Destroying human habitat and taking human lives, disasters, be they natural, man-made, or a combination, threaten large populations, even entire nations and societies. They also disrupt the existing order and cause discontinuity in our sense of self and our perceptions of the wo…
Concerns and preoccupations
The concerns of people over differing levels of fifteenth-century society are the focus of the essays contained in this volume. How would a queen in exile wish to be depicted on a medal, or a newly-crowned king deal with recalcitrant London merchants when their interests clashed…
The literary career of Thomas Walsingham, a significant figure in late fourteenth-century classicist letters in England and an overlooked contemporary of Chaucer, has been neglected - which this bookremedies. Following the texts, rather than individuals or institutions, it demon…
Clandestine literature was published in all countries under Nazi occupation, but nowhere else did it flourish as it did in the Netherlands. This raises important questions: What was the content of this literature? What were the risks of writing, printing, selling, and buying it?…
Rosa Harriet Newmarch [1857-1940] was well-known in her lifetime as the leading British authority on Russian music, yet she also enjoyed a long and close friendship with the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius [1865-1957]. This edition traces a personal and professional relationship…
An ugly subject, but one that needs to be treated thoroughly and comprehensively, with a discreet wit and no excessive relish. These needs are richly satisfied in Larissa Tracy's bold and important book. DEREK PEARSALL, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University. Torture - that most…
Drawing on archival research in many countries, Eva Rieger has here written the first-ever biography of Richard Wagner's talented, artistic granddaughter who fought against Hitler's Germany, but achieved no personal success for her troubles. Her book gives many new insights into…
Arthurian romance in Renaissance France has long been treated by modern critics as marginal - although manuscripts and printed volumes, adaptations and rewritings, show just how much writers, and especially publishers, saw its potential attractions for readers. This book is the …
This study makes an original contribution to scholarship by tracking and evaluating the significance of the various individuals and (particularly) institutions responsible for the traffic of ideas both between Spain and the outside world, and also within Madrid and the interior.…
King John has been perceived as one of England's most notorious monarchs. Medieval writers and later historians condemn him as a tyrant, seeing his long-running dispute with the church as evidence of a king who showed little regard for his faith. This book takes issue with ortho…
Established as the commercial and administrative capital of the Gold Coast Colony (now Ghana) in the late nineteenth century, the city of Accra experienced profound societal changes throughout the twentieth century. The Politics of Chieftaincy examines the disputes over authorit…
'This is the book on the Calais garrison we have been waiting for'. COLIN RICHMOND. For over 200 years, following its capture by Edward III in 1347, the town of Calais was in English hands; after 1453 it remained the last English possession on the continent, a commercial, cultur…
Although English medieval minstrels performed 'gestes', a genre closely related to romance, often playing the harp or the fiddle, the question of if, and how, Middle English romance was performed has been hotly debated. Here, the performance tradition is explored by combining te…
Music played a central role in the self-conception of middle-class Germans between the March Revolution of 1848 and the First World War. Although German music was widely held to be 'universal' and thus apolitical, it participated - like the other arts - in the historicist projec…
A major, thoughtful study, applying new and serious interpretative and critical perspectives to a central range of Old English poetry.' Professor John Hines, Cardiff University. Cognitive approaches to literature offer new and exciting ways of interpreting literature and mentali…
How to care for, store, display and interpret human remains, and issues of their ownership, are contentious questions, ones that need to be answered with care and due consideration. This book offers a systematic overview of the responses made by museums and other repositories in…
Literary studies and the pursuits of reading
Thirty years ago, when theory emerged as integral to literary studies, investigations into the nature of reading dominated academic criticism. Since then, as cultural studies and historical approaches have gained ascendancy, critical focus on reading has waned. This collection o…
Ferruccio Busoni is most widely known today as the composer of such works as the Second Violin Sonata, the incidental music for Gozzi's 'Turandot', and the most monumental piano concerto in the repertory (some eighty minutes long, with male chorus in the finale). But Busoni was …
The Norman expansion in eleventh-century Europe was a movement of enormous historical importance, which saw men and women from the duchy of Normandy settling in England, Italy, Sicily and the Middle East. The Norman establishmentin the South is particularly interesting, because …
Issues in the public presentation and interpretation of the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall and other frontiers of the Roman Empire are explored and addressed here. A central theme is the need for interpretation to be people-focussed, and for visitors to be engaged through narrati…