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In a Thousand Different Ways
by null Cecelia AhernThe gripping and emotional novel from the million-copy bestselling author of PS, I Love You She knows your secrets. Now discover hers… You’ve never met anyone like Alice. She sees the best in people. And the worst. She always seems to know exactly what everyone around her is feeling: a thousand different emotions. Every. Single. Day. In amongst all that noise, she’s lost herself. But there’s one person she can’t read. And that’s the person who could change her life. Is she ready to let him in? –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––- Everyone loves In a Thousand Different Ways… ‘Ahern makes Alice’s plight touchingly convincing … [her] pain is raw on the page’ The Times ‘An extraordinary and truly original story – a must read this month’ Prima ‘Stunning’ Irish Independent ‘Beautiful, moving and unexpected, In a Thousand Different ways is an unforgettable story. This is Cecelia Ahern at her very best’ Louise O’Neill ‘Utterly wonderful … Cecelia Ahern is a master storyteller at the absolute peak of her powers. Her heroine, Alice Kelly, is completely unique – beguiling, complicated, extraordinary – and she’ll change the way you see the world’ Clare Pooley ‘A novel that’s so wise and profound, there’s gold on every page’ Donal Ryan ‘A thoughtful, engrossing novel that’s a joy to read’ Sunday Express ‘So moving’ Heat ‘Ahern’s original talent for sensitive storytelling shines through in this novel’ Woman’s Weekly Cecelia Ahern's book In a Thousand Different Ways was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 17-04-2023
Men I’ve Loved Before
by null Adele ParksWhat if The One was actually the one that got away? A riveting story of love and the paradox of choice from the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author of Lies Lies Lies, Just My Luck, and Both Of You. Natalie and Neil everything they could want: a stylish London house, two high-flying careers, a close-knit group of friends and family. And best of all: an ideal marriage. Having children, they’ve agreed, would only disrupt their carefree lives. But then Neil turns thirty-five, and suddenly he’s longing for a baby. However, Nat has not had a similar change of heart. As they no longer agree on this fundamental issue, their once perfect relationship starts to crumble. Nat starts to think about her exes and wonders if one of the men she has loved in the past can offer her a future, or by looking over her shoulder is she simply going to trip up? Sunday Times Number One bestseller Adele Parks asks the ultimate ‘what if’ question in this insightful, smart, funny novel about revisiting your past… Praise for Men I’ve Loved Before: ‘A fabulous mix of comedy, real life and emotional depth’ Daily Express ‘A wicked pleasure’ Woman & Home ‘Observant, sensitive and we like this a lot!’ Closer ‘A dazzling novel full of emotional set-pieces and real insight into relationships between men and women… This is Parks at her best’ Heat ‘She is a particularly acute observer of relationship ups and downs, and her stories are always as insightful as they are entertaining’ Daily Mirror Praise for Adele Parks: ‘Adele Parks never takes her foot off the gas, every book is tighter, faster, better than the last’ Lisa Jewell 'Gripping, moving and elegantly written' Marian Keyes ‘Brilliantly twisty… but is also so insightful about human nature. A triumph’ Lucy Foley ‘A compelling take on one of those “what if” scenarios that we’ve all wondered about. Addictive, provocative and thoroughly relatable… brilliantly crafted’ T.M. Logan ‘An absolute joy’ Jane Fallon ‘As ever, Adele Parks does not disappoint – you’ll love it’ Ruth Jones
Hidden Fires
