First published in 1968. It was probably the Great Exhibition of 1851 which inspired the son of a Congregational minister to publish the first book on the rise and progress of the railway system designed for the non-specialist reader. The resources of British railways had never before been so heavily taxed as they were in the summer of 1851, many had come by railway and had seen and used engineering wonders of which they might be expected to seek to know more. The first edition of this boo...

Based on three decades of fieldwork throughout the developing world, Scars of Partition is the first book to systematically evaluate the long-term implications of French and British styles of colonialism and decolonization for ordinary people throughout the so-called Third World. It pays particular attention to the contemporary legacies of artificial boundaries superimposed by Britain and France that continue to divide indigenous peoples into separate postcolonial states. In so do...

How have different forms of colonialism shaped societies and their politics? William F. S. Miles focuses on the Hausa-speaking people of West Africa whose land is still split by an arbitrary boundary established by Great Britain and France at the turn of the century.In 1983 Miles returned as a Fulbright scholar to the region where he had served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1970s. Already fluent in the Hausa language, he established residence in carefully ...

A linguistic memoir by an American Jew who embeds himself in a village of the Arabic-speaking, reputedly secretive, Druze of Israel and emerges transformed by his experience.During the 2015 "Knife Intifada" in Israel, author William Miles, a Jewish political anthropologist, embedded himself for four months in a Druze village within eyeshot of Lebanon. He returned year after year, spending eight months in total. The result is a multicultural auto-ethnography, a ling...

Since the end of the Cold War, the monopoly of legitimate organized force of many African states has been eroded by a mix of rebel groups, violent extremist organizations, and self-defence militias created in response to the rise in organized violence on the continent.African Border Disorders explores the complex relationships that bind states, transnational rebels and extremist organizations, and borders on the African continent. Combining cutting edge network science with geograp...

The Land Is Ours tells the story of South Africa’s first black lawyers, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an age of aggressive colonial expansion, land dispossession and forced labour, these men believed in a constitutional system that respected individual rights and freedoms, and they used the law as an instrument against injustice.The book follows the lives, ideas and careers of Henry Sylvester Williams, Alfred Mangena, Richard Msimang, Pixley ka Isaka Seme...

**'A magnificent, rollicking narrative' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Top 25 Non-Fiction Books of the 21st Century'Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2015Britain's railways have been a vital part of national life for nearly 200 years. Transforming lives and landscapes, they have left their mark on everything from timekeeping to tourism. As a self-contained world governed by distinctive rules and traditions, the network also exert...

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Pale...

A fascinating, evocative account of 19th-century London, so well-known from Charles Dickens' much-loved novels.Inside Dickens' London draws on descriptions of life in the capital from original letters, diaries and newspapers, as well as Dickens' own social commentary, to paint a vivid portrait of a city undergoing massive social changes. No author has ever described the city of London as well as Dickens. His eye for detail and his gift for characterization...

Why does Islam seem to dominate Egyptian politics, especially when the country's endemic poverty and deep economic inequality would seem to render it promising terrain for a politics of radical redistribution rather than one of religious conservativism? This book argues that the answer lies not in the political unsophistication of voters, the subordination of economic interests to spiritual ones, or the ineptitude of secular and leftist politicians, but in organizational and social factors...

Why did Tunisian protests following the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi lead to a massive wave of uprisings across the entire Arab world? Who participated in those protests, and what did they hope to achieve? Why did some leaders fall in the face of popular mobilization while others found ways to survive? And what have been the lasting results of the contentious politics of 2011 and 2012? The Arab uprisings pose stark challenges to the political science of the Middle East, which for d...

John Hollingshead (1827-1904) was an English journalist, writer and theatrical producer. Based on letters from the Morning Post, he published ‘Ragged London in 1861’ in the same year, capturing the essence of London’s bleak environment. in the novel, a correspondent travels through the underbelly of the metropolis, meeting and living with the very poorest and most desperate members of society. This is a must-read for fans of classic English fiction and 19th century history. Sections includ...