History Social Cultural

In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing t….

'A trenchant and invaluable people's history of the bottom of the pyramid in the world's most populous nation' Financial Times What does the life of an ordinary working-class, Muslim woman look and feel like in modern India? Award-winning journalist Neha Dixit traces the story of one such...

One of the twentieth century's most influential books, this classic work of anthropology offers a groundbreaking exploration of what culture is With The Interpretation of Cultures, the distinguished anthropologist Clifford Geertz developed the concept of thick description, and in so doing, he...

THE NEW BOOK FROM ELINOR CLEGHORN: A WOMAN'S WORK IS OUT NOW 'An essential history' - Leah Hazard 'Powerful' NEW YORK TIMES 'A passionate and indignant history' THE TIMES 'Unputdownable' TELEGRAPH Medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. Over centuries, women's bodies have been...

Brought to you by Penguin. This is not a comprehensive study of every sexual quirk, kink and ritual across all cultures throughout time, as that would entail writing an encyclopaedia. Rather, this is a drop in the ocean, a paddle in the shallow end of sex history, but I hope you will get...

From the acclaimed author of In Defence of Witches, a powerful exploration of self-blame, why women are prone to it, and what we can do about it. Many of us battle a relentless inner critic that whispers to us we are unworthy or inadequate. In How to Resist Guilt, a powerful manifesto about...

We've all had those moments. The ones where you look in the mirror and nothing feels ok. For Anita Bhagwandas, this started when she was a child and it created an enduring internal torment about her looks. We're all told that this is just part of growing up, but it stays with us, evolving as we...

The captivating story of football told through 100 amazing objects collected from its rich history – a must-read for any football fan What do a Paul Gascoigne puppet, the 1895 British Ladies’ kit, John Motson’s coat, an inflatable unicorn or the 1966 World Cup Final ball tell us about the...

An immersive history of our coasts and the people who have shaped them The coast means something different to everyone. It’s a place of pleasure and reckless pursuits, of fishing, fearless endeavours and a crashing, rugged beauty. The coast is, and always has been, our first line of defence...

From the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, an extraordinary history of the meteoric rise and fall of George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham. As King James I’s favourite, Buckingham was also his confidant, gatekeeper, advisor and lover. When Charles I succeeded his father, he was...

El panteón mexica tenía más de cien deidades, en su mayoría seccionadas de forma jerárquica. Entre los poderes que se les atribuía se encontraban: inmortalidad y capacidad de renacer o reencarnar si morían, omnipresencia, omnipotencia, invisibilidad y el poder de manifestarse visiblemente en sueños o como nahuales. Los dioses mexicas no eran sólo justicieros, bondadosos y equitativos, sino que también eran arbitrarios, bromistas, caprichosos y malévolos.

Where do we find our ideals? What does it mean to live for them - and to risk dying for them? For Americans during World War I, these weren't abstract questions. Young Radicals tells the story of five activists, intellectuals, and troublemakers who agitated for freedom and equality in the hopeful years before the war, then fought to defend those values in a country pitching into violence and chaos.

'Money is handy for doing messages' was a phrase the young Tommie Gorman heard from his father, growing up in Sligo in the 1960s. Struggle was never far away but their household had a surplus of love and warmth. From modest beginnings as a local reporter at the Western Journal, where his...

Bloomsbury presents Why Populists are Winning, written and read by Liam Byrne. 'Required reading' Andrew Marr, New Statesman In 2024, two billion people went to vote – and populism won big. Donald Trump returned to the White House. Marine Le Pen surged in France. Reform UK became Britain’s...

When Ye Pei dreamed of Venice as a girl, she imagined a magical floating city of canals and gondola rides. And she imagined her mother, successful in her new life and eager to embrace the daughter she had never forgotten. But when Ye Pei arrives in Italy, she learns her mother works on a farm far from the city. Her only connection, a mean-spirited Chinese auntie, puts Ye Pei to work in a small-town café. Rather than giving up and returning to China, a determined Ye Pei takes on a grueling schedule.

Have you ever wondered about the origin of the terrifying Wendigo? How about the Philippine shape-shifting vampire? What about the Māori forest spirits? Join award winning podcaster and researcher Kamuela Kaneshiro as he takes you on a thrilling trip through Asia, the Americas, and other fascinating cultures touching the Pacific Ocean. And as you marvel at this captivating assortment of deities, monsters, and historical backdrops, you’re sure to have your imagination sparked by the wonders of the world.

The fourth book in the celebrated ‘Tales of a New Jerusalem’ series – named one of the best books of the 21st century by the Sunday Times Bloomsbury presents On the Cusp by David Kynaston, read by Mark Meadows. A TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF 2022 ————————— 'Glorious ... It's...

Between the years 1918 and 1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least 50 million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in our nation's past. American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. 

The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it "the historical Bible of the civil rights movement." The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s.

Say the word Israel today and it sparks images of walls and rockets and a bloody conflict without end. Yet for decades the symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers' dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine? Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws listeners into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era.