Political Science & Ideology
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Higher Politics: Revise and learn (Bright Red Study Guides)
Get exam ready with our brand-new Higher Politics Study Guide!
Written specifically for the Scottish curriculum, this unmissable new study guide from BrightRED Publishing covers a wide range of topics to help build your knowledge and equip you with the tools needed to succeed in Higher Politics. In this Study Guide, you will find:- Thorough coverage of the course and assessment
- Clear and concise explanations of key topics and challenging ideas, including political theory, systems, parties and elections
- Activities and content that will help you learn how to analyse and evaluate information from a wide range of sources
- Don’t Forget pointers that offer advice on key facts and how to avoid common mistakes.
- Things to Do and Think About sections which provide you with plenty of opportunities to put your knowledge into practice.
This guide is also supported by a host of free additional material available on the BrightRED Digital Zone!
Contents:
- Introduction
- Political Theory
- Political Systems
- Political Parties and Elections
- Source Questions
- Assignment
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Reconstruction Updated Edition: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
From the “preeminent historian of Reconstruction” (New York Times Book Review), the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period that shaped modern America.
Eric Foner’s “masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history” (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed.
Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves’ quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans.
This “smart book of enormous strengths” (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.
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A Short History of the Spanish Civil War: Revised Edition (Short Histories)
In elegant and accessible prose, Julián Casanova tells the gripping story of the Spanish Civil War. These anguished and traumatic years filled Spain with hope, frustration and drama. Not only did it pit countryman against countryman, and neighbour against neighbour, but from 1936-39 this bitterly contended struggle sucked in competing and seemingly atavistic forces that were soon to rage across the face of Europe, and then the rest of the world: nationalism and republicanism; communism and fascism; anarchism and monarchism; anti-clerical reformism and aristocratic Catholic conservatism. The ‘Guerra Civil’ is of enduring interest precisely because it represents much more than just a regional contest for power and governmental legitimacy. It has come to be seen as a seedbed for the titanic political struggles and larger social upheavals that scarred the entire 20th century. Charting the most significant events and battles alongside the main players in the tragedy, Casanova provides answers to some of the pressing questions (such as the roots and extent of anticlerical violence) that have been asked in the 70 years that have passed since the painful defeat of the Second Republic. Now with a revised introduction, Casanova offers an overview of key historiographical shifts since the title was first published; not least the wielding of the conflict to political ends in certain strands of contemporary historiography towards an alarming neo-Francoist revisionism.Read more
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Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (James Lydon Lectures in Medieval History and Culture)
Throughout medieval Europe, for hundreds of years, monarchy was the way that politics worked in most countries. This meant power was in the hands of a family – a dynasty; that politics was family politics; and political life was shaped by the births, marriages and deaths of the ruling family. How did the dynastic system cope with female rule, or pretenders to the throne? How did dynasties use names, the numbering of rulers and the visual display of heraldry to express their identity? And why did some royal families survive and thrive, while others did not? Drawing on a rich and memorable body of sources, this engaging and original history of dynastic power in Latin Christendom and Byzantium explores the role played by family dynamics and family consciousness in the politics of the royal and imperial dynasties of Europe. From royal marriages and the birth of sons, to female sovereigns, mistresses and wicked uncles, Robert Bartlett makes enthralling sense of the complex web of internal rivalries and loyalties of the ruling dynasties and casts fresh light on an essential feature of the medieval world.Read more
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Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review
Mission Zero is a landmark independent report into the delivery of the UK’s commitment to net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Chaired by Chris Skidmore, the UK’s former Energy Minister who was responsible for signing net zero into law, its conclusions set out, for the very first time, a new economic narrative for climate policy, demonstrating the vast financial opportunity that net zero can deliver.
This timely and crucial report acts as a template for how all countries can map out future challenges and opportunities and, above all, deliver their own pathway to net zero while also creating new jobs, industries and investment for the future.
Commissioned by the UK’s Prime Minister in September 2022, Mission Zero is the largest engagement exercise on net zero conducted to date and has been widely recognised as the most informative and detailed document on the topic, covering every sector and aspect of society. This important book is a vital piece of work and an indispensable must-read for anyone interested in energy, climate and sustainability policy.
