The metaphor of the nomad may at first seem surprising for Russia given its history of serfdom, travel restrictions, and strict social hierarchy. But as the imperial center struggled to tame a vast territory with ever-expanding borders, ideas of mobility, motion, travel, wandering, and homelessness came to constitute important elements in the discourse about national identity. For Russians of the nineteenth century national identity was anything but stable. This rootlessness is at the core of A Nation Astray. Here, Ingrid Anne Kleespies traces the image of the nomad and its relationship to Russian national identity through the debates and discussion of literary works by seminal writers like Karamzin, Pushkin, Chaadaev, Goncharov, and Dostoevsky. Appealing to students of Russian Romanticism, nationhood, and identity, as well as general readers interested in exile and displacement as elements of the human condition, this interdisciplinary work illuminates the historical and philosophical underpinnings of a basic aspect of Russian self-determination: the nomadic constitution of the Russian nation.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Room comes a moving set of historical stories spanning centuries and continents. ​ The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress. With rich historical detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to revolutionary New Jersey, antebellum Louisiana to the Toronto highway, lighting up four centuries of wanderings that have profound echoes in the present. Astray offers us a surprising and moving history for restless times.

Although the British consider themselves a nation of dog lovers, what we have come to know as the modern dog came into existence only after a profound, and relatively recent, transformation in that country’s social attitudes and practices. In At Home and Astray, Philip Howell focuses on Victorian Britain, and especially London, to show how the dog’s changing place in society was the subject of intense debate and depended on a fascinating combination of forces even to come about. Despite a relationship with humans going back thousands of years, the dog only became fully domesticated and installed at the heart of the middle-class home in the nineteenth century. Dog breeding and showing proliferated at that time, and dog ownership increased considerably. At the same time, the dog was increasingly policed out of public space, the "stray" becoming the unloved counterpart of the household "pet." Howell shows how this redefinition of the dog’s place illuminates our understanding of modernity and the city. He also explores the fascinating process whereby the dog’s changing role was proposed, challenged, and confronted—and in the end conditionally accepted. With a supporting cast that includes Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Thomas Carlyle, and Charles Darwin, and subjects of inquiry ranging from vivisection and the policing of rabies to pet cemeteries, dog shelters, and the practice of walking the dog, At Home and Astray is a contribution not only to the history of animals but also to our understanding of the Victorian era and its legacies.

This is the first historically comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of the causes, content, and consequences of nationalism in China, an ancient empire that has struggled to construct a nation-state and find its place in the modern world. It shows how Chinese political elites have competed to promote different types of nationalism linked to their political values and interests and imposed them on the nation while trying to repress other types of nationalism. In particular, the book reveals how leaders of the PRC have adopted a pragmatic strategy to use nationalism while struggling to prevent it from turning into a menace rather than a prop.

The ANC, in its rush for political control, chose power over the people instead of power of the people. History will judge them harshly. Historically, societies tend to wait until it is too late before rich people understand that their wealth can only be secured in a more just society. Only a dramatic, imaginatively crafted intervention -- a massive redistribution programme managed by the private sector, far-reaching policy changes in schooling, housing and health, and better, disciplined governance -- will deliver the genuine liberation South Africas still-poor millions expected from the 1994 settlement. Without it, without the real promise of a free, meritocratic society, South Africa will flounder and fail as corruption, crime, social decay, hopelessness and anger engulf society. This is the compelling thesis of Hlumelo Bikos hard-hitting, thoughtful analysis of South Africas past, present and future, a sobering assessment of where we stand today, and where we need to go. At once unnervingly candid and inspiring, The Great African Society demolishes the complacent optimism that underpins much soft thinking about South Africas future and places at the service of public debate practical, achievable objectives for business, government and civil society. South Africas challenge, the book argues, is to act now to avoid the mounting threat of revolt and decline that would devalue every political and economic achievement of the past decade-and-a-half and leave Nelson Mandelas feted rainbow nation staring decrepitude in the face. Biko, the son of two great South Africans, Steve Biko and Mamphela Ramphele, is generous in acknowledging achievements to date, but unsparing in judging the flaws and failures of the ANC-led government, of business, unions and civil society. He offers a comprehensive survey of the profound and continuing devastation visited on the country by its unjust history, and plain, rational proposals for repairing the damage. No debate from here on about the South African future can be taken seriously without weighing Bikos insights and his warnings. This book is vividly moral in its intentions, but sober and unsentimental in examining political and economic imperatives. It is guaranteed to make the reader sit up and take stock afresh.

Arguing from Scripture and history, the author makes a compelling case that getting too close to any political or national ideology is disastrous for the church and harmful to society.

New Critical Studies on Early Quaker Women, 1650—1800 takes a fresh look at archival and printed sources from England and America, elucidating why women were instrumental to the Quaker movement from its inception to its establishment as a transatlantic religious body. This authoritative volume, the first collection to focus entirely on the contributions of women, is a landmark study of their distinctive religious and gendered identities. The chapters connect three richly woven threads of Quaker women's lives—Revolutions, Disruptions and Networks—by tying gendered experience to ruptures in religion across this radical, volatile period of history.

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.