2002-01-01,Andy Nercessian,Old Armenian Songs: A Nineteenth Century Compilation by Ghewond Alishan,Hardback,9781904303008,4.99,"Old Armenian Songs: A Nineteenth Century Collection by Ghewond Alishan, edited by Andy Nercessian. Hardback, iii + 90pp, ISBN 1-904303-00-5, EAN 9781904303008, 22 x 14cm, £29.50, $39.00. Includes introduction by Andy Nercessian, songs in original Armenian, songs in original English translation, original and new footnotes, and index.
The collection of songs presented here was first published in 1852 in Venice, as part of a project to preserve Armenian culture. The collection was made from Armenian manuscripts held at the Armenian monastery in San Lazzaro, dating from the 14th to 18th centuries, and is therefore of great value for historical ethnomusicologists, historians, and Armenologists in general. Andy Nercessian introduces the collection, and puts the contents in perspective through annotations which complement the original footnotes made by Ghewond Alishan. 
Some of the songs are well-known folk songs commonly performed by singers and folk musical ensembles in Armenia today, for example, Groung (Crane). In addition, there are wedding songs, laments, songs about foreign oppression, and love songs.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2003-01-01,Victoria Rowe,A History of Armenian Women's Writing: 1880-1921,Hardback,9781904303237,29.99,"A History of Armenian Women’s Writing: 1880-1921 introduces the reader to the wealth and diversity of women’s writing in Armenian in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The volume focuses on six Armenian women writers-Srpouhi Dussap, Sibyl, Mariam Khatisian, Marie Beylerian, Shushanik Kurghinian and Zabel Yesayian and these authors’ novels, short stories, poems and essays. The study contends that Western and Eastern Armenian women writers, while not displaying a uniformity of opinion and vision, nevertheless found inspiration in the activism, writings and arguments of one another and form a literary genealogy of women’s writing in Armenian.

The study has several objectives. For general readers and those interested primarily in the historical account it provides a chronological description of the formative period of modern Armenian women’s writing beginning in 1880 with the publication of a series of articles on women’s education and employment by Srpouhi Dussap and concludes with the physical dislocations and psychological traumas of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and the fall of the first independent Republic of Armenia in 1921. 

On another level the book concentrates on disentangling the contemporaneous intellectual debates about Armenian women’s proper sphere. The author argues that the role of the Armenian woman was central to debates about national identity, education, the family and society by Armenian writers and women writers sought to participate in and guide this discourse through literary texts.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2003-01-01,Robert Curzon,Armenia: A Year at Erzerum,Hardback,9781904303084,19.99,"Curzon’s Armenia describes the author’s residence at Erzerum, in Eastern Turkey, from 1843 to 1844. Appointed to the joint Anglo-Russian, Turkish and Persian commission whose task it was to establish a fixed Turkish-Persian boundary across highland Armenia, and thus check border incursions by Kurdish tribes, Curzon paints a detailed portrait of this fascinating area during the mid 19th century. Commencing with a description of his journey via the Black Sea, Trebizond (Trabzon) and the mountain route to Erzerum, he goes on to describe, in considerable detail, not only the city of Erzerum itself, but also the character, history, climate, flora and fauna of the surrounding area. Together with a more general history of Armenia, Curzon also gives details of its ecclesiastical history and religious establishments, manuscripts and monastic libraries, modern division and population. This edition maintains all the material from the original 1854 edition, including the map and illustrations.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2003-01-01,Major C. E. Yate,Northern Afghanistan,Hardback,9781904303091,24.99,"The Joint Afghan Boundary Commission - an Anglo-Russian venture whose task it was to delineate the frontier between Northern Afghanistan and Russia’s Central Asian territories, scientifically and permanently, thus replacing the 1873 line drawn from vague and inaccurate maps - was to rendezvous at Sarakhs, on the modern border of Iran and Turkmenistan, in October 1884. Presented as a series of letters written at different times from the commission, and published in connected form, Yate’s Northern Afghanistan describes in detail the year-long progress of the commission. Included are valuable notes on Herat and its extant buildings, before the strategic destruction of a number of these for defensive purposes, together with descriptions of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Oxus, and the Hindu Kush mountains. This is a fascinating, first-hand account of Afghanistan’s political demarcation - many features of which, such as the Wakhan Corridor, remain with us today - and of travel through an area whose potential for destability persists to the present day. This edition maintains all the material from the original 1888 edition, including the plan of Balkh. Only the maps have been reduced in scale. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2003-01-01,Arminius Vambery,Travels in Central Asia,Hardback,9781904303077,24.5,"Vambery’s Travels in Central Asia describes the author’s celebrated journey through Central Asia in 1863, motivated by linguistic research. Disguised as a dervish and travelling with a party of Muslim pilgrims, he succeeded in crossing the dreaded Turkoman desert via the ancient bed of the Oxus, and visiting the cities of Khiva, Bokhara and Samarkand without detection. As well as describing these cities during their final years of independence (all were annexed by Russia within ten years of his visit), Vambery gives considerable details of the social and political relations, character and customs of the region. Finally, he provides a vivid narrative of caravan life, and of a remarkable journey in which he went in constant danger of exposure. This edition maintains all the material from the original 1864 edition, including the various tables, and illustrations. Only the map has been reduced in scale.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2004-01-01,Ginette Curry,Awakening African Women: The Dynamics of Change,Hardback,9781904303343,29.99,"The book is a comparative analysis of recent films by African male and female filmmakers and literary works by female African authors from Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Togo and Burkina Faso. The films are Finzan (Cheikh Oumar Sissoko, 1990), Women with Open Eyes (Anne-Laure Folly, 1994), and Faces of Women (Desire Ecare, 1985). In addition, the manuscript includes the study of Women are Different (Flora Nwapa, 1986), Double Yoke (Buchi Emecheta, 1983) and So Long a Letter (Mariama Ba, 1980).
Curry analyzes the homogeneous themes such as oppression, sabotage, cultural alienation, exploitation, sexual bargaining and the changing dynamics of sexual relationships that appear through these productions. She concludes that African women continue to undergo a metamorphosis. This transformation is the result of a blend of traditionally African and European influences.Modernist terms such as “feminism” and “womanism” intended to capture the emerging African women as subjects and not objects of study, are avoided. In so doing, a theoretical approach is used, based on the author’s own experiences in West Africa. Then, building from that premise, Curry analyzes the novels and films within this context to either prove or disprove her theories.
Enthusiasts without past experiences in the area of African literature and African films, and also students and scholars in African studies, specifically in comparative literature, anthropology, women’s studies, sociology, African history, film studies and social studies, will all find this book of great interest.

In raising the issues that West African women face, this book, as the title suggests, aims to awaken other African women and indeed a ""western"" readership to the fast changing lives of women in Africa. Georgina Holmes in African Research and Documentation No. 102, 2007
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2005-04-01,Matthew Birchwood and Matthew Dimmock,Cultural Encounters Between East and West,Hardback,9781904303411,39.99,"A radical reappraisal of the relationship between ‘east’ and ‘west’ is currently underway. Critical approaches to the early modern period have too often tacitly assumed a binary opposition between a civilised Christendom and the encroaching barbarity of the ‘infidel’. Whilst the conquest of Constantinople of 1453 did indeed became a potent symbol of Ottoman imperial ambition, the complexity of the cultural negotiations in the myriad encounters - diplomatic, mercantile, religious and military - of the following years refutes the Euro-centric assumptions of traditional historiography. 1453 to 1699: Cultural Encounters between East and West seeks to bring together exciting new work in this emerging field from across the international academic community. The product of a successful inter-disciplinary conference, this volume engages with fields of history, cultural studies, art history, literary theory and anthropology, comprehensively remapping the complex contours of East-West encounters. In the light of current world events, the need to historicise and contextualise this relationship is more urgent than ever.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2005-10-01,Geraldine Barnes with Gabrielle Singleton,Travel and Travellers from Bede to Dampier,Hardback,9781904303510,39.99,"The essays in this collection -- a selection of papers presented at the University of Sydney Centre for Medieval Studies workshop, ‘Travel and Cartography from Bede to the Enlightenment’ (August 22-23, 2001) – track a variety of travel narratives from the eighth century to the eighteenth.  Their voyages, which extend from from the literal to the spiritual, the political, and the artistic, show how the concept of narrative mapping has changed over time, and how it encompasses cosmogony, geography, chorography, topography, and inventory.  Each essay is concerned in some way with the application of the medieval geographical imagination, or with the enduring influence of that imagination upon post-medieval travel and discovery writing.
This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate university students and to a broad range of academics across the disciplines of literature and history.  It will be of particular interest to medievalists and scholars of the early modern period and to readers of, the new (1997) scholarly journal, Studies in Travel Writing.
The volume will also appeal to a more general, informed readership interested in the history of travel and the history of ideas, early contact with indigenous people, and encounters between East and West.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-06-01,Scott L. Baugh,Mediating Chicana/o Culture: Multicultural American Vernacular,Hardback,9781847180056,34.99,"Mediating Chicana/o Culture: Multicultural American Vernacular covers an unconventional array of topics—from handkerchiefs, votives, and graffiti to food, fútbol, and the Internet—as well as cutting edge literature, cinema, photography, and more. In its cross-disciplinary approach, this collection makes an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on Chicana and Chicano culture and provides engaging readings for courses in race/ethnic studies, media studies, and American studies.

Collected chapters critically interrogate the underlying tensions between personal expressions and public demonstrations in their on-going negotiation of Chicana and Chicano identity. Drawing on the revolutionary work of Gloria Anzaldúa, Tómas Ybarra-Frausto, Emma Pérez, Alfred Arteaga, Chela Sandoval, Julia Watson and Sidonie Smith, the Latina Feminist Group, among others, chapters in this collection closely read the processes that seem built into the actions and behaviors, the products, the art, the literature, and the discourse surrounding the search for identity in the rush of our diverse 21st-century existence. Mediating Chicana/o Culture lays bare the methods by which we define ourselves as individuals and as members of communities, examining not only the message, but also the medium and the methods of mediating identity and culture.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-07-01,YANG Huilin and Daniel H. N. YEUNG,Sino-Christian Studies in China,Hardback,9781847180063,39.99,"In the 1980s there was a wave of introducing western thoughts in the academia of Mainland China. The significance of this movement is regarded by some Chinese scholars as another Enlightenment since the May 4th movement, 1919. In this movement there was a small group of Chinese scholars who thought that subtle interaction between Christian thought and western culture and academic should be noticed.

The aim of this book is at reporting this academic movement, which is still active and dynamic today. This book includes 22 essays written by authors from Mainland China and overseas, who may be intra or extra ecclesia. But all of them are prominent in their respective geographical and academic area.

This is the first book introducing to the English-speaking world the origin and development of ""Sino-Chirstian Studies"" and ""Sino-Christian Theology"" systematically.






","""During my different visits to China I witnessed the vigour and creativity of Chinese scholars especially in the field of religious studies. This volume is a splendid example for the high quality of factual information, intellectual penetration and historical and systematic reflection.""

Hans Küng, Professor emeritus and President of the Global Ethic Foundation, Tübingen University, Germany


""The essays in this timely and intellectually rich volume demonstrate, both in their range and in their evident historical, philosophical and cultural attunement, the high level of sophistication of contemporary religious studies in China.  Particularly for the scholarly appreciation of the remarkable history and steadily evolving contemporary role of Christian thought in Chinese intellectual life, this volume makes an invaluable, state-of-the-art contribution. No serious student of the subject can afford to overlook this book.""

…Sino-Christian Studies in China is a collection of academic essays by 22 mostly established Chinese intellectuals, published in English translation in order to provide Western scholars the opportunity to overhear internal philosophical reflection amongst Chinese intellectuals themselves on the emerging role of Christianity in Chinese culture. 

DAVID L. JEFFREY, Professor & Vice-President, Baylor University, USA


""The Universe is a “Cosmic Dance of Dialogue,” from the interplay of matter and energy, protons and electrons, body and spirit, man and woman, individual and society.... We humans need to be “in sync” with the Universie by engaging in the Dialogue of the Head (seeking to understand the Other), Dialogue of the Hands (joining hands with the Other to solve the world’s problems), and Dialogue of the Heart (embracing the aesthetic expressions of the Other). It is to the first, the Dialogue of the Head, that this new volume of Sino-Christian Studies in China makes a major contribution in this new Age of Global Dialogue."" 
LEONARD SWIDLER, Professor of Inter-religious Dialogue, Temple University, USA


""“Sino-Christian Studies in China” charters new waters at a time of increased interest in the significance of contemporary Chinese thought.  The quality of the authors and the range of the contributions makes this volume indispensable for anyone interested in religious studies, cultural studies, and Chinese studies.  It promises to advance comparative and inter-disciplinary in a stimulating and creative fashion.""  

Francis Schüsler Fiorenza, Stillman Professor, Harvard University


""“Sino-Christian Studies in China” is a speaking example of the exceptional development of scholarship in the field of religious studies in China through the past twenty years. Renowned Chinese scholars present twenty academic essays introducing the trend of religious studies in China and its growing public role in the country. Some of the authors have been leading this breakthrough in religious studies all through the 1990’s: Yang Huilin, Zhuo Xinping, Zhao Dunhua, Li Pingye, Liu Xiaofeng, He Guanghu, Li Tiangang, You Xilin. These Chinese scholars are doing pioneering work to establish the relevance of theological research in Chinese society.  “Sino-Christian Studies in China” illustrates that theology is on the way of being recognized as an independent field of research within the academic world of China. That definitely is a breakthrough. It challenges scholars over the world, especially also the ‘faith community’ of the Chinese Christian Church to join this evolution and to pass beyond the technical and scholarly language, to find the language of dialogue with the public and address the people in a meaningful way. The editors state their thesis clearly, saying:
…we believe that
- Theology should become a “public discourse,” providing meaning and interpretation to humankind;
- Theological discourse can receive universal understanding, discussion and respect; and
- The “publics” of theology will finally form a generation of “public intellectuals” who present the value ideals and social justice from theological resources.
The book is to be recommended to anyone who wishes to remain informed on the impressive evolution of academic research in Sino-Christian Studies in China.""

Jeroom Heyndrickx, Director, F.Verbiest Institute, Leuven University, Belgium


""Fifteen years ago few experts of modern China would dare to think that theological studies would be recognized as a research field within the academic world and in Chinese society. The ""discovery"" of theology gives an idea of the tremendous changes done in China in the last times.   ""Sino-Christian Studies in China"", whose editors and the authors of contributions are renowned Chinese scholars in the fields of religious and philosophical studies, is an impressive document of such changes, but at the same time it offers a scientific approach to the Christian studies in China, under different perspectives: the historical background, the interrelation between Christianity, hermeneutics, aesthetics and ethics, in the light of contemporary Chinese culture. Whoever deals with modern Chinese history and intellectual life, any researcher on religious studies, as well as observers of academic research in the religious fields in China, find in this book a stimulating and exciting material.""

Paolo Santangelo, Professor of History of China, Rome-Naples, Italy


""In modern China, Christian faith is no longer a controversial choice. Christianity, along with other religions, has gained some public sphere and recognition in recent years. The present volume, written by first-class Chinese scholars of the Christian religion, is a first-class demonstration how Christianity is increasingly becoming a serious topic of public discussion and debate not only in the Chinese academic circles but also in society at large.

The book at hand shows how the Christian point of view is a relevant factor in the modern debate on the reconstruction of people's world view in the rapidly changing China. The writers believe that Christian theology could make an important contribution for the development of values, morality, and social justice in this new situation. Christianity is already both a legitimate subject of university studies and a legitimate topic for public debate in China Mainland. The specific aim of the writers of this volume is to further enhance the public role of religion in China.

This collection of articles is also an excellent introduction to the present state of the academic research of Christianity in China. The volume is especially strong in discussing methodology for creating Christian theology with Chinese characteristics.""

Miikka Ruokanen, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Helsinki, Finland


""I am honored to be asked to offer a comment on the new book, Sino-Christian Studies in China.  It is a remarkable collection of authors and essays.  This volume offers an historic set of reflections by leading Chinese scholars who have recognized that religion has a place in the future of China, not only as an object of scientific analysis, like so many animals to be inspected by biologists, or so many plants to be studied by botanists; but as a fundamental way of understanding both the deepest dynamics of the human spirit and the internal architecture of human societies.  Even more, these scholars - a number of whom I have been privileged to meet in my several trips to Chinese conferences - recognize that theology is a science that both penetrates to the depth of those dynamics and articulates decisive ethical realities that are indispensable to every enduring civilization.  Warmest congratulations to the editors and contributors in this signal volume.""

Max Stackhouse, Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale Theological Seminary, USA


""In Chinese academia, Christian theology has largely been studied and researched in an adjunct capacity. "" Sino-Christian Studies in China"" is a corpus of inspiring essays on this 'adjunct theology'. The authors are respected scholars in their own fields, ranging from philosophy and religion to history and sociology of intercultural relations. The result is a valuable interdisciplinary and intercultural reflection on the potentials of theology from a contemporary Chinese perspective.""

Carine Defoort, Professor of Sinology & Chief-director of Contemporary Chinese Thought, Leuven University, Belgium


""Religion in China reflects complex and sometimes tumultuous social, political, economic and cultural circumstances for centuries. Similarly, religious studies, the study of Christianity in particular, reflects equal amounts of tension and complexity in the past decades in China on social, cultural and scholarly levels. The twenty-one intellectually stimulating essays included in Sino-Christian Studies in China reveal the status of the field in China today. Chinese scholars have come a long way to obtain this extraordinary achievement. The invaluable scholarly contribution is the collective Chinese voice in one publication. It represents the true driving force today behind the development of this innovative discipline in China that touches the minds and hearts of so many more.""

XIAOXIN WU, Director, Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco, USA









",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-10-01,Ciara Bhreatnach and Aoife Bhreatnach,Portraying Irish Travellers: Histories and Representations,Hardback,9781847180551,34.99,"This edited volume offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the history of Irish Travellers. Scholars from anthropology, history, literary studies and socio-linguistics explore the methodological problems that arise when a marginalised minority is portrayed by an established and powerful majority population. Each chapter addresses how different sources illuminate settled and Traveller history alike. With new research and perspectives from a number of disciplines, Irish Travellers: Histories and Representations is a welcome consideration of a neglected aspect of Irish society; the relationship between Irish Travellers and the majority, settled population. Although Irish Travellers are a conspicuous minority in contemporary Irish society, their past existence is often ignored. The contributors to this volume demonstrate a range of sources and approaches that prove Travellers deserve a place in the narrative of Ireland. This book will appeal to scholars interested in majority-minority relations generally, and the example of Ireland in particular.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-10-01,Jean Ryan Hakizimana and Michael Hayes,"Postcolonial Identities: Constructing the ""New Irish""",Hardback,9781847180667,24.99,"The stranger, the foreigner and the pilgrim are all familiar figures in literature, philosophy, theology and mythology. This figure - travelling the world in search of refuge and sanctuary – is one which has had a particular resonance for many millions of Irish people in recent centuries. This book is a window on a new aspect of the Irish experience that is the “strainséir” or pilgrim. It is one man’s story of exile and renewal in a world where the concepts of home, place and diaspora are all changing at frightening speed. Jean “Ryan” Hakizimana’s story is the story of an artist, the colours of whose palette reflect the multicultural tapestry that is Irish society today. It is a narrative that involves a journey halfway across the globe, a portrait of the “modern” world incorporating exile, starvation, and genocide before the final “liberation” that is the healing process of painting. Traumatised from the horrific childhood experiences he witnessed during the genocides of Burundi and Rwanda in the mid-1990s it was almost a decade later and at a distance of many thousands of miles that African artist Jean Ryan once again found the will to paint. 

This book sheds light on the diaspora experience of the “new” Irish, the refugees and asylum-seekers who are changing the face of many of Ireland’s villages and towns that until recently had been emptied by widespread emigration. The economic “miracle” that has transformed Ireland in the past decade has been accompanied by much rhetoric regarding multiculturalism, integration and dialogue with the newer peoples and cultures that now live in Ireland. As of yet, however, there has been few attempts to chronicle or engage in dialogue with the many different aspects of the diaspora experience that define these “new” Irish, the young Irish who will carry a renewed and exciting new Irish identity into the future. One of the greatest challenges facing Irish society and the indeed the Irish educational sector is how best to harness the benefits of the wide range of cultural experiences, values and peoples that are now part of the Irish cultural fabric. This book is one of the first attempts at such a new an exciting intercultural dialogue in Ireland. It is only through such a process of dialogue that we may uncover a “new politics of truth” (Foucault, 1977), a new discourse and a more productive understanding of the relationship that now exists between the various strands of Ireland’s multicultural society.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-12-01,Julia Werts,Visualizing Rituals: Critical Analysis of Art and Ritual Practice,Hardback,9781847180766,39.99,"Diverse aspects of art—from its inception to its eventual display—have continuously been connected to rituals and vice versa, whether formally or informally. As the field of critical theory has expanded over the past several decades, becoming increasingly relevant to art historical discourse, new methods of understanding art in relation to the individual and society have played a significant role in the conceptualization of ritual practices. In addition, psychoanalytic theories of identity formation as well as ideas of the fragmented, post-modern subject have opened up new avenues for considering the role of rituals in modern society. Thus, the relationship between art and ritual is wide and varied and has become a dynamic field of critical inquiry. 

The essays presented in this compilation examine various ways in which emerging scholars are negotiating the relationship between art and ritual. Drawing from numerous aspects of art historical, anthropological and theoretical discourses, the papers seek to address some of the questions that arise from these complex relationships and open up the possibility for new ways of defining both art and ritual. The essays range in scope from the architectural forms of temples from Ancient Greece to the ritualistic return to “blackness” in the art of Kahinde Wiley. Visualizing Rituals is a crucial project that creatively develops new ways of navigating the nexus between art and ritual practices.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-01-01,Susan Cochrane,Art and Life in Melanesia,Hardback,9781847180889,39.99,"What represents Melanesian art today? Is there modern Melanesian art? Who are the artists? What are the subjects of their art? Art and Life in Melanesia is timely in its exploration of Melanesian artists and their voices, providing an important juncture for many in the region and beyond to take stock of what is happening in Melanesian art.
The thirteen chapters are linked essays premised around major cultural themes including Kastom, Christianity, Indigenisation and Globalisation, Markets, Festivals, Diasporas, Urban Culture and Politics. Each theme focuses on ideas, issues and some specific arts practices, drawing examples from a few localities. Not every country is addressed under each theme, an approach that provides the reader with substantive country-specific information. Research for this book was supported by the University of Queensland.

""Melanesia gets a lot of attention in Australia on matters political, economic and social under the tag of ‘failed states’ but there has been very little focus on the cultural side of things. Susan has been an ardent supporter and campaigner for arts in Melanesia and a book by her is a worthy publication supporting some of the quality things that are happening in the region.""
 
Dr Michael Mel
University of Goroka, PNG 


""Art and Life in Melanesia is based on many years of research in the area and will be an extremely welcome and timely addition to the publishing on this subject.
Susan’s research and writing is of the highest quality and she has earned the respect of the field through her consistent work on contemporary Pacific arts, and this book is enhanced by the fact that she has the cooperation of many key players who assisted her with putting it together.""

Stephanie Britton
Executive Editor
Artlink


""Susan Cochrane’s knowledge of her area is well recognized and highly esteemed among her colleagues, and she is also capable of presenting information in a way that is immediate and engaging with the broadest of audiences. Her combination of stringent academic skills, passion for her subject matter and a high level of communication offer a combination which promises to make a first rate publication for the broad public as well as the academic and art worlds.""

Ass. Prof. Pat Hoffie
Queensland College of Art
Griffith University

","""Cochrane's books has many positive qualities, including excellent writing, abundant photos, impressive scope and a worthy ethical vision. Rather than dwelling in the aesthetic past, Cochrane foregrounds the agency, biographies, and creativity of living men and women...the book is unquestionably informative, useful, timely and moral.""

Eric K. Silverman, Wheelock College, Boston in Pacific Affairs: Volume 82, No. 3 - Fall 2009
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-01-01,Charlotte Baker and Zoë Norridge,Crossing Places: New Research in African Studies,Hardback,9781847180964,34.99,"Crossing Places: New Research in African Studies brings together the work of twelve international research students, united by their interest in Africa. This new generation of scholars is questioning existing disciplinary frameworks and looking for new academic approaches to African history and culture in the twenty-first century. 

The volume explores the themes of crossing through time and space, encounters across generations and the renegotiation of identity for the future. Incorporating insights from the worlds of literary theory, history, anthropology and philosophy, the collection offers a sample of new research in African Studies with a wide geographical range, from Algeria to South Africa, from Cameroon to Zimbabwe. 

Crossing Places forms a useful introduction to African Studies for both undergraduates and masters students. It is of particular relevance to scholars interested in postcolonial studies, migration studies, comparative literature and the geography of identity.

","""An exciting collection which brings together new directions in African studies. Theoretically sharp and empirically rich, this book provides useful snapshots of a diverse and complex field that has much to contribute to current understandings of globalization."" 
-Françoise Lionnet, UCLA
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-01-01,Marguerite Helmers and Tilar Mazzeo,The Traveling and Writing Self,Hardback,9781847181060,29.99,"The collected essays that comprise The Traveling and Writing Self examine the critical relationship between the journey, the author of the travel narrative, and published and private texts. Contributors draw attention to the performed nature of the travel writer’s self, emphasizing that the carefully crafted persona of the traveler-protagonist is a fiction. The traveler’s identity is frequently in flux, negotiating between social convention, literary convention, personal motivations, and nationalist agendas. 

The Traveling and Writing Self is a notable addition to studies of travel writing because the contributors explore several genres in addition to the traditional accounts of the journey; these genres include histories of exploration, diaries, memoir, poetry, film, and short story. Not limited to a specific historical era or geographical location, individual chapters explore the work of Rebecca Solnit, Isak Dinesen, Melinda Atwood, William Byrd, E. J. Pratt, Beatrice Grimshaw, and Louisa May Alcott. From each, we learn that perhaps the most interesting subject of any travel account is the author.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-01-01,Susanna Scarparo and Sarah McDonald,Violent Depictions: Representing Violence Across Cultures,Hardback,9781847180995,34.99,"Anything and everything may come under the rubric of violence in a society that is by and large addicted to the images of violence that are an inescapable part of contemporary reality. In the wake of recent international events, many have come to accept the perpetration of violence as morally acceptable and a just enterprise towards peace. But what is violence? How do we identify something or somebody as violent? Is violence justifiable? If so, under what circumstances? Violent Depictions addresses these and other questions on the role and nature of violence in a range of different national and historical contexts.

Violent Depictions is a reflection on the relationship between violence and representation and includes a number of thematic categories such as youth violence in films, violence against women in literary and cinematic texts, gendered representations of terrorism, the violence of colonial encounters and of the remembering of institutionalised violence.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-02-01,Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi,"Hunting the Collectors: Pacific Collections in Australian Museums, Art Galleries and Archives",Hardback,9781847180841,34.99,"This volume investigates Pacific collections held in Australian museums, art galleries and archives, and the diverse group of 19th and 20th century collectors responsible for their acquisition. The nineteen essays reveal varied personal and institutional motivations that eventually led to the conservation, preservation and exhibition in Australia of a remarkable archive of Pacific Island material objects, art and crafts, photographs and documents. Hunting the Collectors benchmarks the importance of Pacific Collections in Australia and is a timely contribution to the worldwide renaissance of interest in Oceanic arts and cultures. The essays suggest that the custodial role is not fixed and immutable but fluctuates with the perceived importance of the collection, which in turn fluctuates with the level of national interest in the Pacific neighbourhood. This cyclical rise and fall of Australian interest in the Pacific Islands means many of the valuable early collections in state and later national repositories and institutions have been rarely exhibited or published. But, as the authors note, enthusiastic museum anthropologists, curators, collection managers and university-based scholars across Australia, and worldwide, have persisted with research on material collected in the Pacific.


This volume is a very important one for anyone studying the art and material culture of the Pacific. It focuses on collections now in Australia. Even those well versed in museum collections from the Pacific will learn about many important but little-known collectors as well as better-known figures like the anthropologists F. E. Williams and Thomas Farrell, the husband of Queen Emma. This will be a treat for students and specialist alike.

—Professor Robert L. Welsch, University of Dartmouth


","“The books contributes greatly to the scholarship on collecting . . . Many of the essays show evidence of thorough archival research. We read fascinating historical anecdotes, especially from Melanesia; the many black and white photos enhance the volume and often illustrate poignantly the colonial character of these collections . . . Scholars of the Pacific interested in objects will undoubtedly read the book with interest.”
—Eric Kline Silverman, Wheelock College, Boston, USA in Pacific Affairs: Volume 82, No. 1, Spring 2009

“A valuable addition to published material on collections in Australians institutions.”
—Geoffrey Gray, The Journal of Pacific History
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-02-01,David Divine,Multiple Lenses: Voices from the Diaspora located in Canada,Hardback,9781847181107,44.99,"Black Canadian Studies is the exploration of the range of histories, experiences, contributions, perceptions, feelings, convictions, triumphs, and obstacles awaiting to be overcome, of identified Black people of African descent resident in Canada. Black Canadian Studies revolves around the agency of Black people as the subject of investigation.  Their stories, their interpretations, their pride, their independence, their self determination, their challenges, their triumphs, their shortfalls and sense of freedom and justice, are at the forefront of investigation. 

Multiple Lenses: Voices from the Diaspora Located in Canada is an essential introduction to an understanding of the experience of Black people in Canada over a four hundred year period. Through the lenses of history, law, literature, film, music, Black community organizations, media, sports, Black spirituality, party politics, labour markets, education and lived experience, renowned commentators explore through Canadian eyes, how Black people in Canada have identified themselves, and been identified over this period. What factors influenced that process?

Black people in Canada are not part of ""imagined communities"" but real people with visceral connections, flesh and blood, striving to build lives under often unimaginable hardships.  This book is dedicated to such Black people and their allies who, together, have fashioned meaning and hope in an often hostile environment.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-02-01,"Marcel Kitissou, Muna Ndulo, Mechthild  Nagel and Margaret Grieco",The Hydropolitics of Africa: A Contemporary Challenge,Hardback,9781847181121,39.99,"Water is both an essential resource and a source of disease and conflict in contemporary Africa.  And we begin to learn that far distant processes of consumption and pollution can have their impact on the water systems of Africa: global warming produced by the material culture of the first world threatens the weather systems and very survival of developing countries.   In this context, this volume – the product of an expert meeting at Cornell University’s Institute for African Development – traces and tracks the dynamics of the contemporary hydropolitics of Africa.

The volume contains a variety of approaches to the study of the organisation of  water within Africa ranging from technical essays on water borne diseases, through institutional analyses of the legal and political arrangements around the distribution of water to social policy analyses of the unmet demand for water amongst Africa’s poor.  Taken as a whole, the volume provides the reader with a useful reference work on the contemporary hydropolitics of Africa whilst simultaneously providing a lively introduction to a critical and much neglected  area of African development policy.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,Ignacio López-Calvo,Alternative Orientalisms in Latin America and Beyond,Hardback,9781847181435,39.99,"Orientalism is widely known as the study of Eastern cultures by Western intellectuals. Yet most people would associate this term with scholars from France, England, Germany, and the United States. This book presents, along with new essays dealing with the United States, the Islamic world and the Far East, alternative views on Orientalism, this time also coming from Latin America and other regions. 
While still dealing, in some cases, with interpretations of the East by Western outsiders, the fact that the cultural production analyzed (as well as many of the critics) comes from an area, Latin America, that has also been affected by European and U.S. imperialism and colonialism brings new light to the traditionally negative connotations ascribed to the term. These essays reveal that, though prejudice and racism are still prevalent in many Orientalist aesthetic practices coming from Latin America and other world regions, the perspective can also be radically different.  From this perspective, rather than constructing the Orient as the West’s alien and inferior other, the mirror image that appears in this book constitutes an attempt at understanding the Asian within us (within the Western world). 
The postcolonial approach of many of these essays is the theoretical framework that prevents (or, at least, tries to prevent) paternalistic or hegemonic representations of the Asian subject. As a result, the emphasis is often placed on transculturation, hybridity, liminality, double consciousness, and cultural identity.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,Devleena Ghosh and Stephen Muecke,Cultures of Trade: Indian Ocean Exchanges,Hardback,9781847181589,39.99,"The revival of interest in the Indian Ocean is taking it into the interdisciplinary direction of Cultural Studies. Today, this new scholarship is faced with two major challenges.

Firstly, the re-emergence of the economic strength of East and South Asia means new cultural and commercial developments, and secondly there is the challenge to map Indian Ocean cultural identities in the complex of cultural exchanges between global and local.  

The pre-colonial Indian Ocean hosted the first global economy and today that history is repeated in the new markets that have developed in the new post-colonial and globalised era—from spices to television.  

In narrating the cultures of exchange in the Indian Ocean, the contributors to this volume show how culture adds value to commodities and how cultures of trade created the complex of religions, ethnicities and ways of living in and by the sea that is the Indian Ocean today.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,Tatjana Aleksić,Mythistory and Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans,Hardback,9781847181510,39.99,"The idea of this collection is to bring to the forefront various ways in which the literary poetics of Balkan nations interrelates with their national poetics, and present recent and innovative explorations of literature and film which actively engage with national poetics, a kind of mythopoiesis of the modern Balkans. 

In proposing an approach to the national question that lies distinctly in the liminal space best designated as mythistory, the collection brings together two dominant approaches to national discourse. The first tends to interpret the nation as a myth, an artificial creation, an invention, even a “dream.” The other is a mapping of the nation that considers its historically progressive role. It is their multifaceted dynamics that brings to the foreground a unique national mythopoetics. 

Mythistory is explored through its multifold engagement with the text: as a major element in the universal nationalist discourse, as a narrative strategy extensively utilized in Balkan literary and film narratives, and as a particular technique in approaching the text. Through the insights gained from literary and critical theory, historical analysis, and cultural anthropology, this collection seeks to reveal the application of mythistorical discourse upon narratives responding to nation-forming historical events. The texts in this collection articulate very distinct agendas of gender, identity, culture, philosophy, and aesthetics, all interwoven with national problematic, but steer away from the definition by which mythistory is relegated to the transparently propagandist.


","""The volume edited by Tatjana Aleksić contains superb essays illuminating the complexities of this region, from Greece, Bosnia, Albania, post-Yugoslavia or the Danube, combined with the most relevant theoretical articulation of the current geopolitical and postcolonial thought, narrative and film theory. The volume probes the founding myths of the area and the historical cataclysms and narratives that develop on their background, from classical Greece to modern times. As such, Mythistory and Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans is an indispensable book.""
Dragan Kujundžić, University of Florida, editor of The Other Europe and the Translation of National Identity (2003), and the author of Returns of History (1997).

""The collection Mythistory and Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans succeeds admirably in its goal of “providing new perspectives on Balkan nationalism without falling into either self-denouncing or self-vindicating discourse.” The contributors examine the efforts of Balkan novelists and intellectuals to “write their nations” in the face of centuries of geopolitical and discursive domination by empires to the east and the west: European and American, Ottoman and Soviet. They pose hard questions regarding the adequacy of available narratives of Balkan nationalism. And they invite us to think of
nationalism itself as complex and politically polyvalent mode of being. Both students of Balkan literature and culture and students of “the poetics of the nation” will find much to appreciate and ponder here.""

John McClure, Professor of English, Rutgers University

""Just at the moment when discussion of the Balkans seems no longer 'fashionable', this collection comes to prove the centrality of the Balkan problematic both to considerations of contemporary politics and interdisciplinarity itself. The book is an exemplary instance of multiple idioms of interpretation that nonetheless spring from the subject matter itself. *Mythistory and Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans* is a worthy companion to its predecessor, *Balkan as Metaphor*, and is certain to become
standard reference in the debates around globality and nationalism.""

—Stathis Gourgouris, Professor of Comparative Literature, UCLA, author of
*Dream Nation* (1996) and *Does Literature Think?* (2003).
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,"Rhonda Dass, Anthony Guest-Scott, J. Meryl Krieger and Adam Zolkover",Over the Edge: Pushing the Boundaries of Folklore and Ethnomusicology,Hardback,9781847181046,39.99,"Through their search to achieve a sense of academic identity the authors in this volume have brought us new textures and ideas from their research to help us all in our creation and location of spaces we can claim as our own. 

Working within the traditions of academic scholarship, we are reformulating what we see and presenting it in a previously unexplored perspective of connections and possibilities. Through our presentation of this view, we are asserting a new location for the academic identity negotiation that will challenge and reinforce our positioning within scholarly endeavors. The articles contained in these pages are themselves markers of identity produced within and created to define the academic culture. 

From this base of academic tradition, the essays contained in this volume share grounding in the exploration of culturally produced markers of identity pulling from various academic disciplines. Through the examination of the performance of identity markers, each scholar develops and reveals connections that we may utilize in our ever-expanding perspective of scholarly subjects and approaches.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-05-01,"Catherine Armstrong, Roger Fagge and Tim Lockley",America in the British Imagination,Hardback,9781847181695,34.99,"No other region of the world has exerted such a fascination for the British, and for such a long time, as the United States of America. From the first explorations and settlements in the seventeenth century, through the heyday of the first British empire in the Americas in the eighteenth century and the fundamental re-conceptualisation of America following independence, to the present day American global hegemony a vast variety of Britons have looked across the Atlantic and pondered on American life, culture, politics and attitudes. 