by null Sairish HussainHow can you live in the present when you’re trying to bury the past? ‘A sweeping tale of resilience’ i News 'An ineffably touching novel by a talented young author' Saga Magazine 'A tale of how we can live together yet be so far apart, and of how bridges can be built' Women's Weekly 'Harrowing uplifting. . .A visceral exploration of family, identity and loss' Sunday Post Ramadan, 2017. Yusuf wakes in the middle of the night to pray. His routine is always the same, but something tells him that tonight is different. Yellow flames blur Yusuf’s vision, and the laughter of a small child echoes in his ears. But this time, the red, smoke-filled skies aren’t just in his memory. Miles away, Rubi is also awake. On the television, she watches reports of a devastating fire in London. She is already anxious when her parents send her to stay with her Grandpa Yusuf, whose conservative house rules are almost as unbearable as the loneliness she feels at home. Yusuf’s lifestyle does not gel with Rubi’s. But when she finds him scared and confused one night, it becomes clear that there’s more to her grandfather than Rubi ever considered. As Yusuf grapples with the past, Rubi is determined to save him. But the memories that are recovered and spoken of for the first time in years are more painful than she could have imagined. From the Costa Prize-shortlisted author of The Family Tree and Women's Prize x Good Housekeeping Futures Finalist, Hidden Fires is a powerful story of grief and loss, the power of family and the long arm of history. Readers are loving Hidden Fires: ‘A heartbreaking, emotional rollercoaster of a read’ ‘A must read book’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ‘An exquisite book exploring the secrets, vulnerabilities and tremendous bonds between three generations of family’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The Unfortunates
by null J K Chukwu'A gripping call to action—and a daring triumph of a novel' ADORAH NWORAH 'Masterfully portrays the splintering of the mind in its most striking, unfiltered form' AIWANOSE ODAFEN 'A playful, powerful debut' ZAKIYA DALILA HARRIS A RAZOR-SHARP NOVEL FROM AN UTTERLY UNIQUE NEW VOICE. A lot is happening to Me. Will Me survive? Sahara is a student at one of the most elite universities in America – and she is Not Okay. Her grades are subpar, she’s not Nigerian enough for her family, and her long-term Life Partner* is threatening to take over. When she’s not contemplating killing herself or the wealthy white students around her, she’s receiving an increasing number of ‘Unfortunate News’ emails, which inform her that the few Black classmates she has are disappearing. Will Sahara end up joining the ranks of ‘The Unfortunates’, or can she avoid becoming yet another statistic? Written in the style of a thesis, J K Chukwu’s highly original debut is a darkly funny and biting take on the campus novel, set in the mind of a young Black woman who is losing hers. *depression
The White Horse of Zennor
by null Michael MorpurgoA thrilling collection of myths, legends and ghost stories from War Horse author and former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo. Since the beginning of time, strange and mysterious things have happened here … At the furthest edge of Britain, where the sea gently washes over the land and myths brush against reality, lies Zennor. Set in a church town where men become beats and ghosts roam freely, these are haunting and unforgettable tales where magic lies around every corner. Morpurgo is the master storyteller of such modern classic children's books as An Eagle in the Snow, Listen to the Moon, Private Peaceful, and An Elephant in the Garden. He has written more than one hundred books for children and won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Award, the Circle of Gold Award, the Children’s Book Award and has been short-listed for the Carnegie Medal four times.
The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis (Global and Comparative Ethnography)
by Ana VillarrealOver the past two decades, increased criminal and state violence has profoundly transformed everyday life in Mexico. In The Two Faces of Fear, Ana Villarreal draws on two years of qualitative fieldwork conducted during a major turf war in Monterrey, Mexico to trace the far-reaching impact of fear and violence on social ties, daily practices, and everyday spaces. Villarreal brings two seemingly contradictory faces of fear into focus--its ability to both isolate and concentrate people and resources, deepening inequality. While all residents of one of Mexico's largest metropolises confronted new threats, the most privileged leveraged vastly unequal resources to spatially concentrate and defend one municipality more fiercely than the rest. Within this defended city, business, nightlife, and public space thrived at the expense of the greater metropolis. The book puts forth a new approach to the study of emotion and provides tangible evidence of how quickly fear worsens inequality beyond Mexico and the "war on drugs."
