"Without Contraries is no progression." - William BlakeBertram and Eustace are brothers. Bertram is extroverted, practical, a celebrity and a social success. Eustace is introverted, scholarly and shyly oblique. They understand neither themselves nor one another. Instead, they tell one another stories.Only two people see through their defences: their cousin Mimi, a retired violinist who lives in 'Tartini's Rest', and Kariba, a literary genius from Africa, Bertram's ...

Autumn in London, Thatcher's Britain. As the rooms of the National Gallery echo to strange footsteps, and a bomb explodes in distant Brighton, a young painter receives a bizarre commission from his ailing and obsessive uncle. Gradually the past returns to engulf him, freighted by scenes and personalities he has long hoped to forget. In the year of the creation of the Turner prize, competing schools wrangle over the future of art. Demonstrations disturb the nocturnal city. A royal palace bu...

'This well-written and highly readable book makes a major contribution to advancing our understanding of the contribution that economics can make to analysing the impact of international trade policies for environmental risks … Regardless of the likelihood that the current WTO dispute settlement procedures can be changed in the way suggested by the authors of this book, it is essential reading for those interested in the contribution that economics can make to advancing our understanding o...

The poet George Barker was convinced that his biography could never be written. 'I've stirred the facts around too much,' he told Robert Fraser. 'It simply can't be done.' Eliot wrote of his 'genius'. Yeats thought him the most interesting poet of his generation. Dylan Thomas envied his power over women. War trapped him in Japan. In America he conducted one of the most celebrated love affairs of the century. He fathered fifteen children in several countries, three during one battle-torn su...

This second edition of Ian Gordon's A Preface to Pope places the poet within the social, cultural and intellectual context of his time. It throws new light on the theoretical and imaginative structures of Pope's poetry focusing on the linguistic complexity at its centre. It offers a critical survey of his work and also contains introductory essays. The book concludes with a reference section which includes indispensible information on places and people in Pope's poetry, together w...

Good biosecurity policy decisions, particularly in relation to plant industry protection, are of ever increasing importance. Growth in the speed and diversity of trade, the effects of climate change and the resultant spread of pests and diseases continue to highlight this. This book contains an introduction to the issues confronting plant biosecurity policymakers and how the economic risks of invasive species can be assessed over time. It describes both probability models that show what mi...

This book focuses on the twin arts of literature and music, supporting the notion that cosmopolitanism is the natural condition of all the arts, and that all culture - without exception - is migrant culture. It draws on examples ranging from the first to the twenty-first centuries AD, on locations as remote as Alexandria and Australia, on writers as different as Virgil and V.S.Naipaul, Arnold and Achebe, and on musicians as diverse as Bach and Bartok, Purcell and Steve Reich. Across thirte...

Marrying life-writing with classical reception, this book examines ancient biography and its impact on subsequent ages. Close readings of ancient texts are framed by an assessment of their influence on the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and on the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, of responses to ancient biography of modern critics, and of its visible legacy in art and film. Crucially it asks what modern biographers can learn from their ancient predecessors. Ar...

In recent years, Europe has had to constantly rethink and redefine its attitude toward new flows of immigrations. Issues of boundaries and identity have been integral to this reflection. Through a magnificent collection of essays, Migrant Cartographies examines both sites and conflicts and the way in which forms of belonging and identity have been reinvented. With careful analysis and exceptional insight, this volume explores the most recent literature on migration as seen from di...

A classic study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind, and the progress through magic and religion to scientific thought, The Golden Bough has a unique status in modern anthropology and literature. First published in 1890, The Golden Bough was eventually issued in a twelve-volume edition (1906-15) which was abridged in 1922 by the author and his wife. That abridgement has never been reconsidered for a modern audience. In it some of the more controversial passages wer...

Includes an AUDIOBOOK SUPPLEMENT with all the charts in the print book!The greatest days of planet earth are on the horizon. Contrary to popular belief, we actually have a bright future on planet earth. Yes, there are plenty of challenges to tackle, no question. But history and the Bible tell a very different story You may be surprised to learn how much the earth has changes in the 2000 years since Jesus' birth -- for the better!Discover some eye-popping charts and facts on...

This surprising study draws together the disparate fields of postcolonial theory and book history in a challenging and illuminating way.Robert Fraser proposes that we now look beyond the traditional methods of the Anglo-European bibliographic paradigm, and learn to appreciate instead the diversity of shapes that verbal expression has assumed across different societies. This change of attitude will encourage students and researchers to question developmentally conceived models of co...