In this volume a number of scholars from a variety of different disciplines (History, English, Theatre Studies, Music and History of Art) explore the ways in which Britons have imagined America. They show how some visited America themselves, while others relied on second-hand reports, but all engaged with America on various levels, often imagining and re-imagining it through different time-periods. The ‘reality’ of American life, or of American politics was one issue, as were other factors including American identity, culture, music and theatre, all of which were filtered through a shifting gaze ranging from admiration to outright hostility Included are essays on the printed representations of early Virginia, the view of British consuls living in the slave South, the interpretations of diverse writers such as Dickens, Auden, Orwell and Amis, and on the lyrics and other public pronouncements of the band Radiohead. The time frame runs from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and should enable the reader the see how British perceptions and understandings of America have evolved over those 400 years. Ultimately, the complexity and ambiguity of British imaginings of America emerges as the central theme of the book.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-05-01,Shanthini Pillai,"Colonial Visions, Postcolonial Revisions: Images of the Indian Diaspora in Malaysia",Hardback,9781847181749,29.99,"This book offers reflections of the representations of the Indian diaspora of Malaysia according to two spectrums, colonial and postcolonial. It takes seed from the belief that any engagement with the Indian diasporic experience in Malaysia must take into account the role of the pioneer Indian immigrants who carved the niche of existence for the overseas Indian on Malayan soil. It begins by tracing their presence within the terrain of colonial narratives to uncover, not only the ways in which they were subordinated to colonial ideological discourses but also, and more significantly, the suppressed story of coolie resistance that lies under the weight of such masks of conquest. It then moves on to show how postcolonial revisioning is able to reconstruct the Indian immigrants of Malaya as choreographers of the diasporic identity that they have left as the most significant legacy for contemporary Malaysian Indians. This book ultimately reveals the  politics of Malaysian Indian identity from colonised to globalised grounds, and the ways in which the subaltern spaces of the former can be reclaimed and reterritorialised in the latter.

","""Shantini Pillai offers a challenging way of rethinking the transitions from a colonial to a globalized order through the active role of so-called minority ethnic groups. Focusing on a little discussed topic in global postcolonial studies--Malaysian Indians--she admirably draws attention to multiculturalism, ethnicity, diaspora, migration and coolie labour as issues that emerge during colonial rule and produce the character of globalization, which Pillai rightly suggests cannot be separated from its colonial roots. The book will make a valuable contribution to diaspora studies from the colonial to the postcolonial era."" 
— Gauri Viswanathan, Columbia University, author of Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-05-01,"Lucy Wilson, Pam Dickinson and Jason Jeandron",Reconstructing Human-Landscape Interactions,Hardback,9781847181886,39.99,"Reconstructing Human-Landscape Interactions demonstrates the high quality of work presented at the first Developing International Geoarchaeology conference (DIG 2005), held in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and exemplifies the over-riding theme of this discipline. People have always used the landscape in many ways: as a place to live, as a place to grow crops, as a source of natural resources. Those actions leave their traces. The characteristics of the landscape constrain which activities are possible, just as social and cultural habits condition people’s connection with the environment. Geoarchaeology is about finding the traces of these interactions, and using them to reconstruct how people in the past behaved in their environmental context.

The material covered in the proceedings ranges from broad themes of climate change and landscape use, to more specific subjects such as river avulsion and the use of tidal ponds. The papers move us from the land to the coastal margin and back onto land to examine particular techniques. The final paper leads us beyond archaeology and points out that geoarchaeological data must contribute to the debate about the sustainability of present-day land-use practices: a fitting challenge to take us into the future.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-06-01,Caroline Miller and Michael Roche,Past Matters: Heritage and Planning History— Case Studies from the Pacific Rim,Hardback,9781847181992,39.99,"Past Matters brings together a group of largely Australian and New Zealand academics who in a series of case studies consider how planning concepts were adopted, adjusted, adapted and extended in a Pacific Rim setting. The early chapters explore the interplay between British and American planning models and local circumstances in Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.  The main body of chapters recount difficulties faced by indigenous peoples with respect to housing needs and more generally re-asserting themselves in what began as colonial urban areas as well as others that look at community meanings, liberalism and exclusion on the street, and the power of sectional interests. The latter chapters also pose questions about urban heritage in terms of what and whose interests are at stake in these debates. The volume concludes with two convergent chapters that outline some practices by which ‘heritage’ of a more day to day suburban sort can be protected within a planning system. The collection centres on Australia and New Zealand but extends to include chapters on Canada and Japan. The viewpoints offered serve as a gentle reminder of the limitations of ‘Metropolitian Theory’.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-06-01,"Aoileann Ní Éigeartaigh, Kevin Howard and David Getty",Rethinking Diasporas: Hidden Narratives and Imagined Borders,Hardback,9781847181961,29.99,"Central to the aim of both this book is to rethink the concept of diaspora as it is used both academically and popularly at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It seeks to interrogate the notion of “diaspora” in an interdisciplinary way, and to explore the contradictions inherent in contemporary notions of place and identity. It presents explorations of both “traditional” diasporas, such as the Irish community in the United States and in Great Britain, as well as recently established diasporas being formed through new patterns of migration and resettlement. 
Traditional conceptions of diaspora focused on forced exile from the homeland and the adoption of conscious strategies of integration upon arrival in the new land. In the past, it was assumed that migrants would rapidly assimilate into their receiving societies. Alternatively, migrant workers were regarded by themselves and their host societies as “sojourners”: they were not expected to integrate precisely because their alien presence was perceived to be temporary. Two poles then framed the traditional interpretation of migration and settlement. On the one hand, migrants assimilated rapidly; on the other, migrants were temporarily in the host-land. Yet, the realisation both that the melting pot is a myth and that migrant workers do not, in the main, go home, has forced an increasing acceptance of ethnic diversity. This, combined with ongoing improvements in travel and communications technologies, facilitates today’s migrants in maintaining links with their home countries. The increased visibility of transnational ethnic communities and a resurgence in labour migration in the twenty-first century, have stimulated academic interest in both contemporary diasporas and in recovering the hidden narratives of earlier global migrations.
The renewed interest in the formation and narrative of diasporas is evident across a range of disciplines. Moreover, the meaningful exploration of any aspect of the humanities and social sciences requires an inter-disciplinary approach. Thus is the aim of this volume. Contributors approach the issue of diaspora from a variety of academic backgrounds: sociology, politics, history, literature and the visual arts. Concomitantly, data sources are diverse, with contributors drawing on official government publications, literary sources and personal memoirs, paintings and photographs, popular culture and personal interviews. This diversity of data sources indicates the multifarious approaches to the exploration diaspora. More importantly, it highlights the critical role played by unofficial, and often hidden, narratives in representing the experiences of those who find themselves, through a variety of political, social and economic factors, displaced.


""This edited collection is a timely and precocious answer to a gap in the literature of identities and nationhood. It is a response to the new challenges and opportunities facing diasporic communities and, what is more, sets out key pointers for rethinking diaspora in the twenty-first century.

At a time when western states are facing the need to re-evaluate traditional responses to ethnic difference arising from migration in the mid-twentieth century, this book posits an important perspective on the multiculturalism debate. Contrary to previous political and scholarly assumptions, this book shows that the children and grandchildren of immigrants can continue to have an ambiguous relationship to the state in which they were born in part because of the very nature of diaspora. 

The enduringly complex and sometimes volatile insider/outsider relationship is explored in these chapters through analysis of various narratives, in textual, spoken and visual forms. Analysis of such ‘hidden narratives’ reveals that the meaning and pertinence of membership of a diasporic community is defined as much by the context of the host country as by the discourses of the homeland. Across their various sources and case studies, the authors demonstrate the power of the juncture between dominant national discourses of the host state and the identity of its immigrants. Each author notes how different the diasporic community in question would be – not to mention the impact on its relationship to the host state and the homeland – if some of narratives hidden over time were to be reclaimed. As one author puts it, flux in elements of identity-formation in postmodern society represents a chance to ‘engage in dialogue with our own diversity’.

In constructing a coherent volume from such a diverse range of cases and disciplines, the editors successfully demonstrate the wide validity of their case for ‘rethinking diasporas’. Nonetheless, the specific origins of this book – a conference held in a border town in Ireland – are, it may be argued, uniquely significant. For the current process of change in Irish national identity is inseparable from central features of diaspora-formation that the authors highlight, including economic pressures. Moreover, just as the town of Dundalk has historically felt the effects of its proximity to Northern Ireland, so the ‘imagined borders’ of diaspora explored in this book are shown to be all the more powerful for the fact that their delineation is contested.""

—Katy Hayward (Institute for British-Irish Studies, UCD
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Dana A. Williams,"African American Humor, Irony and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking",Hardback,9781847182142,29.99,"African American Humor, Irony, and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking includes select proceedings from the annual Heart’s Day Conference, sponsored by the Department of English at Howard University.  Among the collection’s many strengths is the range of essays included here.  Essays on Ishmael Reed center the collection, and satirists from George Schuyler to Aaron McGruder are examined as are popular culture comedians Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle. Thus, the collection adds broadly to the body of scholarship on traditional and non-traditional interpretations of humor, irony, and satire.

What these essays also reveal is how the lens of humor, irony, and satire as a way of reading texts is especially useful in highlighting the complexity of African American life and culture.  The essays also uncover crucial but no so obvious connections between African Americans and other world cultures.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Andrea Morris and Margaret Parker,Celebrations and Connections in Hispanic Literature,Hardback,9781847182289,34.99,"The volume Celebrations and Connections in Hispanic Literature is itself a celebration of a tradition of scholarly dialogue in a relaxed, festive atmosphere.  The articles included here began as papers presented at the 25th Anniversary Edition of the Biennial Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures, held in Baton Rouge Louisiana, February 23-24, 2006.  Each of the authors responds in innovative ways to the idea of connecting texts, contexts, and genres, as well as to the disconnect that is often present between what we perceive as “Hispanic” identity and the experience of those left on the margin. Topics include “Celebrating and Rewriting Difference: (De)colonized Identities,” “Word and Image in the Spanish Golden Age,” and “Latin American Literature and Politics,” among others. The collection is demonstrative of current trends in Hispanic literary and cultural criticism, which are increasingly less bound by traditional regional and temporal constructs.  While each author’s research is rooted in a specific socio-historic context, their combined contributions to the present volume provide a far-reaching perspective that expands the notion of “text” to go beyond the literary and engage a multitude of disciplines.

“…it emphasizes the often illuminating connections among literary and cultural texts which can be drawn when one conceives of Hispanism and its literary and cultural fields as shaped by trends and issues, rather than divided by periods and regions (...) What strikes me most is the newness of each piece. While each is very well informed, none rehearses old historical or theoretical ground more than is absolutely necessary, but rather presents either a new or overlooked text or offers a new approach.”
Leslie Bary, University of Louisiana, Lafayette

“An impressive array of well-established and younger scholars has produced a volume whose scope is the entire Hispanic world extending from the Golden Age to the contemporary era. (...) This volume will be of interest to all scholars and critics of Hispanic literature as well as to historians and political scientists.  Many of the essays challenge traditional assumptions about the colonization of the Hispanic world as well as the motivations for the revolutions for independence whose influence is still strongly alive in contemporary treatments of fundamental questions of national identity, race, class, and gender.”   

C. Chris Soufas, Jr., Tulane University

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Nabil Boudraa and Joseph Krause,North African Mosaic: A Cultural Reappraisal of Ethnic and Religious Minorities,Hardback,9781847182302,44.99,"This book’s ambition is to offer the most recent scholarship on North African cultures at a time when the very notion of culture is being re-evaluated in the shifting tides that both associate and divorce the forces of nationalism, globalism and neo-liberalism. Another ambition is to be a readable document about the past and the potential of North African civilizations. Those which have been crystallized into a polysemic voice from centuries of occupations, exchanges and what is now commonly called hybridizations. In this work the collective position of the authors, with their different fields of experience, is that the languages, musics, and the many expressions of common life in North Africa continue to flourish. That they are a bridge between sub-Saharan peoples and Europe. That they are a necessary antidote to the anemic political discourses that have prevailed since decolonization. That they are seminal for the future of the African continent as it begins its true voyage into democracy. It is difficult, at this juncture, to measure the distance that, in the decades to come, will be achieved on that voyage. It is, however, less difficult to evaluate the importance of North Africa on tomorrow’s world. If the past is an indicator, it will be an important force in the cross-flow of trade, ideas and of global destinies.



","""North African Mosaic is a significant landmark in the field of North African studies in the United States. In the past couple of decades, that field has primarily reflected the research and works of scholars in Near East or Islamic studies. It is therefore very satisfying to welcome the publication in the English language of a serious compilation of scholarly essays on North Africa which departs from such a monolithic perspective. The book offers an array of superbly informative essays on a variety of ethnic groups and issues, encompassing Amazigh (Berber) history, Amazigh arts, contemporary views on Amazigh identity and cultural survival, and a remarkable chapter on the peoples of the Western Sahara. 
Together, the depicted ethnic “minorities,”  Amazigh  for the most part but not exclusively,  constitute  a majority of voices which have unfortunately often been overlooked in American universities and whose history and culture may no longer be ignored.  North African Mosaic breaks stereotypes and the  Arabo-Islamic lock  on  North African studies in  America. The result is  a  rich panoply of  a little known contemporary North Africa. The perspective  it offers its readers is not only refreshing, but undoubtedly  more genuine in regards to  the rich history and reality of  a region which has not until now been examined  in all of its diversity and  effectively rooted in its African context.""
—Helene E. Hagan, Anthropologist, Tazzla Institute for Cultural Diversity- Director

""In North African Mosaic, we have a group of innovative junior and senior scholars whose multidisciplinary approaches provide a diversity of subtle and complex interpretations of what it means to be an ethnic minority in a majority Arab-Muslim context. The conceptual and empirical landscapes covered are far reaching and intellectually bold. Whether covering schooling for modern Coptic subjectivity in nineteenth century Egypt or Berbers in medieval Al-Andalus or Amazigh painters in Morocco and Algeria, the authors to this impressive and original volume share a common humanistic vision that respects, indeed celebrates, differences whether in language, religion or ethnicity. Despite what otherwise poorly informed observers of North Africa may believe, the Maghreb is an incredibly diverse region, rich in cultural, religious, and ethnic traditions that neither colonialism nor the postcolonial project could marginalize or eradicate.
The timing for such a scholarly endeavor could not be more propitious. As these distinguished authors so ably demonstrate, the multicultural, multiethnic, and multi-religious diversity that is the contemporary Maghreb is alive with accomplishment and promise that gives cautions optimism of a more enlightened future in an otherwise suffocating political landscape.
This then is a timely, important, and engaging volume whose different authors, through their vast knowledge derived from direct field experience in the region, provide deep insight and analytical rigor on the subject of ethnic pluralism that has for too long been ignored, misrepresented, or vilified.""
—From the Foreword by John P. Entelis


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Nicolás Kanellos,Recovering Hispanic Religious Thought and Practice of the United States,Hardback,9781847182210,39.99,"The primary role played by religion in the development of the Spanish nation in the Iberian Peninsula and its subsequent role in the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas has been well studied.  Similarly, Hispanics around the world and in the United States have been characterized in scholarship and popular opinion by the dimensions of their predominant Catholic faith.  To date, neither their diversity of faith nor their ethnic and racial diversity have been adequately addressed, thus contributing to a widely held perception of a monolithic culture with its own Catholic world view, a world view often categorized as obscurantist, mystical and anachronistic.  Most important, the role of religion, in all of its diversity and historical evolution, in building Hispanic culture in the United States has not been adequately studied or understood.  
Today, because a corpus of Hispanic religious thought from across the ages in the United States has been reconstituted and there are scholars dedicated to understanding this thought and the experience it reveals, publication of this present volume has been made possible. The chapters of Recovering Hispanic Religious Thought and Practice in the United States have resulted from the research underwritten by the eponymous Recovery project and initially presented at Recovery conferences in 2004 and 2005. After scholarly debate and re-working of the research papers, the articles contained in this volume were selected. They represent original work on topics rarely addressed before, in recognition that these articles are laying the groundwork on which an entire sub-discipline of Hispanic history, literature and theology will be constructed. The material addressed is so rich and the themes so numerous and promising that their presentation and elaboration here most certainly will entice scholars from other disciplines to broaden their perspectives on Hispanic life in the United States and perhaps to look to these religious and other alternative sources in conducting their own disciplinary research.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Michael Hayes,Road Memories: Aspects of Migrant History,Hardback,9781847182296,24.99,"This volume is an exploration of the image that is the Traveller/Gypsy, the migrant and the “Other”. Rapid developments as relating to the global flows of cultural diaspora have both overcome spatial/temporal distance and separation and have created enhanced necessity for the exploration of issues relating to cross-cultural and identity representation. In an age of mass migration and mass-media dissemination, a wide combination of forces have ruptured and blurred the borders of the modern nation-state. These forces have created the 
trans-national contexts for scholarly enquiry as relating to such scholarly disciplines as Irish Studies, Traveller Studies, Romani Studies and Diaspora and Migration Studies. As outlined in these essays, the diversity that encompasses traditionally migrant and diaspora communities such as Travellers and Gypsies frequently disrupt those narratives which have defined hitherto dominant cultures and thereby serve to hybridise the discourse.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Ginette Curry,"""Toubab La!"" Literary Representations of Mixed-Race Characters in the African Diaspora",Hardback,9781847182319,39.99,"The book is an examination of mixed-race characters from writers in the United States, The French and British Caribbean islands (Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia and Jamaica), Europe (France and England) and Africa (Burkina Faso, South Africa, Botswana and Senegal). The objective of this study is to capture a realistic view of the literature of the African diaspora as it pertains to biracial and multiracial people. For example, the expression “Toubab La!” as used in the title, is from the Wolof ethnic group in Senegal, West Africa. It means “This is a white person” or “This is a black person who looks or acts white.” It is used as a metaphor to illustrate multiethnic people’s plight in many areas of the African diaspora and how it has evolved. The analysis addresses the different ways multiracial characters look at the world and how the world looks at them. These characters experience historical, economic, sociological and emotional realities in various environments from either white or black people. Their lineage as both white and black determines a new self, making them constantly search for their identity.  Each section of the manuscript provides an in-depth analysis of specific authors’ novels that is a window into their true experiences. 
The first section is a study of mixed race characters in three acclaimed contemporary novels from the United States. James McBride’s The Color of Water (1996), Danzy Senna’s Caucasia (1998) and Rebecca Walker’s Black White and Jewish (2001) reveal the conflicting dynamics of being biracial in today’s American society. The second section is an examination of mixed-race characters in the following French Caribbean novels: Mayotte Capécia’s I Am a Martinican Woman (1948), Michèle Lacrosil’s Cajou (1961) and Ravines du Devant-Jour (1993) by Raphaël Confiant. Section three is about their literary representations in Derek Walcott’s What the Twilight Says (1970), Another life (1973), Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967) and Michelle Cliff’s Abeng (1995) from the British Caribbean islands. Section four is an in-depth analysis of their plight in novels written by contemporary mulatto writers from Europe such as Marie N’Diaye’s Among Family (1997), Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000) and Bernardine Evaristo’s Lara (1997). Finally, the last section of the book is a study of novels from West African and South African writers. The analysis of Monique Ilboudo’s Le Mal de Peau (2001), Bessie Head’s A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings (1990) and Abdoulaye Sadji’s Nini, Mulâtresse du Sénégal (1947) concludes this literary journey that takes the readers through several continents at different points in time. 
Overall, this comprehensive study of mixed-race characters in the literature of the African diaspora reveals not only the old but also the new ways they decline, contest and refuse racial clichés. Likewise, the book unveils how these characters resist, create, reappropriate and revise fixed forms of identity in the African diaspora of the 20th and 21st century. Most importantly, it is also an examination of how the authors themselves deal with the complex reality of a multiracial identity.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-08-01,Tatiani Rapatzikou,Anglo-American Perceptions of Hellenism,Hardback,9781847182487,39.99,"In this volume an attempt is made to tackle Hellenism as a global and transcultural entity. Through an array of essays, this book constitutes a comparative study of various literary, cultural and artistic trends as these develop throughout the course of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries on both sides of the Atlantic. Having been designed with the general as well as the specialized reader in mind, this book will prove to be a valuable guide to scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as to a broad spectrum of readers with an interest in comparative literature, cultural history, history of the classical heritage, transatlantic studies, English and American romantic, modernist and postmodernist narratives.
	Its diverse material falls under the umbrella terms of “English Hellenisms” and “American Hellenisms” with the intention of enhancing intercultural dialogue and understanding. By embracing multivocality, as proven by the number of articles it contains, this book proves the tenacity, diachronic and intercontinental appeal of Hellenism at the era of multiculturalism and globalization.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-08-01,Chris Campbell and Erin Somerville,“What is the Earthly Paradise?”: Ecocritical Responses to the Caribbean,Hardback,9781847182388,29.99,"We live in a time of ecological crisis. Both concrete examples of environmental disaster – hurricane, tsunami and earthquake – and impending ones – a potential bird flu epidemic and the melting of the Artic ice cap – consume the public domain.  Previously colonised areas least prepared to cope are often host to both natural disasters and environmental degradation, creating a coupling of cultural and environmental crisis. The Caribbean is such a region; a geographic location prone to intense environmental activity and a history of environmental degradation leaves it ecologically and economically vulnerable. Annual hurricanes, tropical storms and floods regularly have devastating affects on national economic growth in a region where agriculture and tourism—both industries completely dependent on the environment—are the main foreign exchange earners.  Increased migration to urban centres, continuing poverty and inadequate environmental protection policies add to the problem, while studies on climate change, tourism and agricultural development and the growth of cities forecast the situation to worsen.  
Divided into two sections, What is this Earthly Paradise? provides a double insight into the Caribbean environment by examining environmental problems in practice and cultural responses. “Development: Environment in Practice” identifies and discusses major environmental dangers in the region, including historical trends in island environmental crisis, ghettoisation, the questionable success of ecotourism and the development of “tropical” nature.  “Responses: Literature and Environment” examines positive and negative cultural reflections on the Caribbean environment and environmental problems, embracing writers as diverse as V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon, Patrick Chamoiseau, N.D. Williams, Derek Walcott, Shani Mootoo and Ramabai Espinet.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-09-01,Amy Tak-yee Lai,"Chinese Women Writers in Diaspora: Jung Chang, Xinran, Hong Ying, Anchee Min, Adeline Yen Mah",Hardback,9781847182708,29.99,"The mention of Chinese women writers in diaspora immediately brings to mind Jung Chang (b. 1952) and her Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991), which won the 1992 NCR book award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award, and got officially banned in China. Despite its popular reception and crucial acclaim, Chang’s work has invited a lot of attacks. Among the most common is the contention that it merely focuses on the experience of the privileged and does not tell the reader what other memoirs have not already revealed. 

Chinese Women Writers in Diaspora is a pioneering study that focuses on four Chinese women writers currently living in the United States and England, whose works have been popularly received—and are in many cases, highly controversial—but have received little scholarly attention: Xinran (b. 1958), Hong Ying (b. 1962), Anchee Min (b. 1957), and Adeline Yen Mah (b. 1937). The chapters illuminate how Xinran constructs her identity and her fellow Chinese women in dialectics of self and other; how Hong Ying evokes cycles of return that blend Western and Chinese philosophical concepts; how Min employs images of theatre and theatrical conventions to depict the entrapment and transgression of her protagonists; and how Mah transliterates and appropriates both Western and Chinese fairy tale motifs to fashion her Chinese feminist utopia. While Jung Chang’s memoir seems confining, it has aroused interest in the genre of Chinese female autobiography, and Chinese women writers who live and write between cultures.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-09-01,Èva Bodzsár and Annamária Zsákai,New Perspectives and Problems in Anthropology,Hardback,9781847182647,34.99,"The 15th Congress of the European Anthropological Association, held under the title ""MAN AND ENVIRONMENT: TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN ANTHROPOLOGY"", was organized by the Department of Biological Anthropology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. The Congress was also a celebration of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Biological Anthropology of the university. 
The Congress strived to encompass all aspects of physical anthropology pertinent to the understanding of human origins as well as the variability of ancient and present populations. The main topic was: Man and Environment in the Past and at Present – Trends and Challenges in Anthropology. At the beginning of the 21st century it seemed important to summarize what we had learned in the last hundred years in order to help our younger colleagues in physical anthropology in understanding the current trends and to provide them with suggestions for their future research. 
The present volume contains a collection of the selected papers presented in the congress. The first section discusses some aspects of the human evolution and adaptation and reflects on the race concept. The second section discusses some skeletal variations in different populations and the effects of isolation, migration and life-style on genetic structure of populations. The third session gives an overview of the current state of our knowledge about growth and ageing that may mould our general approach to human ecology. 
This book will be especially useful physical anthropologists, human biologists, human geneticist, medical and bio-demographical scientists interested in knowing more about human variability.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-09-01,"Cornelia Pop, Smaranda Cosma, Adina Negrusa, Claudiu Ionescu and Nicolae Marinescu",Romania as a Tourist Destination and the Romanian Hotel Industry,Hardback,9781847182685,34.99,"By the end of the 1970s Romania tourism was blooming and the hotel industry appeared to be strong and healithy... That bright period is still vivid in the minds of several generations of Romanians including the present politicians, whi believed that foreign tourist did not forgot their time spent in Romania, experiencing its bveautifl landscapes and Romanians traditional hospitality.

In this respect, the book’s aim is to analyse the evolution of the Romanian tourism and hotel industry  after 1990s until now.  Does Romanian tourism reach the level of development from the golden age of 1970s? How well developed is the Romanian hotel industry?  Has Romania managed to buid a country brand and differentiate with certain forms of tourism from other coutries competing in this area? By adressing and debating this issues the book Romania as a tourist destination and the Romanian hotel  industry is must reading for practioners in the tourism business, like business managers, owners, consultants, corporate financiers, private investors and should also be of particular interest to academic community especially students in the business and tourism subject related areas. 

","
""As one of the people who has edited this new book on Romanian tourism by Cornelia Pop, et. al., I have been most impressed with this volume. As a tourism researcher who specializes in rural, remote and non-pscychocentric destinations, I believe this book has done an incredible job of tracing the evolution of the tourism industry in Romania. It has presented historical, political, geographic, and economic factors that have ontributed to the slow development of tourism in this area of eastern Europe. The book is very well researched and documented. The depth of examples is extremely 
impressive. As one who has known Dr. Pop for several years, this volume is a reflection of  her own qualities of perseverence and attention to detail. Clearly she is also surrounded by an excellent group of scholars. I am anticipating the publication of this volume and can assure you that it will instantly gain a place in our library""
—Dr. Mark J. Okrant, Professor of Geography & Tourism Development, Past President of the Travel & Tourism Research Association, Plymouth State University

""I found this book both interesting and informative.  I believe it will create a lot of interest because of the timing of its publishing.  This is a great case study that describes the evolution of the tourism industry in Romania at a time of great political, economic and social challenges.  The mere fact that the author chronicles the transformation of the tourism industry before and after the country’s membership to the European Union sheds light on the forces at work that will continue to shape the country’s economy.  
The book allows the reader to visualize this evolution by the numerous examples and statistics that are available throughout the chapters.  I was intrigued and impressed by the level of research that went into the development of this manuscript. 
The book is easy to read and follow.  A typical textbook on this topic has a tendency to make the wrong assumption that the reader has a good foundation of the country’s tourism industry.  This is not the case here. 
I teach a class on travel to new tourism destinations and this book will be appropriate to use as a required textbook.  The students will have an opportunity to see for themselves the mechanics of tourism at a destination that is faced with unprecedented challenges because of all the changes that are affecting its people.""
—Sotiris Hji-Avgoustis, PhD, Professor and Chair, Indiana University Tourism, Conventions and Event Management Department


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-09-01,Mícheál Ó hAodha,The Nomadic Subject: Postcolonial Identities on the Margins,Hardback,9781847182869,29.99,"This volume is an exploration of the image that is the Traveller/Gypsy, the nomad, the migrant and the outsider/“Other” within the frames of articulation that are the present-day flows of cultural diaspora and mass globalisation. Mass-media dissemination and the combination of a range of complex social and cultural forces and movements have all served to rupture and blurr the borders of the post-Enlightenment, modern nation-state. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of postcolonial diasporas such as Travellers, Roma and other “traditionally” nomadic groups, groups whose migrations have served to accelerate the reconfiguring of (hitherto) dominant cultural narratives. This book explores the manner whereby the migrant experience as relating to Ireland and as relating to Irish Travellers and Roma has been analysed and represented. While the essays in this volume have a particular focus on the experiences of Irish migrants and the people sometimes referred to as the “old Irish” or the “new Irish”, they also have a strong resonance with other recent explorations of the hybrid and diverse discourses that are the narratives of many Western countries today.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-10-01,"Judy A. Hayden, Sharon Kay Masters, Rhonda L. S. Ovist and Kim Vaz",Many Floridas: Women Envisioning Change,Hardback,9781847182999,24.99,"Many Floridas: Women Envisioning Change began with a group feminist researchers, teachers, advocates and activists in Florida, long isolated and marginalized in small, under-funded and under-valued departments, programs and organizations, who worked together to form the Florida Consortium for Women’s and Gender Studies (FCWGS). The essays in this collection report on the status of women in Florida, discuss service-learning as a feminist pedagogy, describe graduate student’s research on issues concerning women in Florida, and debate the value and consequences of internationalizing Women’s Studies. 
This collection of feminist papers, originally presented at the inaugural Florida Consortium for Women’s and Gender Studies conference in April, 2006, reflects the deeper meaning of its title. Each of the authors write from the standpoint of various intersections of class, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality and profession, and it is from these unique social locations that they dare to envision change.  

""Everyone talks about bridging the gap between theory and practice, but the Florida Consortium for Women’s and Gender Studies (FCWGS) is actually walking the talk.  Their work represents an exportable product!  I immediately envisioned feminist academics in every state developing similar consortia to bring the concerns of everyday women into the heart of the academy. Women’s and Gender Studies Departments/Programs represent the gold standard for interdisciplinary and culturally-diverse studies.  Yet, despite the fact that virtually every university and college stresses the value of interdisciplinary studies and a culturally-diverse curriculum, all too few academic institutions adequately fund and support their Women’s and Gender Studies Departments/Programs.  Were Women’s and Gender Studies Departments/Programs amply staffed and financially supported, their faculty members and students could engage in the kind of meaningful service-learning initiatives and outreach activities described in Many Floridas.""
 -Rosemarie Tong, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor for Health Care Ethics, Affiliate Professor of Women’s Studies, Director, Center for Professional and Applied Ethics

""This new collection responds to that clarion call by addressing the local and the global by interrupting and inserting unique voices within and outside of the classroom, making meaningful and durable connections between the educational institution and the community.  In this cultural moment, where the struggles between and among communities, resources, and institutions multiply, it is vital that we push for nuanced conversations, courageous inquiry, and responsible suggestions.  This collection is an exemplary model of transformative conversations; the kind of conversations that I hope are manifesting locally and globally.""
-Orathai Northern, PhD, Visiting Instructor, University of South Florida Lakeland


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-10-01,Stephanie Hollis and Alexandra Barratt,Migrations: Medieval Manuscripts in New Zealand,Hardback,9781847183217,34.99,"Over two hundred items are catalogued in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (1989). Most are in institutional collections and were donated by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century book collectors, notably Sir George Grey (1812–98), Governor and later Premier of New Zealand. Having been transported across the globe, the manuscripts have remained, for the most part, beyond the purview of northern hemisphere scholars. 

The contributors to this interdisciplinary collection of essays include international experts such as Christopher de Hamel, Richard Gameson, Margaret Manion and Michael Orr, curators of New Zealand manuscript collections, New Zealand academics, and a PhD student.

Migrations has two main aims: to lodge the Early European manuscripts in New Zealand within the international discourse of postcolonial heritage; and to place them within the mainstream of manuscript studies by drawing attention to their intrinsic significance and their relationship with manuscripts held in overseas collections.

Part One focuses on the motives and historical circumstances underlying the formation of the principal collections and the subsequent changes in the ways that this heritage has been regarded. Three of the essays centre upon the bibliophiles who donated their manuscripts to public libraries. Others consider specific manuscripts as indices of changing attitudes to European, particulary British, cultural heritage. National identity, pedagogy, and curatorial practices are among the issues canvassed. 

Part Two consists of new scholarly studies of particular manuscripts, which examine them in relation to the cultural and documentary context in which they were produced or transmitted. Manuscripts studied include: a twelfth-century copy of music treatises by Boethius and Guido of Arezzo, probably from Christ Church, Canterbury; a Perugian breviary owned by an Augustinian friar, Antonio da Macerata; a book of hours adapted for Scottish use (the Rossdhu Hours); and a fragment of an early fifteenth-century book of hours produced by a London workshop and added to the Hours of Margery Fitzherbert.



“Migrations is an imaginative and ambitious contribution to twenty-first-century manuscript studies. Most notably, the editors have invited manuscript scholars to address the issues raised by the manuscripts' location: New Zealand itself and its colonial history become tools for thinking with - about dispersal, about cultural memory, about access, about the meanings ascribed to artefacts. The editors have assembled a distinguished group of scholars in order to produce a collection of essays that is a coherent whole and at the same time individually driven by the intellectual curiosity that is the true sign of distinction. The book is a triumph.”

Professor Felicity Riddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of English, University of York



“This excellent book makes a major contribution to the study of medieval manuscript collections in New Zealand, and will open up a little known area of extremely important material to an international audience. The quality of the scholarship throughout the book is very high, and the essays on the individual manuscripts present the material in the context of recent new approaches in the study of medieval and Early Modern manuscripts.”

Nigel Morgan, Hon. Professor of Art History, University of Cambridge, Head of Research, Parker Library MSS Project, Corpus  Christi College







","

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-10-01,Max Quanchi,"Photographing Papua: Representation, Colonial Encounters and Imaging in the Public Domain",Hardback,9781847182883,39.99,"Photographing Papua is a study of photography in the public domain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It argues that southeastern New Guinea, known as British New Guinea and then as Papua when it became an Australian colony, was created as a geographical place through visual representation in illustrated magazines and newspapers, lavishly illustrated travelogues and mission hagiography, serial encyclopedia, lantern slides and postcards. Readers :knew"" Papua because many thousands of black and white photographs of Papuans, villages and material culture rapidly swamped the reading public once the process of halftone, newsprint reproduction became possible. 
 
In an innovative and breakthrough fashion Photographing Papua switches attention from a few well known prints in museums and archives,  in some cases repeatedly reproduced,  but mostly rarely seen outside of scientific and scholarly circles. It deals instead with thousands of photographs, often used in ways not intended when the photograph was taken, but which editors and publishers (and subsequent photographers) gradually made conform to an iconographic imperative, a sort of abbreviated visual gallery of ""natives"" and a quick-access pathway to the actual and imagined lives of Papuans in the ""last Unknown"" as New Guinea was titled. It is a study of representation, colonialism, cross-cultural encounters and the early world of illustrated media and photo-journalism.
","""Quanchi is well known and respected for his meticulous work in this area of study, so it is not surprising to find more than 100 pages devoted to referencing his sources.

 . . . Quanchi's contribution to the study and history of early photography is clearly demonstrated by his extensive research on the dissemination of photographs via albums, books, newspapers and magazines.

It is the mining of these normally ignored collections that is the strength of this book.

In all, an excellent book that offers countless opportunities for further research.""

Carol E. Mayer, University of British Columbia, The Journal of Pacific History
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Alistair D. B. Cook,"Culture, Identity and Religion in Southeast Asia",Hardback,9781847183286,29.99,"""I have read the draft of this book sent to me by the editor. After reading this draft, I do think this book is valuable and timely. It discusses the contemporary issues that have worried many people in the present world: terrorism, human rights, Islamic radicalism and the problem of identity in the Singaporean capitalism. These issues are not discussed in the theoretical/abstract way (it also doesn't meant that theories are not discussed at all), but in the context of various concrete societies. The book deals with one of the above issues in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia (Aceh and Sumenep in Madura). Each issue is written by a different author that has studied the issue thoroughly. So, the book is a collection of research done by specialists of these issues. Two essays on Southeast Asia (one on health and the other on human security) give the general picture of this region, acting as a broad introduction of the chapters that follow. Each chapter has been written professionally and the readers will learn many things from each of them. One has to read the chapter in order to really appreciate them. Therefore I really recommend that this manuscript to be published as a book in order to get a large audience. One shortcoming though, this book deals with three countries only
(Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia), albeit these three are the important countries in the region. Other important Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and Burma are not discussed individually. With the omission of these countries, it thus can be argued whether this book can represent the Southeast Asian region? Also in dealing with Indonesia, the chapters talk on sub-national level, namely on Aceh province and a peripheral city Sumenep in the island of Madura, East Java, while Malaysia and Singapore are dealt on the level of nation state. To conclude, even with these shortcomings, this book is still valuable.
Therefore I would like to recommend it be published.""

