Ancient Knowledge Networks is a book about how knowledge travels, in minds and bodies as well as in writings. It explores the forms knowledge takes and the meanings it accrues, and how these meanings are shaped by the peoples who use it. Addressing the relationships between political power, family ties, religious commitments and literate scholarship in the ancient Middle East of the first mill…
An Anthropology of Landscape tells the fascinating story of a heathland landscape in south-west England and the way different individuals and groups engage with it. Based on a long-term anthropological study, the book emphasises four individual themes: embodied identities, the landscape as a sensuous material form that is acted upon and in turn acts on people, the landscape as contested, and it…
Every nation in Asia has dealt with COVID-19 differently and with varying levels of success in the absence of clear and effective leadership from the WHO. As a result, the WHO’s role in Asia as a global health organization is coming under increasing pressure. As its credibility is slowly being eroded by public displays of incompetence and negligence, it has also become an arena of contestatio…
This open access book discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by companies in an age that increasingly values sustainability and demands corporate responsibility. Beginning with the historical development of corporate responsibility, this book moves from academic theory to practical application. It points to ways in which companies can successfully manage their transition to a more res…
This open access book discusses and addresses the compelling questions concerning the ideals of citizenship, the processes of learning to fulfill these ideals, and possibilities of education in fostering citizenship. Rather than advocating for one framework, the authors demonstrate the continuously contested nature of the concept of citizenship as theoretically discussed and practically experie…
This Open Access book aims to find out how and why states in various regions and of diverse cultural backgrounds fail in their gender equality laws and policies. In doing this, the book maps out states’ failures in their legal systems and unpacks the clashes between different levels and forms of law—namely domestic laws, local regulations, or the implementation of international law, individ…
Happiness and Utility brings together experts on utilitarianism to explore the concept of happiness within the utilitarian tradition, situating it in earlier eighteenth-century thinkers and working through some of its developments at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Drawing on a range of philosophical and historical approaches to the study of the central idea …
This Open Access book builds upon Science and Technology Studies (STS) and provides a detailed examination of how large-scale energy research projects have been conceived, and with what consequences for those involved in interdisciplinary research, which has been advocated as the zenith of research practice for many years, quite often in direct response to questions that cannot be answered (or …
The menstrual product industry has played a large role in shaping the last hundred years of menstrual culture, from technological innovation to creative advertising, education in classrooms and as employers of thousands in factories around the world. How much do we know about this sector and how has it changed in later decades? What constitutes ‘the industry’, who works in it, and how is it…
Alexander Williamson was professor of chemistry at UCL (1849–87) and a leading scientist of his time. He taught and cared for visiting Japanese students, thereby assisting them with their goal of modernising Japan. This short, accessible biography explores his contribution to nineteenth-century science as well as his lasting impact on Japanese society. In 1863 five students from the Chōsh…
This open access book discusses and analyses competing views and social implications of gestational surrogacy, which is making inroads as an option for parenthood as well as a work opportunity for women. It provides a rich account of transnational mobilizations for the abolition and regulation of surrogacy, with focus on United States, Italy and Mexico. The author critically assesses the core n…
Bloomsbury Scientists is the story of the network of scientists and artists living in a square mile of London before and after the First World War. This inspired group of men and women viewed creativity and freedom as the driving force behind nature, and each strove to understand this in their own inventive way. Their collective energy changed the social mood of the era and brought a new synthe…
The international politics of the Middle East fills a major gap in the field of middle eastern political studies by combining international relations theory with concrete case studies. It will be of immense benefit to students of middle eastern politics, international relations and comparative politics. The book begins with an overview of the rules and features of the middle east regional syste…
Louis Althusser's thinking laid the groundwork for critical educational theory, yet it is often misunderstood in critical pedagogy, sociology of education, and related fields. In this open access book, David I. Backer reexamines Althusser’s educational theory, specifically the claim that education is the most powerful ideological state apparatus in modern capitalist societies. He then present…
Exploring a history of activists writing for and about children of colour from abolition to Black Lives Matter, this open access book examines issues such as the space given to people of colour by white activists; the voice, agency and intersectionality in activist writing for young people; how writers used activism to expand definitions of Britishness for child readers; and how activism and wr…
This open access book argues that storytelling is an important resource in coming to terms with the loss of the feeling of living a grounded existence where the future remains relatively stable and predictable. Faced with the specter of climate catastrophe, we lose confidence in the future—a well-documented response in the environmental movement, for example. Yet stories, and in particular so…
Focusing on change in higher education, and on furthering the integration of research and education, this open access book brings together and builds upon the international bodies of knowledge on higher education change and on the relationship between research and teaching. Rather than simply combining this knowledge, this book provides a thorough understanding of change paths towards sustainab…
This open access book explores how different spatial geographies emerged, adapted or were transformed in various occupied and colonial settings around Asia, showing how the experiences of those living under occupation shaped and was shaped by new interpretations and typologies of ‘space’. With case studies across South, Southeast and East Asia and through a variety of disciplinary perspecti…
A Contemporary Archaeology of London’s Mega Events explores the traces of London’s most significant modern ‘mega events’. Though only open for a few weeks or months, mega events permanently and disruptively reshape their host cities and societies: they demolish and rebuild whole districts, they draw in materials and participants from around the globe and their organisers self-consciousl…
Refuge in a Moving World draws together more than thirty contributions from multiple disciplines and fields of research and practice to discuss different ways of engaging with, and responding to, migration and displacement. The volume combines critical reflections on the complexities of conceptualizing processes and experiences of (forced) migration, with detailed analyses of these experienc…