This book sets out a challenging re-interpretation of the politics of Labour’s left-wing. It shows how the Left developed a range of simplistic, self-sustaining narratives, rather than supported analyses, to guide its actions in the aftermath of the political crisis of 1931. This approach, it is argued, persisted down to the opening years of the present century; its employment in part explaining the decline of the pre-Corbyn Left. The narratives developed by the Left reflected a belief in the existence of a working class waiting to be led in a radical direction. The leading figures of the Left often had limited direct contact with working people, but, within their narratives, the responses of their target audience were predictable and automatic. The Left created an idealised working class that behaved as the Left wished. In addition, the book questions the popular view, often enhanced by biographers of many of these Labour Left leaders.
Historiography can be a daunting term for those not familiar with it. This book presents the key ideas behind the term, in a clear and accessible fashion. The opening chapters introduce the reader to the practices that characterise the subject, while the final chapters address the History of Nazism, Gender History and Cultural History, and seek to demonstrate that the historiographies of these sub-disciplines grow and develop in response to changes within society at large. This book aims to show that History is not simply an academic subject, but an active and contested factor shaping the nature of the societies we live in. As politicians, in particular, seek to validate their actions by drawing parallels between the past and present, an ability to test these claims for logic and coherence, and to assess the evidence used to support them becomes not simply a valuable academic skill, but a vital requirement for active citizenship.
This text provides a narrative account of the evolution of socialism and communism. It explores the emergence and development of socialist theory and socialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It investigates the long-term impact of Russian communism, China's development as a communist power, the reason for the decline of International Communism and the reinterpretation of Social Democracy after World War II. The final chapter discusses socialism and communism in the context of modern times and suggests how they both might change in the future.
When we were young, we worshipped stars, gleaming long-limbed godsframed in the act of impossible flight. For a time we tried to follow, to carve out our own piece of sky with a butter-smooth arc of an arm and a Spalding ball glued to the fingertips... Seen from a British perspective, The Spalding Suite gets to the heart and soul of the gravity-defying game and delves into the hopes and dreams of those who play it. From the fleeting high of the score and the robust camaraderie of the team, to the poignant lows of a body too worn to play the game.
Langevin Snippets ... from A to Z consists of sixty-four short pieces written in the ten years since Roger Langevin’s memoir, The Langevin Legacy, was published in 2008. They encompass a range of topics including noteworthy experiences, memorable moments, special events, and tales of a loving family. The author hopes you enjoy reading these snippets as much as he enjoyed writing them.
Professional baseball players have always been well paid. In 1869, Harry Wright paid his Cincinnati Red Stockings about seven times what an average working-man earned. Today, on average, players earn more than fifty times the average worker's salary. In fact, on December 12, 1998, pitcher Kevin Brown agreed to a seven-year, $105,000,000 contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the first nine-figure contract in baseball history. Brown will be earning over $400,000 per game; more than 17,000 fans have to show up at Dodger Stadium every night just to pay his salary. Why are baseball players paid so much money? In this insightful book, legal scholar and salary arbitrator Roger Abrams tells the story of how a few thousand very talented young men obtain their extraordinary riches. Juggling personal experience and business economics, game theory and baseball history, he explains how agents negotiate compensation, how salary arbitration works, and how the free agency "auction" operates. In addition, he looks at the context in which these systems operate: the players' collective bargaining agreement, the distribution of quality players among the clubs, even the costs of other forms of entertainment with which baseball competes. Throughout, Dean Abrams illustrates his explanations with stories and quotations -- even an occasional statistic, though following the dictum of star pitcher, club owner, and sporting goods tycoon Albert Spalding, he has kept the book as free of these as possible. He explains supply and demand by the cost of a bar of soap for Christy Mathewson's shower. He illustrates salary negotiation with an imaginary case based on Roy Hobbs, star of The National. He leads the reader through the breath-taking successes of agent Scott Boras to explain the intricacies of free agent negotiating. Although studies have shown that increases in admissions prices precede rather than follow the rise in player salaries, fans are understandably bemused by skyrocketing salaries. Dean Abrams does not shy away from the question of whether it is "fair" for an athlete to earn more than $10,000,000 a year. He looks at issues of player (and team) loyalty and player attitudes, both today and historically, and at what increased salaries have meant for the national pastime, financially and in the eyes of its fans. The Money Pitch concludes that "the money pitch is a story of good fortune, good timing, and great leadership, all resulting from playing a child's game -- a story that is uniquely American.
This book contains 14 chapters focusing on the usefulness of controlled atmosphere (CA) storage in the reduction of postharvest losses and maintenance of the nutritive value and organoleptic characteristics of various fruits and vegetables and extend their season of availability by making good eating quality fruits and vegetables available for extended periods at reasonable costs. The efficacy and shortcomings of various CA storage techniques and their potential as alternatives to the application of preservation and pesticide chemicals are also discussed.
Walter Camp made the development of football—indeed, its very creation—his lifelong mission. From his days as a college athlete, Camp's love of the game and dedication to its future put it on the course that would allow it to seize the passions of the nation. Roger R. Tamte tells the engrossing but forgotten life story of Walter Camp, the man contemporaries called "the father of American football." He charts Camp's leadership as American players moved away from rugby and for the first time tells the story behind the remarkably inventive rule change that, in Camp's own words, was "more important than all the rest of the legislation combined." Trials also emerged, as when disputes over forward passing, the ten-yard first down, and other rules became so public that President Theodore Roosevelt took sides. The resulting political process produced losses for Camp as well as successes, but soon a consensus grew that football needed no new major changes. American football was on its way, but as time passed, Camp's name and defining influence became lost to history. Entertaining and exhaustively researched, Walter Camp and the Creation of American Football weaves the life story of an important sports pioneer with a long-overdue history of the dramatic events that produced the nation's most popular game.