—Arief Budiman, Foundation Professor of Indonesian, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne, Australia

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Christina Gitsaki,Language and Languages: Global and Local Tensions,Hardback,9781847183477,44.99,"The emergence of globalisation is bringing massive changes to all aspects of life, including language. In an effort to raise awareness on the effects of globalisation on language learning and teaching, the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA) devoted its 31st Annual Congress to this theme. This volume represents a collection of papers by academics in Australia, South-East Asia, New Zealand, Europe and North America, which synthesize language learning and teaching theories and current research to present the views of applied linguists and language educators on a variety of issues with regards to the tensions that globalisation and internationalisation bring on language and languages. A total of twenty-two articles discuss issues related to the status of the ELT profession in a globalised world, issues of ESL teaching and language assessment, the ever increasing use of ICTs for foreign language learning, and the effects of globalisation on minority languages. This collection of articles attempts to integrate theoretical issues, research findings, and practical applications on different aspects of TESOL to provide academics, researchers, students and language educators with a discussion of the current state of affairs in the field of applied linguistics with regards to globalisation. 

 




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Mícheál Ó hAodha,Migrants and Memory: The Forgotten “Postcolonials”,Hardback,9781847183446,29.99,"This volume hopes to act as a new marker in the areas of Irish Studies and Migration/Diaspora Studies. It is also, in part, an attempt to give a voice to communities who have frequently found themselves on the margins of the so-called “mainstream” community - the hidden Irish, the hidden European, the migrant, the nomad that reflects the changing face of the “new” and “immigrant” Europe. The scholars and activists writing here have engaged with the questions of ethnicity, identity, racism, cultural expression and the new historiography that characterises those newer disciplines often referred to now as Traveller Studies and Romani Studies. Of particular concern to this book’s contributors has been the necessity to address these broader issues within the context of the ever-changing dynamics of representation, modernisation, globalisation and the construction of the modern nation-state that has been the “litmus test” for many Western and Eastern European countries including Britain and more-recently Ireland. It is to be hoped that this collection of essays will function as a catalyst for some new and exciting areas of enquiry in the more “liminal” interstices of Irish Studies, Traveller Studies, Romani Studies and Diaspora and Migration Studies, the latter, a discipline which modern Irish society is only now beginning to interrogate on a more serious and scholarly level.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Michael Berman,The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story,Hardback,9781847183569,29.99,"The book makes out a case for the introduction of a new genre of tale, the shamanic story, which has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic
journey, or contains a number of the elements that are typical of such a journey.

The stories featured are the Book of Jonah from the Old Testament, two traditional stories from the Republic of Georgia–The Earth will take its
Own and Davit, a contemporary German tale Bundles, and the Korean story of Shimchong, the Blindman’s Daughter.

By making use of textual material from a number of different cultures and times, the intention is to highlight the pervasive influence shamanism has
had and to show how the “new” genre being proposed is a universal one.

The research questions addressed include 1) defining what shamanism is, deciding whether it should be classified as a religion, a methodology or a
way of life 2) considering whether a case can be made out for the introduction of a new genre of tale and, if so, what its characteristics are.

It is hoped the book will be of interest not only to those involved in the study of shamanism but also to those whose interest is in the study of
literary texts. Since the old bearers of shamanic traditions quite often were, and even today are, illiterate, the study of their folklore–epic
songs, laments, narratives–undoubtedly provides a rich source for research.


","""Wiccan Rede readers will recognise Michael’s name as the author of a few articles about Azerbaijan and Ossetia. As Shamanic teacher and storyteller Michael has first hand knowledge of the folks of the Caucasus. I enjoyed reading this book because for once this isn’t a book arguing for Shamanism ‘as the next best thing to apple pie’, but a sober look into the roots of Shamanism. The chapter Shamanism – A Religion. A Way of Life, or a Methodology? is particularly interesting. Shamanism – like Wicca – seems to have suffered something of a process of sanitization, as if, for example, using hallucinogenic drugs somehow ‘degenerated’ the whole practice. Michael continues by using a number of stories to illustrate Shamanic journeys to Lower, Middle and Upper World. One is perhaps a surprising choice – the Shamanic Story of Jonah but as Michael writes it is the universality of its appeal. He also uses stories from Georgia, Germany and Korea to illustrate how mythology, sagas and folktales can provide us with inner or Shamanic journeys. In fact he later devotes a chapter on the Parallels between the Shaman and the Storyteller. Many Pagans will recognise the importance of the oral tradition Michael is describing. And how we all need to be adept storytellers.""

- Morgana - the International Coordinator of Paga Federation International

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Joel Kuortti,Writing Imagined Diasporas: South Asian Women Reshaping North American Identity,Hardback,9781847183422,29.99,"Joel Kuortti’s Writing Imagined Diasporas: South Asian Women Reshaping North American Identity is a study of diasporic South Asian women writers. It argues that the diasporic South Asians are not merely assimilating to their host cultures but they are also actively reshaping them through their own, new voices bringing new definitions of identity. As diaspora does not emerge as a mere sociological fact but it becomes what it is because it is said to be what it is, the writings of imagined diasporas challenge “national” discourses.

Diaspora brings to mind various contested ideas and images. It can be a positive site for the affirmation of an identity, or, conversely, a negative site of fears of losing that identity. Diaspora signals an engagement with a matrix of diversity: of cultures, languages, histories, people, places, times. What distinguishes diaspora from some other types of travel is its centripetal dimension. It does not only mean that people are dispersed in different places but that they congregate in other places, forming new communities. In such gatherings, new allegiances are forged that supplant earlier commitments. New imagined communities arise that not simply substitute old ones but form a hybrid space in-between various identifications. This book looks into the ways in which diasporic Indian literature handles these issues. In the context of diaspora there is an imaginative construction of collective identity in the making, That a given diaspora comes to be seen as a community is the result of a process of imagining, at the same time creating new marginalities, hybridities and dependencies, resulting in multiple marginalizations, hyphenizations and demands for allegiance.

The study concentrates on eleven contemporary women writers from the United States and Canada who write on South Asian diasporic experiences. The writers are Ramabai Espinet, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amulya Malladi, Sujata Massey, Bharati Mukherjee, Uma Parameswaran, Kirin Narayan, Anita Rau Badami, Robbie Clipper Sethi, Shauna Singh Baldwin, and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-12-01,Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman,The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia,Hardback,9781847183903,39.99,"The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia contains essays written by established scholars in the field that trace the multiplicity of Asian goddesses: their continuities, discontinuities, and importance as symbols of wisdom, power, transformation, compassion, destruction, and creation. The essays demonstrate that while treatments of the goddess may vary regionally, culturally, and historically, it is possible to note some consistencies in the overall picture of the goddess in Asia.

The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the goddess, culminating in the selections that draw from research on Indian, Nepali, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese traditions, seldom found in other works of similar subject.  The volume will be useful for students in religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies, and women's studies. With the intent of making the volume truly broad in scope, an effort has been made to include works written by art historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars.  Culture cannot be separated from religion; they are intertwined as an organic whole, and variations manifest themselves in the rituals and daily lives of the people. In this sense, all the essays are interconnected: the goddess manifests in many forms and appeals to differing aspects of a particular culture as a paradigm of the divine feminine.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-12-01,Donald McNamara,Which Direction Ireland?  Proceedings of the 2006 ACIS Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference,Hardback,9781847183897,29.99,"Ireland is going changes so rapidly and so dramatically that it has left many people, both in Ireland and abroad, wondering where it is headed next, as well as leaving some people wondering where it actually came from. 
Which direction Ireland? probes a variety of currents and concepts at play in Ireland, examining geographical, historical, social, political, and literary changes that have taken place in both Ireland and Irish-America. It offers cogent insight into those changes and and well-founded projections about the future. While examining the question, Which Direction Ireland? provides encouragement for those who want to make the journey with enthusiasm as well as curiosity. 



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-01-01,Jerry Hollingsworth,Children of the Sun: An Ethnographic Study of the Street Children of Latin America,Hardback,9781847184207,29.99,"Children of the Sun:  an Ethnographic Study of the Street Children of Latin America is a book that describes the subculture of street children inside Latin America, specifically in Mexico and Peru.  It is an in-depth look at such topics as socialization, illegal drug use by children, criminal behaviors, and the lack of education or playtime, and how it may be affecting the social and cognitive development of those children who are forced into living and working on the streets. 
The author lived with a Mexican family in the city of Cuernevaca, 50 miles South of Mexico City, and observed and described the life of street children in Mexico who were living in abandoned buildings, parks and sewers.  The author also worked as a volunteer teacher and social worker for a Non Governmental Organization in Lima, Peru in order to gain firsthand knowledge of the lives of poor children who lived in two shanty towns on the outskirts of Lima’s poorest neighborhoods.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-01-01,Richard C. Allen and Stephen Regan,Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish Culture,Hardback,9781847184221,34.99,"Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish Culture offers a compelling series of essays on changing images of Ireland from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It seeks to understand the various ways in which Ireland has been thought about, not only in fiction, poetry and drama, but in travel writing and tourist brochures, nineteenth-century newspapers, radio talk shows, film adaptations of fictional works, and the music and songs of Van Morrison and Sinéad O’Connor. The prevailing theme throughout the twelve essays that constitute the book is the complicated sense of belonging that continues to characterise so much of modern Irish culture. Questions of nationhood and national identity are given a new and invigorated treatment in the context of a rapidly changing Ireland and a changing set of intellectual methods and approaches.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-01-01,Mícheál Ó hAodha,On the Margins of Memory: Recovering the Migrant Voice,Hardback,9781847184368,29.99,"PLEASE NOTE THIS TITLE IS NOW OUT OF PRINT AND NO FURTHER PRINTING IS ANTICIPATED AT THIS POINT.

This volume is, in part, an attempt to give a “voice” or a “platform” to communities who have frequently found themselves on the margins of the so-called “mainstream” community - the hidden Irish, the hidden European, the nomad and the migrant who reflects the changing face of the “new” and “immigrant” Europe. The essays in this collection explore the image of the nomad, migrant and the outsider/“Other” Traveller/Gypsy, within the frame of articulation that is European representational and visual culture. One of the remarkable coherences which exists between the figure of the “traditional” nomadic Traveller or Gypsy in the public imaginary –whether this be in the form of imagistic or literary production – is its strangely symbiotic relationship with current ongoing developments in visual culture and the global flows of cultural diaspora that are the “norm” in the modern world. These essays display the representational function of the Traveller/Gypsy or migrant as an exemplar of that which overcomes spatial/temporal distance and separation, thereby creating innovative opportunities for the exploration of issues relating to cross-cultural and identity representation. The artists and academics writing in this volume are exploring a new energy in modern culture, one which seeks an innovative and exciting re-positioning of the panorama that is dominance and resistance within the postcolonial cultural discourse of the present-day.




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-01-01,"Marie-Claire Considère-Charon, Philippe Laplace, Michel Savaric ",The Irish Celebrating: Festive and Tragic Overtones  ,Hardback,9781847184078,39.99,"The Irish Celebrating is a collection of essays which  focuses on the complex dynamics of celebrating, its significance and its scope, through Ireland’s past and present experience. This book studies the dual aspects of celebrating —‘the festive’ and ‘the tragic’— which, while  not necessarily functioning as a binary opposition, have long proved mutually constitutive of the Irish experience. Many different occasions and ways of celebrating are explored, be they associated with feasts, festivals, commemorations, re-enactments or mere merry-making.
Irish literature abounds with motifs, symbols, allusions and devices that stand as ample testimony to the essential part played by celebration in the creative process. Both the treatment of mythical themes and figures, and the perception of contrasted realities and moods, all linked in some way or another with celebrating, are examined in the works of Irish novelists, poets and playwrights. 
If celebrations undeniably had a crucial role to play throughout Ireland’s troubled past, they continue to shape Irish society today, part and parcel of the deep social, economic and cultural changes it is currently experiencing. New representations of Irish identity as they are expressed through new forms of celebrating are explored in such varied contexts as emigration and immigration, alcohol addiction, church allegiance and European membership.
The way the nationalist and unionist communities have been celebrating their past in Northern Ireland, often complacently and ostentatiously, is a theme dealt with in the final section of this collection. Irish, English, French, Spanish, Italian and American scholars apply a broad range of interdisciplinary expertise to original and illuminating essays which will undoubtedly provoke a new insight into the interplay between current trends and issues and the long-established patterns that thread through the volume.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-02-01,Michael Berman,Soul Loss and the Shamanic Story,Hardback,9781847184573,34.99,"Stories from various cultures and periods of time can be identified which deal with a concept of soul loss that is essentially shamanic. In shamanism, soul loss is the term used to describe the way parts of the psyche become detached when we are faced with traumatic situations. In shamanic terms, these split-off parts can be found in non-ordinary reality and are only accessible to those familiar with its topography. Case studies are presented to show how the way soul loss is dealt with by indigenous shamans differs from the way it is treated by neo-shamanic practitioners. Stories have traditionally been classified as epics, myths, sagas, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, parables and fables. However, the definitions of the terms have a tendency to overlap, making it difficult to classify and categorize material. For this reason, a case can be made for the introduction of a new genre, termed the shamanic story–a story that has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey (a numinous experience in non-ordinary reality) or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. Within this new genre it is proposed that there exists a sub-genre, shamanic stories that deal specifically with soul-loss, and examples are presented and analysed to support this hypothesis.   


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-02-01,Wilmar Salim and Kiran Sagoo,Sustaining a Resilient Asia Pacific Community,Hardback,9781847184474,29.99,"Coming out of an established international graduate student conference organized by the East-West Center, this book presents selected papers written by graduate students from different fields of study. After identifying historical or contemporary issues in each field, these papers propose a framework for resolving these issues, whether through global commitment, regional cooperation, national policy, or local knowledge and practice. The unifying thread of this book is sustaining resilience in the Asia Pacific.

We acknowledge this perseverance and try to sustain and disseminate it so that other communities may learn from these practices and experiences. Generally, a volume like this would address the challenge of this region from a security, economics or political perspective. This book hopes to add to the literature on resiliency by addressing these issues from a multidisciplinary and multilevel perspective.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-02-01,Usha M. Rodrigues and Belinda Smaill,"Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region",Hardback,9781847184603,34.99,"Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region presents an analysis of youth media activities in a diverse, but geographically connected Asia Pacific region. The region, which is spatially connected by its colonial and imperial past, is becoming a significant player in the globalized world. In this context, youth situated in these economically, politically and socially structured communities are redefining their locales through their patterns of media use. The discourse of ‘youth’ in this disparate region is manifest in the media through their identity articulations and social activism. The book illustrates that these ‘youth subcultures’ in the Asia Pacific are part of the well marketed global consumerism culture, and yet at other times independent of the commodifying impetus of global capital. It draws on case studies to examine some of the media practices youth in the region are engaged in and elucidates the process of social change taking place in some Asia Pacific nations.  

'This book contributes to the important and growing field of youth media studies. The regionalization of media research is necessarily recuperated here, bringing large populations of media users into a frame of reference that allows critical reflection on the new waves of use and sociality in the Asia Pacific region.'

Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Professor of International Studies, UTS



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-03-01,David E. Purcell,"Crossroads of the Southwest: Culture, Identity, and Migration in Arizona’s Safford Basin",Hardback,9781847184801,34.99,"Arizona is a land of diverse landscapes, often strikingly juxtaposed. In the upper Gila River Valley of southeastern Arizona, the basin surrounding the modern town of Safford encompasses the intersection of different environments and prehistoric cultures. The Hohokam of the Sonoran Desert, Mogollon of the San Simon Valley and mountain highlands, Anasazi of the Colorado Plateau, and Apache of the mountains and plains all lived in this region during the Ceramic period, A.D. 600-1450. Crossroads of the Southwest presents the results of new archaeological research that sets aside long-standing theoretical constraints to examine anew three central themes in Southwestern archaeological study—culture, identity, and migration. Six innovative studies by top regional scholars utilize both new data and classic studies to examine a region long overlooked by archaeologists.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-03-01,Michael Berman,Divination and the Shamanic Story ,Hardback,9781847184672,29.99,"Stories have traditionally been classified as epics, myths, sagas, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, parables or fables. However, the definitions of the terms have a tendency to overlap, making it difficult to classify and categorize material. For this reason, a case can be made for the introduction of a new genre, termed the shamanic story - a story that has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey (a numinous experience in non-ordinary reality) or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. Other characteristics include the way in which the stories all tend to contain embedded texts (often the account of the shamanic journey itself), how the number of actors is clearly limited as one would expect in subjective accounts of what can be regarded as inner journeys, and how the stories tend to be used for healing purposes. Within this new genre, it is proposed that there exists a sub-genre – shamanic stories that deal specifically with divination, and examples are presented and analysed to support this hypothesis. By means of textual analysis it can be shown they all share certain attributes in common, the identification of which forms the conclusion of the work.










","
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,Marta Sofía López,Afroeurope@ns: Cultures and Identities,Hardback,9781847185020,34.99,"The essays in this groundbreaking collection constitute a pioneering attempt at establishing a comparative agenda for the study of black literatures and identities in the context of the European Union. Drawing from a wide variety of critical perspectives and methodologies, from Post-colonial or Diaspora Studies to Sociology or Ethnography, contributors to the volume analyze black diasporic communities and their cultural productions in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, paying particular attention to women afrosporic writers.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm,Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies,Hardback,9781847185266,39.99,"
This publication is the first interdisciplinary collection of articles focusing on religion and mythology in Celtic studies. The first part presents various current viewpoints within the field from scholars of history, art history and literary studies. In addition to more traditional approaches, the other two parts of the book illustrate the possibilities of applying new theories and methods from the discipline of Comparative Religion to the analysis of Celtic materials. They introduce previously unpublished results of the international research network “The Power of Words in Traditional European Cultures”, and the research project “Religion, Society, and Culture: Defining the Sacred in Early Irish Literature” funded by the Academy of Finland at University of Helsinki. The present collection serves as a significant contribution towards a better understanding of issues that have not been previously brought together in a single volume. As such it is of interest to scholars in Celtic studies as well as other related disciplines. 


","“The present collection presents a stimulating range of new insights and new approaches to the study of Celtic religion and mythology. The enrichment of the discipline of Celtic Studies by interaction with the disciplinary theories and methods of comparative religion is clearly demonstrated. Moreover, non-Celticists get an invaluable introduction to the extent and variety of evidence about religion in sources from the Celtic-speaking world. The way is opened for advancement of research on
a variety of fronts. Scholars of the University of Helsinki have made a significant contribution to disciplinary cross-fertilisation between religious studies and Celtic. It is a pleasure to welcome a publication which so cogently communicates both the achievement and the possibilities of this pioneering scholarship.

Professor Máire Herbert, Department of Early and Medieval Irish
University College Cork



“…the projected volume contains the cream of the papers given [at the Eighth Symposium of the Societas Celtologica Nordica]. It is also worth insisting on the fact that these papers form a thematically coherent whole, in a way conference volumes perhaps do not always achieve… All that is needed here is a few words concerning the high scholarly standard that [the individual papers] have achieved. The geographical spread is also impressive. They testify very competently to the fact that Celtic Studies is now an important worldwide discipline, taught far beyond the confines of the old Celtic countries of Brittany, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.”

Anders Ahlqvist, Emeritus Professor of  Old and Middle Irish and Celtic Philology, National University of Ireland, Galway 




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,Máire Áine Ní Mhainnín and Elizabeth Tilley,Canada: Text and Territory,Hardback,9781847185235,39.99,"The essays in this volume are expanded versions of papers that were first presented at the 13th Biennial Conference/XIIIème Congrès biennal of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland, held at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 2006.  The theme of the Conference was Canada at Home and Abroad: Text and Territory/Le Canada et ses relations d’ici, de là, et de là bas.  The papers debate issues surrounding literature, language and language acquisition, immigration/emigration, and culture, in Canada, Ireland, and in Europe as a whole. From an examination of the place of hockey in the Canadian literary consciousness, to mapping minority language visibility in officially bilingual cities, the focus here is on ways of exploring culture, understood in its widest sense. 

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,M. A. Oommen,Fiscal Decentralisation to Local Governments in India,Hardback,9781847184887,34.99,"The literature on fiscal decentralisation in India is few and far between.  The collection of papers in this volume written by scholars who have done scholarly works on the theme seeks to fill the gap relating to the state sub-state level fiscal decentralisation in India.  While the first paper by Anwar Shah, an internationally known expert on fiscal federalism, provides a general backdrop relating to fiscal decentralisation and macro management, all other papers critically review the various dimensions of fiscal decentralisation emerging in India since the implementation of the 73rd/74th constitutional amendments by the state governments.  Two papers focus exclusively on Kerala which has won world-wide acclaim for its innovative initiatives in decentralisation.




"," “This volume edited by Prof. Oommen, is an excellent collection of essays on the issues of fiscal decentralization in India.  Democratic decentralization goes beyond mere delegation of powers.  In essence, it is the fiscal empowerment of local governments.  It has several dimensions such as assignment of expenditure responsibilities, revenue assignment and the transfer system.  All these issues are dealt with comprehensively in this volume by the various authors who are well known for their scholarly output.  This is truly a pioneering study on democratic decentralization in India.”

C. Rangarajan, Former Chairman, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and formerly Governor, Reserve Bank of India

“Professor M.A. Oommen and his colleagues give us an excellent reference book on rural local government finance in India.  It is one of a very few studies on this very important subject.  This insightful volume is an important addition to the shelf of any student of government finance in India.  The contributors to this volume are among the more thoughtful students of local public finance in India.”

Roy Bahl, Dean, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA








",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,Vikki Jackson,"Gags and Greasepaint: A Tribute to the Irish ""Fit-Ups""",Hardback,9781847185105,24.99,"This volume is a paean to the “Revue”, the “Fit-Up” and the fifty or more travelling roadshows which traversed the roads of Ireland during the heyday of the “fit-ups”, the decades prior to the Second World War. This book is a personal memoir of one of the “goddesses” of Irish repertory theatre―Vic (Victoria Loving)―the woman known as the “Sequin Queen”―as recounted by her granddaughter, one of the last of these travelling artistes. It is a celebration of Ireland’s “curtain up”, and the “five-and-nine”, the fairground barker and the circus tober. It is a hymn to the artist whose home was the road and whose stage-wing voices lie hidden in the boarded-up hall and the abandoned outhouse. Listen up!―for one last garish display of the paint-glow, one final tread of the magic footboard. 






",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,Daniel G. Payne,Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy; Essays from the John Burroughs Nature Writing Conference,Hardback,9781847184870,34.99," At the time of his death in 1921, John Burroughs (1837-1921) was America’s most beloved nature writer, a best-selling author whose friends and admirers included Walt Whitman, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. Burroughs was second only to Emerson in fostering the nature study movement of the nineteenth- century, and the popularity of his work inspired Houghton Mifflin to publish or reissue the work of numerous other nature writers, including that of Thoreau and Muir. His first collection of essays, Wake-Robin, was published in 1871, and over the next fifty years Burroughs wrote almost two dozen books, and hundreds of essays—not only on nature, but on literature, travel, philosophy, religion, and science. By the turn of the century, Burroughs was America’s most beloved nature writer, whose friends and admirers included Walt Whitman, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison.  

Burroughs died in 1921 while on a train ride back to his New York from California. His final words—""Are we home yet?""—were a remarkably fitting coda to the career of a writer so closely identified with his native Catskill region of New York State. In many of his essays, Burroughs explores the woods and fields of home, and in doing so, like Henry Thoreau and his explorations of Concord, Massachusetts, he transcends the local and examines the universal theme of our relation with nature and our native landscape. Burroughs’s emphasis on ""place"" and the local now seems modern once again; as the current interest in bioregionalism and climate change demonstrates, it has become increasingly evident that ""thinking locally"" is ""thinking globally.""

Since 1992, the SUNY College at Oneonta has hosted the biannual John Burroughs Nature Conference and Seminar ('Sharp Eyes'), which honors the influence of Burroughs on American nature writing. Distinguished keynote speakers who have addressed the conference include John Elder, John Tallmadge, Joy Harjo, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Edward Kanze, James Perrin Warren, and Edward J. Renehan, Jr. The scope of the conference is not limited solely to Burroughs, however, as each year the writers and scholars in attendance direct their attention toward a particular issue of significance to contemporary nature writers and scholars of environmental literature. The theme of this collection, ""Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy"" was featured in the 2006 conference, and includes essays on John Burroughs as well as essays on the work of other writers who, like Burroughs, are linked closely through their work to a particular landscape or region. The third and final section of this book features invited essays by three distinguished scholars, John Tallmadge, Robert Beuka, and Charlotte Zoë Walker,  who consider the topic of what writing about the land and nature means from three different perspectives—urban, suburban, and rural.







",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-05-01,Greg Ryan,The Changing Face of Rugby: The Union Game and Professionalism since 1995,Hardback,9781847185303,34.99,"In 1995 rugby union became the last significant international sport to sanction professionalism. To some this represented an undesirable challenge to the traditions of the game. To others the change was inevitable and overdue – an acknowledgment of both the realty of modern sport and the extent to which money had already permeated the game. While there are some commonalities in the response to professional rugby, the contributions to this book, representing almost all of the significant rugby playing countries, reveal much more that was shaped by particular local contexts both within rugby and in terms of its place within the economic, political, class and social structures of the surrounding society. The authors assess the contrasting ways in which rugby administrators at local, regional and national level grappled with the changes that were required and the demands of the corporate backers who funded the transition to professionalism. But the more contentious relationships considered are those involving the many amateur rugby players and committed fans who found that significant community and historical reference points were subtly altered or simply obliterated in the face of new commercial imperatives – and especially new competitions that separated elite players from the grassroots of the game. Some have adapted to the replacement ‘product’ with relish, others have not. Some have genuine and well articulated grievances against the processes of changes. Others have fallen victim to a nostalgia which appropriates very selective memories of the amateur past to highlight apparent problems with the professional present. Above all, these contributions provide a range of perspectives that enable the reader to take stock at a particular point in what is still a rapidly evolving game. Read in ten or twenty years, this book may confirm that many of the right paths have been taken – or it may provide pointers to crisis as yet unimagined.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-05-01,Shane Alcobia-Murphy,What Rough Beasts? Irish and Scottish Studies in the New Millennium,Hardback,9781847185365,34.99,"What Rough Beasts presents an innovative and diverse collection of new research papers which investigate key literary and historical issues in Irish and Scottish Studies, providing a view onto the range of current research interests both within and across the two disciplines. From a selection of papers presented at an AHRC-sponsored conference held at the University of Aberdeen, the volume showcases original material by both emergent and established scholars. Opening up illuminating conversations between often diverse areas of study, this book covers issues including: poetry and violence; film and drama; history and historiography; ethnography and literature; the politics of representation.





",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-06-01,"Panchanan Mohanty, Ramesh C. Malik and Eswarappa Kasi",Ethnographic Discourse of the Other: Conceptual and Methodological Issues,Hardback,9781847185839,39.99,"This book primarily tries to bring out the analogy between the conceptual and methodological discourses on the theme of the other. The term 'Other' here refers to the oppressed sections of the society. It may be dalits, women, indigenous or ethnic communities. Since we are living in a multicultural and multilingual society, we should share our views with others on a platform where issues of the marginalized people are addressed by different scholars following different methods and techniques. Though there are various policies and plans for the welfare of the downtrodden, hardly any change can be seen at the micro-level structure of the society. There are studies which highlighted the problems and ethos of the downtrodden sections, but a majority of those studies neglected the marginalized groups. Hence, we felt the need to highlight the issues and concerns of these groups in a wider context and started thinking on the theme 'Ethnographic Discourse of the Other: Conceptual and Methodological Issues'. This volume attempts to discuss and theorize the pragmatic concepts and issues related to the marginalized groups in contemporary societies in South Asia. 

This book is interdisciplinary in nature and will be useful to scholars and students of Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Social Work, Culture Studies, Gender Studies and Philosophy. It is widely applicable to all sections of the oppressed socially, economically, culturally, academically, politically and other wise. 

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-06-01,"Liana Chua, Casey High, and Timm Lau","How do we know? Evidence, Ethnography, and the Making of Anthropological Knowledge",Hardback,9781847185815,34.99,"Since its inception, modern anthropology has stood at the confluence of two mutually constitutive modes of knowledge production: participant-observation and theoretical analysis. This unique combination of practice and theory has been the subject of recurrent intellectual and methodological debate, raising questions that strike at the very heart of the discipline. How Do We Know? is a timely contribution to emerging debates that seek to understand this relationship through the theme of evidence. Incorporating a diverse selection of case studies ranging from the Tibetan emotion of shame to films of Caribbean musicians, it critically addresses such questions as: What constitutes viable “anthropological evidence”? How does evidence generated through small-scale, intensive periods of participant-observation challenge or engender abstract theoretical models? Are certain types of evidence inherently “better” than others? How have recent interdisciplinary collaborations and technological innovations altered the shape of anthropological evidence? 

Extending a long-standing tradition of reflexivity within the discipline, the contributions to this volume are ethnographically-grounded and analytically ambitious meditations on the theme of evidence. Cumulatively, they challenge the boundaries of what anthropologists recognise and construct as evidence, while pointing to its thematic and conceptual potential in future anthropologies. 


","
“A mark of good ethnography is that it answers questions that emerge out of the very process of analysis.  Or to put it another way, finding out what the questions are (for only after analysis can they be seen always to have been in plain view) is the primary task of ethnography. This timely volume shows not only why evidence is a vexed question, but why what counts as evidence is quite properly itself an artifact of the ethnographic process. A genuinely useful read.” – Christina Toren, University of St Andrews.

“What is it about evidence that has produced such a singular silence within anthropological treatments of method and epistemology? How Do We Know? is just the kind of collection we need to get a conversation going, and goes a long way toward helping us situate the concept of evidence in—and for—anthropology. The editors have brought together an impressive roster of established and emerging scholars, all of whom provide fascinating case studies through which to work out questions of evidence. Anyone interested in how anthropology gets done, and what it produces in the doing, will want to have this book on their shelf.” – Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics.


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-06-01,Michael Chapman,Postcolonialism: South/African Perspectives,Hardback,9781847185990,29.99,"This collection poses two overarching questions: Is there a role for the literary imagination in postcolonial studies? And where might one locate South Africa or, more generally, South/African perspectives, in a field delineated primarily by northern institutional purposes and practices?

While engaging with contemporary debates the essays seek to turn current postcolonial emphases on theoretical formulations and issue-driven interpretation towards the subjective experience of literary texts in specific contexts.

The Introduction, “Postcolonialism: A Literary Turn”, suggests a template of ‘late postcolonialism’ beyond empires writing back to the centre. Instead, ongoing challenges include settler identity, past and present; independent or compromised African/diasporic voices; the character of the postcolony in which the pre-modern, modern, and postmodern contest a single though heterogeneous place, or space; and the ‘voicing’ of the silent subaltern alongside the ‘postcolonialising’ of Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee.

Despite the utopian political pronouncements of many postcolonial projects (the West’s own undoing) this collection wishes to stimulate us—students, academics—to see afresh, and comparatively, across worlds. In this, a literary turn may achieve an ethical dimension.



","“Postcolonial studies in South Africa obviously has important work to do.”
Robert J.C. Young, New York University



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-06-01,Michael Berman,The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales,Hardback,9781847185860,24.99,"“In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement … The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die out” (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on people’s attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices.

On the other hand, it has been suggested that “all intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Georgia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Georgia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Georgian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.
","

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-07-01,Jagan Karade,Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India,Hardback,9781847186065,39.99,"The present volume on ‘The Development of SCs and STs in India’ contains several contributors on various aspects relating to problem and development of SCs and STs. These contributions have been transpired form reputed academicians and research scholars in the Universities and Colleges. The book emphasized on development of SCs and STs in India. A clear–sighted and well-researched view on the problem have been put forth in this volume. The present exposition through critical analyses is an objective attempt to understand the reality relating to various strategies and schemes being followed for SCs, STs development in India

This book will certainly prove of immense values to all those interested in Development of SCs and STs, especially the planners and policy makers in evolving an appropriate viable strategy for development in the coming years.



","
""I think the book compiled by Dr. Jagan Karade under the titled “ Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India” will be useful to all who are involved in the field of upliftment of SC/ST movement, who are research scholars and also who are interested in the subject. I am sure this volume will be used in future as a reference book. ""
-- Mr. R.S. Gavai, Governor, Bihar State (India)


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-07-01,Christos C. Evangeliou,Themata Politica: Hellenic and Euro-Atlantic,Hardback,9781847186171,34.99,"“This book is a collection of timely political articles and essays. They focus primarily on political themes relevant to Greek/Turkish relations, the Cyprus problem, the obstacles that Turkey faces in the EU, and the problems that the US war on terror has created for them all. Written by a person of Hellenic ancestry, a trained philosopher, sensitive poet, and free spirit, the items of this collection are characterized by frank talk, freedom of thought, fresh ideas, and historical insights that penetrate the past sharply, as they try to discern the future of humanity. In these essays, the author’s love for things Hellenic is surely exaggerated. But, if anything in human history deserves excessive eulogy and praise, it should be, without doubt, the Hellenic spirit and its passionate love of wisdom and freedom.”

","“This volume reflects the encyclopedic thought of a philosopher and poet, uniquely qualified to identify the fissures afflicting the fabric of the American and the European societies and the Greek experience--fissures that he traces to their deviation from the classical heritage that has been sacrificed to the altar of modernity. It is a must reading for scholars as well as for political leaders that routinely make decisions in an historical vacuum and, in the process, ignore or fail to take into account the real interests of the citizens.”

Nikolaos Stavrou, Professor Emeritus, Howard University, USA
Editor of Mediterranean Quarterly


“The issues that Professor Christos Evangeliou raises and discusses in his recent book, Themata Politica, are very important, multileveled, hotly debated, and timely indeed. His careful analyses are sharp and penetrating, and they deserve to be taken seriously and discussed thoroughly, regardless of whether one would agree with his views or not. In many respects, this is a most significant work of our contemporary political and philosophical thought.”

Kostas Boudouris, Professor of Philosophy, University of Athens, Greece, Editor of Hellenic Philosophical Revew
  
""The themes of this lucid and challenging book mirror the recent political agonies that the author shares with other Hellenes and Philhellenes of the global world. He stresses particularly the issue of religion because it directly affects the politics of the countries covered here. As he put it, “Historically, the conflict between messianic Christianity and militant Islam has shaped the political fates of Greece and Turkey, the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, and Europe… European and American diplomats and political leaders will find useful historical analysis and insight, which can be utilized effectively to solve the persisting problem of elusive peace in this part of the world, and in the presence of economic conflict and religious fanaticism."" 

Leonidas Bargeliotes, Professor of Philosophy, University of Athens, Greece, Editor of Skepsis

“Reading Professor Evangeliou’s new book is a pleasure. He writes with the lucidity of ancient Greek philosophers. He carries this virtue in this book which is particularly relevant to Greek Americans, Americans, and Europeans, because it sheds light on the place of Greece in the world, the fate of Cyprus, and the role of Turkey in the politics of America, the European Union, and the Middle East. This is done in the broader context of historical Hellenism and the ever-present art of civilization we inherited from the Greeks. It is a path-breaking and thought-provoking book.""

Evaggelos Vallianatos, Author and Critic, USA

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-07-01,Nigel Barber,The Myth of Culture: Why We Need a Genuine Natural Science of Societies,Hardback,9781847186195,39.99,"Before oxygen’s discovery, scientists invoked a mysterious inner principle of fire to account for burning.  Today, scholars appeal to an analogously unscientific inner principle, known as culture, to account for human actions.  So what is wrong with  culture?!  It extends from the contents of Petrie dishes to art galleries and is far too imprecise for scientific use.  Science aims to separate causes from effects but social scientists use “culture” indiscriminately as both cause and effect making scientific progress impossible.  Finally, culture is a smokescreen distracting us from the quest for objective influences on human behavior.  (Polygamy is more about parasites than religion, for instance). This book is both a critique of culture-centered social sciences and the manifesto for a new approach - evolutionary social science - that synthesizes evolution and sociology.  The author demonstrates that a natural-science approach to human societies helps us to understand social problems such as health inequality and violent crime.  Written in a more high-spirited and accessible style than is customary for academic works, The Myth of Culture is a full-throttle indictment of ivory-tower social scientists whose arcane lore does more to feather their nests than to advance knowledge, or solve human problems.  It should have broad appeal among college-educated people around the world. 


","“Nigel Barber has done it again! Barber is a first-rate scholar with a gift for tackling successfully issues of culture from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Barber’s new book, “The Myth of Culture,” is a tour de force of his own and others’ work indicating that “culture” is not a causal force, but is generated by evolved psychological mechanisms, with the result that any sensible and comprehensive analysis of culture must invoke an evolutionary perspective. Barber’s book is not only a scholarly achievement, it is equally well-written and engaging. Anyone with an interest in culture, evolution, or their interface will enjoy this book immensely, even if they disagree with some of Barber’s arguments or conclusions.”