The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis (Global and Comparative Ethnography)
by Ana VillarrealOver the past two decades, increased criminal and state violence has profoundly transformed everyday life in Mexico. In The Two Faces of Fear, Ana Villarreal draws on two years of qualitative fieldwork conducted during a major turf war in Monterrey, Mexico to trace the far-reaching impact of fear and violence on social ties, daily practices, and everyday spaces. Villarreal brings two seemingly contradictory faces of fear into focus--its ability to both isolate and concentrate people and resources, deepening inequality. While all residents of one of Mexico's largest metropolises confronted new threats, the most privileged leveraged vastly unequal resources to spatially concentrate and defend one municipality more fiercely than the rest. Within this defended city, business, nightlife, and public space thrived at the expense of the greater metropolis. The book puts forth a new approach to the study of emotion and provides tangible evidence of how quickly fear worsens inequality beyond Mexico and the "war on drugs."
National Security Law, Procedure and Practice
by Robert Ward David BlundellA comprehensive, detailed and updated account of UK national security law in all its aspects, National Security Law, Procedure and Practice is the only book to collate and explain all the elements of law, both substantive and procedural, and the practical issues which may arise in national security litigation. The specialised nature of the subject makes this book a vital text, not only for those seeking an overview of national security law, but also for experienced practitioners instructed to act in proceedings in which national security issues may arise. The intense media and public scrutiny which accompanies many national security cases makes this book of interest to a wider audience seeking to understand the legal context of such cases. This new edition draws on the professional experience of a team of expert contributors and covers all recent legislation, case law and guidance. It provides a detailed explanation of the National Security Act 2023, which repeals and replaces the existing law relating to state threats. The new Act introduces significant new offences and executive powers, including the power to impose state threat prevention and investigation measures ('STPIMs'), and creates a new scheme for the registration of foreign political influence activities. The second edition also includes analysis of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Shamima Begum, which re-evaluates the respective roles of the government and the courts in national security matters and has ramifications throughout the work; a comprehensive explanation of the National Security and Investment Act 2021; a fully revised chapter on sanctions law; and an updated explanation of the continued impact of EU law on UK national security law. This second edition of National Security Law, Procedure and Practice will be an invaluable resource for judges, policymakers, legislators, oversight bodies, academic experts and students in a variety of legal fields.
One Shot Hitchcock: A Contemporary Approach to the Screen
by Luke Robinson and Melanie RobsonIn recent years, the enduring appeal of Alfred Hitchcock to film studies has been evidenced by the proliferation of innovative approaches to the director's work. Adding to this pattern of innovation, the edited collection One Shot Hitchcock: A Contemporary Approach to the Screen utilizes formal analysis to interrogate key single shots from across Alfred Hitchcock's long career. This collection reveals the value of analyzing the single shot - within this small, cinematic unit is a code that unlocks a series of revelations about cinema as an artistic practice and a theoretical study. Each chapter examines one shot from a single film, beginning with The Lodger (1927) and ending with Frenzy (1972). If Hitchcock is known as a director of suspense films and films about murder, the shots discussed in One Shot Hitchcock are his crime scenes. These are the shots that resist being forgotten, that repeatedly demand to be investigated, in which Hitchcock's influence on aesthetics and culture is at its most acute. Each chapter uses a different lens of film analysis - transnationalism, gender and sexuality, performance, history, affect, intermediality, remake studies, philosophy, and film form are all used to interrogate single shots. In these essays, the single shot from Hitchcock's film not only illustrates the approach in question but also demonstrates how the single shot encourages us to rethink our approaches to the screen. By reinvigorating a close formal mode of analysis, One Shot Hitchcock asks readers to think differently about film, offering a renewed assessment of Hitchcock's oeuvre in the process.