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£12.79£14.99Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review
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Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis
In a world shaken by ecological, economic and political crises, the forces of authoritarianism and reaction seem to have the upper hand. How should we name, map and respond to this state of affairs?Late Fascism turns to theories of fascism produced in the past century, testing their capacity to illuminate our moment and challenging many of the commonplaces that debate on this extremely charged term devolves into. It can be tempting for any contemporary assessment of fascism to reach for historical analogy. Fascism is defined by returns and repetitions, but it is not best approached in terms of steps and checklists dictated by a selective reading of Italian Fascism or National Socialism.
Rather than treating fascism as an unrepeatable phenomenon or identifying it with a settled configuration of European parties, regimes, and ideologies, Toscano approaches fascism as a problem and a process, one that is intimately linked to capitalism’s demands for domination. Drawing especially on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of racial fascism, Late Fascism makes clear the limits of identifying fascism simply with the political violence of bygone European regimes. Developing anti-fascist theory is a vital and urgent task. From the “Great Replacement” to campaigns against critical race theory and “gender ideology”, today’s global far-right is launching lethal panics about the threats to traditional political, sexual and racial regimes. Late Fascism allows us to rediscover some truly inspiring anti-fascist thinkers, rooted in their turn in largely anonymous collective practices of worldmaking against domination, traditions of the oppressed that remain a resource for those set on dismantling the hierarchies and segregations that the partisans of Order and Tradition seek to revive and reimpose.
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OCR Classical Civilisation A Level Components 31 and 34: Greek Religion and Democracy and the Athenians
This textbook supports OCR’s A-Level Classical Civilisation and is written for students taking Components 31 and 34 from the ‘Beliefs and Ideas’ Component Group. The ideal preparation for the final examinations, this book covers the two optionsGreek Religion and Democracy and the Athenians. Experts and experienced teachers present all the necessary content in a clear and accessible narrative. Helpful student features include study questions, further reading, and boxes focusing in on key people, events and terms.Read more
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The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story (Heroic Children of World War II)
He has endured more than any child ever should, but now he must survive Block 66.January, 1945. 14-year-old Moshe Kessler steps off the train at Buchenwald concentration camp. Having endured the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, lost touch with his entire family, and survived the death march in the freezing European winter, he has seen more than his share of tragedy.
Moshe knows only one thing about Buchenwald. Everyone knows it.
If you want to survive, you have to get to Block 66.
The Germans are cruel and determined – but they are not prepared for Buchenwald’s secret resistance, which rises up with one mission only: to protect the camp’s children from harm.
This is the incredible true story of Moshe Kessler and Block 66 – the children’s block that was at the forefront of one of the most shocking and inspiring stories of Holocaust survival.
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On Politics
A magisterial, one-volume history of political thought from Herodotus to the present, Ancient Athens to modern democracy – from author and professor Alan Ryan
This is a book about the answers that historians, philosophers, theologians, practising politicians and would-be revolutionaries have given to one question: how should human beings best govern themselves?
Almost every modern government claims to be democratic; but is democracy really the best way of organising our political life? Can we manage our own affairs at all? Should we even try? In the west, do we actually live in democracies? In this extraordinary book Alan Ryan engages with the great thinkers of the past to show us how vividly their ideas speak to us in today’s uncertain world.
ALAN RYAN was born in London in 1940 and taught for many years at Oxford, where he was a Fellow of New College and Reader in Politics. He was Professor of Politics at Princeton from 1988 to 1996, when he returned to Oxford to become Warden of New College and Professor of Political Theory until his retirement in 2009. His previous books include The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell: A Political Life and John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Reviews of On Politics:
‘An engaging and smart survey of major political thinkers … Through Ryan [they] speak directly to the present’ Mark Mazower, Prospect
‘Ryan’s book is a magnificent piece of work, clear (even when the ideas he’s exploring are obscure) and engaging (even when the theory in the original is forbidding) … anyone remotely interested in political theory will profit from reading or dipping into Ryan’s On Politics, whether this is their first acquaintance with the canon of political theory or whether they have been “Hobbing and Locking” for decades … It’s a remarkable experience’ Jeremy Waldron, New York Review of Books
‘Ambitiously and elegantly covers two and a half millennia of political thinking … despite covering huge intellectual terrain, [On Politics] a delight both when it explores detail and also when it draws conclusions of a broader perspective’ Justin Champion, BBC History Magazine
‘On Politics is crammed with smart observations and wise advice’ John Keane, Financial Times
‘An impressive achievement’ Economist
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£12.30£14.20On Politics
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The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story (Heroic Children of World War II)
He has endured more than any child ever should, but now he must survive Block 66.January, 1945. 14-year-old Moshe Kessler steps off the train at Buchenwald concentration camp. Having endured the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, lost touch with his entire family, and survived the death march in the freezing European winter, he has seen more than his share of tragedy.