Todd Shackelford, Professor of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University


Dr. Nigel Barber, a prolific contributor to the research literature on both animal and human behavior, has intensified  the debate between scientists who use evolutionary process to explain the broad themes of social behavior, including love and marriage, and their opponents, who attribute such patterns to culture.  Barber forcefully argues that ""the explanatory fabric of cultural determinism is as threadless as the Emperor's new clothes"".  People who have toured a church in Paris and a mosque in Tehran, and listened to the different languages spoken in the aisles, might initially be unwilling to believe that culture is a myth, but those who read the book will become cautious about assuming that such sociocultural variables are the prime determinants of the human behavior in the two regions. In Barber's analysis, such variables as heritable resistance to parasites, and the ratio of males to females in a given area, provide a stronger explanation of social institutions such as polygamy and single parenthood than culture or religion.  Supporters of an evolutionary analysis of human behaviour will be delighted with Barber's penetrating commentary.  Supporters of cultural interpretations of human affairs will have to read Barber's provocative analysis to avoid making one of the many analytic errors that Barber harpoons, and retain some credibility in scientific discussions.
Michael Cunningham, Professor of Psychology, University of Louisville
President, International Network on Personal Relationships (2001-2002)
 
 Barber has written an important book that should leave a lasting mark on cross-cultural science. He clarifies some of the more perplexing results from previous investigations, helps to resolve ongoing empirical debates and theoretical controversies, and speculates in ways that should productively stimulate future cross-cultural research agendas. His own research is but the tip of an iceberg of new findings that will forever doom the view that culture fully causes and essentially determines human behavioral diversity. 
David P. Schmitt, Professor and Chair of Psychology, Bradley University
Founding Director, International Sexuality Description Project
 
 
 
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-07-01,Michael Berman,The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales,Hardback,9781847186218,24.99,"“In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement … The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die out” (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on people’s attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices. 

On the other hand, it has been suggested that “all intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Armenia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Armenia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Armenian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.
","
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-08-01,"Raj Bardouille, Muna Ndulo and Margaret Grieco",Africa’s Finances: The Contribution of Remittances,Hardback,9781847186492,39.99,"Globally, the volume of remittances to developing countries exceeds the development aid budgets. This volume explores the contribution of remittances to Africa’s finances and provides concrete guidelines as to how these may be expanded.  It contains essays by the field leaders in this area which record, review and revise our knowledge base on Africa’s remittance patterns.  The advent of new information communication technologies can contribute to an expanded capture of remittances from the African diaspora and in Africa new forms of money transfer are already taking shape which reflect this affordance.  The volume also examines other resources, such as skills, that the African diaspora remits  in its patterns of contact with Africa.  The volume, shaped out of a conference on remittances and the African diaspora  held at the Institute for African Development at Cornell University, is a timely reminder of the substantial role to be played in Africa’s development by Africans themselves. 




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-08-01,"Recep Efe, Georges Cravins, Munir Ozturk and Ibrahim Atalay",Natural Environment and Culture in the Mediterranean Region,Hardback,9781847186584,44.99,"The largest of the world's five Mediterranean-climate regions and one of the largest archipelagos in the world, the Mediterranean Basin is located at the intersection of two major landmasses, Eurasia and Africa, which contributes to its cultural and high biodiversity. Although much of the hotspot was once covered by a dense cover of forests, the Basin has experienced intensive human development and impact on its ecosystems for at least 8000 years, significantly longer than any other hotspot. The greatest impacts have been deforestation, habitat fragmentation, intensive grazing and fires, and infrastructure development, especially on the coast, which have distinctly altered the landscape. The agricultural lands, evergreen woodlands and maquis habitats dominating the basin are the result of these disturbances over several millennia. Many of the endemic species are narrow endemics, being confined to very small areas, and thus are extremely vulnerable to the anthropogenic pressures. Probably more species have gone extinct here than in any other hotspot. 
At present approximately 300 million people live here and water shortages and desertification will be the serious problems in the near future. Tourism is placing a significant pressure on the coastal ecosystems. The construction of infrastructure and the direct impacts of people using and trampling sensitive dune ecosystems remains a key threat to coastal areas. In view of the valuable natural heritage there is a great need for weighing our ecological impact in order to achieve a balance between biodiversity conservation and human development and above all, how to maintain traditional rural livelihoods in a way that benefits biodiversity. 
The changes in the atmosphere, geomorphological processes, and most natural cycles involving a biomass of any substantial size denote the arrival of a new geological period the ""Anthropocene"". We the humans are actively changing the overall conditions of our existence by terraforming the earth, changing the overall patterns of basic life systems in the process of remaking our specific contexts, not least to supposedly secure our modes of life. This book is thus synthesizing knowledge from many disciplines to throw some light on the unpredictability of forthcoming changes. 




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-08-01,Vartan P. Messier and Nandita Batra,This Watery World: Humans and the Sea,Hardback,9781847186607,34.99,"In this wonderfully wide-ranging volume, Vartan Messier and Nandita Batra have given us a fine collection of maritime riches. From reflections on the ocean as metaphor to shark documentaries and Jaws, from Hemingway’s organic ecology to Melville’s tropic-birds and the establishment of a Puerto Rican maritime preserve, This Watery World reminds us that—onshore and inland—we are all in the grip of our images and interactions with the sea. When I put this book down I was reminded of the Hyderabadi poet Sarojini Naidu: “The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all.”
—Professor Ashton Nichols, editor of Romantic Natural Histories and author of The Poetics of Epiphany and The Revolutionary “I”



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Julie C. Abril,"Bad Spirits: A Cultural Explanation for Intimate Family Violence, Inside One American Indian Family",Hardback,9781847186850,29.99,"Bad Spirits takes the reader inside one Native American Indian family to witness some of the violence and victimization that occurred in the privacy of their home.  While the violence is graphic and disturbing, the effects of it on one victim made her much more resilient.  The book begins with the suicide of one sibling and the homicides of two others.  Because of the cultural beliefs held by this family one member was perceived to be a witch.  In the paradigm of the Yaqui Indians, those perceived to be witches are often murdered.

The author puts forth the theory that Bad Spirits are responsible for violence.  Yaqui witchcraft and sorcery (often referred to as “Bad Indian Medicine”) are used within this family as a means of violence precipitation.  The author then takes the reader out of the violence of the home and into the violence of homelessness on the streets of San Francisco.  

Finally, the author discusses the current research on violence and victimization occurring within Native American Indian communities to show that other Indian tribal groups hold similar views.  The book ends with the two federal laws that were designed to address child abuse and family violence among Native American Indians who live on reservations.  







","""There are strong warnings from the author that the story of her life in her Yaqui Indian family in California and Arizona contains gruesome and horrifying details. These include accounts of morbid beatings and blatant and ugly episodes of sexual abuse as well as cold-blooded murder by the her parents of twins immediately following their birth.  Dr. Julie Abril's Bad Spirits a rare and unvarnished story of her survival, with deep emotional scars, from a childhood, adolescence, and young womanhood  filled with almost unbelievable violence.""
 
-Gilbert Geis, University of California, Irvine. Past president, American Society of Criminology
  
""I recommend this book as a text for students in courses on victimization, Indians, women and crime.""

—Natalie J. Sokoloff, Professor, Sociology Department, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,"Sharon Kay Masters, Judy A. Hayden and Kim Vaz",Florida without Borders: Women at the Intersections of the Local and Global,Hardback,9781847187215,34.99,"Florida without Borders: Women at the Intersections of the Local and Global highlights the problems facing women around the world by featuring papers that explore women’s activism across borders regarding gender and human rights, issues regarding women and poverty, globalization, economic value of immigrant labor, militarism and human trafficking.  Also discussed are the opportunities and obstacles women face when they act to counter the negative impact of these forces. This anthology is a collection of essays by feminist scholars and students who examine discourses on border crossings, political and cultural censorship, gendered codes of conduct, prescribed behavior for women and the activism that emerges to address identity formation, to advance contested meanings and to build coalitions.  Throughout the essays, the authors investigate the concepts of the gendered body in the context of global activism, the uses of women’s bodies in domestic, military, and sexual service, and the breaching of the body’s borders and boundaries in the project of feminist social change. 






","“Florida without Borders: Women at the Intersections of the Local and Global exemplifies an intersection of the call to 'Think globally, act locally' with the feminist claim that 'the personal is political.' This is an engaging and provocative collection that will appeal well beyond the borders of 'Florida' itself—that identity-challenged border state. These essays range widely across geographic regions and transdisciplinary territories—from Tampa and Miami to India and Canada, from the politics of hair-straightening and the 'big butt' to that of the Abu Ghraib photographs, from poetry-interspersed reflection on the 'internalized' globalness of mixed race identity(s) to the political possibilities of a trans-national ethics of care and the economics of women’s labor-practices, from theorizing the Enlightenment heritage of 'human rights' to embodied art-making. Tied together by their timeliness and their concern to link the imminently local or personal with the explicitly global or relational, these essays interact in provocative and innovative ways. This collection will be useful both for interdisciplinary and for traditional disciplinary efforts to engage with and reframe conventional ideas about nationalism and terrorism, raced and gendered identities, feminist art and economics, women’s rights as human rights, and the challenges of multiculturalism across national boundaries. There is something for everyone in this collection, with surprising and enlightening connections in each essay that repay the adventurous reader.” 
Miriam L. Wallace, Ph.D., Associate Professor, British & American Literature Coordinator,  Program in Gender Studies 2003-06 New College of Florida

“Florida Without Borders: Women at the Intersection of the Local and Global is a significant contribution to scholarship on gender and globalization. Published by the Florida Consortium of Women’s and Gender Studies, this engaging work contains articles by scholars, activists, and artists who demonstrate how the issues and concerns regarding Florida are simultaneously global concerns. The authors provide an impressive international, multicultural approach to a feminist ethics of care, ecofeminism, the war on terror and torture as seen through the lens of gender, female trafficking, the globalized female body, economic empowerment, and women in fashion and the arts. The essays are groundbreaking and provocative.”
-
Carolyn Ross Johnston, PhD, Professor of History and American Studies, Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Eckerd College

""Florida without Borders: Women at the Intersections of the Local and Global is a unique approach that truly integrates the local and the global, as promised in the title. Local issues are clearly a microcosm of larger societal issues. A wide variety of topics are viewed with attention to race, class and gender, giving voice to the feminisms that help define what “feminism” is today. The need for change is apparent in the writings of this anthology. It would be hard to imagine reading this book without recognizing the need for change and feeling a call to action in both a personal and political context. ""
Joyce L. Carbonell, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Director of  the Women’s Studies Program, Florida State University 




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Ciara Bhreatnach and Aoife Bhreatnach,Portraying Irish Travellers: Histories and Representations,Paperback,9781847187642,14.99,"This edited volume offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the history of Irish Travellers. Scholars from anthropology, history, literary studies and socio-linguistics explore the methodological problems that arise when a marginalised minority is portrayed by an established and powerful majority population. Each chapter addresses how different sources illuminate settled and Traveller history alike. With new research and perspectives from a number of disciplines, Irish Travellers: Histories and Representations is a welcome consideration of a neglected aspect of Irish society; the relationship between Irish Travellers and the majority, settled population. Although Irish Travellers are a conspicuous minority in contemporary Irish society, their past existence is often ignored. The contributors to this volume demonstrate a range of sources and approaches that prove Travellers deserve a place in the narrative of Ireland. This book will appeal to scholars interested in majority-minority relations generally, and the example of Ireland in particular.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Geraldine Barnes with Gabrielle Singleton,Travel and Travellers from Bede to Dampier,Paperback,9781847188014,19.99,"The essays in this collection -- a selection of papers presented at the University of Sydney Centre for Medieval Studies workshop, ‘Travel and Cartography from Bede to the Enlightenment’ (August 22-23, 2001) – track a variety of travel narratives from the eighth century to the eighteenth.  Their voyages, which extend from from the literal to the spiritual, the political, and the artistic, show how the concept of narrative mapping has changed over time, and how it encompasses cosmogony, geography, chorography, topography, and inventory.  Each essay is concerned in some way with the application of the medieval geographical imagination, or with the enduring influence of that imagination upon post-medieval travel and discovery writing.
This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate university students and to a broad range of academics across the disciplines of literature and history.  It will be of particular interest to medievalists and scholars of the early modern period and to readers of, the new (1997) scholarly journal, Studies in Travel Writing.
The volume will also appeal to a more general, informed readership interested in the history of travel and the history of ideas, early contact with indigenous people, and encounters between East and West.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Clara Sarmento,Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows,Hardback,9781847187185,39.99,"Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows compiles an extensive collection of essays on the status of women throughout the vast Portuguese colonial space, from Brazil to the Far East, crossing Europe, Africa and India, between the 16th and the 20th century. Absent or mystified, silenced or victimized, women in the History of Portugal and its colonial venture are the living example of the part historiographical discourse, ideology and popular memory have played in the construction of identities, their practices and representations. The production and critical consumption of History have long revealed countless gaps and silences within its own discourse. This book questions the reason for such gaps and silences and wonders about the real role of all those who do not or have never had access to power and to the perpetuating word, those whose voices have been systematically erased from sources and documents because of past or present attending interests.

Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows congregates a wide assortment of disciplines so as to provide multiple independent viewpoints, sources and methodologies. By bringing authors from around the world together, this work ensures that the various cultures and memories that are part of the global saga, as well as the various versions of the history of the Portuguese colonial empire, may be heard.







","""'Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows' seeks to remedy two lacunae in scholarly literature by putting firmly and clearly into view both the global historical significance of Portuguese colonial history in general, and also more specifically the contribution of women to its creation and operation over several hundred years.

Drawing on the pioneering work of more than 20 international scholars hailing from a wide range of disciplines, and covering an impressive range of times and places, this is an intriguing and important contribution to many scholarly fields, its implications and ramifications reaching far beyond any narrow specialist confines.""

David Inglis, Professor of Sociology, University of Aberdeen, UK

“Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows, edited by Clara Sarmento, is a significant and bold contribution to the field of Lusophone Cultural Studies.

From studies encompassing witchcraft and mysticism, to women as both slaves and slave owners, Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire provides a complex array of insights into women in the domestic, public and cultural spheres. It widens the theoretical debates in contemporary feminism to take account of the peculiarities and similarities of Portuguese-speaking women’s imperial experience. Breaking new ground, Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire is an invaluable resource for any scholar who is interested in understanding the cultural and historical significance of women in the Portuguese colonial process.”

Phillip Rothwell, Professor of Portuguese, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey


'...the diversity of the book is really one of its strong points, for it gives some impression of the very wide range of feminist scholarship concerned with the position of women in the ‘Theatre of Shadows' that is the Portuguese empire.  I hope that this publication will bring this important genre to the notice of a wide international audience. '

Michael Pearson - University of Technology, Sydney

""This collection of essays provides a useful multidisciplinary approach to the retrieval of women's voices and experiences in the history of portuguese colonialism. The volume is certainly a treasure trove of new archival work and valuable data in specific history fields, most notably female slavery in Brazil.""#

Hilary Owen, University of Manchester
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-10-01,Scott L. Baugh,Mediating Chicana/o Culture: Multicultural American Vernacular,Paperback,9781847189530,14.99,"Mediating Chicana/o Culture: Multicultural American Vernacular covers an unconventional array of topics—from handkerchiefs, votives, and graffiti to food, fútbol, and the Internet—as well as cutting edge literature, cinema, photography, and more. In its cross-disciplinary approach, this collection makes an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on Chicana and Chicano culture and provides engaging readings for courses in race/ethnic studies, media studies, and American studies.

Collected chapters critically interrogate the underlying tensions between personal expressions and public demonstrations in their on-going negotiation of Chicana and Chicano identity. Drawing on the revolutionary work of Gloria Anzaldúa, Tómas Ybarra-Frausto, Emma Pérez, Alfred Arteaga, Chela Sandoval, Julia Watson and Sidonie Smith, the Latina Feminist Group, among others, chapters in this collection closely read the processes that seem built into the actions and behaviors, the products, the art, the literature, and the discourse surrounding the search for identity in the rush of our diverse 21st-century existence. Mediating Chicana/o Culture lays bare the methods by which we define ourselves as individuals and as members of communities, examining not only the message, but also the medium and the methods of mediating identity and culture.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-10-01,Indira Gazieva,Oriental Languages and Cultures,Hardback,9781847189196,24.99,"Oriental Languages and Cultures is a collection of new essays by academics who participated in the 1st international conference Oriental Languages and Cultures, held at Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow on 22-23 November 2007. The collection presents a vivid overview of current problems in the study of the languages, literatures and cultures of the Middle and Far East. The uniqueness of this book lies in its bringing to publication a steadily growing interest in  languages and culture of the Far East, as well as the East as a cultural phenomenon which has long been observed in the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. The book is divided into five sections. The first contains essays outlining new approaches in the understanding of theoretical concepts relating to oriental languages. The second section explores new directions in the field of oriental literature. The third surveys a growing Russian interest in the culture of the Far East. The fourth section provides insights that help towards understanding the nature of the tolerance and gender problem in Eastern languages and cultures; and the fifth section’s contributions address the issues of assessment and pedagogy in the teaching of Oriental languages.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-10-01,Jean Ryan Hakizimana and Michael Hayes,"Postcolonial Identities: Constructing the ""New Irish""",Paperback,9781847189301,13.99,"The stranger, the foreigner and the pilgrim are all familiar figures in literature, philosophy, theology and mythology. This figure - travelling the world in search of refuge and sanctuary – is one which has had a particular resonance for many millions of Irish people in recent centuries. This book is a window on a new aspect of the Irish experience that is the “strainséir” or pilgrim. It is one man’s story of exile and renewal in a world where the concepts of home, place and diaspora are all changing at frightening speed. Jean “Ryan” Hakizimana’s story is the story of an artist, the colours of whose palette reflect the multicultural tapestry that is Irish society today. It is a narrative that involves a journey halfway across the globe, a portrait of the “modern” world incorporating exile, starvation, and genocide before the final “liberation” that is the healing process of painting. Traumatised from the horrific childhood experiences he witnessed during the genocides of Burundi and Rwanda in the mid-1990s it was almost a decade later and at a distance of many thousands of miles that African artist Jean Ryan once again found the will to paint. 

This book sheds light on the diaspora experience of the “new” Irish, the refugees and asylum-seekers who are changing the face of many of Ireland’s villages and towns that until recently had been emptied by widespread emigration. The economic “miracle” that has transformed Ireland in the past decade has been accompanied by much rhetoric regarding multiculturalism, integration and dialogue with the newer peoples and cultures that now live in Ireland. As of yet, however, there has been few attempts to chronicle or engage in dialogue with the many different aspects of the diaspora experience that define these “new” Irish, the young Irish who will carry a renewed and exciting new Irish identity into the future. One of the greatest challenges facing Irish society and the indeed the Irish educational sector is how best to harness the benefits of the wide range of cultural experiences, values and peoples that are now part of the Irish cultural fabric. This book is one of the first attempts at such a new an exciting intercultural dialogue in Ireland. It is only through such a process of dialogue that we may uncover a “new politics of truth” (Foucault, 1977), a new discourse and a more productive understanding of the relationship that now exists between the various strands of Ireland’s multicultural society.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-10-01,Iffat Hussain,"Problems of Working Women in Karachi, Pakistan",Hardback,9781847189165,29.99,"“Problems of working women in Karachi"" is based on interviews survey conducted with working women as the subject. The domestic worker, and women working in offices and companies in the clerical and managerial positions are interviewed. The study showed that the women in general are victims of gender biased society, specially working women. The data is also based on clear graphs and charts showing the magnitude of gender inequality in terms of Labour Force Participation. 

This is the only book which gives the full information about the working women in Karachi. It explains the life style of Muslim women living in underdeveloped country who are trying to find their identity and fighting for their survival in male dominated society. It explains the living standards, their problems and hindrances they face while trying to make their way into the job market. 

This book is a must read for those who are interested to have an insight into the working women problems in a Muslim underdeveloped state. It is beneficial to students, researchers, surveyors and all who are interested to read and learn about this issue. The whole material is full of information explained in simple and easy to understand language with graphs, personal interviews and case studies. 




","“This is an important book about the position of women in Karachi. In her interviews Iffat Hussain shows the struggle of these women in a very lively way. The case studies provide intimate picture of the daily lives of these women. I whole heartedly recommend this interesting book.”

Klaes Eringa, Program Director MA in International Service Management
Stenden University


“This book offers a valuable insight into one of the truly important themes still facing us today: gender inequality and its negative consequences for women in a traditional society governed by (man’s interpretation of) religion.”

Jaap Slager, Chief Editor of Stenden Times, Stenden University


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-10-01,Evy Johanne Håland,"Women, Pain and Death: Rituals and Everyday Life on the Margins of Europe and Beyond",Hardback,9781847188700,34.99,"“Women, Pain and Death: Rituals and Everyday-Life on the Margins of Europe and Beyond” is a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary collection of articles representing different perspectives and topics related to the general theme Women and Death from different periods and parts of Europe, as well as the Middle East and Asia, i.e. areas where, through the ages, there have been a constant interaction and discourse between a variety of people, often with different ethnic backgrounds. The studies illustrate many parallels between the various societies and religious groupings, despite of many differences, both in time and space. 

The theme, death, is mostly seen from what have been regarded as the geographical margins of society as well as concerning the people involved: women. Thus, the articles, most of them presenting original material from areas which are not very known for English readers, offer new perspectives on the processes of cultural changes. 

The collection has important ramification for current research surrounding the shaping of a “European identity”, the marketing of regional and national heritages. In connection with the present-day aim of connecting the various European heritages, and developing a vision of Europe and its constituent elements that is both global and rooted, the work has great relevance. One may also mention the new international initiative on intangible heritage, spearheaded by UNESCO.






","
“Dr Evy Johanne Håland is to be congratulated on assembling a rich and thought-provoking collection of contributions on the subject of ‘Women and Death on the Margins of Europe and Beyond’.  As she remarks, the most notable works on the subject of death were written quite some time ago; yet it is arguable that the subject has never been more timely, given the increasingly interdisciplinary approaches to questions of culture in university teaching and research and the need for common themes around which to articulate specialist work.  The recent expansion of the European community makes its integration of studies of east and west particularly welcome.

Women and Death are universal categories, and offer an immediately coherent framework for the research presented in this collection by anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, folklorists and others.  Dr Håland as editor has the advantage of an academic specialisation in southern Europe, along with a Nordic background.  She has scored a coup in securing the participation of Gail Holst-Warhaft, whose opening essay not only gives an interpretative overview, but also links the current work, much of it based on extended original research by younger scholars, with classic publications on the ritual lament, such as Holst-Warhaft’s own earlier work and that of Margaret Alexiou.  

The present volume casts its net widely, and includes original fieldwork as well as rereadings of earlier material.  It should be of interest to teachers and researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, and should also be most useful as an undergraduate textbook, in Women’s Studies and Intercultural studies, as well as in the specialised areas represented.

I have learned much from this manuscript, and commend it highly.”

Angela Bourke MRIA, Professor of Irish-Language Studies

""Editor Evy Håland has done the scholarly world a great service in bringing together this set of essays. Each chapter reflects extremely 
careful research and offers a wonderful richness of descriptive detail. Several chapters push the current theoretical and methodological 
envelope. In this volume some readers may encounter for the first time women’s laments— a topic of perennial scholarly interest. Although 
previous lament scholarship covers some of the same local traditions, several chapters here offer striking new insights into the poetics, 
paradoxes, and power of lament. Other chapters introduce traditions that have received almost no attention. At our best, we who study history and 
culture can uncover broad patterns of social life even when focusing narrowly on a particular practice. This collection’s focus on women and 
death reveals much about the social life of signs, the ways authority is produced and reproduced, and the alchemy resulting from the mixing of 
suffering, resistance, and play in the work of culture. Thus students of history, cultural studies, folklore, and anthropology will find the 
collection extremely useful.""

Jim Wilce, Professor of Anthropology, Editor, Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture, Northern Arizona University





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-11-01,Michael Berman,The Shamanic Themes in Chechen Folktales,Hardback,978-1-4438-0011-2,24.99,"“All intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). In Chechnya, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia and Armenia, these roots lie in shamanism and the stories in this collection clearly show this to be the case. 

The history of the Nokhchii (the name the Chechens have given themselves), and their land, is filled with rich and colourful stories, which have survived for thousands of years through oral traditions that have been passed down generation by generation through clan elders. However, legends have blended with actual events so that the true history is difficult to write. The 1994-1996 war destroyed most of Chechnya's treasured archaeological and historical sites, though fortunately ancient burial sites, architectural monuments and several prehistoric cave petroglyphs still remain in the mountains. These valuable relics, coupled with the histories and stories of the elders, provide the people with virtually the only remaining evidence of who their ancient ancestors were. This book contains both the texts of some of the tales and commentaries on them, focusing in particular on their shamanic elements.  


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-11-01,Julia Werts,Visualizing Rituals: Critical Analysis of Art and Ritual Practice,Paperback,9781847189905,16.99,"Diverse aspects of art—from its inception to its eventual display—have continuously been connected to rituals and vice versa, whether formally or informally. As the field of critical theory has expanded over the past several decades, becoming increasingly relevant to art historical discourse, new methods of understanding art in relation to the individual and society have played a significant role in the conceptualization of ritual practices. In addition, psychoanalytic theories of identity formation as well as ideas of the fragmented, post-modern subject have opened up new avenues for considering the role of rituals in modern society. Thus, the relationship between art and ritual is wide and varied and has become a dynamic field of critical inquiry. 

The essays presented in this compilation examine various ways in which emerging scholars are negotiating the relationship between art and ritual. Drawing from numerous aspects of art historical, anthropological and theoretical discourses, the papers seek to address some of the questions that arise from these complex relationships and open up the possibility for new ways of defining both art and ritual. The essays range in scope from the architectural forms of temples from Ancient Greece to the ritualistic return to “blackness” in the art of Kahinde Wiley. Visualizing Rituals is a crucial project that creatively develops new ways of navigating the nexus between art and ritual practices.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-11-01,Michael Hemmingson,"ZONA NORTE: The Post-Structural Body of Erotic Dancers and Sex Workers in Tijuana, San Diego and Los Angeles: An Auto/ethnography of Desire and Addiction",Hardback,978-1-4438-0010-5,34.99,"Zona Norte: The Post-Structural Body of Erotic Dancers and Sex Workers in Tijuana, San Diego and Los Angeles: An Auto/ethnography of Desire and Addiction started out as an ethnographic study of prostitution on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border and, as cultural anthropologist Michael Hemmingson explains, turned inward as a study of the self, or what is referred to as “auto/ethnography” in today’s lexicon of qualitative research. The author studies himself within the culture of the Other –- he examines his feelings, memories, and reactions as he conducts his participant observations and interviews in the field, questioning why he chose to research erotic and exotic dancers, strippers, hookers, and various sex workers on both sides of an international border, revealing how the subjects are alike, and how they are different, and how they survive in their worlds. 

Auto/ethnography is one of the fastest growing and popular sub-fields in sociology, anthropology, and communications today. Books and anthologies are widely published, special journal issues appear each year on the subject, and there are an increasing number of dissertations in all fields of qualitative research cropping up from universities in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. Zona Norte is the latest contribution to this vibrant new approach to living the ethnographic life, as both a scholar and autobiographer.





",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-12-01,"Dorsia Smith, Raquel Puig, and Ileana Cortés Santiago","Caribbean Without Borders: Literature, Language and Culture",Hardback,978-1-4438-0039-6,34.99,"Caribbean Studies is an emerging field. As such, many topics within this discipline have yet to be explored and developed. This collection of essays is one of the forerunners dedicated to a comprehensive study of the literature, language, and culture of the Caribbean. By exploring the works of such prominent literary scholars as Samuel Selvon and Lorna Goodison as well as the myriad of issues pertaining to the Caribbean experience, this volume provides an engaging overview of literary, language, and cultural analysis. Because of this wide range of essays, this text meets a need to examine the Caribbean in its complexity, which is rarely addressed.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-12-01,Michael Pittman,"G. I. Gurdjieff: Armenian Roots, Global Branches",Hardback,978-1-4438-0019-8,29.99,"This volume presents a selection of writings based on papers originally presented at the G.I. Gurdjieff: Caucasian Influence in Contemporary Life and Thought conferences or, as they came to be called, the Armenia-Gurdjieff Conferences, which were held in Yerevan, Armenia in the summers from 2004-2007. Gurdjieff was born in Gyumri, Armenia, to an Armenian mother and a Cappadocian-Greek father, and was raised in eastern Asia Minor and the Caucasus. According to his own accounting, he spent his early years traveling in Central Asia, Asia Minor, Egypt, India, and Tibet in search of undiscovered knowledge. Eventually, after 1921, his work led him to Europe where lived, wrote, and taught until his death in 1949. Though not having received great popular attention, he remains an important figure of the twentieth century and his influence continues to grow into the twenty-first century.  

A growing body of secondary literature connected to the work of Gurdjieff has been produced in fields as disparate as psychology, philosophy, literature, health, ecology, and religion. The conferences and the book aim to provide a forum of exchange about the ideas, influence, and work of Gurdjieff, while making a contribution to the reintroduction of the work of Gurdjieff to Armenia, which had been cut off from his ideas and works during the Soviet period. The articles here reflect a range of work addressing key contributions and ideas of Gurdjieff, from more academic studies of All and Everything, or Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, to a discussion of the application of Gurdjieff’s ideas and principles in the education of children, to a chapter on the music and of Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann. 

","“This short collection of essays concerning the Greco-Armenian sage, teacher and writer G. I. Gurdjieff reveals a great deal about the man and his work. Its advantage over earlier collections is the connection made repeatedly between the man, his teaching, his writing and their historical and ideological contexts. The writing in these essays, clear and free of the obfuscation that so often attends writings about Gurdjieff’s ideas, attracts the reader to further explorations in the broad world of Gurdjieff’s ideas. This is an excellent collection, wide in scope, authoritative, and imaginative.”

Paul Beekman Taylor, Professor Emeritus of the University of Geneva, Switzerland
Author of five books on Gurdjieff, including G. I. Gurdjieff: A New Life


“The Armenian Gurdjieff conferences mark the significant and almost mythical return of the teachings of the greatest modern sage to his homeland. With imaginative insight and scholarly finesse, the papers in this volume confront the greatest human problem, man’s inability to take hold of reality —what Gurdjieff called sleep—and the catastrophic conditions that rise up from that cause, war, cultural irrationalism, over-consumption, and intractable hegemonies. The topics are timely, the exposition is clear and lively, and the information is crucial and compelling.”

Jon Woodson, Department of English, Howard University
Author of To Make a New Race: Gurdjieff, Toomer, and the Harlem Renaissance
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-12-01,Robert Stojanov and Jiří Novosák,"Migration, Development and Environment: Migration Processes from the Perspective of Environmental Change and Development Approach at the Beginning of the 21st Century",Hardback,978-1-4438-0038-9,39.99,"At the beginning of the 21st century, the linkages among migration, development and environment undoubtedly belong to the most pressing issues on the political agenda. A special focus of this book is on two of these relations – on environmentally-induced migration and on the relationship between migration processes and development. The prime aim of the book is to contribute to and extend the current knowledge on these issues. How to define environmentally-induced migration? What are the differences between environmental and economic migrants? Is environmentally-induced migration forced or voluntary and what are the outcomes of selected regional field case-studies? ? How to classify environmental migrants? Where are the regional hot-spots of environmentally-induced migration? How to systematize the knowledge on migration policies? What are the impacts of skilled migration on development? What is the role of the transnationalism paradigm in the international migration research? Is international migration trade-diverting or creating? What is wrong with the effectiveness of development aid providing? Several prominent scholars and young researchers offer their answers to these challenges in the book.  







","“At long splendid last, we have a professional book setting out a series of contributions reflecting the diversity of authors, and dealing with the tangled issues of Migration, Development and Environment. The Editors have done a thoroughly fine job in assembling such an expanse of expertise. I have one basic reaction, right on, write on!”
—Norman Myers, Oxford University

“This book provides excellent reading to anyone wishing to become more familiar with today's big issues in international migration research: environmentally induced migration, transnationalism, highly skilled labour migration, migration and development. It shows very clearly that migration can no longer be seen as an issue that affects only sending or only receiving countries. It impacts at both ends of the migratory chain. The contributors to the book are an interesting mix of established scholars and relative newcomers, many of them rooted in Central Europe, an area increasingly affected by international migration.”
—Han Entzinger, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

“Current international migration issues and their complicated mutual relations to environment and development are the main topic of this book. Distinguished scholars along with young scientists with various backgrounds discuss conceptual and practical matters while also taking you around the Globe—from China to Cape Verde, from Australia to the Czech Republic…Read this interesting book—‘truth is always the strongest argument’ (Sophocles).”
—Dusan Drbohlav, Charles University, Prague

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-12-01,Marguerite Helmers and Tilar Mazzeo,The Traveling and Writing Self,Paperback,978-1-4438-0043-3,14.99,"The collected essays that comprise The Traveling and Writing Self examine the critical relationship between the journey, the author of the travel narrative, and published and private texts. Contributors draw attention to the performed nature of the travel writer’s self, emphasizing that the carefully crafted persona of the traveler-protagonist is a fiction. The traveler’s identity is frequently in flux, negotiating between social convention, literary convention, personal motivations, and nationalist agendas. 

The Traveling and Writing Self is a notable addition to studies of travel writing because the contributors explore several genres in addition to the traditional accounts of the journey; these genres include histories of exploration, diaries, memoir, poetry, film, and short story. Not limited to a specific historical era or geographical location, individual chapters explore the work of Rebecca Solnit, Isak Dinesen, Melinda Atwood, William Byrd, E. J. Pratt, Beatrice Grimshaw, and Louisa May Alcott. From each, we learn that perhaps the most interesting subject of any travel account is the author.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-01-01,Tomáš Drobík and  Monika Šumberová,Chapters of Modern Human Geographical Thought,Hardback,978-1-4438-0107-2,34.99,"Contemporary human geography provides valuable insights into the political, social or cultural transformations of the world. The Chapters of Modern Geographical Thought is a compilation of original, state-of-the-art essays written by recognized scholars, covering a wide range of topics from human geography, always paying tribute to the multidisciplinary nature of the field. This book will provide students with penetrating analyses of seven fields, including critical geopolitics of film and affect, the political economy of the environment, ethnic problems in the Caucasus, the US and Mexico relations, new social movements in Southern Africa or identity politics and the legal recognition of the Silesian minority in Poland. All the essays emphasize the interconnectedness of a globalized world. The book assumes that every piece of knowledge we gain, has to be understood and interpreted in the context of cultural and symbolic phenomena with their own histories and localized in specific spaces/places. Moreover, the authors stress the importance of geography enabling/disabling the formation and representation of identities and their mutual contestation.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-01-01,"Panchanan Mohanty, Ramesh C. Malik and Eswarappa Kasi",Ethnographic Discourse of the Other: Conceptual and Methodological Issues,Paperback,978-1-4438-0132-4,19.99,"This book primarily tries to bring out the analogy between the conceptual and methodological discourses on the theme of the other. The term 'Other' here refers to the oppressed sections of the society. It may be dalits, women, indigenous or ethnic communities. Since we are living in a multicultural and multilingual society, we should share our views with others on a platform where issues of the marginalized people are addressed by different scholars following different methods and techniques. Though there are various policies and plans for the welfare of the downtrodden, hardly any change can be seen at the micro-level structure of the society. There are studies which highlighted the problems and ethos of the downtrodden sections, but a majority of those studies neglected the marginalized groups. Hence, we felt the need to highlight the issues and concerns of these groups in a wider context and started thinking on the theme 'Ethnographic Discourse of the Other: Conceptual and Methodological Issues'. This volume attempts to discuss and theorize the pragmatic concepts and issues related to the marginalized groups in contemporary societies in South Asia. 

This book is interdisciplinary in nature and will be useful to scholars and students of Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Social Work, Culture Studies, Gender Studies and Philosophy. It is widely applicable to all sections of the oppressed socially, economically, culturally, academically, politically and other wise. 



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-02-01,E. Ike Udogu and A. B. Zack-Williams,"African Mosaic: Political, Social, Economic and Technological Development in the New Millennium",Paperback,978-1-4438-0184-3,39.99,"African Mosaic is essential reading for all students of Africa, its people, society and future. Zack-Williams and Udogu bring together an invaluable collection of essays by both Africans and non-Africans dealing with some of the most pressing issues facing Africa in the new millennium. These include:

•	Development and the Democratisation Process
•	Human Rights and Ethnicity
•	Corruption
•	Education Policy
•	Health Systems
•	Gender and Migration
•	Information Communication and Technology

The volume is equally suitable for undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as policy makers and NGO workers specialising in political science, development, sociology, history, anthropology, education and technology. 
","“African Mosaic: Political, Social, Economic and Technological Development in the New Millennium has been put together by very seasoned Africanist-cum-general scholars in the disciplines of social sciences, business, humanities as well as in information and communication technologies. This useful book provides a very rich compendium of essays intended to address and, indeed, solve some of the pressing problems in the areas of democracy, human rights, healthcare, education, corruption and communications. The publication, superbly edited by two excellent scholars, should be both timely and helpful to policy-makers as well as political leaders of Africa, especially as they are determined through the instrumentality of the African Union and its various organs to tackle the above issues in order to make the continent more relevant in this eon of the new globalization.”
—Y. M. Alex-Assensoh and A. B. Assensoh, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA and A.B. Assensoh, Ph.D., Professor, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS), Indiana University-Blooming-ton, Indiana, USA. (The Assensohs are also Co-Book Review Editors of AFRICAN & ASIAN STUDIES Journal of Leiden, The Netherlands.
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-03-01,Priscila Lopes and Alpina Begossi,Current Trends in Human Ecology,Hardback,978-1-4438-0340-3,44.99,"An exercise of interdisciplinarity at the crossroads of humans and the environment--this could be one definition of human ecology, as it is demonstrated within this book. Examples of different branches of human ecology are shown as feasible alternatives to understand the interactions of human culture and behaviour with the natural environment from all parts of the world. Current trends, ranging from climate change to ecological knowledge and environmental co-management are deeply exploited, using a diversified array of empirical case studies. Theoretical aspects are included and examined in every case, including the evolution of culture, values and webs of information within cultures. The central theme approaches and reveals the social, cultural, economic, and ecological processes which link human beings to their environment.

