Professor Alistair Black's Books

The Early Information Society

Information Management in Britain before the Computer

By: Helen Plant,Mr Dave Muddiman,Professor Alistair Black

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The Early Information Society

Information Management in Britain before the Computer

By: Helen Plant,Mr Dave Muddiman,Professor Alistair Black

Whether termed the 'network society', the 'knowledge society' or the 'information society', it is widely accepted that a new age has dawned, unveiled by powerful computer and communication technologies. Yet for millennia humans have been recording knowledge and culture, engaging in the dissemination and preservation of information. In `The Early Information Society', the authors argue for an earlier incarnation of the information age, focusing upon the period 1900-1960. In support of this they examine the history and traditions in Britain of two separate but related information-rich occupations - information management and information science - repositioning their origins before the age of the computer and identifying the forces driving their early development. `The Early Information Society' offers an historical account which questions the novelty of the current information society. It will be essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners in the library and information science field, and for sociologists and historians interested in the information society.

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Page Count

496

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409485072

ISBN 13

9781409485070

Economies of Signs and Space

By: Professor Scott M Lash,Scott Lash John Urry,Professor John Urry

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Economies of Signs and Space

By: Professor Scott M Lash,Scott Lash John Urry,Professor John Urry

This is a novel account of social change that supplants conventional understandings of society' and presents a sociology that takes as its main unit of analysis flows through time and across space. Developing a comparative analysis of the UK and US, the new Germany and Japan, Lash and Urry show how restructuration after organized capitalism has its basis in increasingly reflexive social actors and organizations. The consequence is not only the much-vaunted postmodern condition' but also a growth in reflexivity. In exploring this new reflexive world, the authors argue that today's economies are increasingly ones of signs - information, symbols, images, desire - and of space, where both signs and social subjects - refugees, financiers, tourists and "fl[ci]aneurs " - are mobile over ever greater distances at ever greater speeds.

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Page Count

376

Publisher

SAGE

Published Date

ISBN 10

1446227162

ISBN 13

9781446227169

Hospitable God

The Transformative Dream

By: Allen Smith,Professor George Newlands

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Hospitable God

The Transformative Dream

By: Allen Smith,Professor George Newlands

Exploring the hospitality of God, and its implications for human thought and action, this book examines the concepts of hospitality as cognitive tools for reframing our thinking about God, divine action, and human response in discipleship. Hospitality is imagined as an interactive symbol, changing perspectives and encouraging stable environments of compassionate construction in society. Human rights are of crucial importance to the wellbeing of the people of our planet. But there is a sense in which they will always be an emergency measure, a response to evils as they are happening. The authors argue that a hospitable comparative theology reaches out to bring Christian hospitality into the dialogue of world religions and cultures. It will respect the identity of particular groups and yet will strive for a cosmopolitan sharing of common values. It will respect tradition but also openness to reform and re-imagining. It will encourage convergence and development in a fluid stream of committed hospitalities.

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Page Count

266

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409480887

ISBN 13

9781409480884

The Tory World

Deep History and the Tory Theme in British Foreign Policy, 1679-2014

By: Professor Jeremy Black

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The Tory World

Deep History and the Tory Theme in British Foreign Policy, 1679-2014

By: Professor Jeremy Black

Working forward from the later seventeenth century, Jeremy Black explores the ‘deep history’ of the changing and competing understandings within the Tory party of the role Britain has aspired to play on a world stage. With a supporting cast from Pitt to Disraeli, Churchill to Thatcher, the book provides a fascinating insight into the influence of history over politics, and seeks to understand how the Tory party has sought to navigate its way through the difficult pathways of foreign and imperial politics.