Moshe knows only one thing about Buchenwald. Everyone knows it.
If you want to survive, you have to get to Block 66.
The Germans are cruel and determined – but they are not prepared for Buchenwald’s secret resistance, which rises up with one mission only: to protect the camp’s children from harm.
This is the incredible true story of Moshe Kessler and Block 66 – the children’s block that was at the forefront of one of the most shocking and inspiring stories of Holocaust survival.
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Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Veritas Paperbacks)
“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”―John Gray, New York Times Book Review
“A powerful, and in many insightful, explanation as to why grandiose programs of social reform, not to mention revolution, so often end in tragedy. . . . An important critique of visionary state planning.”―Robert Heilbroner, Lingua FrancaHailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail―sometimes catastrophically―in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters.
“Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”―New Yorker
“A tour de force.”― Charles Tilly, Columbia UniversityThe Institution for Social and Policy Studies
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China’s Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy
In the thirty-five years since China instituted its One-Child Policy, 120,000 children—mostly girls—have left China through international adoption, including 85,000 to the United States. It’s generally assumed that this diaspora is the result of China’s approach to population control, but there is also the underlying belief that the majority of adoptees are daughters because the One-Child Policy often collides with the traditional preference for a son. While there is some truth to this, it does not tell the full story—a story with deep personal resonance to Kay Ann Johnson, a China scholar and mother to an adopted Chinese daughter.
Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China’s Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country’s stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed—from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China’s so-called abandoned children have increasingly become “stolen” children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally—but illegally—adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages.
The image of the “unwanted daughter” remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China’s Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one’s child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China’s birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.
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My Revision Notes: AQA A-level Politics: Political Ideas Second Edition
My Revision Notes will engage students with our updated approach to consolidating course content and helping them learn, practise and apply their skills and understanding. Coverage of key content is combined with practical study tips and effective planning strategies to create a guide that students can rely on to build both knowledge and confidence.
– Helps students plan and manage their learning independently with our topic-by-topic planner
– Encourages students to practise and apply their skills and knowledge with regular ‘Now test yourself’ sections, refreshed practice questions and answer guidance online
– Supports subject-specific exam skills with a new exam skills box at the end of each chapter
– Reflects the structure and format of recent exams with refreshed exam-style questions and improved course coverage
– Includes content mapped to the specification, streamlined to give students the knowledge they need to help with the exams
– Covers content for the Political Ideas component of the AQA specification
– Helps students understand key terms with user-friendly definitions and tips throughout, plus a glossaryRead more
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Labour’s Civil Wars: How infighting has kept the left from power (and what can be done about it)
Includes a new chapter on Starmer’s Labour Party and whether the unity of purpose and vision will last until a general election and thereafter.
The biblical adage that ‘if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand’ remains sound theological advice. It is also essential counsel for any political party that aspires to win elections. When a party is riven with division people do not know what it stands for.
Though both major parties have been subject to internal conflict over the years, it is the Labour Party which has been more given to damaging splits. The divide exposed by the Corbyn insurgency is only the most recent example in a century of destructive infighting. Indeed, it has often seemed as though Labour has been more adept at fighting itself than in defeating the Tory party.