From a mixture of practice and theory we emerge with alternatives to mitigate and prevent the accelerating negative changes currently witnessed on our planet, where increasingly fewer people are safe. More importantly, this book provides examples showing how those whose lives are deeply rooted on a direct natural resource dependency are the first to be affected by the global trend of environmental degradation. Small-scale fishers, farmers and herders from the tropics and from cold regions have their livelihood affected by global changes, regional politics and cultural exchanges. Whether and how they will survive, adapt, or embody such changes is not known and this is one more reason to include and involve local groups when searching for sustainable solutions.

In a changing world, exploring current threats and impacts of human actions on the environment is a necessity, but bringing about alternatives, some of them already part of traditional human practices, is urgent and can turn to be a promising solution. Anthropology, sociology, and ecology come together in this book, where the unifying goal of theorizing and practising interdisciplinarity in human ecology is shown by, closely tracking examples of current trends and developments. This book is a harvest from the XV International Meeting of the Society for Human Ecology, engaging over 200 people from 27 countries from all continents, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 4-7, 2007, organized by A. Begossi and P. Lopes, with the support of the Fisheries and Food Institute (FIFO) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). This volume ends by indicating several lines of thought and of analyses on current subjects, as follows: sustainability in different cultural contexts and perspectives, methods towards approaching sustainable systems, and current global concerns. Those include agriculture in tropical areas (slash-and-burn practices), climate change, and nature and human behavioural patterns, among others. 




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-03-01,"Henrik Høgh-Olesen, Jan Tønnesvang and Preben Bertelsen",Human Characteristics: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Mind and Kind,Hardback,978-1-4438-0213-0,49.99,"Every once in a while, we have to reconsider the perennial questions concerning human nature: What are the special human behaviours, social practices, and psychological structures that make us particularly human? 


The field of evolution, psychology and cognitive science is the most expanding, inter-disciplinary area of this field for the time being, uniting different sciences under the same evolutionary paradigm and keeping them occupied by the same eternal questions stated above.

Relevant data and theoretical considerations are piling up, but an overview is needed. To facilitate this a large inter-disciplinary conference entitled “Human Mind—Human Kind” was held at Aarhus University, Denmark.  The studies fall into three well defined sections: 1) Evolution and Cognition—Comparative and Developmental Perspectives, 2) Human Sociality, Morality and Religiosity, 3) Human Sexuality and Mating Strategies.

Specifying the differences between our own species and the rest of the animal world always provokes debate. But these demarcations simply have to be drawn once and again. They focus attention and stimulate research, exactly because they provoke and challenge other researchers to take up the glove and prove us wrong.












","
“What are human universals, and what psychological characteristics set human beings apart from other animals? These are key questions that are being addressed by evolutionary researchers in diverse fields in the social and biological sciences. This volume is an engaging and up-to-date exploration of the rapidly expanding literature on what makes us human”.

—Dr. Ara Norenzayan, University of British Columbia, Canada


“With a delightful potpourri of thought-provoking chapters, this book has something for everyone interested in expanding their understanding of human nature.  Complied by three top Scandinavian academics, it includes an integrated set of chapters from a wide array of disciplines that demonstrate how evolutionary theory is equipped to elucidate the nature of human and primate cognition, human sociality, morality, religion, sexuality, and mating strategies.”	


—Dennis Krebs, Professor of Psychology, Simon Frazer University, Canada

""Scholars of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and other disciplines ponder what characteristics distinguish humans from other creatures, exploring comparative and developmental perspectives of evolution and cognition; sociology, morality, and religiosity; and sexuality and mating strategies.





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-04-01,"Dominik Bonatz, John Miksic, J. David Neidel, Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz",From Distant Tales: Archaeology and Ethnohistory in the Highlands of Sumatra,Hardback,978-1-4438-0497-4,54.99,"This is the most comprehensive book devoted to Sumatra in more than half a century. It summarizes earlier studies, and provides a huge amount of new knowledge for the first time in readily accessible form. Sumatra is one of the world’s largest islands, rich in flora and fauna, minerals and timber, and located at the midpoint of the maritime route between China and India. These are ideal conditions for the creation of a fascinating history. Sumatra has played a major role in world trade for 2,000 years, but its culture and archaeology have been surprisingly neglected. This volume sets out to remedy this defect. With chapters on history, archaeology, anthropology, folklore, and religion, the authors focus particular attention on the relations between the coastal peoples who are best known to outsiders, and the hinterlands, where most of the important resources lie. The list of authors includes most of the principal living authorities on Sumatra. Their cumulative experience consists of many years on all parts of the island. The book is copiously illustrated, and includes a comprehensive bibliography for those who wish to pursue further study of the wide range of topics covered.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-04-01,Graeme Johanson Russell Smyth and Rebecca French,Living Outside the Walls: The Chinese in Prato,Hardback,978-1-4438-0356-4,44.99,"Never before has research into the benefits and drawbacks of the Chinese migration to Prato in Tuscany been presented so comprehensively in English. The recent influx of Chinese to the longstanding textile manufacturing and wholesale businesses in Prato has stirred strong emotions in the host culture and among the new arrivals alike. The breadth of the coverage of this publication is demonstrated by the full range of perspectives focused on the economic and social dilemmas being experienced. A wide range of points of view are elucidated -- the concerns of the local commune, the factory labourers, the traders, economists, Italian nationalists, Italian bureaucrats, Chinese provincial government, demographers, urban planners, academics, community developers, industry analysts, cultural observers, labour market analysts, media commentators, social planners, students, and social geographers.




","""Outside Italy, the presence of a sizeable Chinese population in the Tuscan town of Prato is known only to a handful of researchers. This book, the result of a conference organised by Monash University's Prato Centre, is the first English language volume devoted to this intriguing phenomenon.""

Pal Nyiri, Free University, Amsterdam; The China Journal; No. 65 (2011)
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-05-01,Gabriel Rosenstock,Haiku Enlightenment,Hardback,978-1-4438-0521-6,34.99,"A renowned poet shares his experience of haiku and its potential to surprise us again and again into a sudden awakening and thus to a deeper sense of what it is to be truly alive. His remarkably refreshing insights have delighted confreres around the world.




","“Gabriel Rosenstock offers us a marvellous path into the essence of haiku and the state of being in harmony with the laws of the universe.”	
-Ion Codrescu, Romania

“A learned, imaginative and profound commentary on haiku with many outstanding examples from around the globe, demonstrating the form’s universal appeal. Persons with little knowledge of haiku will be captivated, while those with expertise will feel renewed …”
-George Swede, Canada

 “Rosenstock is an excellent teacher, wise enough to realise that in describing haiku (as in so many other things) examples are worth a million words. He spreads before us a variegated tapestry of haiku, by poets in all places and at all times since haiku began, as well as from his own ingenious pen, in which ‘the spirit of play and the play of spirit are simultaneous and one.”
-David Cobb, England

“From the wealth of his experience, Rosenstock gives profound advice and useful tips for the wanderer on the haiku path, showing us how sudden enlightenment can happen in our ordinary life.”
- Ruth Franke, Germany

“With edifying purpose, the author subtly introduces examples of haiku’s apocalyptic potential of transfiguration, known in haiku and Zen as ‘spiritual interpenetration’ and, by so doing, offers the reader an opportunity to witness – through numinous haiku moments – the entwining of the Universal Spirit with Its Self.”
- James W. Hackett, Hawaii


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-06-01,"Marie-Claire Considère-Charon, Philippe Laplace, Michel Savaric ",The Irish Celebrating: Festive and Tragic Overtones  ,Paperback,978-1-4438-0607-7,19.99,"The Irish Celebrating is a collection of essays which  focuses on the complex dynamics of celebrating, its significance and its scope, through Ireland’s past and present experience. This book studies the dual aspects of celebrating —‘the festive’ and ‘the tragic’— which, while  not necessarily functioning as a binary opposition, have long proved mutually constitutive of the Irish experience. Many different occasions and ways of celebrating are explored, be they associated with feasts, festivals, commemorations, re-enactments or mere merry-making.
Irish literature abounds with motifs, symbols, allusions and devices that stand as ample testimony to the essential part played by celebration in the creative process. Both the treatment of mythical themes and figures, and the perception of contrasted realities and moods, all linked in some way or another with celebrating, are examined in the works of Irish novelists, poets and playwrights. 
If celebrations undeniably had a crucial role to play throughout Ireland’s troubled past, they continue to shape Irish society today, part and parcel of the deep social, economic and cultural changes it is currently experiencing. New representations of Irish identity as they are expressed through new forms of celebrating are explored in such varied contexts as emigration and immigration, alcohol addiction, church allegiance and European membership.
The way the nationalist and unionist communities have been celebrating their past in Northern Ireland, often complacently and ostentatiously, is a theme dealt with in the final section of this collection. Irish, English, French, Spanish, Italian and American scholars apply a broad range of interdisciplinary expertise to original and illuminating essays which will undoubtedly provoke a new insight into the interplay between current trends and issues and the long-established patterns that thread through the volume.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-06-01,"Rana P. B. Singh, with Oskar Spate, David Sopher, and A.B. Mukerji",Uprooting Geographic Thoughts in India: Toward Ecology and Culture in 21st Century,Hardback,978-1-4438-0579-7,39.99,"Under the cultural turn and transformation the new intellectual discourses started in the 21st century to search the roots, have cross-cultural comparison and to see how the old traditions be used in the contemporary worldviews. This book is the first attempt dealing with roots of Indian geographical thoughts since its beginning in 1920. It emphasises identity of India and Indianness and consciousness among dweller geographers in India, development and status of geography and its recent trends, Gaia theory and Indian context in search of cosmic integrity, ecospirituality and global message towards interrelatedness, Hindu pilgrimages and its contemporary importance, Mahatma Gandhi and his contribution to sustainable environmental development for global peace and humanism, and new vision to see meeting grounds of the East and the West on the line of reconstruction and reconciliation in the globalising world. These essays are selective and thematic, therefore overall view of comprehensiveness is lacking. But this book is not the end; obviously it is a beginning as already other volumes in sequence and continuity are in progress. At the end, the lead essays, representative of the three eras, by Spate (1956), Sopher (1973), and Mukerji (1992) are reprinted with a view to assessing the relevance of their challenging message even today.









","This book presents a compassionate and rational critique of the 'Roots of Indian Geography', and opens new ground for the younger generation and those interested in the understanding of the stories of the evolution and practices of geography in India, narrating both the sides, 'insider' and 'outsider'. … This is possibly the first attempt in the history of Indian geographical thought to explain and expose ancient thought linked to the present, and presenting a balanced critique of the achievements and weaknesses of each historical phase.  
—Prof. David Simon (from the foreword), Royal Holloway, University of London

This is a national geography with a difference. Much more than a history of geography in India or a description of the work of Indian geographers, it is an insightful account and interpretation of the Indian geographical imagination as this is informed by the Hindu tradition. Singh's innovative work will be of great interest to cultural geographers, ecologists, and other scholars concerned with our human use of the earth. 	  
—Prof. William Norton, Dept. of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

On the line of growing critiques to post-colonialism and post-traditionalism, this book is a pioneering attempt in interdisciplinary manner appraising the 'Roots of Indian Geography'. If geography is a way that interlinks ‘locality’ to ‘universality’, this book will serve as milestone for the contemporary generation of social sciences that embedded with issues of ethics and moral turn in philosophy and practice, i.e. crossing the borders.             
—Prof. Fukunaga Masaaki, Director, Centre of South Asian Studies, Gifu’s Women University, Japan

There come times in the evolution of all institutions when critical assessments of past and present achievements need to be made, with a careful and caring eye on future developments. Imbued with a long and honourable institutional identity, the study of geography in India is fortunate to have in this volume just such an assessment at a crucial time in the history not just of the interdiscipline of Geography in India, nor even of the wider academic matrix within which so much valuable geographical work has been accomplished in India, but of the intellectual traditions of India as a whole. In matters academic as in so many other realms of human endeavour, the twenty-first century is India’s time on the global stage, and we can expect to see still more of India’s scholars and Indian scholarship, geographers and geography among them, stage front and centre. This volume helps to explain how and why. 
 — Prof. Jamie S. Scott, Institute of Advanced Study for Humanity, University of Newcastle, Australia

It was unfortunate that in spite of rich and long philosophical and textual traditions of thought, in Indian geography there was no attempt to produce a book-length study in search of its roots and comparison with the contemporary Western thoughts. This book has successfully filled in this gap by rationally linking ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ viewpoints and also projecting the vision of ‘moral turn’ in geography. This book is a wonderful blending of philosophy and history where geography serves as bridge. 
 — Prof. Gerhard Gustafsson, Department of Geography and Tourism, Karlstad University, Sweden

Working together with the author since over last fifteen years, I realised the comprehensiveness and interrelatedness of geography in Indian classical thoughts that have now taken as a way for ‘new vision’ in the era of New Age. This book is a welcome addition in ‘global understanding’ through the great message of Indian geography for peace and harmonious relationship between mankind and nature. 
 —  Prof. John McKim Malville, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, U.S.A.

On the line of the IGU’s current focus on ‘Bridging Diversity in a Globalizing World’,  this research monograph could indeed serve as a beacon for other Asian countries to follow and present a cross-cultural perspective, which is one of the most important aims of the International Geographical Union and its permanent archive at the Home of Geography in Rome. I hope that the message of this book will encourage the young geographers in making their path for creating better world.
 — Prof. Giuliano Bellezza, Vice-President: IGU, & Director Home of Geography, Rome, Italy

For many years, it seemed that the Cultural Turn in Geography led into just a single culture, a Western hegemony of ideas, discourses and sentiments. Professor Rana P.B. Singh, however, provides an alternative ― the authentic voice of Indian tradition and philosophy. He brings to Geography, all Geography not just its Cultural wing, perspectives from ancient yet living traditions, which truly have heard most of these ‘exciting new ideas from the West’ long, long before. …. These days it is recognised that our species greatest challenge is to change our human attitudes and lifestyles to a condition where we become fit for long term life on Earth. It could be that Professor Singh, Geographer, scholar and pilgrim can help show the way.
 — Prof. Martin J. Haigh,  Oxford Brooke University, UK

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-06-01,"Rana P. B. Singh, with Oskar Spate, David Sopher, and A.B. Mukerji",Uprooting Geographic Thoughts in India: Toward Ecology and Culture in 21st Century,Paperback,978-1-4438-0580-3,19.99,"Under the cultural turn and transformation the new intellectual discourses started in the 21st century to search the roots, have cross-cultural comparison and to see how the old traditions be used in the contemporary worldviews. This book is the first attempt dealing with roots of Indian geographical thoughts since its beginning in 1920. It emphasises identity of India and Indianness and consciousness among dweller geographers in India, development and status of geography and its recent trends, Gaia theory and Indian context in search of cosmic integrity, ecospirituality and global message towards interrelatedness, Hindu pilgrimages and its contemporary importance, Mahatma Gandhi and his contribution to sustainable environmental development for global peace and humanism, and new vision to see meeting grounds of the East and the West on the line of reconstruction and reconciliation in the globalising world. These essays are selective and thematic, therefore overall view of comprehensiveness is lacking. But this book is not the end; obviously it is a beginning as already other volumes in sequence and continuity are in progress. At the end, the lead essays, representative of the three eras, by Spate (1956), Sopher (1973), and Mukerji (1992) are reprinted with a view to assessing the relevance of their challenging message even today.




","This book presents a compassionate and rational critique of the 'Roots of Indian Geography', and opens new ground for the younger generation and those interested in the understanding of the stories of the evolution and practices of geography in India, narrating both the sides, 'insider' and 'outsider'. … This is possibly the first attempt in the history of Indian geographical thought to explain and expose ancient thought linked to the present, and presenting a balanced critique of the achievements and weaknesses of each historical phase.  
—Prof. David Simon (from the foreword), Royal Holloway, University of London

This is a national geography with a difference. Much more than a history of geography in India or a description of the work of Indian geographers, it is an insightful account and interpretation of the Indian geographical imagination as this is informed by the Hindu tradition. Singh's innovative work will be of great interest to cultural geographers, ecologists, and other scholars concerned with our human use of the earth. 	  
—Prof. William Norton, Dept. of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

On the line of growing critiques to post-colonialism and post-traditionalism, this book is a pioneering attempt in interdisciplinary manner appraising the 'Roots of Indian Geography'. If geography is a way that interlinks ‘locality’ to ‘universality’, this book will serve as milestone for the contemporary generation of social sciences that embedded with issues of ethics and moral turn in philosophy and practice, i.e. crossing the borders.             
—Prof. Fukunaga Masaaki, Director, Centre of South Asian Studies, Gifu’s Women University, Japan

There come times in the evolution of all institutions when critical assessments of past and present achievements need to be made, with a careful and caring eye on future developments. Imbued with a long and honourable institutional identity, the study of geography in India is fortunate to have in this volume just such an assessment at a crucial time in the history not just of the interdiscipline of Geography in India, nor even of the wider academic matrix within which so much valuable geographical work has been accomplished in India, but of the intellectual traditions of India as a whole. In matters academic as in so many other realms of human endeavour, the twenty-first century is India’s time on the global stage, and we can expect to see still more of India’s scholars and Indian scholarship, geographers and geography among them, stage front and centre. This volume helps to explain how and why. 
 — Prof. Jamie S. Scott, Institute of Advanced Study for Humanity, University of Newcastle, Australia

It was unfortunate that in spite of rich and long philosophical and textual traditions of thought, in Indian geography there was no attempt to produce a book-length study in search of its roots and comparison with the contemporary Western thoughts. This book has successfully filled in this gap by rationally linking ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ viewpoints and also projecting the vision of ‘moral turn’ in geography. This book is a wonderful blending of philosophy and history where geography serves as bridge. 
 — Prof. Gerhard Gustafsson, Department of Geography and Tourism, Karlstad University, Sweden

Working together with the author since over last fifteen years, I realised the comprehensiveness and interrelatedness of geography in Indian classical thoughts that have now taken as a way for ‘new vision’ in the era of New Age. This book is a welcome addition in ‘global understanding’ through the great message of Indian geography for peace and harmonious relationship between mankind and nature. 
 —  Prof. John McKim Malville, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, U.S.A.

On the line of the IGU’s current focus on ‘Bridging Diversity in a Globalizing World’,  this research monograph could indeed serve as a beacon for other Asian countries to follow and present a cross-cultural perspective, which is one of the most important aims of the International Geographical Union and its permanent archive at the Home of Geography in Rome. I hope that the message of this book will encourage the young geographers in making their path for creating better world.
 — Prof. Giuliano Bellezza, Vice-President: IGU, & Director Home of Geography, Rome, Italy

For many years, it seemed that the Cultural Turn in Geography led into just a single culture, a Western hegemony of ideas, discourses and sentiments. Professor Rana P.B. Singh, however, provides an alternative ― the authentic voice of Indian tradition and philosophy. He brings to Geography, all Geography not just its Cultural wing, perspectives from ancient yet living traditions, which truly have heard most of these ‘exciting new ideas from the West’ long, long before. …. These days it is recognised that our species greatest challenge is to change our human attitudes and lifestyles to a condition where we become fit for long term life on Earth. It could be that Professor Singh, Geographer, scholar and pilgrim can help show the way.
 — Prof. Martin J. Haigh,  Oxford Brooke University, UK






",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-07-01,Charles G. Häberl,Afroasiatic Studies in Memory of Robert Hetzron: Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL 35),Hardback,978-1-4438-1002-9,44.99,"Robert Hetzron first organized the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL) at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1973 and passed away only six months after it had completed a quarter century of annual meetings. He would undoubtedly have been pleased to know that NACAL is still going strong, and that ten years after his passing it attracted no fewer than thirty-six scholars from the United States, Canada, and eight other countries, who presented on topics near and dear to his heart such as phonology, morphology, syntax, language contact, classification, subgrouping, and the history of scholarship, in languages such as Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Egyptian, Hebrew, Omotic, and others, as well as the groups to which they pertain.
 
Since he established it, NACAL has served a unique role among the meetings of learned societies in North America. Only a handful of organizations worldwide hold annual meetings dedicated to Afroasiatic linguistics, and NACAL is one of a very small number of venues where linguists from all sub-disciplines and schools of thought meet to share their research. NACAL is also an academic nexus, a unique node at which graduate students at the beginning of their careers rub shoulders with the native speakers of the languages which they study and with the titans of their fields, men and women of an almost legendary stature such as Hetzron himself.  This volume contains sixteen contributions from these scholars, on a broad cross-section of topics within the field of Afroasiatic linguistics.
 




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-07-01,Ali Abdullatif Ahmida,"Bridges Across the Sahara: Social, Economic and Cultural Impact of the Trans-Sahara Trade during the 19th and 20th Centuries",Hardback,978-1-4438-0973-3,39.99,"The objective of this edited book is to rethink the history of colonial and nationalist categories and analyses of modern Africa through an integration and examination of the African Saharan trade as bridges that link the North, Central, and West regions of Africa. Firstly, it offers a critique of the colonial, postcolonial and nationalist historiographies, and also of current western scholarship on northern and Saharan Africa especially Middle East Studies and African Studies Associations. Secondly, it provides an alternative narrative of the forgotten histories of the Sahara trade as linkages between the North and the South of the Sahara.

The Sahara desert was seldom a barrier separating the northern, middle and western parts of the continent. On the contrary, the desert was and still constitutes a bridge of communication which connects northern Africa, West Africa and the countries in the southern Sahara. This connection was evident in the most important cultural, economic and social relations. Two connecting routes or bridges existed across the Sahara. First, the Hajj Routes from the north west of Africa to the holy places in Arabia. Second, are the trade routes between central and west Africa and the shores of North Africa. These trans-Sahara trade routes extend from the East Darb al-Arba’in in Egypt and Sudan to the far west borders of Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco. Hence the ties between the countries in North Africa and Wadai, Bornu, Kanim, Zender, Aer and others existed since pre-historic eras. The origins began before and were enhanced by the Islamic conquests and continued to present day.
","“Bridges Across the Sahara is a magnificent collection of essays that overcomes the standard fare on the region as an empty barrier between Tropical and Mediterranean Africa. The collection traverses history, geography, anthropology and politics, and demonstrates the region as the crossroads of human movements and commerce, but also [as a] a locality that has its own integrity and center of gravity. As such these contributions overcome colonial and nationalists projections of the region. Bridges Across the Sahara masterfully negates Africa’s division into sub-Saharan and northern Arab Africa. Collectively they endeavour to redefine the terminology/concepts and the historical and cultural analysis of the Sahara. In nutshell, this is a model for future studies of the Sahara.”
—Dr Abdi I. Samatar, Professor & Chair, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-07-01,Jagan Karade,Occupational Mobility among Scheduled Castes,Hardback,978-1-4438-0989-4,39.99,"The book discusses the educational achievements and occupational mobility among the Scheduled Castes in India, the group that is a large section of Indian population (called as Dalit), was deprived of their basic legitimate and human rights to live with dignity. The book shows that, the second generation of Scheduled Castes is highly mobile as compared to their fathers’ generation. It also attempts to measure the impact of Inclusive Policy provided by the Government of India. In this book, author found that, after the religious conversion under the leadership of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Mahars converted to Buddhism. Therefore, the Buddhist community is more aware about the occupational development as compared to other communities. Hence, the development of the Buddhists could be treated as an ideal model for all the Backward Classes in India. 
","“In the present study, Dr. Karade has made a systematic attempt to establish an already acknowledged positive co-relation between education and occupational mobility. I am sure his present work would be well received by the researchers and readers in general as well.”
     - Dr. B.L. Mungekar, Member, Planning Commission, Govt. of India.
 
“The work is completely ethnographic, which is invisible of Converted Buddhists. The present work is very important to all downtrodden people for their educational and occupational development.”
     - Dr. R.K. Kale,  Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. 
                     
“The book has succeeded in understanding the social mobility of SCs by studying the occupational mobility through inter and intra-generational levels.”
     - Dr. Richard Pais,  St. Aloysius College, Mangalore.           

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-07-01,Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields,So What?  Now What?  The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World in Crisis,Hardback,978-1-4438-0977-1,44.99,"“The greatest crisis of our times in a failure of the human imagination.”  -Editors

	The world is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented crises on virtually every front: economic, ecological, and humanitarian.  It is starkly apparent that a shift is needed in our dominant structural systems – and that by addressing the collective thinking that has created and maintained these systems, scholars can do their part to catalyze such a shift. The interdisciplinary field known as the Anthropology of Consciousness offers important insights for enacting this necessary shift.  

	This book draws on the work of a group of diverse scholars to explore what the intersection of anthropology and consciousness studies can contribute to the “public turn” within anthropology and the academy in general. Its twelve chapters span disparate geographies and disciplinary frameworks, yet cohere in their focus on common themes such as imagination, empathy, agency, dialogue, and ethics. The answers to the question “So What? Now What?” differ for a linguistic anthropologist in the South Pacific, an environmental educator in Hawai‘i, a grant-writing anthropologist serving a refugee agency in Portland, Oregon and the founder of a girls’ school in Brazil. Nevertheless, they are united in the desire to reframe the anthropology of consciousness as an “anthropology of conscience,” and this pioneering volume is the result.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Rana P. B. Singh ,Geographical Thoughts in India: Snapshots and Visions for the 21st Century,Paperback,978-1-4438-1119-4,29.99,"This book deals with roots of Indian geographical thoughts with reference to its historical base, cultural context and visionary message. As a consequence of long cultural history the resultant lifeworld in India converges like a drama and dance of space-time function with transference and transformation. In the passage of time emerged a metaphysical frame of thought, the varieties of heritagescapes, and simultaneously grown the senses to heritage ecology. Of course, attempts have been scanty but the richness always portrayed in literature and literary geography. Historical and cultural geographies in India have not caught that much attention in the academia; however on micro-level distinct attributes are interpreted in the recent literature. Going back to the ancient notions of nature theology, religioscapes and rituals have developed a complex network of belief systems in the Hindu traditions.  In these traditions the motherly river Ganga serves as symbol, system and metaphor in the Indian culture. Continuity of cultural manifestations is actively maintained and continued in the Indian villages, where lives three-fourths of India’s population, and serve like a ‘place ballet’.  India’s catastrophic march on the road of development and technology is entangled with obstacles and socio-spatial gaps that need to be re-considered in the light of cultural background and historical legacy. All these issues are examined, emphasising dualistic and complimentary perspectives in the West and the East.   

Contents: Viewpoints on the book: v-viii; List of Tables, List of Figures: xi-xvi; Foreword: Prof. Martin J. Haigh (Oxford Brooke University, UK): 1-8; Preface, Acknowledgements: 9-21, 1. Metaphysics and Sacred Ecology: Cosmos, Theos, Anthropos: 23-57, 2. Lifeworld, Lifecycle and Home: 58-97, 3. Landscape as Text: Literary Geography and Indian Context: 98-128, 4. Historical Geography of India: Trends in the 21st century: 129-162, 5. Cultural Geography of India: Trends in the 21st century: 163-195, 6. Geographic Milieu and Belief Systems: An Appraisal: 196-226, 7. Sacred space and Faithscape: 227-266, 8. The Ganga River: Images and Symbol of India: 267-302, 9. Indian Village: A Phenomenological Understanding: 303-350, 10. Heritagescapes of India: Appraising Heritage ecology: 351-393, and 11. Development in India: Appraising Self Retrospection: 394-422; index: 423-430; author 431.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Rana P. B. Singh ,Geographical Thoughts in India: Snapshots and Visions for the 21st Century,Hardback,978-1-4438-1118-7,49.99,"This book deals with roots of Indian geographical thoughts with reference to its historical base, cultural context and visionary message. As a consequence of long cultural history the resultant lifeworld in India converges like a drama and dance of space-time function with transference and transformation. In the passage of time emerged a metaphysical frame of thought, the varieties of heritagescapes, and simultaneously grown the senses to heritage ecology. Of course, attempts have been scanty but the richness always portrayed in literature and literary geography. Historical and cultural geographies in India have not caught that much attention in the academia; however on micro-level distinct attributes are interpreted in the recent literature. Going back to the ancient notions of nature theology, religioscapes and rituals have developed a complex network of belief systems in the Hindu traditions.  In these traditions the motherly river Ganga serves as symbol, system and metaphor in the Indian culture. Continuity of cultural manifestations is actively maintained and continued in the Indian villages, where lives three-fourths of India’s population, and serve like a ‘place ballet’.  India’s catastrophic march on the road of development and technology is entangled with obstacles and socio-spatial gaps that need to be re-considered in the light of cultural background and historical legacy. All these issues are examined, emphasising dualistic and complimentary perspectives in the West and the East.   

Contents: Viewpoints on the book: v-viii; List of Tables, List of Figures: xi-xvi; Foreword: Prof. Martin J. Haigh (Oxford Brooke University, UK): 1-8; Preface, Acknowledgements: 9-21, 1. Metaphysics and Sacred Ecology: Cosmos, Theos, Anthropos: 23-57, 2. Lifeworld, Lifecycle and Home: 58-97, 3. Landscape as Text: Literary Geography and Indian Context: 98-128, 4. Historical Geography of India: Trends in the 21st century: 129-162, 5. Cultural Geography of India: Trends in the 21st century: 163-195, 6. Geographic Milieu and Belief Systems: An Appraisal: 196-226, 7. Sacred space and Faithscape: 227-266, 8. The Ganga River: Images and Symbol of India: 267-302, 9. Indian Village: A Phenomenological Understanding: 303-350, 10. Heritagescapes of India: Appraising Heritage ecology: 351-393, and 11. Development in India: Appraising Self Retrospection: 394-422; index: 423-430; author 431.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman,The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia,Paperback,978-1-4438-1134-7,19.99,"The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia contains essays written by established scholars in the field that trace the multiplicity of Asian goddesses: their continuities, discontinuities, and importance as symbols of wisdom, power, transformation, compassion, destruction, and creation. The essays demonstrate that while treatments of the
goddess may vary regionally, culturally, and historically, it is possible to note some consistencies in the overall picture of the goddess in Asia.

The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the goddess, culminating in the selections that draw from research on Indian, Nepali, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese traditions, seldom found in other works of similar subject.  The volume will be useful for students in religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies, and women's studies. With the intent of making the volume truly broad in scope, an effort has been made to include works written by art historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars.  Culture cannot be separated from religion; they are intertwined as an organic whole, and variations manifest themselves in the rituals and daily lives of the people. In this sense, all the essays are interconnected: the goddess manifests in many forms and appeals to differing aspects of a particular culture as a paradigm of the divine feminine.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Ramdas Rupavath,Tribal Land Alienation and Political Movements: Socio-Economic Patterns from South India,Hardback,978-1-4438-1110-1,34.99,"The study focuses upon the process of land alienation going on since the colonial period, the skewed patterns of socio-economic development in the tribal area after independence and the resulting political movements in Andhra Pradesh, South India.  The existing literature shows that majority of the studies on tribes in Andhra Pradesh, South India have focused upon the sociological or anthropological aspects of tribal life, their exploitation or upon the leadership, strategy and tactics of the Naxalite movements, while ignoring the basic underlying causes.  The processes of land alienation, due to the entry of non-tribals, commoditization of land, introduction of cash crops etc., which began under the feudal and oppressive Nizam State in Andhra Pradesh, South India. 

Further, our book tries to look at the policies of the colonial state that has been examined in detail and provide a background to the post colonial situation.  It also shows that after independence, the land transfer regulation act, and the various developmental programmes introduced into the tribal area, has not yielded significant results.  A detailed survey reveals that landlessness, unemployment, poverty and increasing social alienation from hostility towards non-tribals is increasing in these regions.  It is these factors that underlie them often violent political movement in the pre and post independence movement which have been described in detail in our book.  The study concludes that unless tribal lands and economy are protected, and a pattern of development better suited to their way of life is introduced, tribal oppression and movements keep on arises further in any backward regions.
Our book hopes to fill this gap by establishing inter-linkages in socio-economic conditions of the tribal population of Andhra Pradesh, South India.  Our book is interdisciplinary in nature and shall be useful to scholars and students of Political Economy, Political Science, Rural Development, Public Administration, Anthropology, Sociology, Gender Studies and Development. It is widely applicable to all sections of the marginalized socially, economically, culturally, academically, politically and other wise. 





",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-09-01,Tomasz Gacek and Jadwiga Pstrusińska,Proceedings of the Ninth Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies,Hardback,978-1-4438-1248-1,49.99,"This is an important book which will greatly aid readers in their knowledge of Central Asia, one of the crucial regions in the contemporary world. It contains papers reflecting the interdisciplinary quality of recent research carried out in many academic institutions dealing with the region.

In this volume, which undertakes the supreme challenge of understanding this vast area of Eurasia, acknowledged experts offer their findings on such important topics as history, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, language, literature, religion, philosophy, civil society and human rights, political science, economics and the environment.

This collection undoubtedly constitutes a key gateway to study of the region through the advanced, accurate and scholarly information required by contemporary academia.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-10-01,Rana P. B. Singh ,Banaras: Making of India’s Heritage City,Paperback,978-1-4438-1321-1,64.99,"Narrating the making of the Hindus’ most sacred and heritage city of India (Banaras) this book will serve as lead reference and insightful reading for understanding the cultural complexities, archetypal connotations, ritualscapes   and vivid heritagescapes that maintain India’s pride of  history and culture. 




","""…This work will serve as resource and role model for heritage studies and interdisciplinary ways of looking deeply into cultural landscapes.""
― Prof. Neils Gutschow, Heidelberg University, Germany

""… In this volume, he brings together decades of careful work and makes a strong case for this great city as significant not only for the heritage of India, but for the wider world of visitors …""
― Prof. Diana L. Eck,  Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

""… No other scholar knows Banaras better than Rana P.B. Singh. His interpretation of its sacred landscape that he calls ‘mesocosm’ is unique.""
― Prof. Amita Sinha, University of Illinois- UC, USA

""…Only by exploring Banaras over many years, so as to uncover its multiple belief systems, cultural patterns, spatial territories and superimposed archaeological layers, is it possible to develop a complete picture like this one.""
― Dr. George Michell, London, UK

""… The author has consistently written books and papers of outstanding interest on the holy city of Banaras. These works confirm his outstanding reputation as an urban historian.""
― Sir Christopher A. Bayly, University of Cambridge, UK




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-10-01,Finn-Einar Eliassen and Katalin Szende,Generations in Towns: Succession and Success in Pre-Industrial Urban Societies,Hardback,978-1-4438-1301-3,39.99,"The existence and changing of generations in family life, business and politics was a central feature of towns as well as rural societies in earlier times. Even so, it remains understudied by urban historians of the pre-modern period. This book aims to fill some of this gap, containing twelve studies of generations in late medieval and early modern European towns, ranging from the Mediterranean to the Nordic countries, with a time-span from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth century. Dealing with topics like succession and inheritance, family consciousness, as well as relations and conflicts within and between generations, the articles demonstrate the importance and potential of generational studies on pre-modern towns. The book will appeal to anyone who takes an interest in urban social and cultural history, legal and family history in medieval and early modern times.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Chengetai J. M. Zvobgo,"A History of Zimbabwe, 1890-2000 and Postscript, Zimbabwe, 2001-2008",Hardback,978-1-4438-1360-0,49.99,"This study combines in one volume the history of Zimbabwe from the advent of British settlers in 1890 to 2000, including women’s rights and human rights in Zimbabwe. It is a political, social and economic history. The Postscript examines the major developments in Zimbabwe from 2001 to 2008.

The two previous major studies on the history of Zimbabwe, The Past Is Another Country by Martin Meredith (London, Andre Deutsch, 1979) and The Road to Zimbabwe, 1890–1980 by Anthony Verrier (London, Jonathan Cape, 1986) are now out of date. This volume brings the historical study of Zimbabwe almost up to the present day.