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Page Count

417

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472414284

ISBN 13

9781472414281

European Security

The Roles of Regional Organisations

By: Professor Bjørn Møller

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European Security

The Roles of Regional Organisations

By: Professor Bjørn Møller

Europe has undergone quite profound changes since the end of the Cold War. Having been a highly militarised, conflict-ridden and war-ridden region, the core of Europe today constitutes a security community where armed conflicts among the constituent states has become inconceivable. This comprehensive book offers a theoretically founded and thoroughly documented analysis of European security, with a special emphasis on the role played by the United Nations and the various regional and sub-regional organisations, especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe and the European Union. When it comes to explaining peace in Europe opinions differ widely. Some argue that it was only because the West refused to give in to Soviet threats that the latter eventually gave up; or that the 'long peace' in Europe was due to the combination of a bipolar alliance structure, pitting the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) against the Warsaw Pact, with the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides. Others point instead to the extraordinarily dense network of international institutions and organisations in Europe, offering a wide panoply of fora in which to handle disputes peacefully; or to the web of interdependence in economic and other affairs, tying together all states in Europe in relations which militate strongly against war. Still others believe that the external peace between the states in Europe is simply a reflection of a convergence of cultures, democracies with marked economies that are open towards the world market. These questions are the focal point of this book, which concentrates on security, albeit not in the sense of being a treatise on military matters, but security obtainable by much more indirect and non-military means. It will be required reading for all students and scholars of European security and the organisations which underpin it.

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578

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409470946

ISBN 13

9781409470946

Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book

By: Professor Jessica DeSpain

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Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book

By: Professor Jessica DeSpain

Until the Chace Act in 1891, no international copyright law existed between Britain and the United States, which meant publishers were free to edit text, excerpt whole passages, add new illustrations, and substantially redesign a book's appearance. In spite of this ongoing process of transatlantic transformation of texts, the metaphor of the book as a physical embodiment of its author persisted. Jessica DeSpain's study of this period of textual instability examines how the physical book acted as a major form of cultural exchange between Britain and the United States that called attention to volatile texts and the identities they manifested. Focusing on four influential works—Charles Dickens's American Notes for General Circulation, Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World, Fanny Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, and Walt Whitman's Democratic Vistas—DeSpain shows that for authors, readers, and publishers struggling with the unpredictability of the textual body, the physical book and the physical body became interchangeable metaphors of flux. At the same time, discourses of destabilized bodies inflected issues essential to transatlantic culture, including class, gender, religion, and slavery, while the practice of reprinting challenged the concepts of individual identity, personal property, and national identity.

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Page Count

348

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472405676

ISBN 13

9781472405678

British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744-57

Mid-Century Crisis

By: Professor Jeremy Black

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British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744-57

Mid-Century Crisis

By: Professor Jeremy Black

The years between 1744 and 1757 were a testing time for the British government as political unrest at home exploded into armed rebellion, whilst on the continent French armies were repeatedly victorious. Building upon methods employed in the preceding two books, this volume charts the significant political changes of 1744-57. The book offers a guided narrative that both uses and builds on the analysis offered by contemporary commentators, and provides an informed assessment of the significance of the ideas, terms and language employed in eighteenth-century Britain to discuss foreign policy and politics.

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283

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472423690

ISBN 13

9781472423696

Beyond the National Curriculum

Curricular Centralism and Cultural Diversity in Europe and the USA

By: Professor David Coulby,David Coulby

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Beyond the National Curriculum

Curricular Centralism and Cultural Diversity in Europe and the USA

By: Professor David Coulby,David Coulby

The National Curriculum is due for review. This is a central area of educational debate in England and Wales. Increasingly politicians and their entourages are looking for quick fixes from abroad to solve what they see to be problems in the educational system of the UK. Drawing on insights from other European curricular systems, this provocative book will contribute, in a timely way, to the debate on reformations of the National Curriculum. The style is concise, with points for discussion and lists of further reading. debate in England and Wales. Increasingly politicians are looking for quick fixes from abroad to solve what they see to be problems in the educational system. Drawing on insights from other European curricular systems, this volume will contribute, in a timely way, to the debate on the reformations of the National Curriculum. The style is short and concise, with points for discussion and lists of further reading. _

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Page Count

148

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

113570001X

ISBN 13

9781135700010

An Introduction to European Intergovernmental Organizations

By: Professor Marc Cogen

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An Introduction to European Intergovernmental Organizations

By: Professor Marc Cogen

An Introduction to European Intergovernmental Organizations provides an up-to-date and accessible reference to European intergovernmental organizations other than the European Union. The specialized character of these organizations adds value to cooperation in Europe as a whole, creates permanent channels of communication regardless of EU membership and allows the possibility for non-European involvement through organizations such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and NATO. It also allows sub regional groups of states, such as the Nordic countries or the Benelux countries to exist and express their own identity via their own organizations.

