‘I will carry this little book in my pocket... I will read the words on London buses and in Dartmoor woods. These across-species conversations are more than reverie, they are participation.’ – Martin Shaw, author of Smoke Hole and Courting the Wild Twin ‘This is a book of profound imagination. Read it and you will know that we humans need to be humble and learn from the greatest teacher, Nature.’ – Satish Kumar, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist ‘Once, we were one form among many in the garden. We learned to hear the voices of the mountains, the rivers, the sky, of silence. The mice spoke, the trees spoke, the stars spoke, the deer and the fox spoke, the snake spoke – and from these words we made being. These words formed great cities and their machines ever clamouring, and we let the silence slip and the words of the whispering world fall away beyond the mirror of our making.’ (From the Prologue.) These eighteen meditations, amplified by Jerry Shearing’s striking illustrations, offer luminous words enlivened with the weight of much listening. Through these ‘conversations’, Peter Owen Jones offers a pathway to reconnect with nature. Just a few sentences a day will provide sustenance for the soul.
‘As a boy, I would walk out into the fields alone. Looking south, I set my eyes on the far ridge, wondering, not knowing, what lay beyond it. What world existed there? Now, as a man, I stand on the top of the Downs, up on the mountains green. To the south, the land folds down to the sea, but to the north the boy is there looking back at me…’ In a series of joyous, reflective and inspired diary pieces, Peter Owen Jones takes us on a voyage through the yearly cycle – a journey of inner and outer discovery. With the variety and colour of British seasonal life and the beauty of the Sussex countryside as his backdrop, Owen Jones observes the magical in the everyday – in the birds, bees and butterflies, but also in people. With lightness of touch and good humour, he calls for an awakening to the world around us, to ourselves, and ultimately to meaning in life. Originally published as a series of separate articles in Sussex Life magazine, the essays gathered here provide a delightful glimpse into the life of a nature-loving country parson.
On a journey that would take him deep into the wilderness, the author sets out in the footsteps of St Anthony, the founder of monasticism. In a hermit's cell in the heart of the Egyptian Sinai Desert, he lived alone. This book contains letters which are an honest exploration of the ways in which we are formed by others.
Peter Owen Jones started in advertising as a messenger boy and worked his way up to creative director. In his late 20s and with a wife and two children, he gave it all up to follow a calling to the Anglican ministry by enrolling at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He charts the many battles he had to fight on the road to ordination, and the many varied characters he met. With the eye of an outsider, he observes the arguments that rage between evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, and liberals. Above all, he bears witness to his vision of God that has led him to this place which leaves him not a little sceptical of the role of the Church today.
As a boy, I would walk out into the fields alone. Looking south, I set my eyes on the far ridge, wondering, not knowing, what lay beyond it. What world existed there? Now, as a man, I stand on the top of the Downs, up on the mountains green. To the south, the land folds down to the sea, but to the north the boy is there looking back at me...' In a series of joyous, reflective and inspired diary pieces, Peter Owen Jones takes us on a voyage through the yearly cycle – a journey of inner and outer discovery. With the variety and colour of British seasonal life and the beauty of the Sussex countryside as his backdrop, Owen Jones observes the magical in the everyday – in the birds, bees and butterflies, but also in people. With lightness of touch and good humour, he calls for an awakening to the world around us, to ourselves, and ultimately to meaning in life. Originally published as a series of separate articles in Sussex Life magazine, the essays gathered here provide a delightful glimpse into the life of a nature-loving country parson.
When we walk, we walk through two landscapes: an exterior land of trees, seas, cities, mountains and fields but we also follow the paths that lead into our own interior world.' This thoughtful, and beautifully written, book offers 21 circular walks. They span the length and breadth of the British Isles: Suffolk, Northamptonshire, Wiltshire, Wales, Staffordshire, Scotland, Sussex and Cornwall are just a few of the varied landscapes that they cover. As one of the prime 'walks correspondents' of The Sunday Times, Peter Owen Jones already has a loyal following. This book will only increase his audience, and will be both for those who love walking in the countryside and those who enjoy reading, and musing on it, in their armchair at home.
