United Kingdom Books

If you want to know the real story behind the history of chimney sweeps, this is the book to read. The author did excellent research on the subject. It should be of interest to anyone in the chimney sweeping profession or the history of any labor force.

Interesting, well-written account of what life was like as a chimney sweep and climbing boy before modern times. Ms. Cullingford brings out little-known facts about the trade, making this book an interesting read for both chimney sweeps and the general public. I highly recommend it!

This is a brilliant synthesis of all that is good in British Crime Cinema. The essays are clear and well-focussed, and the referencing is excellent. Particularly well-written and pertinent to the present popularity of such films as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is Claire Monk's essay on Crime and British cinema in the 1990s. The referencing to both earlier crime cinema and the wider genre of hip, cool trendy cinema directed at the 18-25 year old male with its additional sound track identity is worth reading for anyone concentrating on film studies. Both a good read and an excellent reference work.

This is a brilliant synthesis of all that is good in British Crime Cinema. The essays are clear and well-focussed, and the referencing is excellent. Particularly well-written and pertinent to the present popularity of such films as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is Claire Monk's essay on Crime and British cinema in the 1990s. The referencing to both earlier crime cinema and the wider genre of hip, cool trendy cinema directed at the 18-25 year old male with its additional sound track identity is worth reading for anyone concentrating on film studies. Both a good read and an excellent reference work.

I mark this book as a required text to my students in my Cultural Studies Course.

Despite, or rather because of it's professed limitation to British Cultural Studies, Turner demonstrates a lot of sensitivity to what is and what is not British Cultural Studies, making any reader immediately aware of how other Cultural Studies traditions may differ. His extremely cogent and clear account takes the reader easily into the heart of Cultural Studies- what quarrels does British Cultural Studies have with other disciplines and what is so unique about its orientation as a discipline?

Turner's is a well-summarized, well-written introduction to the tradition of so-called critical cultural studies. This can draw a lot of attention from undergrads to phd-to-bes, from all across the social science and hmanities fields--such as mass media, communication, literature, aesthetics, philosophy, criticism, popular culture. If you believe that there's something missing in the US mainstream social science and humanities, this is the book you must start with.

I suggest this book because is just perfect.
It has all the informations for the british ship from ww2 to the present with very good details. drawings and very clear photos.
In the end is a had details and imformations about all the ships destroyers and frigates that have the british built from ww2 and after.
The shape is big and the quality is very good.
It si my best book that i have buy for the british ships.

This book appears to be an exhaustive history of Royal Navy design since 1935 for all destroyer and frigate type ships. It is good reading and very informative. The pictures are good and contain many photos that I have not seen before. Recommended for anyone interested in naval design or history.

This book serves as an overview of the historiography of the British Empire. It is not a history of the empire by any stretch and really looks at the motives for expansion and shows what other historians are debating on the subject. There is a distinct justification of Marxism throughout the book although they treat it relatively fairly and do point out when Marxist theory does not apply such as Africa. The book does expose the theory that a gentleman class of capitalists was in charge of British expansion and was well placed within the government and financial sectors to control expansion during this time period. Hughes and Cain try to show how this class rose to prominence and then fell with the rest of the empire in the post world war II era through the sterling zone. The majority of the book focuses on the years from 1688-1939. There is only really one chapter on the post 1939 world although what is said about it is very interesting.

Overall this is not a book that you want to start with if you are just learning about British Empire. I would recommend either Dennis Judd's book on Empire or the Oxford history five volume history of the British Empire. Once you have a good grasp on the history of the British Empire this is an excellent book to summarize that knowledge and understand the historical debates affecting the historiography of empire today. The authors are truly the top in their field when considering the theories of empire and this book is a landmark not only in the study of the British empire but empires as a whole.

Great historians of British imperialism have tended to come in pairs for the last half-century (Robinson and Gallagher being the other pair), and this is the magnum opus for Cain and Hopkins. In many ways this book is an historiographical response to Robinson and Gallagher, and it is rich in themes adapted both from Robinson and Gallagher, as well as from earlier imperial commentators such as Marx, Hobson, and Lenin.

It argues, amongst other things, that the primary motivator of British overseas expansion were the "gentlemanly interests" emanating from the metropole. That is, interests in the financial and the service sector, non-working incomes that were the natural extension of the British aristocracy of yesteryear. Robinson and Gallagher's ideas may hold true in many cases, but this work is indispensable for demonstrating that perhaps underlying all the strategic interests were economic interests of the most powerful variety - aristocratic businessmen that held sway at Westminster. The connections between gentlemanly capitalists and government officials ran deep, they argue; everything from their common public school upbringing, to powerful amalgamations of finance and government.

This book also includes a detailed discussion of informal empire, yet it considerably modifies Robinson and Gallagher's thesis by ascribing both formal and informal imperialism to the interests of the City (that is, financial and service sector interests). In other words, both formal and informal empire found their impetus in the City's financial interests. This otherwise Hobsonian (J.A. Hobson, "Imperialism: A Study") thesis therefore modifies the economically-based theories of both Hobson himself, as well as Marxist historians, by emphasizing financial and service sector interests, rather than being preoccupied with industrial interests. Industrial interests, according to Cain and Hopkins, were not connected with London policy-makers, and were not sufficiently wealthy and integrated to have any considerable effect on official policy.