","‘….the book contains an extensive bibliography, which reveals the use he has made particularly of Government documents and the publications of non-governmental organisations and international organisations such as the UN’...this book can be confidently recommended as a basic introductory text to students of Zimbabwe’s History .If you want to know what happened and when, then this book will be invauable’

John Pinfold, The Round Table Vol.99, No. 408 June 2010

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Eswarappa Kasi,Anthropology and Development in a Globalized India: An Ethnography of Sericulture from the South,Hardback,978-1-4438-1345-7,34.99,"The book tries to portray sericulture, as a crop enterprise, and which is emerged as one of the foremost view in the theoretical and methodological understanding in the disciplines of Sociology and Social Anthropology in India. Thus, anthropological analysis of sericulture and its emergence in the development literature gives us an idea of the activity leads to further theoretical and critical studies. Anthropological understanding of the sericulture and its development, thus, is explained thoroughly as studied by the scholars of the different disciplines in across the states of India. Sericulture is best suited to a country like India where manpower and land resources are in surplus.  It generates direct and indirect employment in various ways.  More and more farmers in India have taken up sericulture activity and which was once confined to only five States, has spread to almost all the States of India. Sericulture also creates gainful employment to women and aged people at homes with minimum risk.  Thus, the analysis clearly establishes the importance of sericulture over other crops in the generation of fresh employment opportunities in rural areas. Further, as a predominant sector of rural development, stability is the vital need of sericulture enterprise.

In the book, an attempt is made to understand the anthropological/sociological view of development. The book is interdisciplinary in nature and will be useful to scholars and students of Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, Social Work, Rural Development, Gender Studies and Development Studies. 


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Jas Laile Suzana Jaafar and Sherri McCarthy,"Building Asian Families and Communities in the 21st Century: Selected Proceeds of the 2nd Asian Psychological Association Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June, 2008",Hardback,978-1-4438-1358-7,74.99,"This book provides an overview of current research in psychology throughout Asia, including papers that demonstrate the adaptation of the discipline to issues specific to families and communities within that region of the world. The papers which appear here were presented at the 2nd Convention of the Asian Psychological Association, hosted by the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during June 2008. The Asian Psychological Association (APsyA) was founded in Bali, Indonesia in August 2006 to give a voice to academic psychologists from all countries teaching throughout Asia and to psychologists practicing in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Philippines and other countries on the Asian continent. Until its recent establishment, no large professional organization existed for Asian psychologists. Psychology is growing more rapidly as a discipline within Asia than in any other part of the world. It is adapting to the philosophies, history and religions within Asia as it blends Western science with Eastern practices. The information presented here is a valuable window into how the discipline is developing in Asia and a must-read for psychologists, counsellors, academics and others with an interest in psychology throughout the world.

","The phenomenal growth of psychology that North America experienced in the years following World War II was repeated in Europe in the past 20 years and is now emerging in Asia.  Economists have long referred to the Asian countries as sleeping giants, and that characterization has generally applied, with a few exceptions, to psychology as well.  But the giants are now awakening and this book is clear evidence of that.  
 
Most efforts over the years to organize psychologists across national lines have not been successful, which is not surprising considering the vast territory and population represented.  The Asian Psychological Association, only 3 years old, has prospered because of its recognition  that Asian psychologists are happy to meet together around conferences that bring together cutting edge thinkers and a sensitivity to Asian cultures.  This book give a generous sampling of the diversity of current Asian research.  Readers not familiar with the unique perspective represented here will find it a rewarding feast.   
 
- Raymond Fowler, Ph.D, Former Preseident and CEO of the American Psychological Association, President-elect of the International Association of Applied Psychology

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Rana P. B. Singh with a Foreword by John McKim Malville,Cosmic Order and Cultural Astronomy: Sacred Cities of India,Hardback,978-1-4438-1417-1,39.99,"Throughout the Indian subcontinent there are territories and areas wherein culture, geography, and the archetypal cosmos interact with each other to create a sacredscape that is infused with meaning, cultural performances and transcendent power. These sacred sites possess extensive mythological associations where believed that spirit can cross between different realms. In a broad perspective such studies falls within the realm of cultural astronomy, which has two broad areas, viz. archaeoastronomy, concerned with the study of the use of astronomy and its role in ancient cultures and civilizations; and ethnoastronomy that studies the use of astronomy and its role in contemporary cultures. The seven essays in this volume deals with the critical appraisal of studying cultural astronomy and cosmic order and its implications in India, illustrated with case studies like heritagescape of Khajuraho, where stone speaks; manescape of Gaya, where manes come and bless the devotees; Deviscape of Vindhyachal, where goddess resorts; Shivascape of Kashi, where Shiva dances in making order; Shaktiscape of Kashi, that possesses the spatial ordering of goddesses; and Naturscape of Chitrakut, where mother earth blesses. 


","“Working together with the author over the last fifteen years, I realised the comprehensiveness and interrelatedness of geography in shaping and creating the sacredscapes and ritualscapes that have now considered as a way for ‘new vision’ in the era of New Age. The results presented here are based on co-sharing and deeper interaction that were presented in several papers during last two decades, however the essays are updated, revised and expanded with a fresh writ of integrity, harmony, cultural astronomical reflections, and profusely illustrated design and figures to which Rana Singh is a master craftsman. In the UN International Year of Astronomy (2009) this book will serve as sparking star for new thoughts from India”.  

― Prof. John McKim Malville,  Emeritus Professor, Astrophysics & Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, U.S.A



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,"Elya Tzaneva, with Fang Sumei and Liu Mingxin","Disasters, Culture, Politics: Chinese-Bulgarian Anthropological Contribution to the Study of Critical Situations",Hardback,978-1-4438-1348-8,39.99,"The articles in the volume contribute to a relatively new domain of scholarly  research – the ecological anthropology, focusing especially on contemporary crises and disasters from different background: natural, social, technological, etc.

Based upon expanded field work, in some cases – from a terrain difficult to access, the authors investigate a variety of disasters’ situations in two contemporary societies of the developing world – China in Southeast Asia, and Bulgaria in the Southeast European Balkans. The forms of disasters researched, include: epidemics and health-threads (SARS, AIDS, Bird Flu, rat disease, small pox, typhoid fever, etc.); ecologically related disasters (bio-disasters), social catastrophic events (transition in political regime, and towards reforming and opening, also towards a market economy), natural crises (arid areas, snow-falls, rain-falls, draughts). Attention is paid to a full scale disasters’ life-cycle from the creation and evaluation of a risk-vulnerability, individual and social reaction and coping strategies, up to the relief management. The articles investigate the interrelationships between cultural, demographic, political, economic, and environmental domains related to the disasters – e.g., the social context of the crisis. It is the authors’ understanding that this context defines the preparedness, mobilization, and prevention of disasters for each discrete group of people or society. The volume applies a broad ethnological approach to the field of disasters’ study, which interprets them comparatively, contextualy, and in cross-cultural perspective. It is conceived as a first volume of a series investigation papers of a joint research team on this topic. 



","“…it is unusual to have such a joint effort to approach a single topic as manifested in such differing regions. I am struck by a volume that is certainly more than the sum of its parts. It is especially important to note the differing cultural responses to such threats. The volume is timely…”

- Robert M. Hayden, Professor of Anthropology, Law and Public & International Affairs, University Center for International Studies Research Professor Director, Center for Russian & East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Ibrahim Olatunde Uthman,Feminist Insiders-Outsiders: Muslim Women in Nigeria and the Contemporary Feminist Movement,Hardback,978-1-4438-1350-1,39.99,"This book examines different brand of women’s feminist struggles and focuses on the struggles of Muslim women who are insiders in the Islamic Movement, as represented in Nigerian Muslim women’s Islamic activism. Drawing on different secular-Islamic Gender feminist theoretical frameworks, the book closely analyses Islamic texts and these Muslim women brand of feminism, which reflect the effects of their strong Islamic commitment culture on their gender relations, postulations and feminist struggles in general. It argues that the Islamic texts portray the pre-modern basis of these Muslim women Islamic feminism—born in the Prophetic era before the secular feminist movement, contrary to the common notion of the Islamic endorsement of Muslim women stereotypical backwardness, domestication and patriarchal domination. This book demonstrates how Muslim women writers have used Islamic organizations to work for, and contribute to, feminist changes. 

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Ravi S. Singh,Indian Geography in the 21st Century: The Young Geographers Agenda,Hardback,978-1-4438-1365-5,49.99,"This book, primarily a collection of statements on action agenda to be pursued in geography in India, consists of nineteen chapters exclusively authored by the young geographers. It is organised into five parts: Part I provides “The Contextual Orientation”, Part II contemplates on “Reshaping Geography Education”, Part III explores “Resurrecting Physical Geography”, Part IV looks at “Retrieving Human Geography”, and Part V: “The Summum Bonum” attempts to garland the emerging thoughts. The book seeks to provide a peep into the future Indian Geography and serve professional geographers, researchers, teachers and students alike.


","“The present book is an important contribution towards … critical questioning ….of the established concepts and practices in terms of theory and methods… the highlight of the book…, is a refreshing break from some of the past writings in the discipline”.
 —Prof. Saraswati Raju, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

 “…. This book presents a radiant path for realisation and action, illustrated with various ways and forms of current practices in contemporary geography”.
—Prof. Rana P.B. Singh, Banaras Hindu University, India

“…. I hope that this book will begin a reflexive engagement with geography, without which we cannot set the agenda for the future of the discipline”. 
—Dr. Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, The Australian National University, Canberra

“…a timely resource on present geographical practices and potential… essential reading for both students and teachers of geography in India”. 
—Dr. R.B. Singh, Vice-Chair: IGU Commission on Biogeography & Biodiversity, Secretary General: NAGI, and Member: IUGG-IGU National Committee, INSA 

“The volume….provides ample scope for a balanced approach towards issues that plague the future existence of geography in India….attempting a critical assessment of the state of Indian geography”.
—Dr. M. Satish Kumar, Queen's University, Belfast



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-12-01,Katherine Dillion,Friends Watching Friends: American Television in Egypt,Hardback,978-1-4438-1426-3,39.99,"Friends Watching Friends: American Television in Egypt is a media study on the impact and influence of American television in Egypt. Based on personal and small group interviews and research from 2004–2006, the work includes ways that Egyptian women view the influence of American television in their daily lives as well as showing ways that Egyptians use the media to develop their ideas about Americans. Using the sitcom Friends as a focal point, the study probes commonalities about humor between Egyptian and American women that make Friends particularly appealing as an international text. Additionally, using an ethnographic approach, the research examines relevant social trends in employment, relationships, and the economy. It celebrates a diversity of opinions among Egyptian women and gives voice to those who want to share their views with others internationally and who have a strong tie to their own culture and heritage.
","“Kathy Dillion's important book could not be more timely, thoughtfully researched, or tenderly composed. Her examinations of Egyptian response to American pop culture and media examine so many of the ‘differences’ and conflicts dominating the world conversation in the 21st century, while exploring deeper realities of tradition, variation and the confusions of change. Always, always, she writes with respect, personal interest and care.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab American poet and writer

“Dillion's must-read book brilliantly illustrates how cultural dialogue shatters myths, strengthens relationships.”
—Dr. Jack Shaheen, writer and professor, author of Reel Bad Arabs
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-12-01,Margaret Keane and Maria Villanueva,"Thinking European(s): New Geographies of Place, Cultures and Identities",Hardback,978-1-4438-1435-5,39.99,"Unthinking prejudice is a major challenge in an ever-changing, pluralist Europe where local and global identities intermingle and contested pasts clash. The new geographies constructed in response to this are at the core of Thinking European(s). It has been written to bring these geographies alive and to foster active and reflective citizens who are able to work productively within Europe’s changing cultural environment. This integrated work provides a framework to stimulate students’ critical thinking and to prompt reflection. It seeks to stir geographical imaginations through case studies carried out in Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The authors of Thinking European(s) cross cultures, religions, languages, genders, ideologies and political boundaries; they stress dialogue, negotiation and value multiple geographical knowledges. University teachers and undergraduates will find Thinking European(s) a valuable resource for courses on Europe, Regional Geography, European Integration, European Studies, Cultural Studies, Social Studies or Area Studies.
","“This collaborative, pioneering work offers insights into students' world views and points to ways of widening their vision.”
—Professor Janice Monk, University of Arizona

“Thought-provoking and a handy illustration of the constructive use of geographical teaching and learning at the European scale.”
—Professor Martin Haigh, Oxford Brookes University

“A highly impressive collection showcasing a broad diversity of perspectives on European identity, culture and politics.”
—Dr Michael Solem, Educational Affairs Director, 
Association of American Geographer
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-01,Božidar Jezernik,Imagining ‘the Turk’,Hardback,978-1-4438-1663-2,39.99,"A human being is a symbolic creature and, to the same extent, an active inventor of otherness. Europe and Turkey, The West and the Balkans, are infinitely exploitable symbols. Any symbol, inherently polysemic and socially construed, is continuously contested and negotiated. 

The image of ‘the Turk’ as a ruthless plunderer is still vivid in European collective memory. Although it occasionally still verges on ethnic mythology, it clearly belongs to a past where, along with the plague and famine, this name used to be mentioned in prayers more frequently than that of God itself. 

In the past, the name ‘Turk’ implied the negative of the European self-image. ‘The Turk,’ assuming the role of the ‘defining other,’ was considered as everything a European was not (primitive, barbarian, savage vs. civilised). As such, this concept was one of the constitutive elements of European (Western) cultural identity. 

The aim of this book is nothing less than a better understanding of the European past related to the Ottomans. An intellectual traveller who takes his Orient Express at Victoria, however, will have to get off somewhere half-way and spend some time in the part of Europe set between the Alps and the Adriatic before ending his journey in Istanbul.




","''Prof Bozidar Jerenik is a prominent Slovenian scholar and, above all, an expert on south-east European ethnology. This volume brings forward an interesting array of contributions spanning from the classical European images and perceptions of Turks all the way to the musicological perspective of the Balkans. It also provides us with an inverse angle of seeing the Turk or the European through the Turks themselves''.

''Rich in citations, cited references and sources, comprehensive in discussions, and clear in conclusions, this well equipped and diverse volume is a valuable companion to both researchers and laymen who would like to get more acquainted with the 'Turkish matter''.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Damir Josipovic
                                                                                                                                                                                     Institute for Ehnic Studies (Slovenia)    
                                                                                                                                                                         Anthropological Notebooks, Year XVII,NO.2                                                             


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-01,"Neil Davidson, Patricia McCafferty and David Miller",NeoLiberal Scotland: Class and Society in a Stateless Nation,Paperback,978-1-4438-1675-5,24.99,"Neoliberal Scotland argues that far from passing Scotland by, as is so often claimed, neoliberalism has in fact become institutionalised there. As the mainstream political parties converge on market-friendly policies and business interests are equated with the public good, the Scottish population has become more and more distanced from the democratic process, to the extent that an increasing number now fail to vote in elections. This book details for the first time these negative effects of neoliberal policies on Scottish society and takes to task those academics and others who either defend the neoliberal order or refuse to recognise that it exists. Neoliberal Scotland represents both an intervention in contemporary debates about the condition of Scotland and a case study, of more general interest, of how neoliberalism has affected one of the “stateless nations” of the advanced West.

Chapter One takes an overview of the origin and rise of neoliberalism in the developed world, arguing that it repudiates rather than continues the thought of Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment. Part One addresses the fundamental issue of social class in Scotland over three chapters. Chapter Two attempts to locate the ruling class both internally and externally. Chapter Three explores the changing nature of working class membership and its collective experience. Chapter Four follows the working class into the workplace where heightened tensions in the state sector have provoked an increasingly militant response from trade unionists. Part Two engages with the broader impact of neoliberalism on Scottish society through a diverse series of studies. Chapter Five assesses claims by successive Scottish governments that they have been pursuing environmental justice. Chapter Six examines how Glasgow has been reconfigured as a classic example of the “neoliberal city”. Chapter Seven looks at another aspect of Glasgow, in this case as the main destination of Eastern European migrants who have arrived in Scotland through the international impact of neoliberal globalisation. Chapter Eight investigates the economic intrusion of private capital into the custodial network and the ideological emphasis on punishment as the main objective in sentencing. Chapter Nine is concerned with the Scottish manifestations of “the happiness industry”, showing how market-fundamentalist notions of individual responsibility now structure even the most seemingly innocuous attempts to resolve supposed attitudinal problems. Finally, Chapter Ten demonstrates that the limited extent to which devolved Scottish governments, particularly the present SNP administration, have been able to go beyond the boundaries of neoliberal orthodoxy has been a function of the peculiarities of party competition in Holyrood, rather than representing a fundamental disavowal of the existing order.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-01,Jerome Teelucksingh,The Lost Gospel: Christianity and Blacks in North America,Hardback,978-1-4438-1635-9,34.99,"Religion was a key factor facilitating integration, assimilation, adaptation and acculturation among the United States Blacks in Canada during the 19th century. The Wesleyans, Methodists, British Methodists Episcopalians, Baptists and Presbyterians were some of the Protestant denominations instrumental in forging a foundation for the transition to freedom. Protestant churches played a crucial role as Blacks struggled to adapt to their new host society.

An interesting phenomenon that emerged in this research is the similarities and links with Black churches in the United States. There was considerable communication between Blacks and Whites which overshadowed the racial problems in society.

The main areas of this study dwell on the church’s role in education, development of Black leadership, assimilation and independence of Black churches. These themes are used in reconstructing and investigating the socio-religious encounter between Blacks, from the United States and Protestants who belonged mainly to the White churches in Upper Canada. There is also a focus on the educational nature and extent of the relationship of the Protestant church and Blacks. The relationship between Blacks and churches revealed the pre-occupation with education which became the guiding concept in the lives of Blacks.

","“Jerome Teelucksingh has written a well-argued and well-researched analysis of the evolution of church leadership among the Upper Canadian Black community. He does a particularly good job in delineating the tensions and dynamics within white churches that simultaneously supported and advanced black education but also restricted and separated black church members through segregated pews and burial plots. Historians working in early Canadian history or Black Studies will find this an important book.”
—Professor Richard M. Reid, Department of History, University of Guelph, Canada
Author of Freedom for Themselves: North Carolina’s Black Soldiers in the Civil War Era 

“Jerome Teelucksingh’s The Lost Gospel: Christianity and Blacks in North America, seeks to enlighten readers as to the development of the Black Church in Canada. By exploring black and white participation, cooperation, and leadership roles in the Black Church, Teelucksingh informs readers of the continual education, assimilation, and independence process of blacks in Canada, as well as the emotional, racial, and religious obstacles they encountered and surmounted as they endeavored to reinvigorate their spirituality in light of physical freedom from slavery. While detailing the cooperation and assistance of the white Protestant churches, Teelucksingh concentrates on the leadership of blacks themselves, showing the striving of the black community to grow independently of white control. The Lost Gospel thus illustrates the entwining of white and black in both spiritual and material matters.”
—Professor Sharon Roger Hepburn, Department of History, Radford University, Virginia, United States.

""I have enjoyed perusing the pages of this book. 

I have come accross several books that document the historical development of Black Christianity in the United States, but not any that documents Black Church history in Canada. It is therefore safe to say that this is a pioneering contribution on the subject of Black Protestant Churches in Canada.

..I therefore commend this book to anyone interested in Diaspora or immigration studies. It is also commendable to anyone interested in Black history in another place than Africa, Caribean r United States.""

Rev Israel Olofinjana, Crofton Park Baptist Church, London 





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-01,Chandrani Chatterjee,"Translation Reconsidered: Culture, Genre and the “Colonial Encounter” in Nineteenth Century Bengal",Hardback,978-1-4438-1712-7,39.99,"The present work is an interdisciplinary study cutting across the disciplines of translation studies, genre studies, literary history and cultural history. It primarily deals with a phase of transition in the socio-cultural history of Bengal but has implications for the study of Indian literature as a whole. It takes the view that “translation” does not merely relocate the text in the target language, but negotiates several sets of relationships between the two cultures involved, altering the nature of relations between them. The study considers the mediating and shaping agency of “genre” in this context. Not only are works translated but genres are translated too, and assume striking and unprecedented shapes in the linguistic culture of the target audience.
","“The work draws upon long and arduous archival study and deserves in my opinion to be widely read. ... It contains important new material and that it opens up lines for future study. I have no doubt that many new researchers in the field will profit from a book such as this: it will also raise new scholarly questions and debates.”
—Amlan Das Gupta, Professor and Head, Department of English, Jadavpur University

“The present book is an insightful treatise on cultural translation at a crucial moment in the evolution of modern India, when Indian modernity was being conceptualized, defined and articulated in literary texts as well as political processes. Through close and nuanced readings of seminal texts from one of the dominant literary traditions of India, [Dr. Chatterjee] maps a territory that is a locus of several narratives such as tradition, region, class, caste, nation, genre, culture, translation, print and history.”
—E. V. Ramakrishnan, Professor and Head, Department of English, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-04,Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields,So What?  Now What?  The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World in Crisis,Paperback,978-1-4438-1939-8,29.99,"“The greatest crisis of our times in a failure of the human imagination.”  -Editors

	The world is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented crises on virtually every front: economic, ecological, and humanitarian.  It is starkly apparent that a shift is needed in our dominant structural systems – and that by addressing the collective thinking that has created and maintained these systems, scholars can do their part to catalyze such a shift. The interdisciplinary field known as the Anthropology of Consciousness offers important insights for enacting this necessary shift.  

	This book draws on the work of a group of diverse scholars to explore what the intersection of anthropology and consciousness studies can contribute to the “public turn” within anthropology and the academy in general. Its twelve chapters span disparate geographies and disciplinary frameworks, yet cohere in their focus on common themes such as imagination, empathy, agency, dialogue, and ethics. The answers to the question “So What? Now What?” differ for a linguistic anthropologist in the South Pacific, an environmental educator in Hawai‘i, a grant-writing anthropologist serving a refugee agency in Portland, Oregon and the founder of a girls’ school in Brazil. Nevertheless, they are united in the desire to reframe the anthropology of consciousness as an “anthropology of conscience,” and this pioneering volume is the result.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-02-01,Dimitrina Spencer and James Davies,Anthropological Fieldwork: A Relational Process,Hardback,978-1-4438-1754-7,39.99,"Anthropologists are affected by and affect others through emotional engagement; they “manage” emotions or allow them to unfold as vehicles of understanding. The contributors to this volume argue that participant observation is an embodied relational process mediated by emotions. If fieldwork is to attain its fullest potential, emotional reflexivity must complement the wider reflexive task of anthropologists. This makes particular demands on the training of anthropologists, and the contributors to this volume propose new ways of practising emotional reflexivity (such as radical empiricism) that enhance anthropological knowledge. Emotions in anthropology are explored from a variety of methodological and theoretical standpoints, drawing on fieldwork in Nepal, the UK, Taiwan, Russia, India and the Philippines.




","“This fine volume succeeds in being both deeply engaging and theoretically sophisticated. It provides insights into the emotional investments that go into all stages of producing ethnography—writing as well as fieldwork. Individual case-studies are framed by appreciation of anthropology's past as well as suggestions as to where the discipline might go in the future. The book is a vital addition to the literature on how anthropologists construct—and are constructed by—their fields.”
—Professor Simon Coleman, University of Sussex; Editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“It is still far from clear how fieldwork experience makes knowledge ... The proposition of this important new volume is that serious attention must be paid to the way in which ethnographic facts travel from field to page via an internal terrain: the complex fabric of individual subjectivity, and the imagination of social relations. Fieldwork, more than a participant observation, is a relational reflection. It is an emotional labour, dealing in the dynamics of internalised past and present relations. Thanks to the contributors to this volume, a real openness is visited upon the anthropological endeavour: ‘the field’ and ‘knowledge’ become perceptual, cognitive and emotional trajectories.”
—Professor Nigel Rapport, University of St. Andrews; Author of The Prose and the Passion: Anthropology, Literature and the Writing of E. M. Forster




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-03-01,"Dorsía Smith, Tatiana Tagirova, and Suzanna Engman",Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Culture,Hardback,978-1-4438-2697-6,39.99,"Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Culture is a collection of a dozen essays by Caribbean scholars living in the Caribbean and around the world. Each of the three sections of the book explores the Caribbean as a diasporic space through the lenses of literary and cultural systems. “Negotiating Borders: Women, Sexuality, and Identity” examines the creolized identities of Caribbean societies, gender roles of women, impact of sexual tourism, and censorship of Latino gays and lesbians. The essayists in this section note that much work still needs to be done in academia to give voice to repressed Caribbean populations. “Creating Spaces of Caribbean Artistic Expression: Multiple Representations” focuses on how music, identity, art, and language depict the diversity of the Caribbean experience. In this section, the essayists examine how the process of creation extends to new cultural expressions. “Deconstructing the Diaspora: Caribbean Writers as Political Activists” takes into account the tension between oppressor and oppressed, a pressing issue for many Caribbean authors, and focuses on the role of writers in reconstructing Caribbean culture, politics, and history.

In pursuit of a more comprehensive West Indian view, this publication provides a novel perspective on Caribbean literary, cultural, and historical experience. The essays featured complement each other in their representation of the multiplicitous Caribbean region with all its claims and anxieties. They cover a wide range of writers and diverse cross-cultural encounters within the Caribbean region and reflect on issues such as Caribbean identity, migration, and artistic form of expression. This publication cuts across geographies, cultures, and disciplines, enriching Caribbean scholarship by recognizing the Caribbean’s tradition of resistance and courage.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-03-01,Julie Cairnie,“Imperialists in Broken Boots”: Poor Whites and Philanthropy in Southern African Writing,Hardback,978-1-4438-1852-0,34.99,"This book examines writing which is concerned with the period of the ‘poor white problem’ and the ‘poor white solution’ (1870s–1940s) in Southern Africa. It argues that ‘poor white’ is not a narrow economic category, but describes those who threaten to collapse boundaries—racial, sexual, and class boundaries. It studies four writers who migrate between Britain and Southern Africa, who engage with the ‘problem’ and the ‘solution,’ and who foreground ambiguity in their ambiguously genred texts. Olive Schreiner and Doris Leasing highlight the ‘problem’ as they embrace the threat posed by poor whites, while Robert Tressell and Daphne Anderson foreground the ‘solution’ as they argue for the incorporation of the poor into imperial myths about white homogeneity and upward mobility. Based on an historical approach, this book explores three premises. The first premise is that poor white is a liminal category, that it encompasses economic failures and social transgressors. The second premise is that Southern African life writing engages with its historical and political moment. The third premise is that philanthropy is central to the articulation of the ‘problem’ and the ‘solution.’ The final concluding chapter reflects upon the re-emergence of poor whiteism since the end of Apartheid and the collapse of Zimbabwe, and reflects upon the problem of black poverty.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-03-01,Tilo Grätz,"Mobility, Transnationalism and Contemporary African Societies",Hardback,978-1-4438-1853-7,34.99,"The book is meant to shed new light on migratory processes pertinent to Sub-Saharan Africa. It starts out from the position that contemporary migratory movements can only be assessed by employing an appropriate theoretical framework which helps with conceptualising both localised strategies of migrants, i.e. their modes of adaptation, economic and social integration into host societies and the way they maintain relationships back home, across places and nations, i.e. translocal aspects of their mobility in terms of networking, communication or economic as well as cultural transfers. It this respect, the book contributes to the current debate on processes and effects of worldwide mobility, addressing causes and effects and the various aspects of a “culture of migration” relevant for the African continent. Additionally, the book tries to go beyond the usual structural discussions and reflections on mobility and migration by looking at actual migrant practices, their social creativity, the employment of flexible responses to often restrictive governmental policies. Finally, the volume also discusses the often neglected issue of (involuntary) immobility, as well as the significance of borders, in both limiting mobility and in creating new “borderline” strategies, to employ a notion by Ines Kohl with regard to migrants’ transnational strategies. The book addresses a wide readership in Human Sciences; especially from African Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, and Political Sciences.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-03-01,Rana P. B. Singh ,Sacred Geography of Goddesses in South Asia: Essays in Memory of David Kinsley,Hardback,978-1-4438-1865-0,49.99,"This book consists of thirteen essays that deal with links between ecology and shamanism, landscape and nature spirit, emphasising web of meanings imbued in the cultural tradition of portraying landscape as temple and territory as archetypal representation of the cosmos. In view of appreciating the path in this direction paved by David Kinsley, this anthology is a memorial tribute to him by his students, friends, associates and admirers, including an essay that critically and rationally examined his contributions and their relevance today. Of course, there are books on the thematic or disciplinary-packed orientation, however rarely any interdisciplinary book that narrates many perspectives and facets around sacred geography of goddesses is published. This anthology fulfils that gap substantially, through the essays by scholars from religious studies, geography, anthropology and cultural studies. The themes covered include: sacred places, spatiality and symbolism; mental journeys and cosmic topography, illustrated with Sricakra and Sricakrapuja;  pilgrimage sites in the Siwalik Region where landscape has played special role to awaken human mind; Pavagadh, where landscape helps to make the power of the Mother Goddess; spatial circulation in ritualscape of the matrikas in Kathmandu Valley; scenario at the Kamakhya Pitha; sacredscape and spatial structure of be-headed goddess at Rajarappa; sacred geography and formation of Vindhyachal goddess territory; Hindu Goddesses in Kashi: Spatial Patterns and Symbolic Orders; the ten Mahavidyas’ Yatra in making the goddess spirit invoked; role of Durga in the present sacredscape of Varanasi; issue of images and performances related to the river goddess Ganga; and Green Tara in the wall paintings of Alchi. 



","“In the 1990s, David Kinsley was a gracious, quiet, behind-the-scenes mentor to a number of young Ph.D.s in Indology and the comparative study of religion, including myself, who aspired to write like him, to think comparatively like him, above all, to put things together in ways that no one had thought of putting together.  Kali and Krishna, Tantric goddesses and ecology, shamanism and pilgrimage — they all seemed to come together in his prose in beautiful and always provocative ways.  In short, he taught us.  What a pleasure it is to see a volume coming together, ten years after his passing, that focuses on these same themes with a renewed vigour and a renewed concern”.  
―Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, Rice University, Houston, TA, U.S.A. 
 
“In the frame of ‘sacred geography’ this anthology presents the multidisciplinary studies of goddesses that deal with links between ecology and shamanism, landscape and nature spirit, emphasising web of meanings imbued in the cultural tradition of ritualscapes, sacred time and territory as archetypal representation of the cosmos. The contents illustrated with 33 tables and 69 figures present a wide variety of topics related to sacred geography of goddesses, and I’m sure it will be a very valid and useful contribution to the field”.
―Prof. Alex Passi, Linguistics and Oriental Studies, Bologna University, Italy.

“David Kinsley’s impact on his students at McMaster University in Canada was extraordinary and his contribution worldwide to scholarly knowledge about and genuine interest in Hindu ways of religious life was impressive indeed. His premature departure from us was a palpable loss that we still feel a decade later. It is heartening none the less to realize that his impact carries on and is by no means confined to his home university and adopted country. The present volume, Sacred Geography of Goddesses: Essays in Memory of David Kinsley, edited by Rana P.B. Singh of Banaras Hindu University in Kashi, the city of light that David Kinsley knew so well, is fitting testimony to not only the respect in which he is held by scholars around the globe, but to the ongoing scholarship in fields where he himself began to sow”.
― Emeritus Prof. Joseph T. O’Connell, Study of Religion, University of Toronto, Canada.

“The book has rightly selected the theme of Sacred Geography of Goddesses in South Asia, the basic outline of which was paved by David Kinsley. Covering themes like sacred places, mental journey, cultural landscape, mandalic frame, locality to universality, symbolic ordering, pilgrimage and sacred sites, this anthology opens a new vision of understanding the impinging spirit of feminine divine in South Asia. I’m sure this will further inspire scholars from diverse fields to come closely in sharing thoughts for better service to the Mother Nature”.  
― Prof. Yuko Yokochi, 
Dept. of Sanskrit Language and Literature, Kyoto University, Japan

“This collection of essays is unusually giving insights to understand the inherent messages of feminine divine that should be portrayed metaphorically, metaphysically and mystically taking purviews of images, perception, pilgrimages and ritualscapes. Following the path shown by David Kinsley the essays have their own writ, integrity and vision.  For any one interested to know integration between inside realities and outside reflections related to sacred geography of goddesses, this book a ground-breaking path and the way to move upon”.  
― Prof. Erik R. Sand, Religious Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark

“Dr. David Kinsley has left a legacy of research that will lead scholars and students into the next millennium. His love of India is reflected in his many works, not the least of which deal with Indian goddess figures and sacred geography. His work has enabled not only Indologists but academics dealing with Women and Religion to build new theory and rhetoric. It is fitting that a Festschrift on just those topics is composed in his honour, focusing sacred geography of goddesses. These essays will lead us moving in wider horizon of feminine divine and her universal importance.”
― Prof. Phyllis K. Herman, Religious Studies, California State University, Northridge, USA

“I suspect that David Kinsley would be “intrigued” by the prospect of a volume of essays on the theme of goddesses and sacred geography since the goddesses of Hindu traditions and the impact of religion on the environment were favoured areas for his “musings,” as he would so often say.  On the tenth anniversary of David’s premature departure from us, it is gratifying to see this concrete expression of his enduring legacy as a scholar and a teacher.""
― Prof. Patricia Dold, Religious Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-04-01,Amar Wahab,"Colonial Inventions: Landscape, Power and Representation in Nineteenth-Century Trinidad",Hardback,978-1-4438-1922-0,39.99,"This book situates its contemplation of the nineteenth-century Trinidadian landscape in the context of an emerging sub-field of Caribbean postcolonial studies, by connecting the visual representation and indexing of colonial landscapes and peoples with the making of colonial power. Emphasis is placed on three pivotal image catalogues which span the pre and post emancipation periods and which connect the projects of British slavery and indentureship. The book unearths sketches, paintings, lithographs and engravings and analyzes them as central to the iconic framing and disciplining of colonized subjects, tropical nature and the plantation landscape. Focusing on the image works of British travellers Richard Bridgens and Charles Kingsley and Creole artist, Michel Jean Cazabon, the chapters consider how an aesthetic logic was not only illustrative but constitutive of racialized and gendered scripts of colonial landscapes, nature and identity. While these various strands of aesthetic reasoning reveal a seemingly coherent operation of colonial power, they also register the very ambiguity of these disciplinary projects in moments of uncertainty regarding the amelioration of African slavery, the emancipation of slavery, and the highly contested project of Indian indentureship in the Caribbean. The book reflects the dynamic instability of colonial inventive projects manifest in a period of experimental and troubled British rule that potentially frustrates any attempt to recover the truth of Caribbean colonial reality. 





",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-04-01,"Raúl Acosta, Sadaf Rizvi and Ana Santos",Making Sense of the Global: Anthropological Perspectives on Interconnections and Processes,Hardback,978-1-4438-1921-3,39.99,"Anthropology is more relevant than ever before to making sense of the constant intercultural encounters taking place around the world. Even though the discipline was born out of the need to understand the way humans interact, it had for decades been trapped in a counter-cultural stance that effectively disarmed it of any direct influence on public affairs. Recent global trends, however, have brought this academic discipline to the attention of governments, agencies, and social entrepreneurs, because of its capacity to create bridges of understanding between people of contrasting cultures. This ability is today more necessary than ever before in facing the challenges posed by the shrinking of our world. This volume provides reflections on what anthropological research can offer through its “thick” analyses. We are convinced that ethnographic research can contribute to a better understanding of social phenomena in our global times.


","“It was once thought that the discipline of anthropology would fade away with the ‘end of empire’. But in recent decades the subject has survived, grown, and attracted increasing attention. British anthropologists, for example, first ‘came home’ in some numbers to study villages and towns in England, Scotland, France—to be joined by a new generation of researchers especially from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe whose work again, at first, focused on home areas as such.  But in today’s interconnected world, ‘home’ has changed—whether one comes from Aberystwyth or Azerbaijan, Zurich or Zambia. And anthropologists now find themselves alongside historians, political scientists, economists, investors, NGO managers and activists, investigating the links between such places, their projects, and the lives of their people.

My own reading of these chapters certainly suggests there is perhaps as much disconnection happening as ‘linking up’ in the new hi-tech global system; anthropologists, alert as always to the ambiguity of the games that people play, are well placed to spot what may lie behind the promises of global integration.”
—Wendy James, Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford

“This book brings together established scholars and researchers at the start of their careers in a volume that is argumentative, engaging and innovative from cover to cover and deserves to be widely read inside and outside anthropology ... the way that the young scholars who have edited this book have provoked such insightful and challenging critical debate on the part of all the contributors certainly bodes well for the future.”
—John Gledhill, Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology, The University of Manchester


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,"Niklas Swanström, Sofia Ledberg and Alec Forss",Conflict Prevention and Management in Northeast Asia: The Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait in Comparison,Hardback,978-1-4438-2064-6,39.99,"Two of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints, this edited volume with contributions by leading scholars offers a comprehensive evaluation and comparison of approaches to conflict management and prevention on the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. The consequences of any escalation of these two conflicts and the difficulties in resolving them necessitate a fresh look at designing new strategies to prevent and contain conflict as well as highlighting the limitations of existing measures. Presenting both a theoretical and practical examination of conflict prevention and management, the volume provides a comparative analysis of the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait-identifying lessons that could be transferred between the two cases but also the obstacles to this. The experiences of other regions and the role of third parties are also examined. This is a valuable addition to the literature for students of peace and conflict studies as well as policy-makers with an interest in Northeast Asia.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,E. Ike Udogu,Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century,Hardback,978-1-4438-1978-7,39.99,"Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century frames the discourse around the important issue of African unification, against the backdrop of the region’s political and economic marginalization. Arguably the richest continent in the world, in terms of its abundant untapped natural resources and human capital, it still lags behind the other regions of the world developmentally.

