Social Sciences

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research. In it, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China to redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the empire's financial survival. Following the profits further, Ghosh finds opium central to the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, of America's most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself. Moving deftly between horticultural history, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, in Smoke and Ashes Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant has had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe. --

In this book, autistic people of diverse racial, ethnic, educational, socioeconomic, and gender backgrounds talk about not just what we wish our own parents had known when we were growing up, but what we most want all parents to know about raising autistic kids today--

Transcending the traditional categories of 'medieval' and 'early modern' to analyse pan-European attitudes and behaviours, Sex and Sexuality provides students with a grounding in the history of sexuality by supplying both a detailed analysis of the existing historiographical debates but also analysis of the primary sources such as autobiographies and contemporary literature. Offering an accessible overview that places sex and sexuality within the historical context of the time period, it creates a deeper understanding of connections and differences across Europe. An interdisciplinary work, it draws on cultural, social, religious, philosophical, literary, economic and scientific ideas while incorporating theory from within the field to broaden perspective of the history of sexuality. Challenging the separation of the medieval and early modern 'periods', this volume highlights a great deal of continuity between 1100 and 1750 across Europe, with change occurring more notably towards the eighteenth century. Key interventions on the role of the passions, the imagination, the 'two worlds' motif and subordination are made across the work. Moreover, it questions the belief that the 'Middle Ages' was one of sexual repression and highlights a second 'world' in which sex was a natural, even celebrated part of life and engages with the belief that the eighteenth century saw a 'sexual revolution'. This book is essential reading for students, scholars and the general public interested in the history of sexuality--

A landmark new history of the peasant experience, exploring a now neglected way of life that once encompassed most of humanity but is vanishing in our time. For over the past century and a half, and still more rapidly in the last seventy years, the world has become increasingly urban, and the peasant way of life--the dominant way of life for humanity since agriculture began well over 6,000 years ago--is disappearing. In this new history of peasantry, social historian Patrick Joyce aims to tell the story of this lost world and its people, and how we can commemorate their way of life. In one sense, this is a global history, ambitious in scope, taking us from the urbanization of the early 19th century to the present day. But more specifically, Joyce's focus is the demise of the European peasantry and of their rites, traditions, and beliefs. Alongside this he brings in stories of individuals as well as places, including his own family, and looks at how peasants and their ways of life have been memorialized in photographs, literature, and in museums. Joyce explores a people whose voice is vastly underrepresented in human history and is usually mediated through others. And now peasants are vanishing in one of the greatest historical transformations of our time. Enlightening, timely, and vitally important, this book commemorates an extraordinary culture whose impact on history--and the future--remains profoundly relevant--

In Ordinary People, Ksenia Kuleshova, a rising star in the world of photography, has taken a series of color portraits, accompanied by short interviews, of LGBTQ Russians who, despite the relentless homophobia from politicians, religious leaders, and the media, remain open about their sexuality and seek happiness and joy in their everyday lives. Kuleshova also looks beyond Russia's borders to people in former Soviet states, many of which have taken their lead from Russia's homophobic policies. Powerful and intimate, Ordinary People is a moving and ultimately joyful testament to the survival and resilience of the LGBTQ community in one of the most oppressive countries in the world--

Next Generation Evidence features innovative thinking from leaders across policy, philanthropy, research, and practice on how to build a stronger, more equitable data and evidence ecosystem--

It's closing time for an alarming number of gay bars in cities around the globe--but it's definitely not the last dance. In this exhilarating journey into underground parties, pulsating with life and limitless possibility, acclaimed author Amin Ghaziani unveils the unexpected revolution revitalizing urban nightlife. Far from the gay bar with its largely white, gay male clientele, here is a dazzling scene of secret parties--club nights--wherein culture creatives, many of whom are queer, trans, and racial minorities, reclaim the night in the name of those too long left out. Episodic, nomadic, and radically inclusive, club nights are refashioning queer nightlife in boundlessly imaginative and powerfully defiant ways. Drawing on Ghaziani's immersive encounters at underground parties in London and more than one hundred riveting interviews with everyone from bar owners to party producers, revelers to rabble-rousers, Long Live Queer Nightlife showcases a spectacular, if seldom-seen, vision of a queer world shimmering with self-empowerment, inventiveness, and joy--

Little-Mouse Finds a Safe Place is a children's storybook designed to help professionals support children who have experienced and witnessed domestic violence and abuse, and also contains guidelines on the key issues and how to use the story with individuals and groups.--Amazon website.

Juice tells the story of sexual female fluids. Why were these a natural part of female pleasure for over 2000 years, only to be quite comprehensively tabooed and erased in a very short time in the 20th century, and what do we know today about ejaculation and squirting?--

How should we describe the devastation brought about on the lives of the enslaved? How should we describe plantation slavery as an institutionalized and transgenerational structure of dominance? Irreparable Evil, by David Scott, is an intellectual engagement with the insufficiently acknowledged legacy of plantation slavery in the New World. He argues that while slavery involved unimaginable practices of violence, its destructive powers include that of an inherited form of life. The perniciousness of slavery was its legacy as an inheritance of future generations. Scott's locational focus is the Anglophone Caribbean with an emphasis on Jamaica. Written as a series of interconnected essays, Scott consider what he means by moral and reparatory history and the related concepts of incomparable evil and incommensurable evil. He explores the problems of fictional conceptions of slavery's evil and concludes with an interrogation of whether or not the evil of slavery is ever truly reparable--