This book examines the history of Labour’s civil wars and the underlying causes of the party’s schisms, from the first split of 1931, engineered by Ramsay MacDonald, to the ongoing battle for the future between the incumbent Keir Starmer, and those who fundamentally altered the party’s course under its predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
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The Oxford History of World War II
Histories you can trust.World War Two was the most devastating conflict in recorded human history. It was both global in extent and total in character. It has understandably left a long and dark shadow across the decades. Yet it is three generations since hostilities formally ended in 1945 and the conflict is now a lived memory for only a few. And this growing distance in time has allowed historians to think differently about how to describe it, how to explain its course, and what subjects to focus on when considering the wartime experience.
For instance, as World War Two recedes ever further into the past, even a question as apparently basic as when it began and ended becomes less certain. Was it 1939, when the war in Europe began? Or the summer of 1941, with the beginning of Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union? Or did it become truly global only when the Japanese brought the USA into the war at the end of 1941? And what of the long conflict in East Asia, beginning with the Japanese aggression in China in the early 1930s and only ending with the triumph of the Chinese Communists in 1949?
In The Oxford History of World War Two a team of leading historians re-assesses the conflict for a new generation, exploring the course of the war not just in terms of the Allied response but also from the viewpoint of the Axis aggressor states. Under Richard Overy’s expert editorial guidance, the contributions take us from the genesis of war, through the action in the major theatres of conflict by land, sea, and air, to assessments of fighting power and military and technical innovation, the economics of total war, the culture and propaganda of war, and the experience of war (and genocide) for both combatants and civilians, concluding with an account of the transition from World War to Cold War in the late 1940s. Together, they provide a stimulating and thought-provoking new interpretation of one of the most terrible and fascinating episodes in world history.
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£11.10£12.30The Oxford History of World War II
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SAS Forged in Hell: From Desert Rats to Dogs of War: The Mavericks who Made the SAS
A Waterstones Best History Book of 2023
The incredible true story of the SAS’ daring mission to liberate Europe
In the summer of 1943, the largest invasion fleet ever assembled sailed for fortress Europe, aiming to bulldoze its way onto Nazi shores. At its vanguard went a few hundred elite forces soldiers, the Royal Navy warship carrying them bearing the iconic winged dagger emblem on its prow, plus the motto ‘Who Dares Wins’.
Led by the legendary SAS commander Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, these war-bitten, piratical raiders were tasked to do the impossible – to bludgeon their way through the most heavily defended enemy shoreline, so enabling the ensuing forces to follow on.
If they succeeded, it would mark the turning point in the war. If they failed, the consequences were unthinkable. Against all odds, outnumbered some fifty-to-one, and facing a ferocious series of cliffside defences, they would have to dare all as never before.
So begins the incredible true story of the SAS’s mission to liberate Europe.
Action-packed and filled with heroic endeavour, SAS Forged in Hell is breath-taking combat writing at its best, in true Damien Lewis style.
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The End of the End of History; Politics in the Twenty-First Century
‘It’s been a long time since a text was so useful in helping me think through our present moment and my role within it. The End of The End of History is a clear, powerful and panoramic analysis of our world at the dawn of the 2020s.’ Vincent Bevins, author, The Jakarta Method
The End of History is over. The idea that Western liberal democracy was the final form of human government has been exposed as bluster: the old order is crumbling before our eyes. Angry anti-politics have arisen to threaten political establishments across the world. Elites have fallen into hysteria, blaming voters, populism, Putin, Facebook anyone but themselves. They are suffering from Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome. Emerging from four years of interviews and debates on the popular global politics podcast Aufhebunga Bunga, The End of the End of History examines how the political consequences of the 2008 financial crisis have come home to roost. If Trump and Brexit shattered the liberal-democratic consensus in 2016, then the global pandemic of 2020 put a final end to the End of History. Politics is back, but its stranger than ever.Read more
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SAS Great Escapes Two: Six Untold Epic Escapes Made by World War Two Heroes
‘Damien Lewis is both a meticulous historian and a born storyteller’ Lee Child
SAS Great Escapes Two recounts the hitherto untold stories of six of the most dramatic and daring escapes executed by the world’s most famous fighting force during WWII. From the very earliest SAS missions to the push into Nazi-occupied Europe, they cover some of the key figures in the Regiment, including its founder, David Stirling, plus other lesser-known heroes.