Undeniably, Africa is at the crossroads in this millennium, within the context of the powerful events and effects of the “New Globalization.” One of the central issues that academics and political actors, interested in African development, must tackle immediately is how to make the region politically and economically relevant in global affairs. These objectives could be attained through continental amalgamation.

Accordingly, this book debates and suggests, inter alia, strategies that might advance Africa’s unification effort in order to provide the politico-economic clout needed to spur continental development.  Further, it argues that such a Union of African States is critical for promoting the “good political life” for all Africans.
","“Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century contextualizes the discourse around the urgent call for African unity that engaged the works of great pan-Africanists such as Du Bois, Garvey, Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Nyerere, Cabral, and a host of others in the twentieth century. This quest for African unity achieved its first historic triumph with the formation of the Organization of African Unity following the attainment of political independence by African states in the 1960s. The establishment of the African Union extended this quest for African unity, even as African states confronted the travails of globalization at the turn-of-the twenty first century. If we expect significant improvement in the conditions of Africans, and hope for the growth of Africa’s influence in world affairs, then this timely book contends that progressive African leaders must mobilize their people into action, insisting on a path to Africa’s unification during this century. This laudable objective, the author, E. Ike Udogu, a distinguished pan-Africanist intellectual persuasively contends, requires the deep commitment of progressive African leaders, activists, and intellectuals. This is a provocative, incisive, and bold volume. It ought to be read by African administrators, policy makers, diplomats, and students—as well as intelligent lay people who believe in African unity. The book is lucid and analytical. Keeping faith with a great continent, and in indefatigable style, Udogu once again deploys his excellent scholarship in the service of Africa’s vibrant societies.”
—Olufemi Vaughan, DPhil (Oxford), Geoffrey Canada Professor of Africana Studies & History,
Director, Africana Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,Aruna Kumar Monditoka,"Decentralised Governance in Tribal India: Negotiating Space between the State, Community and Civil Society",Hardback,978-1-4438-2065-3,39.99,"The potential of civil society in interfacing with the government for ensuring good governance has gained currency in academic and policy debates in the recent times. This becomes particularly relevant in an old democracy like India where the State has not been able to meet the need for basic things. However, the State provides space and freedom for people to engage in collective action, to critically evaluate the State’s policies and demand a revision in policy for effective implementation of the laws that are elaborately codified in the Constitution and also to improve the functioning of its institutions.

This book studies the level of participation of tribal communities in the new Panchayat Raj dispensation introduced in Andhra Pradesh since the PESA Act. It specifically analyses how much the community has achieved or benefited after the introduction of Panchayat Raj. The objective is to determine how the power structures of tribal communities have been influenced by the socio-political changes and institutional innovations, like the extension of representative democracy at the grassroots level; what kind of changes have taken place in the study area with the institutionalization of Panchayats; and the politicization of the tribal people by the different parties. This book also throws light on the role of civil society actors in influencing governance positively as well as the limitations that have inhibited the impact of their influence.

The empirical research highlights that the institution of Gram Sabha has been instrumental in bringing transparency and accountability in the working of local bodies. The author has rightly emphasized the need for an attitudinal change both in the political and administrative machinery at State, district and village level. The inter-relationship of the three Ds, i.e. Democracy, Decentralisation and Development, has been brought out beautifully with the support of field study. While the 73rd amendment and PESA Act of the Constitution has mandated the democratization of local self-governments, the process of decentralisation is yet to take concrete shape through real devolution from Lok Sabha to Gram Sabha.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-06-01,Lizzy Attree,Blood on the Page: Interviews with African Authors writing about HIV/AIDS,Hardback,978-1-4438-2077-6,39.99,"The fourteen interviews in this book form an unprecedented wealth of material on authors’ responses to HIV/AIDS in South Africa and Zimbabwe. They comprise a valuable archive which documents and contextualises the variety of views and opinions of different authors on their often ground-breaking choices in writing about HIV/AIDS. Each author ranks among the first to publish fiction on HIV/AIDS in their respective countries. These interviews are of particular merit as these issues have not been discussed at length with any of the authors before. Collectively they offer a unique range of approaches and opinions in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in southern Africa. Their significance lies in their specific literary, as well as their broader social, cultural and political perspectives on a disease which continues to spread despite extensive NGO, medical and government intervention. In both South Africa and Zimbabwe, government responses have failed to address the urgent need for new political and economic solutions to the challenge of HIV infection. Responses among the population have varied from widespread silence, shame and fear to political activism and outspoken critiques of government inaction. Writers give voice to this silence and contextualise the disparate reactions amongst diverse peoples.

Globally, AIDS killed approximately 2 million in 2008. In 1998, AIDS was the largest killer in southern Africa, nearly double the one million deaths from malaria and eight times the 209,000 deaths from tuberculosis. It has long been the case that of those dying globally of AIDS, the majority live in southern Africa. When the associated social and cultural implications of infection with HIV are considered, fictional representations contribute significantly to our understanding of the impact of HIV/AIDS on communities and individuals, and provide a much-needed basis for ‘humanising’ an epidemic which is unimaginable statistically. It has been said that the feelings and reactions that HIV/AIDS inspires are often ‘too unreal for words,’ and it is this very notion, that certain diseases are taboo, unmentionable, and hardly even named as such, that makes verbalisation of this epidemic a modern imperative.



","“Blood on the Page is a striking and important collection of interviews on HIV/AIDS and literature with contemporary South African and Zimbabwean writers reflecting on their own texts and lives in the Mbeki-Mugabe era. Rarely has the brutality and complexity of the question of writing in a post-Apartheid African world haunted by death and illness been confronted with as much directness and honesty. An absolutely must read for any one engaged with South Africa, Zimbabwe, HIV/AIDS and literature, or the difficulty of writing in the world of global health politics.”
—Sander L. Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences; Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-06-01,Sharon C. Sewell,Decolonization and the Other: The Case of the British West Indies,Hardback,978-1-4438-2121-6,39.99,"In 1962 Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became independent countries; Barbados followed in 1966.  In the years leading up to these events, the history of the British West Indies was written largely by the British, the colonial power, who focused on the process of decolonization and the key local players involved. After independence, local scholars also focused on the role of political leaders in the newly independent countries. To date, scholars have paid little attention to the impact of these events on the local populations of these islands.

	Decolonization and the Other:  The Case of the British West Indies explores the local perspectives on, and reactions to, events by using West Indian literature to supplement the historical record.  Beginning in the 1930s when local demands for political participation increased, through the process of decolonization, and into the early years of independence, West Indian writers used their life experiences to document local reaction.  West Indian literature first appeared in 1950, when British publishers became interested in island authors and their novels.  By using the novels to supplement the historical record, we can gain a better understanding of the process of decolonization and the early years of independence in the British West Indies.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-06-01,"Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani, Rie Nakamura and Shamsuddin L. Taya",Dynamic of Ethnic Relations in Southeast Asia,Hardback,978-1-4438-2115-5,39.99,"Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, said in the Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 October 1996: “The threat is from inside ... So we have to be armed, so to speak. Not with guns, but with the necessary laws to make sure the country remains stable.” He implied that ethnic conflict and political instability are inevitable in a multi-ethnic society unless protected by certain laws. Ethnic conflict is like a time bomb. The misuse of human rights for political ends and to exploit ethnic sentiments can spark ethnic conflict.

In theory, the modern nation-state must achieve pluralism in its project of nation building. There are few nations in the world which consist of a single ethnic group. Yet, multi-ethnicity also seems to be a serious challenge to any system of government, especially in Southeast Asia, as it adds possibly deep-running cleavages to societies. Some groups are marginalized in the course of nation-building as a result of the nature of the relationship between nation and state. Arjun Appadurai stated that “the nation and the state have become one another’s project”: groups try to capture states and their power while states try to “monopolize about the nationhood.” There is always tension between the centre and the margin. 

The centre often consists of one ethnic group and marginalised minority groups are denied their right to equality. Sometimes horrible wars with thousands of victims commence as a consequence of such processes of ethnically-framed nation-building. Therefore, a democratic setting should be functionally superior; that is, in a better position to moderate the escalatory tendencies inherent in a multi-ethnic setting, thereby achieving less violence-prone conflict management, and its eventual resolution in Southeast Asia.

This book is intended for anyone interested in the subject of ethnic relations and conflicts, especially politicians, policy makers, civil society activists, academia, and students of ethnic/race studies and Southeast Asian politics.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-06-01,Vartan P. Messier and Nandita Batra,This Watery World: Humans and the Sea,Paperback,978-1-4438-2071-4,24.99,"In this wonderfully wide-ranging volume, Vartan Messier and Nandita Batra have given us a fine collection of maritime riches. From reflections on the ocean as metaphor to shark documentaries and Jaws, from Hemingway’s organic ecology to Melville’s tropic-birds and the establishment of a Puerto Rican maritime preserve, This Watery World reminds us that—onshore and inland—we are all in the grip of our images and interactions with the sea. When I put this book down I was reminded of the Hyderabadi poet Sarojini Naidu: “The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all.”
—Professor Ashton Nichols, editor of Romantic Natural Histories and author of The Poetics of Epiphany and The Revolutionary “I”




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-07-01,"Anne Digby, Waltraud Ernst and Projit B. Mukharji",Crossing Colonial Historiographies: Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspective,Hardback,978-1-4438-2154-4,39.99,"This book offers an innovative engagement with the diverse histories of colonial and indigenous medicines. Engagement with different kinds of colonialism and varied indigenous socio-political cultures has led to a wide range of approaches and increasingly distinct traditions of historical writing about colonial and indigenous modes of healing have emerged in the various regions formerly ruled by different colonial powers. The volume offers a much-needed opportunity to explore new conceptual perspectives and encourages critical reflection on how scholars’ research specialisms have influenced their approaches to the history of medicine and healing. The book includes contributions on different geographical regions in Asia, Africa and the Americas and within the varied contexts of Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch and British colonialisms. It deals with issues such as internal colonialism, the plural history of objects, transregional circulation and entanglement, and the historicisation of medical historiography. The chapters in the volume explore the scope for conceptual interaction between authors from diverse disciplines and different regions, highlighting the synergies and thematic commonalities as well as differences and divergences.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-07-01,Edmund Christopher Matotay,Place and Tourism Promotion: Urban Regeneration?,Hardback,978-1-4438-2153-7,34.99,"Cities around the world adopt place promotion and marketing activities as one of their development strategies. They do this through engaging in selling their images through the use of sceneries like national parks, museums, historic monuments and flag institutions such as hotels and conference facilities. These sceneries and flag institutions act as symbols to profile and market these cities to the world for different socio-economic purposes. The present book exposes some findings derived from two major study objectives done in Tanzania. One of the the objectives was to find out different place promotion strategies in Arusha, and the other was to set out to find the impact of the place promotion strategies on tourism. Reasons for place promotion and the targets of the strategies are also widely covered in the book.

In its specialized chapters, the book reveals that there are three major elements of place promotion in use in the northern Tanzanian tourist city of Arusha. These are national parks and game reserves located in Arusha like Arusha National Park, Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The city of Arusha also uses flag institutions in and around Arusha like The Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC), Arusha Natural Museum, The Arusha Declaration Museum, The Cultural Villages of El-Kiding’a and best Hotels to profile itself to the world. Gratifyingly, the book exposes that the main reasons for these strategies are to boost tourism in the city and that most of the targets of these strategies are international tourists. Through the good use of the strategies, and the city revenues turnover, the region itself has been enormously popular and the number of visits to the attractive sceneries and flag institutions has been growing steadily over the years.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-07-01,Edward S. Mitchell,St. Lucian Kwéyòl on St. Croix: A Study of Language Choice and Attitudes,Hardback,978-1-4438-2147-6,54.99,"This new work brings together both reviews and critiques of current theories of creolization and provides new data from a sociolinguistic case study of speakers of St. Lucian French-lexifier Creole (Kwéyòl) on the island of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.

St. Lucian Kwéyòl has its origins in the 17th century after the French settled there in 1651 from Martinique with their slaves. In the following years, thousands more African slaves were imported. A rugged volcanic island with a roadless interior, St. Lucia provided a haven for runaway slaves (nègres marrons or maroons) from other islands. Buffeted by the forces of globalization and the continued impact of English, Kwéyòl continues to be widely-spoken on St. Lucia today.

The crux of the book is the case study that examines Kwéyòl-speaking St. Lucians as a minority community on St. Croix where Kwéyòl is but one of numerous languages spoken, including Caribbean English, Crucian Creole, several other Caribbean Creole languages, Spanish, and Arabic. The collection of data and analytical attention are centered on questions of language choice, language attitudes, ethnolinguistic identity, and bilingualism.

This book will be welcomed by students and researchers in linguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics and anthropology with a special interest in Creole languages and linguistic minorities in multilingual speech communities.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-07-01,Brenda M. Greene,The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas,Hardback,978-1-4438-2216-9,34.99,"The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas, an interdisciplinary collection of essays by scholars and writers whose disciplines include but are not limited to literature, languages, linguistics, history, sociology and psychology, reflects the complexity and diversity of the historical and cultural legacy of the African diasporic reality and provides a critical perspective for examining the persistence of African cultural traditions in the Americas. These writers and scholars explore the ways in which people connected by moments in history and the common legacies of racism, classism, colonialism and imperialism, have used literature, music, dance, religion and cultural rites and rituals to survive and resist. 
The poetry and prose of Afro-Cuban icon, Nicolás Guillén and Afro-American literary legend, Gwendolyn Brooks provide a context for exploring these themes.  Guillén and Brooks symbolize the triumph of the human spirit and the “Africanisms” present amongst people who share a common legacy originating in Africa. Building on the themes in the work of these poets, the scholars and writers in  The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas examine the nature, persistence and impact of these themes in literature, language, music, dance and religion. The scholarship generated in this collection has implications for the ways in which we read, study and teach cultural studies, literature, history, language, African American Studies, Caribbean Studies and Africana Studies. 





","“This collection, The Impact of Africa on the Culture of the Americas, is a must read for those teaching courses related to the literature and cultures of the African diaspora and for scholars committed to this research.  The writers and scholars in this collection provide a critical lens from which to view the ways in which “Africanisms” present in the poetry, fiction, essays, dance and music in the Americas embody similar themes and patterns. By drawing upon the disciplines of history, sociology, literature, linguistics, music and dance, they offer readers a context for examining the emergence of these shared cultural practices, rituals and traditions of people throughout the African diaspora. 
Prof. Greene has assembled a group of essays that will offer academics a valuable contribution to African diasporic studies.”
—Joyce E. King, Ph.D., Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair for Urban Teaching, Learning & Leadership and Professor of Educational Policy Students, Georgia State University

“The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas will be an important contribution to Africana belles letters because of its interdisciplinarity.  As Dr. Daisy Cocco 
De Fillippis indicates in the foreword, The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas captures the ebullient spirit of scholars from seven institutions engaged in an intercampus discussion on the impact of Africa in the Americas.  Their essays reinforce the linkages wrought by the African presence among the many diverse cultures of the Americas.  While Dr. Brenda Greene in the introduction notes at least seven disciplines represented by the writers, she also emphasizes the common themes that they share. The organization of the book—its fourteen chapters and division into four sections—provides diverse approaches to teaching the text to college students.  
As a Caribbeanist and Professor of English, I welcome this book to further the conversation began in the comparable texts edited and published between 1993 and 2006 by Joseph Harris, Isidore Okpewho & Carole Boyce Davies,  Sheila Walker, Genevieve Fabre & Klaus Benesch, and Michael Gomez.”  
—Dr. Jacqueline Brice-Finch, Acting Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Coppin State University





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-08-01,Lena Larsson Lovén and Agneta Strömberg,Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality,Hardback,978-1-4438-2261-9,39.99,"The papers in this volume were among the contributions presented at an international symposium, Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality, which was held at the Swedish Institute in Rome in October 2006. The symposium was held under the aegis of ARACHNE—the Nordic network for women’s history and gender studies in Antiquity.

The study of ancient marriage has been largely the province of historians working with texts, and the result of this was an emphasis on elite marriages discussed by the male writers of the upper classes and on laws pertaining to marriage. Neither area has been exhausted, as several essays in this new international collection indicate, but the balance among the papers reveals the shift in focus. Along with innovative readings of authors from Livy to Porphyry, we find examinations of demographic and contractual evidence as well as inscriptions and visual imagery. Among the contributors to the volume are: Pauline Schmitt Pantel, Judith Evans Grubbs, Ray Laurence, Marjatta Nielsen and Mary Harlow.

","""This is a clear presentation of new ideas about marriage with a focus on social status as well as gender in the Greek, Etruscan and Roman worlds. The result is a new balance between the elite and the sub-elite, between the ideal and the everyday, and between the generic and the very personal. This collection is an exciting and important addition to the literature on ancient marriage.""

- Natalie Boymel Kampen, Professor emerita, Columbia university, New York

""Marriage is an essential institution to study if one wishes to understand the role of women in ancient society. Case studies enrich the view of marriage in antiquity provided by more general accounts of the subject. Diversity of the evidence and approaches produces a fresh contribution to the gender studies within the classical studies.""

- Dr Marja-Leena Hänninen, Reader in History, University of Helsinki and Tampere





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-08-01,Vikki Jackson,"Gags and Greasepaint: A Tribute to the Irish ""Fit-Ups""",Paperback,978-1-4438-2256-5,14.99,"This volume is a paean to the “Revue”, the “Fit-Up” and the fifty or more travelling roadshows which traversed the roads of Ireland during the heyday of the “fit-ups”, the decades prior to the Second World War. This book is a personal memoir of one of the “goddesses” of Irish repertory theatre―Vic (Victoria Loving)―the woman known as the “Sequin Queen”―as recounted by her granddaughter, one of the last of these travelling artistes. It is a celebration of Ireland’s “curtain up”, and the “five-and-nine”, the fairground barker and the circus tober. It is a hymn to the artist whose home was the road and whose stage-wing voices lie hidden in the boarded-up hall and the abandoned outhouse. Listen up!―for one last garish display of the paint-glow, one final tread of the magic footboard. 

The present volume is a second edition.






",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-09-01,Dawn Hutchinson,"Antiquity and Social Reform: Religious Experience in the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and Nation of Yahweh",Hardback,978-1-4438-2287-9,39.99,"Although religious innovation in America has historically been the norm rather than the exception, mainstream Americans have often viewed new religious movements with suspicion and occasionally with outright alarm. The question motivating many studies of new religious movements has been “why would someone join these religions?” In Antiquity and Social Reform, Dawn Hutchinson offers at least one answer to this often repeated query. She argues that followers of new religious movements in the 1960s–1980s, specifically the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and the Nation of Yahweh, considered these religions to be legitimate because they offered members a personal religious experience, a connection to an ancient tradition, and agency in improving their world. Utilizing an historical approach, Antiquity and Social Reform considers the conversion narratives of adherents and primary literature of the formative years of these movements, which demonstrates that the religious experiences of the adherents, and a resonance with the goals of these religions, propelled members into social action.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-09-01,Iain Walker,"Becoming the Other, Being Oneself: Constructing Identities in a Connected World",Hardback,978-1-4438-2337-1,39.99,"The island of Ngazidja lies at the southern end of the monsoon wind system and its inhabitants, the Wangazidja, have participated in the trading networks of the Indian Ocean for two millennia. The enduring contacts between the Wangazidja and their trading partners have subjected them to a variety of social and cultural influences—from the Swahili coast, from the African hinterland, from the Arabian peninsula, from Indonesia and, more recently, from Europe.

This book looks at the strategies called into play by Wangazidja in negotiating this encounter with the outside world; it discusses how they incorporate this variety of influences into their own social and cultural modes of practice while all the time remaining (in the words of one observer) “authentic.” Drawing on the work of thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, René Girard and Michael Taussig, the author develops the theoretical concept of mimesis in an analysis of these transformations, increasingly relevant in the contemporary context of globalization, showing how firmly anchored social structures are able to incorporate what seem to be practices imitative of the Other.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-09-01,Desmond Hosford and Chong J. Wojtkowski,"French Orientalism: Culture, Politics, and the Imagined Other",Hardback,978-1-4438-2318-0,39.99,"In 1798, Napoléon I launched his Egyptian Campaign and opened what has become recognized as the canonic period of French Orientalism, which extends from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth century. As defined by Edward W. Said (Orientalism, 1978), Orientalism is intrinsically Eurocentric and places the Orient in opposition to the European West as the quintessentially foreign Other. In this sense, the Occident supposedly defines itself by gazing at the East as its inverse image and purportedly asserts a geopolitical dominance materially confirmed through imperialism and colonization. Although Europe may cast the Orient as the archetypal Other, this necessarily entails deep conflict since the Orient is also frequently posited as the source of Western civilization, which prohibits the articulation of a complete separation between Europe and the Orient. Nevertheless, according to French Orientalist discourse, the East had fallen into barbarism, inertia, and languished, awaiting the mission civilisatrice by which France undertook a heroic project of universal enlightenment.

The canonic approach to Orientalism has drawn much criticism, which calls for re-examining the notion of French Orientalism, broadening the scope of enquiry, and exploring the history and ideological strategies behind French formulations of the Orient from the Middle Ages through the twenty-first century. Such an expanded field of investigation reveals that the canonic Orientalist paradigm is not universally applicable, particularly regarding material from before the late eighteenth century. New theoretical, literary, historical, philosophical, and cultural perspectives provide the opportunity to deploy, question, subvert, and resituate canonic Orientalist theories, revealing the continuing evolution and relevance of French Orientalism as a notion with global stakes and material consequences. Because of its broad scope and variety of theoretical approaches, this volume will interest scholars and students from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including literature, gender studies, history, theater, art history, music, cinema, and cultural studies.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-09-01,G. Mitchell Reyes,"Public Memory, Race, and Ethnicity",Hardback,978-1-4438-2277-0,39.99,"Scholars across the humanities and social sciences who study public memory study the ways that groups of people collectively remember the past. One motivation for such study is to understand how collective identities at the local, regional, and national level emerge, and why those collective identities often lead to conflict. Public Memory, Race, and Ethnicity contributes to this rapidly evolving scholarly conversation by taking into consideration the influence of race and ethnicity on our collective practices of remembrance. How do the ways we remember the past influence racial and ethnic identities? How do racial and ethnic identities shape our practices of remembrance? Public Memory, Race, and Ethnicity brings together nine provocative critical investigations that address these questions and others regarding the role of public memory in the formation of racial and ethnic identities in the United States. 

The book is organized chronologically. Part I addresses the politics of public memory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on how immigrants who found themselves in a strange new world used memory to assimilate, on the interplay of ethnicity and patriarchy in early monumental representations of Sacagawea, and on the use of memory and forgetting to negotiate labor and racial tensions in an industrial steel town. Part II attends to the dynamics of memory and forgetting during and after World War II, examining the problems of remembrance as they are related to Japanese internment, the strategies of remembrance surrounding important events of the Civil Rights Movement, and the institutional use of memory and tradition to normalize whiteness and control human behavior. Part III focuses on race and remembrance in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, analyzing Walter Mosley’s use of memory in his literary work to challenge racial norms, President George W. Bush’s strategies of remembrance in his 2006 address to the NAACP, and the problems of memory and racial representation in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster. Taken together, the essays in this volume often speak to each other in remarkable ways, and one can begin to see in their progression the transformation of race relations in America since the nineteenth century.
","“This collection of essays moves rhetorical and cultural studies in new and important directions, situating the study of race and ethnicity within public contexts circumscribed by materiality and historicity. Blending the voices of emerging and established scholars, Public Memory, Race and Ethnicity offers powerful and provocative analyses of the ways in which identity and difference shape, and are shaped by, the visual and verbal dynamics of space and place that define and constrain borders of being, and margins of memory.”
—Mark L. McPhail, University of Wisconsin, USA
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-09-01,"Jay Spaulding, Stephanie Beswick, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and Richard A. Lobban, Jr.",Sudan’s Wars and Peace Agreements,Hardback,978-1-4438-2321-0,39.99,"Originating from the 2008 27th annual conference of the Sudan Studies Association (SSA) of the same title, these essays document and analyze Sudan’s chronic history of conflict since independence in 1956 as well as its own and international efforts to bring an end to these conflicts. As the country moves toward what some see as the inevitable separation of South Sudan in 2011 honoring the principle of self-determination long fought for by southerners, the lessons of six decades of a history of war and peace agreements is both telling and compelling. This analysis is offered by the real experts on Sudan rather than the usual story offered by journalists and pundits.

In addition to an Introduction by the editors, all founders or current or past presidents of the SSA, the essays by Sudanese and non-Sudanese explore the often bitter history of North-South relations and loss of life leading to the consideration of a range of options from a continuation of national unity under revised terms, to federation or redivision, to full separation of the South and the constitution of a new African state. The role of the Khartoum government’s pursuit of policies of Islamization and Islamism for a quarter of a century across multiple regimes is also treated. The central question of constructing a sustainable peace, irrespective of the outcome in 2011, is detailed along with the essential consideration of women and gender perspectives to sustain any peace negotiated.

This book is must reading in advance of, or in response to, the crucial events as they unfold in Sudan in 2011 and beyond.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-10-01,Prue Ahrens and Chris Dixon,Coast to Coast: Case Histories of Modern Pacific Crossings,Hardback,978-1-4438-2395-1,34.99,"From the beginnings of human settlement through to the Cook voyages and beyond, histories of ‘the Pacific’ are stories of contact and connection. This vast region can be charted through histories of encounter between the diverse peoples of the Pacific,the Pacific Rim and the wider world.

Coast to Coast explores the networks of modernity that connected the various peoples of the Pacific,Australia and North America as new means of transportation, distribution and communication developed from the mid-nineteenth century.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-10-01,John Yarwood,"Urban Planning after War, Disaster and Disintegration: Case Studies",Hardback,978-1-4438-2342-5,39.99,"This book concerns the relationship between urban planning (and similar things) on the one hand, and war, natural disaster and societal or political disintegration on the other. The supposition is that one may mitigate the other. The book recounts the author’s professional experience of specific cases of disaster (earthquake and flood) in the Philippines, war in Bosnia, Afghanistan and South Sudan, and disintegration in Albania and Ireland. He identifies the key themes in urban and regional planning which these case studies illustrate.

The themes include (a) the delivery of building land with site preparation, infrastructure and property rights; (b) the size and amount of plots able to match both demographic projections and wealth distribution; (c) the creation of a property market able to deliver affordable land and buildings to match demand, encourage investment and further the development of the economy; (d) the spatial or geographic adjustment of institutional patterns to reflect the components of identity—making for ‘fuzzy’ sovereignty; (e) a form of organisation which leads to effective project management and implementation, and so on. The view is taken that lack of suitable development land supply, a land market unable to deliver affordable property to the people and unable to support economic growth, and a spatial-institutional pattern unable to match key aspects of identity, are all causes of war as well as societal or political decline.

The book contains many drawings prepared by the author, including plans of urban projects described in the text. It will be of interest particularly to architects, town planners, municipal engineers and civil engineers, urban administrators, urban economists, politicians, diplomats, soldiers, and staff of NGOs and international agencies.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-11-01,Karin Baumgartner and Margrit Zinggeler,From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Modern Switzerland,Hardback,978-1-4438-2488-0,39.99,"From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland places Switzerland within the context of transnational labor migration and examines how this German-, French-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking nation is being transformed by the influx of migrants from all over the world who now constitute a fifth of the population. This dynamic mixture of cultures and races is embodied by a new generation of citizens who call themselves “Secondas and Secondos,” the second generation. Today, Switzerland is leading all industrial nations in growth potential and economic benefits from migration (OECD). The articles in this volume analyze the challenges, successes, and ongoing struggles Switzerland experiences with migration, focusing specifically on what it means to shape a nation-state by political will rather than linguistic and cultural unity.

From Multiculturalism to Hybridity also offers teaching suggestions for the French, German, and Italian language and literature classroom as well as for courses in Social, Cultural, and Political Studies. Articles address the hybrid literatures and cultures of Switzerland including films, pageants, smellscapes, and women’s issues and place Switzerland in the context of a unifying European continent. Readers will find ideas and resources for critically investigating  and teaching the concepts of cultural hybridity and transculturalism in the high school and college classroom. 



","“From Mulitculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland’ presents a comprehensive, informed and well-researched overview of evolving developments and trends in life and culture in present-day Switzerland; it offers excellent practical advice and suggestions about constructing approaches for teaching aspects of the complexity of this small country which contains different languages and cultures within one political framework.”
— Malcolm Pender, Emeritus Professor of German Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow

“Like a magnifying glass, this book shows today’s new and multiple facets of Swiss plurality to readers willing to learn about this country. In doing so, the chapters in this book turn into a mirror for Switzerland itself, for the country to read its future. It is a perfect teaching tool, useful for both insiders and outsiders.”
—Rosita Fibi, Senior Lecturer, University of Lausanne and Senior Researcher at the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-11-01,Shekh Moinuddin,Media Space and Gender Construction: A Comparative Study of State Owned and Private Channels in the Post Liberalisation Period,Hardback,978-1-4438-2503-0,34.99,"Media Space has become a rich intellectual resource in understanding spatial complexities. This innovative book extends the understanding of spatial perspective to non-material spaces. The relationship between geography and gender is explored from an Indian perspective with the help of Media Space. Media Space is a virtual and metamorphic space where people can express and communicate views, ideas, images, and texts. Media Space is indeed a place where the construction of gender stereotypes, using various media, influences viewers.

This study offers a diagnostic look at visual media and their consideration of soap operas, in term of both State and market responsibility, since liberalization took place in India. The study broadens the research scope of the geographical perspective in both non-material and material space, including television and other modes of virtual space.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-11-01,Jeremy R. Porter,Tracking the Mobility of Crime: New Methodologies and Geographies in Modeling the Diffusion of Offending,Hardback,978-1-4438-2505-4,34.99,"Recently, increased attention has been given to the social and environmental context in which criminal offending occurs. This new interest in the human ecology of crime is largely demographic, both in terms of subject matter and increasingly in terms of the analytic methods. Building on existing literature within the social ecology of crime, this study introduces a new approach to developing and examining sub-county geographies of reported crime through the use of existing Census place and county definitions coupled with spatial demographic methods. This process of spatially decomposing counties into Census places and what Esselstyn (1953) earlier called “open country,” or non-places, allows for the development of a unique, but phenomenologically appropriate sub-county geography. The new sub-county geography substantively holds meaning jurisdictionally given the current organization of the criminal justice system as well as demographically in the conceptualization of “rural” and “urban” in the demographic analysis of crime. Using 1990 and 2000 Agency-level Uniform Crime Report data in conjunction with recently developed spatial statistics, significant processes of spatial mobility in regards to the spread of criminal activity are identified. This represents an extension and adaptation of current and evolving methods used in identifying processes of the spatial diffusion of crime.

","“Porter's study successfully integrates recent attempts to spatialize the quantitative analysis of reported crime on both theoretical and analytical grounds.  His tour de force of combining sub-county geographies with administrative-level crime reports to the FBI and the use of cutting-edge spatial statistics sets a new bar for criminologists who wish to speak to the ecology of crime. The founders of the Chicago School who traded on Galpin's use of maps must be smiling!
Furthermore, while his use of federally collected data of reported criminal offending is used for substantive purposes, it is obvious that this work holds much potential beyond criminology.  In fact, it is applicable to the fields of statistics, demography, sociology, and criminology.  The application and replication of this research with any aggregate-level count data makes the research an extremely useful tool for any research involving the use of aggregate level count data.”
—Frank M. Howell, Adjunct Professor, Emory University & Emeritus Professor, Mississippi State University

“The analysis in this work offers more promise for reinvigorating county-level analysis that any other I have encountered.  As both a demographer and human ecologist what is most impressive is the command of the theoretical basis of the works on the geography of crime, with the knowledge base of a demographer and the empirical bases of spatial analysis.  The merger and/or interaction of these areas will clearly be a fruitful area of scholarship for years to come and this research is at the cutting-edge of such work.    
I was particularly impressed by the author’s ability to show how crime spreads spatially across and among areas, something that has been virtually impossible to assess in analysis using counties in standard multivariate regression models or factorial models.  This work is theoretically grounded, methodologically innovative and substantively important.   I would adopt the book for use in a criminology, demography or human ecology course.  
In sum, I congratulate the author for writing a work that contributes to each of the disciplines noted above and most importantly rigorously examines the important linkages between them.  If I can help in any way in disseminating information about this work please let me know and please continue this innovative and integrative area of research.”     
—Dr. Steve H. Murdock, Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology, Rice University & Former Director of the U.S. Census Bureau (2006-2008)

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-12-01,Maggie Bolton and Cathrine Degnen,Animals and Science: From Colonial Encounters to the Biotech Industry,Hardback,978-1-4438-2556-6,39.99,"What exactly does a focus on animals bring to anthropological studies of science? This is a question that the various contributors to this edited collection set out to answer. This range of studies explores the intersections between animals and science across different ethnographic settings and in different historical periods. The contributions to this volume look at what it means to be human, the place of human beings vis à vis other species on this planet, our ideas of what nature and culture are, the limits to our ideas of kinship, the ethical debates that surround science, together with their interpretation by both scientific communities and the lay public, and the moral comportment of scientists. Through focusing on science, our contributors not only demonstrate that people elsewhere have different relationships with, and knowledge of, beasts (and that different possibilities of relating to animals exist within our own Western worldview), but further suggest that our Western knowledge about animals and their positions in society, arrived at through Western science and the social sciences, is itself in need of rethinking—to incorporate other ways of knowing. This volume contends that accounts in which animals meet science provide important theoretical insights for anthropologists and can set new agendas for theory in anthropology and science studies. 


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-12-01,Charmaine A. Nelson,"Ebony Roots, Northern Soil: Perspectives on Blackness in Canada",Hardback,978-1-4438-2564-1,44.99,"Ebony Roots, Northern Soil is a powerful and timely collection of critical essays exploring the experiences, histories and cultural engagements of black Canadians. Drawing from postcolonial, critical race and black feminist theory, this innovative anthology brings together an extraordinary set of well-recognized and new scholars engaging in the critical debates about the cultural politics of identity and issues of cultural access, representation, production and reception. Emerging from a national conference in 2005, the book records, critiques and yet transcends this groundbreaking event. Drawn from a range of disciplines including  Art History, Communication Studies, Cultural Studies, Education, English, History and Sociology, the chapters examine black contributions to and participation within the realms of popular music, television and film, the art world, museums, academia and social activism. In the process, the burning issues of access to cultural capital, the practice of multiculturalism, definitions of black Canadianness and the state of Black Canadian Studies are dissected. Attentive to issues of sexuality and gender as well as race, the book also explores and challenges the dominance of black Americanness in Canada, especially in its incarnation as hip hop. Acknowledging a differently constituted and heterogeneous black Canadianness, it contemplates the possibility of an identity in dialogue with, and yet distinct from, dominant ideals of African-Americanness.  

Ebony Roots also explores the deficit in Black Canadian Studies across the nation’s universities, drawing a line between the neglect of black Canadian populations, histories and experiences in general and the resulting lack of an academic disciplinary infrastructure.  Poignant blends of the personal and the political, the chapters are both scholarly in their critical insights and rigour and daring in their honesty. Ebony Roots defiantly foregrounds the often-disavowed issues of institutional racism against blacks in Canadian academia, education and cultural institutions as well as the injurious effects of everyday racism. In so doing, the book challenges the myth of Canada as a racially benevolent and tolerant state, the ‘great white north’ free from racism and the legacy of colonialism. Instead the very definitions of Canada and black Canadianness are unpacked and explored. Ebony Roots is a necessary history lesson, a contemporary cultural debate and a call to action. It is a momentous and overdue contribution to Black Canadian Studies and a must read for academics, students and the general public alike.
","“This [book] indeed makes a significant contribution to studies on race and in particular race in Canada . . . it attempts to separate issues of race from that in the US, clearly delineating key areas of differences . . . this study to my knowledge is unparalleled. It is also fresh, nuanced, and contemporaneous, exploring such topics as hospitality and urban music (hip-hop) and dress. The book will also be relevant for university administration and politicians wanting to take seriously the issue of race in the academy and in government.”
—Professor Sandra Jackson

“I believe that this book would make a significant contribution to the field . . . [it is] breaking new ground. Much like the works that gave birth to African American and Black Studies in the US, this book asserts the importance of examining race and its working . . . foregrounding the academy. It poses issues salient to not only the curriculum and pedagogy, but also matters related to inclusion of black faculty and other faculty of color . . . When these things are critically examined, and realities laid bare, then they can no longer be ignored or seen as the mere imaginings of Others . . . I would also highly recommend it to Vice Presidents of Diversity and Provosts or Chancellors of Academic Affairs who are responsible for exercising leadership in implementing institutional commitment to diversity.”
—Professor Jude Nixon
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-12-01,"Kemmonye Collete Monaka, Owen S Seda, Sibonile Edith Ellece and John McAllister",Mapping Africa in the English Speaking World: Issues in Language and Literature,Hardback,978-1-4438-2566-5,44.99,"Mapping Africa in the English Speaking World addresses issues of representations of Africa in the English speaking world. English has become a global language which has turned the world into a global village, and as Graddol (2008) states, it “is now redefining national and individual identities worldwide; shifting political fault lines; creating new global patterns of wealth and social exclusion; and suggesting new notions of human rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” This book grapples with the relationship between Africa and the rest of the English speaking world, and touches on issues of (Euro-American) misrepresentations of the continent in literary works and films, misrepresentations which are nevertheless passed as true and infallible knowledge of Africa, marginalization of Africans, African languages and culture, African scholarship, language policy, language diglossia, African theatre in post colonial Africa, identity negotiations in post colonial Africa, and relations between gender and language, among other issues. These issues are bound to stimulate debates on Africa and its representation(s) in the English speaking world.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-01-01,Jasmine Dum-Tragut and Uwe Bläsing,"Cultural, Linguistic and Ethnological Interrelations In and Around Armenia",Hardback,978-1-4438-2645-7,39.99,"The geographical region of the Southern Caucasus, the lowlands between the Black and the Caspian Sees and the Armenian and Anatolian highlands is located on the peripheries of Europe from Asia. This region shares a common pre-history, with pre-Christian and pre-Muslim cultures and beliefs. The later periods, however, starting from the pre-Christian Iranian dominations, followed by the Arab conquest and the later campaigns of Seljuks, Mongols and Ottomans, had a heavy impact on the development of the region’s various ethnic languages and cultures.