The cultural and political history of the Pledge of Allegiance, how it came to be, what it means to Americans, and why we have battled over it for generations For more than a century, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance has been a central part of the American Experience. And perhaps because of its ubiquity, this simple flag salute has served not only as a unifying ritual but also as a lightning rod for bitter controversy. Congress's 1954 decision to add "under God" to the Pledge has made it the focus of three U.S. Supreme Court cases and at least one other landmark appellate decision. The debate continues today, but along with it exists a widely held admiration and support for this simple affirmation of our shared patriotism. As Jeffrey Owen Jones and Peter Meyer show in their illuminating history, this brief salute to the flag has had an almost magical power to galvanize people's deepest feelings and beliefs about who we are and ought to be as a nation. In that sense, the story of the Pledge of Allegiance is the story of America and the American people.
That the man who has been called “the greatest British theologian of all time” should have no adequately researched biography of his life and times would be incredible if it were not a fact. But as Dr. Toon, an able historian who specializes in the Puritan era, shows in this book, John Owen was even more than just a great theologian. He exercised a profound influence on youth as Dean of Christ Church, and Vice Chancellor in the University of Oxford; he was also a statesman of no mean order, whose wisdom often prevented excesses into which his contemporaries would have fallen in their untampered zeal; but above all, he was a spiritual shepherd with a true pastor’s heart who delighted in nothing so much as to feed the flock of God. Dr. Toon, who has been engaged for over four years on almost continuous research, has produced a volume full of new information as well as an assessment of the tremendous influence of this outstanding leader. The current worldwide interest in the Puritan period underlines the timeliness and importance of this new work. John Owen achieved national recognition when at the comparatively early age of thirty he preached before the House of Commons at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Yet his achievements would eventually be recorded in higher archives than any mere earthly ones, for he was to become a revered and redoubtable servant of the King of kings. Like many other renowned servants of God, John Owen cared little for personal aggrandizement and by his own command not one of his diaries has been preserved; and since the extant letters in which he lays bare his soul are very few, his biographer is hard put to find those personal touches which have helped to establish biography as an important part of English literature. Nevertheless this carefully researched study has been produced to help meet the need for a fuller life of this remarkable man.
The Glossary of Literary and Cultural Theory provides researchers and students with an up-to-date guide through the vibrant and changing debates in Literary and Cultural Studies. In a field where meanings are frequently complex and ambiguous, this text is remarkable for its clarity and usefulness. This third edition includes 17 entirely new entries and updates to more than a dozen others which address key concepts and contemporary positions in both literary and cultural theory. New entries include: • Actor Network Theory • Anthropocene • Ecocriticism • Digital Humanities • Postcapitalism • World Literature
Students new to the work of William Morris will find the full range of his achievements covered here. The author has carefully placed Morris in the context of the Victorian age, but has also suggested the relevance of his ideas today. The six chapters are organised biographically and cover all aspects of Morris’s work in poetry, fiction, design and socialist politics.
Discussing a wide range of material from fiction and essays to artifacts, the book explores how the era paved the way for the vitality and the viability of a language of craft in much later decades.
Recent years have seen an intensification of discussion on the issue of Britain's political class. The question of who our politicians are is front and centre. Do they represent us? Are all politicians just in it for themselves? Are they disconnected from the lives of normal people? In The Political Class, Peter Allen argues that our current political class are in many important ways unlike the British people as a whole, and this matters a lot. Our politicians are currently largely drawn from limited sections of society, reflecting patterns of wider social and economic inequality which mean that, for many people, running for political office is almost impossible. This leaves us with a political class that can justifiably be described as uniform in who they are, what they think, and how they behave. Putting the state of British democracy under the microscope, Allen argues that having a more diverse political class would not only better reflect democratic principles of equality, but would also result in more legitimate political outcomes. We need to radically reshape political institutions so that more citizens have a real chance of becoming involved in making the decisions that affect all of our lives. Only by doing this can the gap between the political class and the public be reduced, and British democracy live up to its name.
A compelling investigation into the myth and reality of working-class life in contemporary Britain. In modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs. In this groundbreaking investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth.” Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, one based on the media’s inexhaustible obsession with an indigent white underclass, he portrays a far more complex reality. Moving through Westminster’s lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones reveals the increasing poverty and desperation of communities made precarious by wrenching social and industrial change, and all but abandoned by the aspirational, society-fragmenting policies of Thatcherism and New Labour. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient figleaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems, and to justify widening inequality. Based on a wealth of original research, and wide-ranging interviews with media figures, political opinion-formers and workers, Chavs is a damning indictment of the media and political establishment, and an illuminating, disturbing portrait of inequality and class hatred in modern Britain.