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Page Count

301

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472445708

ISBN 13

9781472445704

Designing Modern America

Broadway to Main Street

By: Christopher Innes,Professor Christopher Innes

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Designing Modern America

Broadway to Main Street

By: Christopher Innes,Professor Christopher Innes

The story of two legendary designers who made “modern America”

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344

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300108044

ISBN 13

9780300108040

Status, Power and Ritual Interaction

A Relational Reading of Durkheim, Goffman and Collins

By: Professor Theodore D Kemper

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Status, Power and Ritual Interaction

A Relational Reading of Durkheim, Goffman and Collins

By: Professor Theodore D Kemper

Sociologists Émile Durkheim, Erving Goffman and Randall Collins broadly suppose that ritual is foundational for social life. By contrast, this book argues that ritual is merely surface, beneath which lie status and power, the behavioral dimensions that drive all social interaction. Status, Power and Ritual Interaction identifies status and power as the twin forces that structure social relations, determine emotions and link individuals to the reference groups that deliver culture and administer preferences, actions, beliefs and ideas. An especially important contention is that allegiance to ideas, even those as fundamental as the belief that 1 + 1 = 2, is primarily faithfulness to the reference groups that foster the ideas and not to the ideas themselves. This triggers the counter-intuitive deduction that the self, a concept many sociologists, social psychologists and therapists prize so highly, is feckless and irrelevant. Status-power theory leads also to derivations about motivation, play, humor, sacred symbols, social bonding, creative thought, love and sex and other social involvements now either obscure or misunderstood. Engaging with Durkheim (on collective effervescence), Goffman (on ritual-cum-public order) and Collins (on interaction ritual), this book is richly illustrated with instances of how to examine many central questions about society and social interaction from the status-power perspective. It speaks not only to sociologists, but also to anthropologists, behavioral economists and social and clinical psychologists - to all disciplines that examine or treat of social life.

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336

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409494608

ISBN 13

9781409494607

Jane Austen & Charles Darwin

Naturalists and Novelists

By: Professor Peter W Graham

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Jane Austen & Charles Darwin

Naturalists and Novelists

By: Professor Peter W Graham

Are Jane Austen and Charles Darwin the two great English empiricists of the nineteenth century? Peter W. Graham poses this question as he brings these two icons of nineteenth-century British culture into intellectual conversation in his provocative new book. Graham shows that while the one is generally termed a naturalist (Darwin's preferred term for himself) and the other a novelist, these characterizations are at least partially interchangeable, as each author possessed skills that would serve well in either arena. Both Austen and Darwin are naturalists who look with a sharp, cold eye at the concrete particulars of the world around them. Both are in certain senses novelists who weave densely particularized and convincingly grounded narratives that convey their personal observations and perceptions to wide readerships. When taken seriously, the words and works of Austen and Darwin encourage their readers to look closely at the social and natural worlds around them and form opinions based on individual judgment rather than on transmitted opinion. Graham's four interlocked essays begin by situating Austen and Darwin in the English empirical tradition and focusing on the uncanny similarities in the two writers' respective circumstances and preoccupations. Both Austen and Darwin were fascinated by sibling relations. Both were acute observers and analysts of courtship rituals. Both understood constant change as the way of the world, whether the microcosm under consideration is geological, biological, social, or literary. Both grasped the importance of scale in making observations. Both discerned the connection between minute, particular causes and vast, general effects. Employing the trenchant analytical talents associated with his subjects and informed by a wealth of historical and biographical detail and the best of recent work by historians of science, Graham has given us a new entree into Austen's and Darwin's writings.

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Page Count

228

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409475115

ISBN 13

9781409475118

Book's by Professor Alistair Black

The Early Information Society

The Early Information Society

Economies of Signs and Space

Economies of Signs and Space

Hospitable God

Hospitable God

The Tory World

The Tory World

European Security

European Security

Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book

Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book

British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744-57

British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744-57

Beyond the National Curriculum

Beyond the National Curriculum

An Introduction to European Intergovernmental Organizations

An Introduction to European Intergovernmental Organizations

Designing Modern America

Designing Modern America

Status, Power and Ritual Interaction

Status, Power and Ritual Interaction

Jane Austen & Charles Darwin

Jane Austen & Charles Darwin

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