Routes to Reform: Education Politics in Latin America
by Ben Ross SchneiderThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The key to sustained and equitable development in Latin America is high quality education for all. However, coalitions favoring quality reforms in education are usually weak because parents are dispersed, business is not interested, and much of the middle class has exited public education. In Routes to Reform, Ben Ross Schneider examines education policy throughout Latin America to show that reforms to improve learning--especially making teacher careers more meritocratic and less political--are possible. Several Andean countries and state governments in Brazil achieved notable reform since 2000, though on markedly different trajectories. Although rare, the first bottom-up route to reform was electoral. The second route was more top-down and technocratic, with little support from voters or civil society. Ultimately, by framing education policy in a much broader comparative perspective, Schneider demonstrates that contrary to much established theory, reform outcomes in Latin America depended less on institutions and broad coalitions, but rather--due to the emptiness of the education policy space--on more micro factors like civil society organizations, teacher unions, policy networks, and technocrats.
Body Impossible: Desmond Richardson and the Politics of Virtuosity (Oxford Studies in Dance Theory)
by Ariel OsterweisBody Impossible theorizes the concept of virtuosity in contemporary dance and performance through a study of the career of dancer Desmond Richardson. A virtuoso for the ages, Richardson is renowned for delivering commanding performances over decades in contexts ranging from the stages of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ballett Frankfurt to featured appearances with Michael Jackson and Prince, along with his work as co-founder of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, inaugurating a virtuosic queer black aesthetic with choreographer Dwight Rhoden. Focusing on Richardson's creative insistence on improvisatory fun and excellence throughout the decades approaching the millennium (shaped by Reaganism, the Culture Wars, the AIDS epidemic, the New Jim Crow, and MTV), this book brings dance into conversation with paradigms of blackness, queerness, masculinity, and class in order to generate a socioculturally attentive understanding of virtuosity. Virtuosity obscures the border between popular and concert performance, and Richardson's versatility epitomizes the demands on the contemporary virtuosic dance artist. Author Ariel Osterweis suggests that discourses of virtuosity are linked to connotations of excess, and that an examination of the formal and socio-cultural aspects of virtuosic performance reveals under-recognized heterogeneity in which we detect ?vernacular? influences on ?high art.? In doing so, Body Impossible accounts for the constitutive relationship between disciplined perceptions of virtuosity's excess and the disciplining of the racialized body in national and transnational contexts.
Disruption?: The Senate During the Trump Era
What happens when a tradition-bound institution encounters an iconoclastic president intent on changing how the government operates? In Disruption?, Sean M. Theriault has gathered nineteen leading authors from a range of subfields to provide a compelling understanding for if, how, and to what extent Trump disrupted the Senate. As the authors argue, Trump became trapped in the norms and rules of the Senate on some dimensions, while he became the story to which all senators needed to respond on others. This book shows how multiple facets of the Senate changed during Trump's presidency, including the legislative process, party leadership, roll-call voting, and communications. Comprehensive in its coverage of the period and embedding it in a deep historical context, this book highlights how these changes reflected back on to not only the Trump administration, but also the very legitimacy of the Senate itself.
The Oxford Handbook of Research Ethics (Oxford Handbooks)
The Oxford Handbook of Research Ethics provides a critical overview of the ethics of human subjects research within multiple disciplines and fields, including biomedicine, public health, behavioral science, psychiatry, sociology, political science, and public policy. Featuring 45 original essays by leading research ethicists, it aims to improve scholarship in research ethics by encouraging cross-disciplinary engagement with critical issues concerning the treatment of research participants. Part 1 of the volume, The Practice and Institutional Context of Human Subjects Research, orients readers to the research ethics literature through discussion of historical, regulatory, and other features of human subjects research. It includes chapters on the nature of human subjects research, the highs and lows of research, and the regulations which govern it. Part 2, Key Concepts and Principles of Research Ethics, features cutting-edge critical overviews of the central ethical principles and requirements used to evaluate research, including chapters on respect for persons, social value, risk-benefit assessment, equipoise, and fair subject selection, among others. Part 3, Research Areas and Methods, explores how these principles and requirements apply across different disciplines and methodologies. It features chapters on the ethics of novel trial designs such as multi-arm platform trials as well as chapters addressing ethical issues which arise in different fields, including genetics and genomics, public health, behavioral science, sociology, political science, and public policy. Part 4, Research Participant Populations, concludes the volume with chapters addressing ethical questions that arise with research concerning certain populations, including Indigenous People, racial and ethnic minorities, women, and people with disabilities, among others.