With each story comes an edge-of-the-seat, rollercoaster ride in classic Damien Lewis fashion, as readers are plunged into the escapees’ experiences – sharing their most terrifying yet inspiring moments. These stunning accounts of survival beggar belief, revealing nerve-racking bluff and deception, knife-edge encounters with enemy hunter forces hellbent on wreaking vengeance and murder, but also incredible acts of mercy and kindness from those who risk all to help the escapees on their way.
Each tale of breath-taking derring-do reveals how necessity really is the mother of all invention, as with every step and at every juncture these fugitives defied fate, snatching survival and freedom from the jaws of the enemy, and all the horrors that would have followed capture.
Damien Lewis has worked closely with the families of those portrayed, accessing wartime diaries, letters, mission reports, interrogation transcripts and more, to relate how the men of the SAS crossed blazing deserts, evaded enemy hunter forces and escaped through hostile lands, battling against seemingly insurmountable odds. But most of all, these uplifting tales of endurance beyond measure showcase the triumph of the human spirit and the will to survive.
‘Damien Lewis paints a uniquely vivid picture of the wartime SAS. Packed with detail, this fresh and dynamic book brings us as close to its remarkable members as we are ever likely to get.’ Joshua Levine, author of
Dunkirk‘In these days when we are told to be scared of everything it is a relief to read of steely nerves and cold courage. Damien Lewis has collected examples of exactly these qualities from World War II and they are all thrillers, to be read with pleasure – and a bit of nostalgia!’ Frederick Forsyth
‘The fund of SAS escapes turns out to be too big for one book, and in Damien Lewis there is a writer of rare narrative gifts able to bring alive these epic stories for us today’ Mark Urban
‘An astonishing book: a collection of truly riveting stories of bravery, all brilliantly told. In terms of sheer drama and audacity, SAS: Great Escapes Two goes where no fiction writer would dare venture’ Alex Gerlis, author of Agent in the Shadows
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The Ultimate Politics and History Quiz
In the dark days of Covid time, confined to quarters in lockdown, the authors, William Scally and Tim Bourke retained their sanity by engaging in what proved to be an all-engrossing contest: devising a complex and broad-reaching series of questions that would brighten the pandemic days. The result was a slim volume that made a fine debut title.
Later, during 2022, Bourke and Scally reviewed and fully revised the first edition, eliminating certain material and introducing some 230 brand new questions and solutions. This culminated in the book you hold in your hand – a second edition boasting a generous make-over, with a broad range of updated puzzles for the discerning reader.
The Ultimate Politics and History Quiz contains five hundred thought-provoking queries, together with their exceptionally diverse solutions. The questions traverse the world of Irish and international politics and history, and while some of them are relatively straightforward, many pose quite the conundrum. The brain that likes a challenge will relish this book.
Tim Bourke and William Scally have both worked in various areas of industry, education and politics.
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Northern Ireland Government and Politics for CCEA AS Level
This well-researched text was written specifically to address Unit AS1 of the current CCEA Government and Politics AS Level specification. It covers the Government and Politics of Northern Ireland and has been through a meticulous quality assurance process.
It considers the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, the amendments made in subsequent agreements (St Andrews, Hillsborough and Stormont House) and examines the functions and responsibilities of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the executive and various political parties.
Included in the book are tasks, practice essay titles, key terms and concepts, as well as a detailed glossary, index and examination preparation guide.
Areas explored include:
* The principles, content and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and the changes made to it by subsequent agreements.
* An analysis of the Assembly, including its three main functions (representation, legislation and scrutiny), and its independence from the Executive.
* A look at the Executive Office and the Executive as a whole – how it disappointed, how it can determine legislation and policy, the divisions within it, and its ability to function as a power-sharing government.
* An evaluation of the Northern Ireland political parties, including their role in government, their respective backgrounds, strategies and policies, and how they have changed since 1998.
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UK Politics Annual Update 2023
– Review all the developments relevant to A-level specifications in UK politics from the last year, with strong links between topics and focused suggestions for further reading
– Develop your confidence with expert analysis you can draw on both throughout your course and in the exams
– Enhance your knowledge of the news to build a bank of up-to-date examples linked to the specifications, helping you to develop persuasive arguments for your essays
– Use our updated exam skills feature to clarify how to use the information you have just learned in your examChapters:
– Think tanks: how do they operate and why are they controversial?
