This book offers an examination of the hero figure in the work of G. A. Henty (1832-1902) and George MacDonald (1824-1905) and a reassessment of oppositional critiques of their writing. It demonstrates the complementary characteristics of the hero figure which construct a complete identity commensurate with the Victorian ideal hero. The relationship between the expansion of the British Empire and youthful heroism is established through investigation of the Victorian political, social, and ...

In 1978, amidst the aftermath of the Soweto Uprisings and after being held in detention without charge for over a year, a young black woman who had just turned eighteen, stepped into the witness box at Kempton Park Circuit Court, north-east of Johannesburg. She was there to testify in the apartheid State’s case against eleven Soweto school student activists, on trial for sedition. She confirmed her name as Mary Masabata Loate. Loate would live with the consequences of this decision to talk...

AN ORIGIN STORY BOOK'Provides clarity, scholarship, wit and essential insight into why our world is the way it is' Adam Rutherford'I wish I could make Ian and Dorian's work mandatory' Sathnam SangheraA coherent political philosophy or a vacuous cop-out? A pragmatic middle way between the extremes of left and right or a cynical strategy to secure power and neuter debate?Politicians have long invoked centrism...

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**A Financial Times 2023 book to watch*'Forceful ... The fundamental thrust of Goodwin's argument is right ... a new centre ground of British politics is being formed - even if both parties have yet to fully comprehend it' The TimesWhat has caused the recent seismic changes in British politics, including Brexit and a series of populist revolts against the elite? ...

LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2017How do we discuss serious ideas in the age of 24-hour news? What was rhetoric in the past and what should it be now? And what does Islamic State have in common with Donald Trump?We’ve never had more information or more opportunity to debate the issues of the day. Yet the relationship between politicians, the media and the public is characterised by suspicion, mistrust and apathy. What has gone wrong?...

Human rights is an important issue in contemporary politics, and the last few decades have also seen a remarkable increase in research and teaching on the subject. This book introduces students to the study of human rights and aims to build on their interest while simultaneously offering an alternative vision of the subject. Many texts focus on the theoretical and legal issues surrounding human rights. This book adopts a substantially different approach which uses empirical data derived fr...

'A must-read manifesto for border abolition' - gal-demBorders are more than geographical lines - they impact all our lives, whether it’s the inhumanity of deportations, or a rise in racist attacks in the wake of the EU referendum. Border Nation shows how oppressive borders must be resisted.Laying bare the web of media myths that vilify migrants, Leah Cowan dives into the murky waters of corporate profiteering from borders by companies like G4S, and the ram...

Why should we in Australia, or any country, care about poverty, human rights atrocities, health epidemics, environmental catastrophes, weapons proliferation or any other problems afflicting faraway countries, when they don’t, as is often the case, have any direct or immediate impact on our own safety or prosperity? Gareth Evans’ answer is the approach he adopted when Australia’s foreign minister. He argues that to be, and be seen to be, a good international citizen — a state that ...

**Winner, Oral History Australia Book Award 2024**A ground-breaking history of Australia’s treatment of child refugeesCruel Care tells a story of government, politics and the emotions that drive decisions. It asks why Australia has treated child refugees with violence and why governments say that the cruel acts they perpetrate are a form of care.Based on extensive research – including 35 oral history interviews with key pol...

'Rigorous, impassioned and urgent' - Ash SarkarWe are in a moment of profound overlapping crises. The landscape of politics and entitlement is being rapidly remade. As movements against colonial legacies and state violence coincide with the rise of authoritarian regimes, it is the lens of racism, and the politics of race, that offers the sharpest focus.In Empire's Endgame, eight leading scholars make a powerful intervention in debates around racial capitalism and p...

For over sixty years, Selma James has been organising from the perspective of unwaged women who, with their biological and caring work, reproduce the whole human race - along with whatever other labour they are performing. When this work is not economically prioritised, politically protected, or socially supported there are dire consequences for the whole of humanity, beginning with women and children. This much-anticipated follow-up to her first anthology, Sex, Race, and Class, compiles s...

Dr Nechama Brodie challenges many of the myths used to narrate farm killings. She includes nearly a century of news reports, statistical data, legal cases and expert research on violence on farms, including violence experienced by farm labourers and in black communities surrounding mostly white-owned farmlands. Farm Killings in South Africa provides a compelling and heart-breaking record of the reality of violence in South Africa.