Body Impossible: Desmond Richardson and the Politics of Virtuosity (Oxford Studies in Dance Theory)
by Ariel OsterweisBody Impossible theorizes the concept of virtuosity in contemporary dance and performance through a study of the career of dancer Desmond Richardson. A virtuoso for the ages, Richardson is renowned for delivering commanding performances over decades in contexts ranging from the stages of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ballett Frankfurt to featured appearances with Michael Jackson and Prince, along with his work as co-founder of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, inaugurating a virtuosic queer black aesthetic with choreographer Dwight Rhoden. Focusing on Richardson's creative insistence on improvisatory fun and excellence throughout the decades approaching the millennium (shaped by Reaganism, the Culture Wars, the AIDS epidemic, the New Jim Crow, and MTV), this book brings dance into conversation with paradigms of blackness, queerness, masculinity, and class in order to generate a socioculturally attentive understanding of virtuosity. Virtuosity obscures the border between popular and concert performance, and Richardson's versatility epitomizes the demands on the contemporary virtuosic dance artist. Author Ariel Osterweis suggests that discourses of virtuosity are linked to connotations of excess, and that an examination of the formal and socio-cultural aspects of virtuosic performance reveals under-recognized heterogeneity in which we detect ?vernacular? influences on ?high art.? In doing so, Body Impossible accounts for the constitutive relationship between disciplined perceptions of virtuosity's excess and the disciplining of the racialized body in national and transnational contexts.
One Shot Hitchcock: A Contemporary Approach to the Screen
In recent years, the enduring appeal of Alfred Hitchcock to film studies has been evidenced by the proliferation of innovative approaches to the director's work. Adding to this pattern of innovation, the edited collection One Shot Hitchcock: A Contemporary Approach to the Screen utilizes formal analysis to interrogate key single shots from across Alfred Hitchcock's long career. This collection reveals the value of analyzing the single shot - within this small, cinematic unit is a code that unlocks a series of revelations about cinema as an artistic practice and a theoretical study. Each chapter examines one shot from a single film, beginning with The Lodger (1927) and ending with Frenzy (1972). If Hitchcock is known as a director of suspense films and films about murder, the shots discussed in One Shot Hitchcock are his crime scenes. These are the shots that resist being forgotten, that repeatedly demand to be investigated, in which Hitchcock's influence on aesthetics and culture is at its most acute. Each chapter uses a different lens of film analysis - transnationalism, gender and sexuality, performance, history, affect, intermediality, remake studies, philosophy, and film form are all used to interrogate single shots. In these essays, the single shot from Hitchcock's film not only illustrates the approach in question but also demonstrates how the single shot encourages us to rethink our approaches to the screen. By reinvigorating a close formal mode of analysis, One Shot Hitchcock asks readers to think differently about film, offering a renewed assessment of Hitchcock's oeuvre in the process.
Disruption?: The Senate During the Trump Era
by Sean M. TheriaultWhat happens when a tradition-bound institution encounters an iconoclastic president intent on changing how the government operates? In Disruption?, Sean M. Theriault has gathered nineteen leading authors from a range of subfields to provide a compelling understanding for if, how, and to what extent Trump disrupted the Senate. As the authors argue, Trump became trapped in the norms and rules of the Senate on some dimensions, while he became the story to which all senators needed to respond on others. This book shows how multiple facets of the Senate changed during Trump's presidency, including the legislative process, party leadership, roll-call voting, and communications. Comprehensive in its coverage of the period and embedding it in a deep historical context, this book highlights how these changes reflected back on to not only the Trump administration, but also the very legitimacy of the Senate itself.
