A prize-winning memoir, a tender evocation of a world, a place and a time. Born in 1950 to sporting parents and sharing his brother's homosexuality, Peter Wells decided at the age of eleven that his family could not 'afford' two homosexual sons. The problems this led to complicated his youth but possibly gave him the creative fuel that would go on to illuminate his books and films. Through the difficulties and strains explored in this 'mosaic of a memoir' come many other ...

The Barbarians Speak re-creates the story of Europe's indigenous people who were nearly stricken from historical memory even as they adopted and transformed aspects of Roman culture. The Celts and Germans inhabiting temperate Europe before the arrival of the Romans left no written record of their lives and were often dismissed as "barbarians" by the Romans who conquered them. Accounts by Julius Caesar and a handful of other Roman and Greek writers would lead us to think that prior...

Murder, theft, betrayal, and deception are as old as civilization itself.In Crime Before Our Time, journey across thousands of years and into multiple cultures to discover the mysteries of the past. From the courts and temples of Ancient Egypt and Rome to medieval China and Japan, through Elizabethan England to North America during colonial times until the 1800s, these captivating stories show how the darkest corners of human nature remain remarkably consistent, and alarmi...

This book provides a compelling exploration of the dysfunctionality of car electrification and green mobility. Detailing how car companies aim to control the future of automobility through circular business models, Peter E. Wells highlights the pivotal role of governments in this unsustainable transition.How the Global Automotive Industry Stole our Green Mobility Future emphasizes how major car manufacturers, supported by governmental subsidies and consumer incentives, hav...

Canadian Labour Policy and Politics is essential reading for undergraduates studying Canada’s labour market. This comprehensive textbook traces the causes and rise of labour inequities and outlines solutions for a more sustainable future.Written in clear and accessible language by leading experts and practitioners, this book demonstrates how and why laws and public policy – intended to protect workers – often leave employees vulnerable and with little economic or social se...

Written by Barry Hymer and Peter Wells, Chess Improvement: It's all in the mindset is an engaging and instructive guide that sets out how the application of growth mindset principles can accelerate chess improvement.With Tim Kett and insights from Michael Adams, David Howell, Harriet Hunt, Gawain Jones, Luke McShane, Matthew Sadler and Nigel Short.Foreword by Henrik Carlsen, father of world champion Magnus Carlsen.Twenty-first-century knowledge about skills...

The previously untold story of the watershed battle that changed the course of Western history.In AD 9, a Roman traitor led an army of barbarians who trapped and then slaughtered three entire Roman legions: 20,000 men, half the Roman army in Europe. If not for this battle, the Roman Empire would surely have expanded to the Elbe River, and probably eastward into present-day Russia. But after this defeat, the shocked Romans ended all efforts to expand beyond the Rhin...

Written by Barry Hymer and Peter Wells, Chess Improvement: It's all in the mindset is an engaging and instructive guide that sets out how the application of growth mindset principles can accelerate chess improvement.With Tim Kett and insights from Michael Adams, David Howell, Harriet Hunt, Gawain Jones, Luke McShane, Matthew Sadler and Nigel Short.Foreword by Henrik Carlsen, father of world champion Magnus Carlsen.Twenty-first-century knowledge about skills...

A captivating exploration of a Pakeha family's history in colonial New Zealand through intimate letters and personal reflections.In Dear Oliver, Peter Wells unearths a treasure trove of family letters, offering a poignant glimpse into the lives of ordinary people navigating extraordinary times. From the war against Te Kooti to the devastating Napier earthquake, Wells traces his ancestors' journey from servant status to middle-class comforts, revealing secr...

A rich and surprising look at the robust European culture that thrived after the collapse of Rome.The barbarians who destroyed the glory that was Rome demolished civilization along with it, and for the next four centuries the peasants and artisans of Europe barely held on. Random violence, mass migration, disease, and starvation were the only ways of life. This is the picture of the Dark Ages that most historians promote. But archaeology tells a different story. Peter Wells, one of...

Shortlisted for the NZ Post Award this fascinating, innovative biography is of a true original and significant figure in NZ's early colonisation. "I love doubters: of a truly honest doubter I have great hope." Printer, botanist and missionary, William Colenso was a nineteenth-century maverick, a true original. He protested at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, arguing that Maori did not fully understand its implications. He became a troubled conscience during the whit...

In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works througho...