Why was homosexuality made illegal in the UK in the summer of 1885, so suddenly and unexpectedly – leading to the persecution of tens of thousands over the next eight decades?This book looks at the strange story behind that decision, and the furore that tore apart Irish society the previous year – and retraces the journey of the author’s ancestor who fled from arrest at the height of the affair.But even in London, he wasn’t safe, escaping a second time ten years later in a moment o...

GET SH!T DONE was written for the leader who ends every week exhausted but somehow still feels behind. The one who's involved in everything, deciding everything, fixing everything - and watching the business move slower because of it, not faster. That's not a talent problem. That's a leadership problem.David Boyle has spent decades in business, automotive, management, and leadership, and what he's seen over and over is the same pattern: as companies grow, leaders get buried. The wo...

Universal change is often the result of an individual’s lightbulb moment – an invention that triggers a ripple effect across countries, continents, or even out into space. Great Inventions in 30 Seconds looks at fifty of these groundbreaking innovations – great ideas that really did change the world. It covers a wide range, from early days (the wheel) through materials (the invention of steel, for example, or plastic) to communications (the alphabet, the printing press, the Worldw...

The word 'tickbox' emerged recently as a cynical angle on official or corporate incompetence. They had 'ticked the box' - people said - but failed to act. It is increasingly used to describe this gap between official spin and reality.Yet, says David Boyle in this powerful expose of tickbox culture, that is just the tip of a vast tickbox iceberg. The only people who remain blind to this gap are those rich or powerful enough to run the world, and behind Tickbox lies an insidious phil...

Not long ago, economic theories were generally based on a narrow set of principles. Then the continuing boom–bust cycle combined with the failure of the best economic minds to ensure that prosperity spreads down through the economy has left a series of very obvious question marks, and the orthodoxy has been challenged from inside and outside the profession. It now seems clear that human beings and the planet have to be brought into the analysis. The first chapter goes right back to the deb...

In this highly innovative work, the senses are liberated from the confines of the present to serve as vehicles for accessing other historical periods and imagined futures. Sense-Making builds on the burgeoning field of sensory ethnography by introducing a pair of methodologies—sensory (re)construction and sensorial extrapolationCexpressly devised to facilitate time-travel.The first part offers a survey and critique of extant work in sensory archeology and sensory futures. ...

It is the summer of 1990. The first Gulf War looms, the satanic abuse panic rages, and one strange market town, unchanged for decades, suddenly and disastrously runs out of money. The crisis brings together the mayor and the man he wronged four decades before. This is a haunting tale of passing time, and a Pied Piper story for our own era, of the Blitz, the explosion of money, of clone towns, the Wright Brothers and growing up – and local currencies. And above it all, stands the ancient la...

If you thought being middle-class meant your own home, something set aside for the kids and a comfortable retirement – think again.For the first time ever, today’s middle classes will struggle to enjoy the same privileges of security and comfort that their grandparents did. How did this situation come about? What can be done about it?In this beautifully shaped inquiry, David Boyle questions why the middle classes are diminishing and how their status, independence and values...

A Brexit thriller where Adrian Matison, junior Treasury mandarin, follows the clues left by his friend, murdered on the Pilgrim's Way and discovers a forgotten government agency, founded in Henry VIII's time, is behind the efforts to leave Europe.

English culture is confused, muddled and often borrowed. The purpose of this book is to give the reader a complete grounding in the idiosyncrasies of the English and to pin down the absurdities and warmth of Englishness at its best.Featured in this book are such established English cultural behemoths as the Beatles, Big Ben and the Last Night of the Proms alongside less celebrated quirks such as meat pies and the working man’s have...

Abandoned in the Dark is a collection of unnerving stories which are grounded in reality, journeys that promise to keep you awake at night and get your heart pound- ing. "Abandoned in the Dark" and "Close Call," among other similar stories collected here, delve into our universal feeling of dread and will ruthlessly steal your breath away. "Behind the Curtain," a uniquely unsettling sexual tale ridden with disturbing undertones and unforgettable imagery, is c...

Abandoned in the Dark is a collection of unnerving stories which are grounded in reality, journeys that promise to keep you awake at night and get your heart pound- ing. "Abandoned in the Dark" and "Close Call," among other similar stories collected here, delve into our universal feeling of dread and will ruthlessly steal your breath away. "Behind the Curtain," a uniquely unsettling sexual tale ridden with disturbing undertones and unforgettable imagery, is certain to haunt parents in part...