The Process of Research in Psychology
by Dawn M. McBrideWith a structure focused on process over memorization, best-selling author Dawn M. McBride′s The Process of Research in Psychology, Fifth Edition covers topics with a step-by-step approach to help students understand the full progression of developing, conducting, and presenting a research study from start to finish. Early chapters introduce important concepts for developing research ideas, subject sampling, ethics, and data collection; more detailed coverage of these topics is included in the "More About" chapters to provide instructors with flexibility to focus on the methods students will use in their projects. Concepts and skills relevant to more than one stage of the research process are covered in multiple contexts to give students repeated opportunities to learn about the most important, and often most difficult, research concepts at the moment they're used. This new Fifth Edition features added discussion on validity and reliability; a reorganized chapter on survey research to group topics more clearly and to provide more information on qualitative analysis; more questions in the "Test Yourself" quizzes at the end of each chapter to focus more on application; and additional references to the increasingly popular statistical software programs JASP and R.
Running Behavioral Studies With Human Participants: A Practical Guide
by Frank E. Ritter Jong W. Kim Jonathan H. Morgan Richard A. Alan CarlsonRunning Behavioral Experiments With Human Participants: A Practical Guide provides a concrete, practical roadmap for the implementation of experiments and controlled observation using human participants. Covering both conceptual and practical issues critical to implementing an experiment, the book is organized to follow the standard process in experiment-based research, covering such issues as potential ethical problems, risks to validity, experimental setup, running a study, and concluding a study. The detailed guidance on each step of an experiment is ideal for those in both universities and industry who have had little or no previous practical training in research methodology. The book provides example scenarios to help readers organize how they run experimental studies and anticipate problems, and example forms that can serve as effective initial "recipes." Examples and forms are drawn from areas such as cognitive psychology, human factors, human-computer interaction, and human-robotic interaction.
Successful Research Projects: A Step-by-step Guide
by Bernard C. BeinsSuccessful Research Projects: A Step-by-Step Guide is a concise and accessible text that guides students through each component of the research process. Using a step-by-step active learning approach, acclaimed professor and researcher Dr. Bernard C. Beins discusses each of the key actions required for students to confidently develop, perform, analyze, and report the results of their research in a thorough, accurate, and methodologically sound manner. Throughout the text, they will discover not only how to complete each step, but how the steps at any point relate to other aspects of their research and writing.
War Stories: Suffering and Sacrifice in the Civil War North
by Frances M. ClarkeThe American Civil War is often seen as the first modern war, not least because of its immense suffering. Yet unlike later conflicts, it did not produce an outpouring of disillusionment or cynicism, as most people continued to portray the war in highly sentimental and patriotic terms. While scholars typically dismiss this everyday writing as simplistic or naïve, Frances M. Clarke argues that we need to reconsider the letters, diaries, songs, and journalism penned by Union soldiers and their caregivers to fully understand the war’s impact and meaning. In War Stories, Clarke revisits the most common stories that average Northerners told in hopes of redeeming their suffering and loss—stories that enabled people to make sense of their hardship, and to express their beliefs about religion, community, and personal character. From tales of Union soldiers who died heroically to stories of tireless volunteers who exemplified the Republic’s virtues, War Stories sheds new light on this transitional moment in the history of war, emotional culture, and American civic life.
The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's "Poetics"
by Walter WatsonOf all the writings on theory and aesthetics—ancient, medieval, or modern—the most important is indisputably Aristotle’s Poetics, the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. In the Poetics, Aristotle writes that he will speak of comedy—but there is no further mention of comedy. Aristotle writes also that he will address catharsis and an analysis of what is funny. But he does not actually address any of those ideas. The surviving Poetics is incomplete. Until today. Here, Walter Watson offers a new interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics. Based on Richard Janko’s philological reconstruction of the epitome, a summary first recovered in 1839 and hotly contested thereafter, Watson mounts a compelling philosophical argument that places the statements of this summary of the Aristotelian text in their true context. Watson renders lucid and complete explanations of Aristotle’s ideas about catharsis, comedy, and a summary account of the different types of poetry, ideas that influenced not only Cicero’s theory of the ridiculous, but also Freud’s theory of jokes, humor, and the comic. Finally, more than two millennia after it was first written, and after five hundred years of scrutiny, Aristotle’s Poetics is more complete than ever before. Here, at last, Aristotle’s lost second book is found again.