Nevertheless, many similarities can be found in the languages, cultures and religious traditions of the people living in this region. Armenia has often been a bridge between various cultures. Even though Armenians have succeeded in preserving their original language and culture through the centuries, many of their traditions and myths, their linguistic peculiarities, particularly in Armenian dialects, may be explained by an often long-lasting influence of other cultures, be it occidental (Hellenistic/Roman, later Byzantine and Medieval European) or oriental (Iranian, later Arab, Turkic, Mongolian, etc.) or even Caucasian. The Armenians have also left many traces in the languages and cultures of the Occident, Orient and the Caucasus.

This volume gives an impressive approach to an interdisciplinary view of the linguistic and cultural properties which Armenians share with their neighbours.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-01-01,Laurence Raw,"Exploring Turkish Cultures: Essays, Interviews and Reviews",Hardback,978-1-4438-2639-6,49.99,"This groundbreaking series of essays offers new insights into Turkish cultures both past and present. Moving beyond the traditional binaries of east/west, Islam/secularism, and Europe/Asia, the book contains a variety of perspectives on contemporary Turkey, from actors, directors, critics and other major cultural figures. The book tries to situate these opinions in context by looking at how such perspectives are employed in different cultural spheres—education, theatre, politics and the like.
 
Exploring Turkish Cultures contains the first major interviews published in English with prominent public figures, including actors Türkân Şoray, Genco Erkal and Nesrin Kazankaya. Other figures interviewed include film directors Derviş Zaim and documentary filmmakers Ben Hopkins, Pelin Esmer and Özgür Doğan. An extended interview with the author, translator and academic Talât Halman rounds off the interview section. Complementing these interviews are a series of essays on major Turkish films and theatrical productions, both past and present.
 
Combining historical analysis, comment and evaluation from an author who has spent two decades living in Turkey, Exploring Turkish Cultures represents a major contribution to contemporary Turkish studies.
","“At first sight the book is as eclectic as Turkey’s arts scene. Interviews, reviews and essays are interspersed: inspect the crafting of this book too closely and all you can see are small squares of colour that seem to have no meaning. Step back to see the big picture and you can appreciate that each tile has been carefully placed into a mosaic that gives an integrated image.

Worth particular attention are Raw’s interviews with some key figures who have shaped the arts in Turkey. Some of these are groundbreaking, because they are the first time that interviews with big stars have appeared in English.”
– Marion James, Istanbul in Today’s Zaman, March 2011
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Robert D. Morritt,Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America,Hardback,978-1-4438-2683-9,34.99,"This volume is a study of the migration of cultures from Asia to North America from the earliest period of recorded history.

Evidence is presented of a connection between the North American Athabaskan language family and Siberia, together with comparisons and examinations of the implications of linguistics from anthropological, archaeological and folklore perspectives. An exploration of the origins of the earliest people in the Americas, this book covers topics including Siberian, Dene and Navajo Creation myths; linguistic comparisons between Siberian Ket Navajo and Western Apache; and comparisons between indigenous groups that appear to share the same origin.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Ali Abdullatif Ahmida,"Bridges Across the Sahara: Social, Economic and Cultural Impact of the Trans-Sahara Trade during the 19th and 20th Centuries",Paperback,978-1-4438-2674-7,19.99,"The objective of this edited book is to rethink the history of colonial and nationalist categories and analyses of modern Africa through an integration and examination of the African Saharan trade as bridges that link the North, Central, and West regions of Africa. Firstly, it offers a critique of the colonial, postcolonial and nationalist historiographies, and also of current western scholarship on northern and Saharan Africa especially Middle East Studies and African Studies Associations. Secondly, it provides an alternative narrative of the forgotten histories of the Sahara trade as linkages between the North and the South of the Sahara.

The Sahara desert was seldom a barrier separating the northern, middle and western parts of the continent. On the contrary, the desert was and still constitutes a bridge of communication which connects northern Africa, West Africa and the countries in the southern Sahara. This connection was evident in the most important cultural, economic and social relations. Two connecting routes or bridges existed across the Sahara. First, the Hajj Routes from the north west of Africa to the holy places in Arabia. Second, are the trade routes between central and west Africa and the shores of North Africa. These trans-Sahara trade routes extend from the East Darb al-Arba’in in Egypt and Sudan to the far west borders of Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco. Hence the ties between the countries in North Africa and Wadai, Bornu, Kanim, Zender, Aer and others existed since pre-historic eras. The origins began before and were enhanced by the Islamic conquests and continued to present day.
","“Bridges Across the Sahara is a magnificent collection of essays that overcomes the standard fare on the region as an empty barrier between Tropical and Mediterranean Africa. The collection traverses history, geography, anthropology and politics, and demonstrates the region as the crossroads of human movements and commerce, but also [as a] a locality that has its own integrity and center of gravity. As such these contributions overcome colonial and nationalists projections of the region. Bridges Across the Sahara masterfully negates Africa’s division into sub-Saharan and northern Arab Africa. Collectively they endeavour to redefine the terminology/concepts and the historical and cultural analysis of the Sahara. In nutshell, this is a model for future studies of the Sahara.”
—Dr Abdi I. Samatar, Professor & Chair, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Päivi Hoikkala and Dorothy D. Wills,Dimensions of International Migration,Hardback,978-1-4438-2665-5,39.99,"International Dimensions of Migration follows migrants from challenging situations in their homelands into even more challenging new worlds. Spanning historical periods from the aftermath of the American Civil War to the Third Reich to the modern era, the essays in this book use post-colonial literature, ethnographic research, primary sources, interviews, and a variety of other approaches to reveal the experiences of immigrants and their hosts. The critical method and broad, cross-cultural context of the volume provide a fresh perspective on the immigration issues we are encountering today.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi,"Hunting the Collectors: Pacific Collections in Australian Museums, Art Galleries and Archives, Second Edition",Hardback,978-1-4438-2660-0,49.99,"This volume investigates Pacific collections held in Australian museums, art galleries and archives, and the diverse group of 19th and 20th century collectors responsible for their acquisition. The nineteen essays reveal varied personal and institutional motivations that eventually led to the conservation, preservation and exhibition in Australia of a remarkable archive of Pacific Island material objects, art and crafts, photographs and documents. Hunting the Collectors benchmarks the importance of Pacific Collections in Australia and is a timely contribution to the worldwide renaissance of interest in Oceanic arts and cultures. The essays suggest that the custodial role is not fixed and immutable but fluctuates with the perceived importance of the collection, which in turn fluctuates with the level of national interest in the Pacific neighbourhood. This cyclical rise and fall of Australian interest in the Pacific Islands means many of the valuable early collections in state and later national repositories and institutions have been rarely exhibited or published. But, as the authors note, enthusiastic museum anthropologists, curators, collection managers and university-based scholars across Australia, and worldwide, have persisted with research on material collected in the Pacific.
","“This volume is a very important one for anyone studying the art and material culture of the Pacific. It focuses on collections now in Australia. Even those well versed in museum collections from the Pacific will learn about many important but little-known collectors as well as better-known figures like the anthropologists F. E. Williams and Thomas Farrell, the husband of Queen Emma. This will be a treat for students and specialist alike.”
—Professor Robert L. Welsch, University of Dartmouth

“The books contributes greatly to the scholarship on collecting . . . Many of the essays show evidence of thorough archival research. We read fascinating historical anecdotes, especially from Melanesia; the many black and white photos enhance the volume and often illustrate poignantly the colonial character of these collections . . . Scholars of the Pacific interested in objects will undoubtedly read the book with interest.”
—Eric Kline Silverman, Pacific Affairs

“A valuable addition to published material on collections in Australians institutions.”
—Geoffrey Gray, The Journal of Pacific History
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-03-01,Maya Ranganathan,Eelam Online: The Tamil Diaspora and War in Sri Lanka,Hardback,978-1-4438-2691-4,34.99,"This book details the potential of computer mediated technologies, particularly the internet, in creating and nurturing political and cultural identities among the widely dispersed “conflict-generated” Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora and traces the engagement of the disapora in Australia with the online media in the struggle for a homeland. Taking the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka as a given, the book explores the way in which new media has added dimensions to the issue. Although the theoretical framework of the book overflows into the areas of political communication, journalism, media theories and studies, nationalism, and social psychology, it draws heavily from the theories of Ellul’s “social propaganda” and Anderson’s concept of nation as an “imagined community.” Divided into three parts, the first part explores the potential of the internet to lead to the “imagination” of the nation by the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora; the second part traces the online engagement of the diaspora in the making of the homeland; and the third part contrasts it with the experiences and expectations of the homeland of the second generation of migrants in Australia and the Sri Lankan refugees in India. With the focus shifting to the diaspora after the announcement of the decimation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka in May 2009, the book aims to contribute to an understanding of the dynamics to underscore the increasingly significant role that communication technologies play in deciding the weave and warp of the fabric of a nation.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-03-01,John Harnett,Historical Representation and the Postcolonial Imaginary: Constructing Travellers and Aborigines,Hardback,978-1-4438-2719-5,29.99,"Historical Representation and the Postcolonial Imaginary: Constructing Travellers and Aborigines endeavours to provide an overview of the role which oral history plays in the documentation, representation and subsequent empowerment of neglected and long-marginalised social groups, in this case: the cultural minorities that are the Irish Travellers and the Australian Aborigines. Oral history has proved paramount in enabling such groups to document their pasts, pasts which until recently had been occluded and often-ignored. This work explores the genre that is oral history through the prism that is the construction of the ‘Other’ in society and with particular reference to two minorities whose histories share a range of similar characteristics. In examining this process, it is possible to trace the transformation of folklore and storytelling into documented historical narrative.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-03-01,Lovemore Togarasei with Sana K. Mmolai and Fidelis Nkomazana,The Faith Sector and HIV/AIDS in Botswana: Responses and Challenges,Hardback,978-1-4438-2694-5,39.99,"This book is a collection of chapters by seasoned scholars of religion covering the role played by various religions at home in Botswana in the struggle against HIV and AIDS. The book is a direct result of field research projects conducted by the authors on the role of religion in a country that once ranked as the worst affected by HIV and AIDS in the world. It comprises of twelve chapters that are divided into four parts. The first part, comprising of three chapters, provides a background of the faith sector in Botswana. Part II of the book focuses on the Christian religion and comprises of four chapters. Part III comprises of three chapters discussing other religious groups apart from Christianity. Part IV addresses the role of culture and religion in HIV and AIDS response in Botswana.

With several attempts to mainstream HIV and AIDS in education both in schools and in tertiary institutions, the book serves both the academic and research community at national and international levels. It does not serve only those studying religion, but all who address issues of HIV and AIDS from whatever field of study.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-03-01,Robert D. Morritt,The Lure of Texas,Hardback,978-1-4438-2713-3,49.99,"This book affords the reader an in-depth history of Texas from the earliest Paleographical era, providing details of the occupation of Texas by Spain, France and Mexico, and gives the reader contemporary accounts of battles and incursions leading up to the Battle of the Alamo and to the establishment of Statehood.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-04-01,Bezen Balamir Coskun,Analysing Desecuritisation: The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Education and Water Management,Hardback,978-1-4438-2731-7,39.99,"This book applies securitisation theory to the present Israeli-Palestinian situation with a particular focus on the potential for a desecuritisation process arising from Israeli-Palestinian cooperation/coexistence efforts in peace education and water management. Stemming from the application of securitisation theory to the Israeli-Palestinian case, the book aims to explore the limits and prospects of this theory as a theoretical framework. Within this context, the book reconsiders the concepts, arguments and assumptions introduced by the Copenhagen School’s securitisation theory. Furthermore, through an analytical framework based on the notion of desecuritisation, it aims to contribute to the development of desecuritisation as a framework for analysing conflict resolution and peace. The book adds to debates over the problems and prospects of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Thoroughout the book, the prospects for reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian case are explored through analysing both desecuritising and securitising processes. Within this context, the book sheds light on the ways in which antagonistic relationships can be changed over time.

","“Bezen Balamir Coskun's book is a research monograph, thoroughly researched, and very well-written. The book applies securitisation theory to the Israeli-Palestinian case with a particular focus on the potential for desecuritisation process arising from various cooperation/ coexistence efforts in peace education and water management. This is an important book which reconsiders the key concepts, arguments and assumptions introduced by the Copenhagen School's securitisation theory. Dr Coskun's thoughtful argument makes a significant scholarly contribution.”
—Prof Dr Bulent Gokay, Professor of International Relations, School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, Keele University, Staffs

""Securitization theory is a growing and increasingly influential sub-field of International Relations. Its full scholalrly potential, however, is yet to be realised. This volume goes some considerable way to making good that gap. Bezen Coskun provides a sophisticated and sure-footed account of the Arab-Israeli conflict that is both theoretically-informed and empirically rich. Her examination of the dynamics of antagonism is not a counsel of despair; securitisation can be avoided and reconciliation remains a possibility. The long-cycle of conflict may appear totally intractable but this is a book from which important lessons can be drawn in how to de-escalate violence, correct misperceptions and overcome political stalemate.""

—Prof. Mark Webber, Professor of International Politics Head, School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-04-01,Amy Tak-yee Lai,"Chinese Women Writers in Diaspora: Jung Chang, Xinran, Hong Ying, Anchee Min, Adeline Yen Mah",Paperback,978-1-4438-2847-5,19.99,"The mention of Chinese women writers in diaspora immediately brings to mind Jung Chang (b. 1952) and her Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991), which won the 1992 NCR book award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award, and got officially banned in China. Despite its popular reception and crucial acclaim, Chang’s work has invited a lot of attacks. Among the most common is the contention that it merely focuses on the experience of the privileged and does not tell the reader what other memoirs have not already revealed. 

Chinese Women Writers in Diaspora is a pioneering study that focuses on four Chinese women writers currently living in the United States and England, whose works have been popularly received—and are in many cases, highly controversial—but have received little scholarly attention: Xinran (b. 1958), Hong Ying (b. 1962), Anchee Min (b. 1957), and Adeline Yen Mah (b. 1937). The chapters illuminate how Xinran constructs her identity and her fellow Chinese women in dialectics of self and other; how Hong Ying evokes cycles of return that blend Western and Chinese philosophical concepts; how Min employs images of theatre and theatrical conventions to depict the entrapment and transgression of her protagonists; and how Mah transliterates and appropriates both Western and Chinese fairy tale motifs to fashion her Chinese feminist utopia. While Jung Chang’s memoir seems confining, it has aroused interest in the genre of Chinese female autobiography, and Chinese women writers who live and write between cultures.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-04-01,Lipi Ghosh,Eastern Indian Ocean: Historical Links to Contemporary Convergences,Hardback,978-1-4438-2840-6,39.99,"The Indian Ocean has attracted scholarly attention through ages. As we talk of inter-Asian linkages and inter-regional arena studies, the connections through the Bay of Bengal (Eastern Indian Ocean) is a fascinating subject. This book is an attempt to understand how these issues of commercial and cultural linkages manifest along the Eastern Indian Ocean from the past to the present. It aims to look at the various dimensions of the contemporary Eastern Indian Ocean and seeks to determine whether the past has any role to play in shaping contemporary contexts. The discussions in the book will show how the revival of an ancient linkage can stimulate contemporary international trade and can promote regional cooperation. The findings of the book will definitely lay the foundations for future analyses of the emerging India-South East Asia relationship. It is expected to be a pioneering attempt for a comprehensive and multidisciplinary examination of the region under review.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-05-01,Simon Coleman and Peter Collins,Dislocating Anthropology?: Bases of Longing and Belonging in the Analysis of Contemporary Societies,Hardback,978-1-4438-2895-6,34.99,"Anthropology continues to develop both in terms of theory and in relation to the ways in which fieldwork is conducted. Dislocating Anthropology? seeks to capture and represent these developments through a collection of ethnographic essays that are cutting edge, but which do not represent a complete break with what has gone before. In recent years anthropologists have increasingly come to accept that fieldwork in bounded and discrete places is no longer tenable. People can no longer be represented in these static, parochial terms. At the start of the 21st century, and with the possibility of internet connections almost anywhere, we have the potential to move even when we are stationary. Each of the contributors to this collection have identified and attempted to understand sets of relationships that are both temporally and spatially dynamic, that appear to flow into and out of ‘the field.’ Together, the chapters shed light on a number of methodological conundrums, or dislocations, relating, for example, to locality, identity, fieldwork, and reflexivity. The book is concerned with dislocation as both practice and process, and as such extends a theme that has arguably been central to Anthropology since Malinowski’s Trobriand ethnography.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-06-01,Priscila Lopes and Alpina Begossi,Current Trends in Human Ecology,Paperback,978-1-4438-3000-3,29.99,"An exercise of interdisciplinarity at the crossroads of humans and the environment—this could be one definition of human ecology, as it is demonstrated within this book. Examples of different branches of human ecology are shown as feasible alternatives to understand the interactions of human culture and behaviour with the natural environment from all parts of the world. Current trends, ranging from climate change to ecological knowledge and environmental co-management, are deeply exploited, using a diversified array of empirical case studies. Theoretical aspects are included and examined in every case, including the evolution of culture, values and webs of information within cultures. The central theme approaches and reveals the social, cultural, economic, and ecological processes which link human beings to their environment.

From a mixture of practice and theory we emerge with alternatives to mitigate and prevent the accelerating negative changes currently witnessed on our planet, where increasingly fewer people are safe. More importantly, this book provides examples showing how those whose lives are deeply rooted on a direct natural resource dependency are the first to be affected by the global trend of environmental degradation. Small-scale fishers, farmers and herders from the tropics and from cold regions have their livelihood affected by global changes, regional politics and cultural exchanges. Whether and how they will survive, adapt, or embody such changes is not known and this is one more reason to include and involve local groups when searching for sustainable solutions.

In a changing world, exploring current threats and impacts of human actions on the environment is a necessity, but bringing about alternatives, some of them already part of traditional human practices, is urgent and can turn to be a promising solution. Anthropology, sociology, and ecology come together in this book, where the unifying goal of theorizing and practising interdisciplinarity in human ecology is shown by, closely tracking examples of current trends and developments. This book is a harvest from the XV International Meeting of the Society for Human Ecology, engaging over 200 people from 27 countries from all continents, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 4-7, 2007, organized by A. Begossi and P. Lopes, with the support of the Fisheries and Food Institute (FIFO) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). This volume ends by indicating several lines of thought and of analyses on current subjects, as follows: sustainability in different cultural contexts and perspectives, methods towards approaching sustainable systems, and current global concerns. Those include agriculture in tropical areas (slash-and-burn practices), climate change, and nature and human behavioural patterns, among others.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-06-01,Stefan C. A. Halikowski Smith,Reinterpreting Indian Ocean Worlds: Essays in Honour of Kirti N. Chaudhuri,Hardback,978-1-4438-2931-1,44.99,"The Indian Ocean World was an idea borne out by researchers in economic history and trade in the 1980s in response to the compartmentalization of specific area studies within the wider rubric of Asian civilisations and culture. Professor Kirti N. Chaudhuri’s books Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company (1978), and then Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean (1985), figured amongst the forefront of this new movement in historical thinking, undertaking detailed historical analysis, first of the English East India Company, and then a comparative cultural history of Asian material life and civilisation. Today, historians continue to hold on to the idea of an Indian Ocean world, although studies now follow a number of different threads, from themes like linguistics and creolization, to the seeds of national consciousness. By presenting a number of studies here, gathered into the themes of ‘Intermixing,’ ‘The World of Trade’ and ‘Colonial Paths,’ it is hoped we can render tribute to one of the outstanding historians in this field and reflect the plenitude of current research in this subject area.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-06-01,Ryan Prout and Tilmann Altenberg,Seeing in Spanish: From Don Quixote to Daddy Yankee—22 Essays on Hispanic Visual Cultures,Hardback,978-1-4438-2935-9,49.99,"Seeing in Spanish brings together 22 chapters which share a focus on aspects of visual cultures from the Spanish speaking world. Together these chapters address film, photography, cover art, body art, posters, television, architecture, ekphrasis, biography, murals, graffiti, and digital photo-montage. Between Don Quixote and Daddy Yankee, the essays move from the seventeenth century to the present and traverse Europe, the Americas, and cyberspace.

The book is divided into five sections. The first of these, on Spain, includes chapters on the representation of women on LP covers in Spain in the 60s and 70s; portrayals in Spanish cinema of Saint Teresa; Luis Buñuel’s adaptation of Tristana; urban and rural space in recent Spanish documentary film; Catalan television; fine art in Don Quixote; and visions of adoption in three narratives by Spanish writers and filmmakers.  The second section, on Mexico and Peru, includes chapters on the fragmentary body in images of Mexico; the art of Abraham Ángel; Jesús Ruiz Durand’s agrarian reform posters; Diego Rivera’s murals; and the role of artistic production in staging the 2006 Oaxaca conflict. The third section, on Cuba, looks at the portrayal of women and of children in recent cinema from the island. It also examines Nancy Morejón’s celebration of the life and art of exiled Cuban artist Ana Mendieta.  Section four includes chapters on Chile and Argentina. It addresses street art and graffiti; new forms of publishing; Chilean cinema after Pinochet; and Violeta Parra’s appliqué and collage works. Section five embraces Colombia, Bolivia, and virtual spaces. The contributions to this last section of the book examine childhood in Colombian cinema; the online creativity of pro- and anti-fans of reggaeton; and the photographic diaries of T. Ifor Rees, the UK’s first ambassador to Bolivia. In addition to the geo-political structure which underpins the book’s five sections, the introduction suggests pathways through the contributions focussed on public art and graffiti, women, children, cyberspace and diplomacy, and reconstruction and disintegration.

Seeing in Spanish includes 50 illustrations—stills from films, photographs, reproductions of paintings, and screen grabs from the internet—which complement the chapters’ analyses of aspects of Hispanic visual cultures. To aid accessibility, footnotes throughout the book provide English translations of all references from texts in other languages. Taken together, the book’s 22 chapters make a valuable contribution to the existing literature on figures like Don Quixote and Saint Teresa. They also break new ground in approaches to novel areas of scholarship such as sleeve design, artisanal book production, and digital image manipulation. The book will appeal to students and scholars of Spain and Latin America as well as to a general readership with an interest in the visual cultures of the Spanish speaking world.

","“With the rise in interest in visual cultures worldwide in all their myriad forms, this volume could not be more timely. Wide-ranging in its scope, from urban graffiti to YouTube, this volume analyses Hispanic visual cultures, encompassing film, fine art, street art, album covers, posters, photography and cyberspace. It challenges received ideas and familiar monolithic stereotypes of Hispanic culture, emphasising instead that the visual cultures of Spain and Latin America are in a process of reconstruction, refashioning and dissolution, in dialogue with themselves and with other cultures. This book is an essential expansion of the field, offering a kaleidoscope of fresh perspectives on Hispanic visual cultures.”
—Dr Ann Davies, Senior Lecturer in Spanish, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University

“Seeing in Spanish is an inspired compilation that takes the fields of Spanish and Latin American Studies in exciting new directions. Exploring the Hispanic world through its visual representations, it brings into focus far-reaching questions about the impact of film, public art and cyber-culture in this context and beyond. Grouped thematically rather than by chronology or geography, essays on topics as wide-ranging as Violeta Parra’s embroidery, Spanish films of transnational adoption and Daddy Yankee’s anti-fans offer fascinating perspectives on a world that is insistently supranational even as local histories loom large. ‘Seeing in Spanish’, this compilation implies, means engaging with a dynamic culture of improvisation but also with practices of thoughtful recycling, be these screen reinventions of Teresa de Avila or books crafted from used materials. This book maps a field for the twenty-first century; it will change the way we think about, and visualize, the world of Spanish.”
—Esther Whitfield, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Brown University
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-06-01,"Marlite Halbertsma, Alex van Stipriaan and Patricia van Ulzen",The Heritage Theatre: Globalisation and Cultural Heritage,Hardback,978-1-4438-2926-7,39.99,"The Heritage Theatre is a book about cultural heritage and globalisation. Cultural heritage is the stage on which the global community, smaller communities and individuals play out their similarities and differences, their identities and singularities. Cultural heritage forms an implicit cultural code governing the relationship between parts and the whole, individuals and communities, communities and outsiders, as well as the relationship between communities and the world as a whole. Cultural heritage, by way of its producers, its products and its audience, presents an image of the world and its inner coherence.

The subjects in this book range from places as distant from each other as Dar-es-Salaam, Jakarta, Amsterdam, Le Creusot, Trinidad, Brazzaville, Bremerhaven, New York and Prague, and deal with themes such as wayang, Kylie Minogue, airports and heritage, modernist architecture in Africa and the impact of DNA research on the concept of roots.

The volume is based on papers presented at a conference organised by the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication of Erasmus University Rotterdam. The authors have backgrounds in cultural studies, art history, anthropology, museum studies, sociology, tourist studies and history.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-07-01,Nelia Hyndman-Rizk,"My Mother’s Table: At Home in the Maronite Diaspora, A Study of Emigration from Hadchit, North Lebanon to Australia and America",Hardback,978-1-4438-2948-9,44.99,"In the era of globalisation, studies of migration focus on mobility, deterritorialised identities and diasporic forms of belonging across nation state boundaries. Indeed, uprootedness from the soil of home and place has resulted in a general condition of ‘homelessness’ in late modernity, referred to as the diasporic condition. This study explores the construction of home amongst immigrants from Hadchit and their descendants in Australia and America and shows how their strategies of home-building depend upon the capacity to imagine themselves as being united by kinship, a shared village of origins and as part of the broader communal Maronite identity (Mwarne), which now transcends nation state boundaries. Patrilineage (bayt), village (day’aa) and sect (ta’eefa) have historically defined Lebanese sectarian identities and now, as this study shows, are deployed as a strategy of home-building and community construction in diaspora. However, capitalist social relations of production in Australia and America have transformed bayt, day’aa and ta’eefa amongst the second, third and fourth generations through the gendered renegotiation of the marriage contract from relations of descent to relations of consent. Thus, the Hadchitis now face a crisis of (re)production and attribute this, in the case of Australia, to the state being hukum niswen, ruled by women, an inversion of the gendered order of power in Lebanon. Through pilgrimages to the ancestral village, however, émigrés seek a spiritual resolution to the contradictions of migration through the restoration of their connection to place, but find they cannot seamlessly belong in Hadchit. Meanwhile, multicultural crisis and a milieu of anti-Lebanese racism limit their claims to national belonging in Australia and America. This study finds, therefore, that the contradictions of the migration process are unresolvable through physical mobility, because the feeling of ‘home’ is a metaphysical state of being, which transcends place and is defined by its affective, social and spiritual dimensions. The elusive quality that defines home and provides a sense of unconditional belonging is, in fact, socially constructed by women, through their daily practices of care within the home and the most important woman for the construction of homeliness is the matriarch, sit el bayt—the power of the house. Thus, the place where the immigrant can be at home is metaphorically at their ‘mother’s table.’


","“This book is an interesting, sound and compelling study and the first in examining a migrant community (i.e. the Hadchiti community in Australia and America) by using an anthropological perspective, in a time framework which no one else has done before. The novelty in her study is in the critical and creative application of the current literature on migrant identity, racism and the second generation, and essential concepts such as liminality, belonging and homeliness, to the case study of Hadchiti emigration. Most particularly, her analysis of the Hadchiti identity and its relation with the contested gender structure of the migrant family is very powerful and revealing. Her argument about the articulation of the identity of the first generation with the gender structure of the family and how the hyphenated character of the second generation’s identity is made contingent upon the sense of homeliness generated by their mum’s cooking is quite innovative. In the end, this study gives more substance to the concept of a ‘deterritorialised identity’ found in the literature on migration. In fact Hyndman-Rizk succeeds in showing that the identity of Hadchitis is not only de-territorialised, but also acquires its meaning from this de-territorialisation and associated liminality. I recommend this book as an important contribution to the study of Lebanese emigration and the relationship between home and mobility.”
—Dr Paul Tabar, Associate Professor of Sociology, Institute for Migration Studies, Lebanese American University

“I strongly recommend this study of a global Lebanese village as providing an excellent social history of contemporary Lebanese migration, the social and cultural re-articulation of Hadchiti identity in a new world re-imagined as a global diaspora centred on Hadchit. It provides a rich ethnography based on a phenomenological approach which links everyday practices to large scale processes of identity formation, belonging and community as a transnational phenomenon.”
—Michael Humphrey, Professor of Sociology, University of Sydney, Sydney


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-08-01,"Recep Efe, Munir Ozturk and Ibrahim Atalay",Natural Environment and Culture in the Mediterranean Region II,Hardback,978-1-4438-2986-1,54.99,"The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the  five Mediterranean-climate regions, and one of the largest archipelagos in the world. The basin is  located at the intersection of two major landmasses, Eurasia and Africa; and has around five thousand islands, which contribute much to its high diversity and  spectacular scenery. It possesses higher salinity than the Atlantic. The shores are chiefly mountainous. Earthquakes and volcanic disturbances are frequent. 
Some of the most ancient civilizations flourished around the region. Carthagians, Greeks, Sicilians, and Romans were rivals for dominance of its shores and trade. The basin virtually became a Roman lake under the Roman Empire. Later, the region was dominated by the Byzantines and the Arabs. The development of the northern regions of Africa and of oil fields in the Middle East has increased its trade. 
The flora is dramatic with over 20 thousand endemic vascular plant taxa, and many endemic species of animals. Fish (about 400 species), sponges, and corals are plentiful. The touristic activities are threatening populations of many species. The fragmentation and isolation is increasing due to resort development and infrastructure. The overuse of the sea's natural and marine resources continues to be a problem.The Mediterranean monk-seal, the barbary macaque and the Iberian lynx, which is Critically Endangered, are among the region’s imperiled species.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-09-01,Peter J. Atkins,Animated Cities: Urban Historical Insights into Human-Animal Interaction,Hardback,978-1-4438-3180-2,44.99,"The idea for this book was first discussed at the 8th International Conference on Urban History organised by the European Urban History Association in Stockholm in 2006. Three of the chapters started as papers there in a session entitled ‘Animals in the City’ and five others are by participants.

Animated Cities is a book that builds upon a recent surge of interest among historians about animals in the urban context. It follows a four-fold agenda. First, the opening chapters look at working and productive animals that lived and died in nineteenth-century cities such as London, Edinburgh and Paris. The purpose overall is to argue that their presence yields insights into evolving contemporary understandings of the category “urban” and what made a good city. A discussion of the recycling of animal manure and body parts forms one context for this, with commentaries about the purification of the urban environment and the problems associated with diseased meat. Second, there is a consideration of nineteenth-century animal spectacles, which influenced contemporary interpretations of the urban experience, using London Zoo as an example. Third, the theme of contested animal spaces in the city is explored further with regard to back-yard chickens in suburban Australia in the period 1890-1990. In one Melbourne suburb in the late nineteenth century as many as two-thirds of households kept these ‘chooks’ but later this proportion fell steadily under the pressure of regulation and social change. Finally, there is a chapter on dog-walking in Victorian and Edwardian London. This throws light of the problem of the public companion animal and its role in changing attitudes to public space. 

Animated Cities makes an important contribution to animal studies. It will be of interest to urban historians, historical geographers, social and economic historians, cultural historians, and historians of policy and planning. The considerability of animals in urban settings is now firmly established and here were have a number of valuable case studies that illustrate some of the perspectives that may be adopted.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-09-01,Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu,"From Traditional Attire to Modern Dress: Modes of Identification, Modes of Recognition in the Balkans (XVIth-XXth Centuries)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3186-4,39.99,"The essays in this volume discuss the visible elements, such as clothing, jewellery, the opulence of the elite, fashion and styles, but they also inform the reader about the manner in which these were connected to political and social developments. The articles in this volume highlight important themes regarding the history of textiles, the shifting of trading and manufacturing centres, the professionalization of the various fields in the history of fashion, and the connection with the introduction and proliferation of steam-powered machines and later of electrical equipment.

Clothes and garments are also part of the social and political transformations brought about by the multiple modernisations of the various Balkan societies. Fabrics, colours, threads, barrels and buttons, lace and jewellery are marvellous documents that bring to life details of the remote worlds of our ancestors, helping us understand the complex meanings of sartorial appearances. The Balkans and the Orient are regions that offer promising avenues of multidisciplinary research concerning clothes and fashion as indicators of social status and political change.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Gabriel Rosenstock,Haiku Enlightenment,Paperback,978-1-4438-3379-0,24.99,"A renowned poet shares his experience of haiku and its potential to surprise us again and again into a sudden awakening and thus to a deeper sense of what it is to be truly alive. His remarkably refreshing insights have delighted confreres around the world.





","“Gabriel Rosenstock offers us a marvellous path into the essence of haiku and the state of being in harmony with the laws of the universe.”	
-Ion Codrescu, Romania

“A learned, imaginative and profound commentary on haiku with many outstanding examples from around the globe, demonstrating the form’s universal appeal. Persons with little knowledge of haiku will be captivated, while those with expertise will feel renewed …”
-George Swede, Canada

 “Rosenstock is an excellent teacher, wise enough to realise that in describing haiku (as in so many other things) examples are worth a million words. He spreads before us a variegated tapestry of haiku, by poets in all places and at all times since haiku began, as well as from his own ingenious pen, in which ‘the spirit of play and the play of spirit are simultaneous and one.”
-David Cobb, England

“From the wealth of his experience, Rosenstock gives profound advice and useful tips for the wanderer on the haiku path, showing us how sudden enlightenment can happen in our ordinary life.”
- Ruth Franke, Germany

“With edifying purpose, the author subtly introduces examples of haiku’s apocalyptic potential of transfiguration, known in haiku and Zen as ‘spiritual interpenetration’ and, by so doing, offers the reader an opportunity to witness – through numinous haiku moments – the entwining of the Universal Spirit with Its Self.”
- James W. Hackett, Hawaii



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,"Fred Dervin, Anahy Gajardo and Anne Lavanchy",Politics of Interculturality,Hardback,978-1-4438-3365-3,39.99,"Politics of Interculturality fulfills the need for a thorough and critical evaluation of the notion of interculturality. Taking institutional and educational discourses on the ‘intercultural’ as its main focus, the volume captures vigorous debates currently underway across four continents – the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania.

The volume’s prominent and emerging scholars all agree that change is needed in the way interculturality is used and conceived, especially at a time when the ‘Other’ is an increasing issue of social concerns and political debates. The authors break with tradition by teasing out the hidden assumptions and implications of interculturality – making explicit the implicit presence of the tired old notion of ‘culture’. They also look to establish new ways of engaging with interculturality.

The book will be of substantial interest to a wide range of readers who are interested in international communication, education, migration studies, critical race studies, cultural studies, anthropology, linguistics and business. Undergraduates and novice researchers will also find invaluable advice on how to research politics of interculturality.
","“This collection of essays proposes a novel perspective on the notion of ‘interculturality’, taking it seriously as an actant in a complex and politicized field of interaction. Through in-depth, comparative empirical work, the authors show that while ‘interculturality’ indexes very different meanings and policies in a large variety of contexts, it always transforms as much as it describes the field in which it is deployed. Neither accusatory, nor apologetic, these essays represent contemporary interdisciplinary inquiry at its best – alert to global processes and politics, and yet attentive to the influences of everyday interactions and local representation.”
– Ellen Hertz, Professor of Anthropology, Institut d’ethnologie, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-06-01,Frank A. Salamone ,The Heroic Anthropologist Rides Again: The Depiction of the Anthropologist in Popular Culture ,Hardback,978-1-4438-3881-8,29.99,"This collection of papers, presented at the 2011 American Anthropological Association meetings in Montreal, Canada, represent the beginning of the anthropological investigation of the way in which anthropologist have been portrayed in popular culture. Frank A. Salamone provides an overview of the field today, looking for depictions of anthropologists in various genres – film, fiction, TV, and everyday life. The contributors look at specific portrayals of anthropologists in popular media, including using popular fiction to teach anthropology. The work is lively, accessible, and profound.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing