in English literary studies worldwide, due to a mistaken view that his poetry is linguistically incomprehensible and of interest to Scottish readers only. Nigel Leask challenges this view by interpreting Burns's poetry as an innovative and critical engagement with the experience of rural modernity, namely to the revolutionary transformation of Scottish agriculture and society in the decades between 1760 and 1800, thereby resituating it within the mainstream of the Scottish and European enlightenments. Detailed study of the literary, social, and historical contexts of Burns's poetry explodes the myth of the 'Heaven-taught ploughman', revealing his poetic artfulness and critical acumen as a social observer, as well as his significance as a Romantic precursor. Leask discusses Burns's radical decision to write 'Scots pastoral' (rather than English georgic) poetry in the tradition of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, focusing on themes of Scottish and British identity, agricultural improvement, poetic self-fashioning, language, politics, religion, patronage, poverty, antiquarianism, and the animal world. The book offers fresh interpretations of all Burns's major poems and some of the songs, the first to do so since Thomas Crawford's landmark study of 1960. It concludes with a new assessment of his importance for British Romanticism and to a 'Four Nations' understanding of Scottish literature and culture.

Robert Burns in Global Culture is a collection which breaks new ground in treating Burns' poetry and influence in an international context. Widely recognized as poet of global significance in the nineteenth century, Burns' reputation has suffered from the critical turns in Romanticism since 1945 and is only now beginning to be seen in its proper context. Following on from the celebrations across the world to mark Burns' 250th anniversary in 2009, this collection asks questions concerning the nature of Burns' global influence in the United States, Europe and the Commonwealth, examines the extraordinary ways in which his writing combines a distinctively progressive agenda with deceptively traditional styles, and emplaces his reputation at the heart of questions of American exceptionalism, European democracy, British imperial identities, Italian politics, French literary history, questions of desire and sexuality, the Burns Supper and the extraordinary cult of Burns statues. 'Robert Burns in Global Culture' combines literary criticism, history, cultural theory and comparative literature to create a set of powerful, new and unique directions in the study of this major Romantic poet.

Presents the story of Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation. This title contains a philosophical and ethical inquiry into a people faced with the end of their way of life.

Two of America's most talented activists team up to deliver a bold and hilarious satire of modern environmental policy in this fully illustrated graphic novel. The U.S. government gives robot machines from space permission to eat the earth in exchange for bricks of gold. A one-eyed bunny rescues his friends from a corporate animal-testing laboratory. And two little girls figure out the secret to saving the world from both of its enemies (and it isn't by using energy-efficient light bulbs or biodiesel fuel). As the World Burns will inspire you to do whatever it takes to stop ecocide before it’s too late.

The most comprehensive and challenging edition of the poems and songs of Robert Burns ever to be published Along with Walter Scott, Robert Burns is probably the best known Scottish writer in the world. His life story is often represented as one of sexual and alcoholic excess. Drawing on extensive scholarship and the poet's own inimitable letters, this defining work offers a wealth of information on Burn's life and times, the hardship of his early days, his political beliefs, his hatred of injustice, and his fate as a writer too often sentimentalized by biographers, critics, and well-meaning enthusiasts. The poems are presented in the order of their first appearance, giving further insights into the reception of Burns's work and the guarded relationship he had both with his readers and his own fame. Burns is shown as being a radical figure in a British as well as a Scottish context?as well as the peer of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Byron in the revolutionary and repressive world of the 1790s.