A Cultural History of Heredity
by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger Staffan Müller-WilleIt was only around 1800 that heredity began to enter debates among physicians, breeders, and naturalists. Soon thereafter it evolved into one of the most fundamental concepts of biology. Here Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger offer a succinct cultural history of the scientific concept of heredity. They outline the dramatic changes the idea has undergone since the early modern period and describe the political and technological developments that brought about these changes. Müller-Wille and Rheinberger begin with an account of premodern theories of generation, showing that these were concerned with the procreation of individuals rather than with hereditary transmission. The authors reveal that when hereditarian thinking first emerged, it did so in a variety of cultural domains, such as politics and law, medicine, natural history, breeding, and anthropology. Müller-Wille and Rheinberger then track theories of heredity from the late nineteenth century—when leading biologists considered it in light of growing societal concerns with race and eugenics—through the rise of classical and molecular genetics in the twentieth century, to today, as researchers apply sophisticated information technologies to understand heredity. What readers come to see from this exquisite history is why it took such a long time for heredity to become a prominent concept in the life sciences and why it gained such overwhelming importance in those sciences and the broader culture over the last two centuries.
Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America
by Susan SchultenIn the nineteenth century, Americans began to use maps in radically new ways. For the first time, medical men mapped diseases to understand and prevent epidemics, natural scientists mapped climate and rainfall to uncover weather patterns, educators mapped the past to foster national loyalty among students, and Northerners mapped slavery to assess the power of the South. After the Civil War, federal agencies embraced statistical and thematic mapping in order to profile the ethnic, racial, economic, moral, and physical attributes of a reunified nation. By the end of the century, Congress had authorized a national archive of maps, an explicit recognition that old maps were not relics to be discarded but unique records of the nation’s past. All of these experiments involved the realization that maps were not just illustrations of data, but visual tools that were uniquely equipped to convey complex ideas and information. In Mapping the Nation, Susan Schulten charts how maps of epidemic disease, slavery, census statistics, the environment, and the past demonstrated the analytical potential of cartography, and in the process transformed the very meaning of a map. Today, statistical and thematic maps are so ubiquitous that we take for granted that data will be arranged cartographically. Whether for urban planning, public health, marketing, or political strategy, maps have become everyday tools of social organization, governance, and economics. The world we inhabit—saturated with maps and graphic information—grew out of this sea change in spatial thought and representation in the nineteenth century, when Americans learned to see themselves and their nation in new dimensions.
Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence
by Alan GilbertWe commonly think of the American Revolution as simply the war for independence from British colonial rule. But, of course, that independence actually applied to only a portion of the American population—African Americans would still be bound in slavery for nearly another century. Alan Gilbert asks us to rethink what we know about the Revolutionary War, to realize that while white Americans were fighting for their freedom, many black Americans were joining the British imperial forces to gain theirs. Further, a movement led by sailors—both black and white—pushed strongly for emancipation on the American side. There were actually two wars being waged at once: a political revolution for independence from Britain and a social revolution for emancipation and equality. Gilbert presents persuasive evidence that slavery could have been abolished during the Revolution itself if either side had fully pursued the military advantage of freeing slaves and pressing them into combat, and his extensive research also reveals that free blacks on both sides played a crucial and underappreciated role in the actual fighting. Black Patriots and Loyalists contends that the struggle for emancipation was not only basic to the Revolution itself, but was a rousing force that would inspire freedom movements like the abolition societies of the North and the black loyalist pilgrimages for freedom in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone.