It is often tempting to believe in the grand sweep of history; to conclude that the triumphs of great teams were simply inevitable. The truth, however, is that history can turn on what appear, at frst glance, to be infnitesimally small events. Behind all those triumphs lie the countless disappointments of teams that were denied glory by a cruel bounce, the width of a crossbar or a dubious refereeing decision. Challenging the perception that the outcome of great clashes couldn't have been a...

It was the summer of 1983. Walsall were preparing for another season in the Third Division when British Airways' advertising people got in touch. The airline were embarking on an innovative promotional campaign and needed the club's help. To show how quickly continental cities could be reached from regional airports, they wanted to feature the team underneath the banner: 'They’re only 90 minutes away from a place in Europe.' Walsall were the only league club in the West Midlands never to h...

A man walks into a Birmingham bookshop, buys a volume of poetry, and steps out into the road, where a jazz musician seems momentarily to bring the whole city together. In the second poem in Playing the Changes, the same thing happens, only half the words are redacted. Then the experience is retold as a Petrarchan sonnet; a children's skipping rhyme; an Acknowledgements page; a pastiche of Tristram Shandy...Drawing on the traditions of jazz improvisation and Oulipo...

Sixteen Walsall legends tell the stories behind their most memorable games for the club, enabling fans of all ages to relive these magic moments through the eyes and emotions of the men who were there. Stretching from Allan Clarke's memories of FA Cup glory to Adam Chambers's account of how Walsall finally reached Wembley after almost a century of trying, this unique collection covers some of the most enthralling encounters in the club's history. Along the way, Alan Buckley tells of how th...

Based on thorough ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in Tanzania this book provides a rich account of the benevolent “disciplining mechanisms” of humanitarian agencies, led by the UNHCR, and of the situated, dynamic, indeterminate, and fluid nature of identity (re)construction in the camp. While the refugees are expected to behave as innocent, helpless victims, the question of victimhood among Burundian Hutu is increasingly challenged, following the 1993 massacres in Burundi and the ...

General ThemeThe general theme of the books are to educate children from the ages of 4-9 to learn about the way different trucks provide a service to the world, such as where and how milk gets from the farm to the fridge, to how a television, radio, iPod gets to the shops, then to the home, though, there will not be any mention of the meat processing or fishing industries.Similarly to Thomas the Tank Engine, there are multiple truck characters in every story, with a twist of...

Featuring essays by world-renowned scholars, Diasporas charts the various ways in which global population movements and associated social, political and cultural issues have been seen through the lens of diaspora.Wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, this collection considers critical concepts shaping the field, such as migration, ethnicity, post-colonialism and cosmopolitanism. It also examines key intersecting agendas and themes, including political economy, security, race, gender,...

La ambigüedad moral y las contradicciones, la corrupción del poder, el carácter como motor de nuestras acciones, la responsabilidad personal... son cuestiones que nos importan mucho hoy, tanto como en la Antigüedad. De ahí que este ensayo atemporal y provocador no trate, en realidad, sobre la tragedia griega. Los dilemas que más nos preocupan no tendrán tanto que ver con la actualidad o la modernidad si ya se representaban en los teatros clásicos. Incluso personajes como el protagonista de...

La perfección no existe, pero los desconocidos ingenieros que se han empeñado en alcanzarla han tenido más importancia en nuestra vida de lo que pensamos.A través de anécdotas y ejemplos, teje la historia de la ingeniería de precisión y hace comprensibles sus inestimables aportaciones: el avión, la lente de una cámara Leica, las máquinas de rayos X, el telescopio Hubble, el microchip, el smartphone...Simon Winchester, venerado autor de bestsellers internacionales, hasta ahora...

Matamos el tiempo con los videojuegos pero ¿qué pasa cuando los videojuegos nos matan a nosotros? La pregunta da mucho de sí, y Simon Parkin intenta responderla sin olvidar que, para algunos, EVE Online, Grand Theft Auto y League of Legends tienen poderes salvíficos. Jugamos por muchos motivos, y Muerte por videojuego es, a su manera, una teoría estética y política del diseño, la programación y ese aparente contrasentido que es la vida en los mundos virtuales. Un estado de la cuestión y el...

Hija natural, revolucionaria, adultera recalcitrante, violentamente independiente y vengativa, la quiteña Manuela Sáenz entró en la historia de América por la puerta falsa del dormitorio de Simón Bolívar, de quien a lo largo de los últimos ocho años de la vida del Libertador fue su amante solícita unas veces, rebelde otras, a quien salvó la vida en un par de ocasiones y al que defendió con ardor varonil en sus horas amargas. La Libertadora del Libertador, como la llamó el mismo Bolívar, vi...

El relato más sincero, desinhibido y adictivo nunca escrito sobre lo que sucede entre bambalinas en una subasta de arte. Pury nos guía a través de este mundo secreto a través de su historia, sus anécdotas, sus coleccionistas, sus momentos de esplendor y de oscuridad."Yo y el barón" se titula uno de sus capítulos más fascinantes, en el que narra su larga y feliz relación de negocios con el barón Thyssen y las peripecias de la compra de su colección.