The relationship between Scotland and England has been critical in shaping the cultural and political history of Britain over many centuries, yet historians have rarely devoted much attention to it. This book recognises the importance of viewing the national histories of Scotland and England in a wider British context, and shows how rewarding this field of study is. Ranging from the consolidation of distinct Scottish and English kingdoms to the first formation of the modern British state, the essays examine a wide variety of aspects of Anglo-Scottish relations and demonstrate the value of exploring the British dimension of the national histories of both countries.
Recapturing the drama and color of this historic sporting event, Roger I. Abrams shows how the first world series (Boston Americans vs. Pittsburgh Pirates) provided a unique lens to view American life and culture at the dawn of the twentieth century. It is a fascinating story brimming with colorful, larger-than-life characters: legendary players Honus Wagner, Cy Young, Jimmy Collins, Fred Clarke, Big Bill Dineen, and Deacon Phillippe on the field; and Mike "Nuf Ced" McGreevey, "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, and the boisterous Boston Royal Rooters, cheering, chanting, and singing in the grandstands. This is also the story of how the post-season play gave disparate classes in society--Brahmins, industrialists, Irish politicians, Jewish immigrants--the rare opportunity to join in common support of their local teams and heroes.
The early twentieth century witnessed the rise of middle-class mass periodicals that, while offering readers congenial material, also conveyed new depictions of manliness, liberal education, and the image of business leaders. "Should Your Boy Go to College?" asked one magazine story; and for over two decades these middle-class magazines answered, in numerous permutations, with a collective "yes!" In the course of interpreting these themes they reshaped the vision of a college education, and created the ideal of a college-educated businessman.Volume 24 of the Perspectives on the History of Higher Education: 2005 provides historical studies touching on contemporary concerns--gender, high-ability students, academic freedom, and, in the case of the Barnes Foundation, the authority of donor intent. Daniel Clark discusses the nuanced changes that occurred to the image of college at the turn of the century. Michael David Cohen offers an important corrective to stereotypes about gender relations in nineteenth-century coeducational colleges. Jane Robbins traces how the young National Research Council embraced the cause of how to identify and encourage superior students as a vehicle for incorporating wartime advances in psychological testing. Susan R. Richardson considers the long Texas tradition of political interference in university affairs. Finally, Edward Epstein and Marybeth Gasman shed historical light on the recent controversy surrounding the Barnes Foundation.The volume also contains brief descriptions of twenty recent doctoral dissertations in the history of higher education. This serial publication will be of interest to historians, sociologists, and of course, educational policymakers.
Islands are special places; they can be havens for unique plants and animals and refuges for wildlife. This book investigates the biogeography of butterfly species over the British islands, particularly the factors that influence their presence on the islands and that have made each island's butterfly fauna distinctive. The book contains a full log of records of species on the islands and much supporting information. The first three chapters set the scene, illustrating the basics of island biogeography theory, their changing circumstances during the current Holocene interglacial, and studies of natural history of British butterflies that mark the islands as the most intensively studied region for wildlife in the world. The book advances by increasing resolution downscale from a European continental perspective, through patterns and changes on the British mainland, a comparison of the two dominant islands of Britain and Ireland, to a close inspection of the dynamics of species on the multitude of offshore islands. Detailed investigations include contrasts in species' richness on the islands and then of the incidences of each species. Case studies highlight the continual turnover of species on islands. Attention is then given to evolutionary changes since the time that glaciers enveloped Europe. A powerful message is conveyed for the maintenance of butterfly species on the smaller British islands now experiencing population losses at a rate unprecedented since the spread of the last ice sheets: the incontrovertible importance of maintaining populations of species on nearby mainland sources for islands as pools for future migrants.
This major collection of essays brings together in readily accessible form the fruits of research into the political thought and culture of Renaissance and Reformation Scotland. As a collection, it ranges from detailed studies of the writings of figures of international standing, such as John Mair, John Knox, George Buchanan and King James VI and I, to more discursive explorations of the changing self-perceptions of the Scottish political community during an era of dramatic political, cultural and religious upheaval. Each essay is self-contained, making its own contribution to a specific area of research. All are variations on the crucial theme of kingship and the commonweal, analysing from a variety of perspectives the way in which the changing nature of the relationship between the Scottish crown and the Scottish people was perceived and articulated by contemporaries. At once focused and ranging, this important collection illuminates in original and innovative ways how a traditionally conservative political community came to terms not only with the cultural influences emanating from Renaissance Europe, but with the revolutionary impact of the Reformation, the constitutional crisis of the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, and the increasing likelihood and eventual reality of union with England.
Abrams examines such issues as drug use and gambling, enforcement of contracts, and the rights of owners and managers. The stories he tells are not limited to his official lineup, but include appearances by a host of other characters - from baseball magnate Albert Spaulding and New York Knickerbocker Alexander Joy Cartwright to "Acting Commissioner" Bud Selig and Jackie Robinson. And Abrams does not limit himself to the history of baseball and the legal process but also speculates on the implications of the 1996 collective bargaining agreement and those other issues - like intellectual property, eminent domain, and gender equity - that may provide the all-star baseball law stories of the future.
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