There's a war on against the BBC. It is under threat as never before. And if we lose it, we won't get it back. The BBC is our most important cultural institution, our best-value entertainment provider, and the global face of Britain. It's our most trusted news source in a world of divisive disinformation. But it is facing relentless attacks by powerful commercial and political enemies, including deep funding cuts - much deeper than most people realise - with imminent further cuts threatened. This book busts the myths about the BBC and shows us how we can save it, before it's too late.
Banishing troublesome and deviant people from society was common in the early modern period. Many European countries removed their paupers, convicted criminals, rebels and religious dissidents to remote communities or to their colonies where they could be simultaneously punished and, perhaps, contained and reformed. Under British rule, poor Irish, Scottish Jacobites, English criminals, Quakers, gypsies, Native Americans, the Acadian French in Canada, rebellious African slaves, or vulnerable minorities like the Jews of St. Eustatius, were among those expelled and banished to another place. This book explores the legal and political development of this forced migration, focusing on the British Atlantic world between 1600 and 1800. The territories under British rule were not uniform in their policies, and not all practices were driven by instructions from London, or based on a clear legal framework. Using case studies of legal and political strategies from the Atlantic world, and drawing on accounts of collective experiences and individual narratives, the authors explore why victims were chosen for banishment, how they were transported and the impact on their lives. The different contexts of such banishment – internal colonialism ethnic and religious prejudice, suppression of religious or political dissent, or the savageries of war in Europe or the colonies – are examined to establish to what extent displacement, exile and removal were fundamental to the early British Empire.
How could a glorious age of American history also give rise to the darkest of literary traditions, one that would inspire Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, and many other best-selling American writers?
The UK welfare state is under sustained ideological and political attack. In All Our Welfare, Peter Beresford explores the establishment and trajectory of the postwar welfare state and offers a blueprint for participatory social policy in the future. By showing that early welfare policies resulted from popular revulsion against the inequity of the market and associated poor laws, Beresford reveals that the welfare state was ultimately undermined by its failure to engage the people it was intended to help. Noting the subsequent similar failure of neoliberal social policy to engage people in improving their own welfare, Beresford draws on the pioneering theories and practices of current welfare service user movements to outline participatory approaches to social policy theory, knowledge development, policy, practice, and support, identifying a series of principles that could underpin them and offering inclusive models for sustainable change. Also including fascinating vignettes from his own family's experience, Beresford demonstrates the value of user knowledge.
Authoritative and readable, this excellent text, illustrated by a unique pictorial record of period architecture, surveys and examines how and why the architecture of pleasure related to the stylistic and ideological concerns of modernism in 1930s Britain. Responding to the current interest in modernism and packed with a substantial archive of high quality photographs and other documentation, it relates the professional, entrepreneurial and institutional infrastructures affecting the pleasure industry’s architectural development and appearance in 1930s. A broad range of building through which the general public first experienced Modernism are covered, including: commercial – holiday camps, cinemas and greyhound racing stadia municipal and governmental projects – zoos, seaside pavilions, concert halls, and imperial and international exhibitions. Arguing that the responses to modernism through the architecture of pleasure were conditioned by wider debates about the role of design in relation to high and mass culture, this book is an ideal resource for all those interested in architectural history and design in Britain between the wars.
The cultural and political history of the Pledge of Allegiance, how it came to be, what it means to Americans, and why we have battled over it for generations For more than a century, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance has been a central part of the American Experience. And perhaps because of its ubiquity, this simple flag salute has served not only as a unifying ritual but also as a lightning rod for bitter controversy. Congress's 1954 decision to add "under God" to the Pledge has made it the focus of three U.S. Supreme Court cases and at least one other landmark appellate decision. The debate continues today, but along with it exists a widely held admiration and support for this simple affirmation of our shared patriotism. As Jeffrey Owen Jones and Peter Meyer show in their illuminating history, this brief salute to the flag has had an almost magical power to galvanize people's deepest feelings and beliefs about who we are and ought to be as a nation. In that sense, the story of the Pledge of Allegiance is the story of America and the American people.
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