First published in 1993, and having been re-issued in one volume in 2001, this book has sparked fresh debate on British imperialism, as well as shed light on the issue of globalization in the twenty-first century.

Es el pasaporte para entrar al Reino Unido.
Me sirvió extraordinariamente para conocer:
a. frases clave
b. comunicación diaria
c. curiosidades en costumbres
d. particularidades del Reino
Cómprelo con total confianza.

I bought this book, because i'm interested in English. I'm not a native speaker, and i'm not brought up in an English speaking country. After learning for English in school for almost twenty years, i'm more interested in culture now. I can find out how British language is different from other English, and how it is related to other language. It's just a wonderfully amazing experience reading this book.

This is the most complete Royal Commemorative book I have yet to come across. It shows color and black and white photos of Royal Commemorative collectables past and present. With descriptive information and value. I am a avid collector and I consider this book to be my Bible. A must have for anyone who collects or is simply interested in the British Monarchy.

If you have any interest in the Royal Family, in history, or in items commemorating significant events relating to the Royal Family, then this is a book you simply can't do without. Whether you're a collector, an enthusiast, or simply curious about the vast spectrum of items available, you will find this book a sheer delight. Color plates and an extensive black & white collector and price guide make this book invaluable for collectors, appraisers, or anyone interested in the growing fascination with the Royal Family - and the investment opportunities associated with commemorative items. Doug Flynn and Alan Bolton have set a benchmark that others will struggle to ever improve upon. Highly recommended.

The book came promply and it was as discribed. The pictures in the book help with understanding of what is written.

This is one of the most extraordinary history/archaeology books I've ever encountered. It is packed full of historical details, maps, and reconstructions of Roman buildings, almost all of which are now (in Britain) nothing but foundations. Further, the text is written in an intelligent but light-hearted style, making it highly accessible to non-specialists. The only, very minor, negative is that a couple of the drawings/paintings of the derelict Roman remains seem to show "gravity defying" stones, and don't seem to correspond to all the known facts. Nonetheless, that's absolute nitpicking, in what is a magnificent achievement of a book.

To quote Nicholson Baker in The History of Punctuation essay from The Size of Thoughts:

John Lennard's extraordinary recent monograph on the history of the parenthesis [is] gracefully written and full of intelligence, decked out with a complete scholarly apparatus of multiple indicies, bibliographies, and notes, whose author, to judge by the startling jacket photo (shaved head with up-sticking central proto-Mohawk tuft, erring on left ear, wilted corduroy jacket, and over-laundered T-shirt bearing some enigmatic insignia underneath), put himself through graduate school by working as a ticket scalper at Elvis Costello concerts. (A Discussion of Elvis Costello's use of the parenthesis in "Let Him Dangle" figures in a late chapter.)

Following the death of Diana, Princess of Walls, Elton John re-released 'Candle in the Wind'. John Lennard (spondee stressed) decided to release, in a knowning nod to Elton, a version of 'Bracket Man'. All editions of the book were sold with a detachable pair of ear mufflers. Lennard John looks set to follow up this coup-de-loon with the "Pottery Handbook" : a guide to getting lost in Stoke. John Lennard is 33.

This is the best field guide to European butterflies and not just by default. Although there is currently no other decent European field guide to butterflies, this has undoubtedly set the standard for many years to come.

All 440 species of Europe and North Africa are fully described and illustrated with male and females depicted and - where there is significant variation - subspecies.

The text itself is accurate, concise and oriented at the field observer. A monochrome thumbnail map accompanies the detailed range / distribution section. Under "Description", it is heartening to see comparative comments rather than a re-hashing of what can be seen on the plates - something that used to occur often in field guides. Habitat is described in great detail. Life history includes a list of larval food plants.

The 104 plates do not accompany the text, but are found together in the centre of the book. They are, of course, superb. Extremely lifelike, wonderfully helpful for identification and pleasing to the eye, they are everything we have come to expect from Richard Lewington's brush.

This is a "must have" for anyone travelling to Europe and no British naturalist will want to be without it either. In 1970, Higgins & Riley were the pioneers. This book is the worthy successor to that groundbreaking first guide, taking the art of identification to even higher levels.

This book has over 500 pages, about half of it is drawn pictures of butterflies (Rhopalocera). Each plate has a load full of butterflies, drawn in ground and side plan. Along with species there are possible forms or subspecies. The families are organized from Papilionidae to Hisperiidae. Quality paper, hard cover which is useful, due to common use out in the field. Along with a picture there is a portion of text for each species. The author gives information on range, distribution, variations, flight-period, habitat, life-history, conservation, behaviour, food plants... A map of Europe marked with distribution. Useful to hobbyist or a professional alike. Highly recommended.