Splendidly Victorian


Book Description

This title was first published in 2001. The eminent historian of Victorian Britain, Walter L. Arnstein has, over the course of a career spanning more than 40 years, arguably introduced more students to British history than any other American historian. This collection of essays by some of his former students celebrates Arnstein's inspirational teaching and writing with surveys and analyses of various aspects of the social, cultural, economic and political history of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain. Nineteenth-century topics covered in the volume include early Victorian caricatures and the thin legal lines that they often trod; British Army fashion and its contribution to Royal spectacles; Free Trade Radicals and how they viewed educational reform and moral progress; the persistence of Chartist ideology following the failure of the movement in 1848; Disraeli and Derby's involvement with the Navy's administration; religious periodicals and their influence; the myth of Bismarck as an honest broker of peace and the subsequent collapse of the myth as a later source of enmity in Anglo-German relations; the powerful mystique evoked back in England by the London missionary societies Mongolian; missions; Victorian urban planning and the re-introduction of the market place.




Splendidly Victorian


Book Description




The Victorian Book of the Dead


Book Description

Macabre tales of death and mourning in Victorian America.







No More Parades


Book Description

Second book in the "Parade's End" series about the Tietjens family and WWI.




Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture


Book Description

'Will you write in my album?' Many Romantic poets were asked this question by women who collected contributions in their manuscript books. Those who obliged included Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, and Lamb, but also Felicia Hemans, Amelia Opie, and Sara Coleridge. Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture presents the first critical and cultural history of this forgotten phenomenon. It asks a series of questions. Where did 1820s 'albo-mania' come from, and why was it satirized as a women's 'mania'? What was the relation between visitors' books associated with great institutions and country houses, personal albums belonging to individuals, and the poetry written in both? What caused albums' re-gendering from earlier friendship books kept by male students and gentlemen on the Grand Tour to a 'feminized' practice identified mainly with young women? When albums were central to women's culture, why were so many published album poems by men? How did amateur and professional poets engage differently with albums? What does album culture's privileging of 'original poetry' have to say about attitudes towards creativity and poetic practice in the age of print? This volume recovers a distinctive subgenre of occasional poetry composed to be read in manuscript, with its own characteristic formal features, conventions, themes, and cultural significance. Unique albums examined include that kept at the Grande Chartreuse, those owned by Regency socialite Lady Sarah Jersey, and those kept by Lake poets' daughters. As Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture shows, album poetry reflects changing attitudes to identity, gender, class, politics, poetry, family dynamics, and social relations in the Romantic period.




The Vision Splendid


Book Description

The Vision Splendid features the sketchbooks of 22 nineteenth-century artists, ranging from well-known professionals like Eugene von Gu�rard and John Glover to amateurs about whom little is known. These artists, engineers, surveyors, military men, solicitors, public servants and pastoralists all delighted in recording what they saw and then sharing it with family, friends and the wider public. The sketches reveal what colonial life in Australia was like at that time, both in the country and in the city, and the challenges the artists faced depicting landscapes that were so different from those in Europe.




Pussy Hats, Politics, and Public Protest


Book Description

Co-winner of the 2021 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize awarded by the Women's Section of the American Folklore Society Contributions by Susan Eleuterio, Andrea Glass, Rachelle Hope Saltzman, Jack Santino, Patricia E. Sawin, and Adam Zolkover The 2016 US presidential campaign and its aftermath provoked an array of protests notable for their use of humor, puns, memes, and graphic language. During the campaign, a video surfaced of then-candidate Donald Trump’s lewd use of the word “pussy”; in response, many women have made the issue and the term central to the public debate about women’s bodies and their political, social, and economic rights. Focusing on the women-centered aspects of the protests that started with the 2017 Women’s March, Pussy Hats, Politics, and Public Protest deals with the very public nature of that surprising, grassroots spectacle and explores the relationship between the personal and the political in the protests. Contributors to this edited collection use a folkloristic lens to engage with the signs, memes, handmade pussy hats, and other items of material culture that proliferated during the march and in subsequent public protests. Contributors explore how this march and others throughout history have employed the social critique functions and features of carnival to stage public protests; how different generations interacted and acted in the march; how perspectives on inclusion and citizenship influenced and motivated participation; how women-owned businesses and their dedicated patrons interacted with the election, the march, and subsequent protests; how popular belief affects actions and reactions, regardless of some objective notion of truth; and how traditionally female crafts and gifting behavior strengthened and united those involved in the march.




Women and the Colonial Gaze


Book Description

"Women and the Colonial Gaze" examines the way images of women have been used by colonizers and subject peoples to define the colonial relationship.




The Splendid Book of the Bicycle


Book Description

Cycling is hugely popular nowadays. Since 2003 more than 100 million bikes have been produced each year, more than twice the amount of cars. And in 2011, more than 741,000 people cycled to work, an increase of 90,000 from 2001. The Splendid Book of the Bicycle is a wide-ranging celebration of the bicycle and cycling, incorporating social history, sport and science. It covers the bicycle’s invention and subsequent historical development, stories of intrepid early cyclists who travelled the world, the 20th-century popularity of cycle touring, and the depiction of bicycles in films, books and art. It examines the sport of cycling, including histories of the Tour de France and the other great European races, the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, and goes on to explore velodrome-based cycling and the rise of BMX and mountain biking. It investigates the science behind balance and aerodynamics, and covers the future of bicycles, including innovative flying, floating and electric bikes. It also touches on the technical aspects of bicycles, including an exploded diagram of a typical bike and tips for basic maintenance of your own bike. Beautifully illustrated with vintage and modern images, this book is a perfect gift for both bike obsessives and general readers. Word count: 35,000 words