– Rights in context: do we need a British Bill of Rights?
– Political parties: are the Liberal Democrats re-emerging as a political force?
– Devolved and divided? The causes and consequences of Northern Ireland’s election
– The constitution: is the UK’s uncodified constitution working?
– Parliament and the prime minister: did parliament contribute to a prime minister’s demise?
– Prime minister and executive (1): Boris Johnson
– Prime minister and executive (2): Liz Truss
– Prime minister and executive (3): Rishi Sunak
– The Supreme Court: the impact of legislative reform and Lord Reed’s presidencyRead more
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US Politics Annual Update 2023
– Review all the developments relevant to A-level specifications in US politics from the last year, with strong links between topics and focused suggestions for further reading
– Develop your confidence with expert analysis you can draw on both throughout your course and in the exams
– Enhance your knowledge of the news to build a bank of up-to-date examples linked to the specifications, helping you to develop persuasive arguments for your essays
– Use our updated exam skills feature to clarify how to use the information you have just learned in your examChapters:
– The January 6 Committee
– ‘The legislative branch’: does Congress fulfil its legislative role adequately?
– ‘I control foreign policy’: has the president retained primacy?
– The Supreme Court 2021-22: has Chief Justice Roberts lost control of his Court?
– Abortion in the USARead more
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The Nostalgia Nerd’s Retro Tech: Computer, Consoles & Games (Tech Classics)
The perfect Father’s Day gift.Remember what a wild frontier the early days of home gaming were? Manufacturers releasing new consoles at a breakneck pace; developers creating games that kept us up all night, then going bankrupt the next day; and what self-respecting kid didn’t beg their parents for an Atari or a Nintendo? This explosion of computers, consoles, and games was genuinely unlike anything the tech world has seen before or since.
This thoroughly researched and geeky trip down memory lane pulls together the most entertaining stories from this dynamic era, and brings you the classic tech that should never be forgotten.
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Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
‘Magisterial … Immensely readable’ Douglas Alexander, Financial Times
‘Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant’ New York Times
A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from ‘the most brilliant British historian of his generation’ (The Times)
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work – pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.
‘Stimulating, thought-provoking … Readers will find much to relish’ Martin Bentham, Evening Standard
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£10.10£12.30Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
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Why Politics Fails: The Five Traps of the Modern World & How to Escape Them
From the 2023 Reith lecturer
Politics is failing us. This is why.
‘Brilliant . . . a must-read’ Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail
When it comes to politics, there are five goals that voters generally agree upon. We all want a say in how we’re governed, to be treated equally, a safety net when times are hard, protection from harm and to be richer in the future. So, why does politics not deliver that?
The problem is each of these five goals results in a political trap. For example, we all want a say in how we’re governed, but it’s impossible to have any true ‘will of the people’. And we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.
In Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell draws on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit to vividly illustrate how we can escape these traps, overcome self-interest and deliver on our collective goals. Politics seems to be broken, but this book shows how it can work for everyone.
‘A meticulous study of how different societies find it so difficult to achieve widely shared goals’ Financial Times
‘Incisive and gripping’ Daniel Ziblatt, co-author of How Democracies Die
‘Salutary reading for the world we live in now’ James A. Robinson, co-author of Why Nations Fails
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The Captive Mind (Penguin Modern Classics)
Written in Paris in the early 1950s, this book created instant controversy in its analysis of modern society that had allowed itself to be hypnotized by socio-political doctrines, and to accept totalitarian terror on the strength of a hypothetical future.Read more
£9.80£12.30The Captive Mind (Penguin Modern Classics)
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Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All
‘Witty, rigorous, and as urgent as a fire alarm’ Dorian Lynskey
‘Cooly prosecutorial’ Guardian
Nobody meant for this to happen.
Facebook didn’t mean to facilitate a genocide.
Twitter didn’t want to be used to harass women.
YouTube never planned to radicalise young men.
But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more ‘engagement’. In so doing, they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships.
Social warming has happened gradually – as a by-product of our preposterously convenient digital existence. But the gradual deterioration of our attitudes and behaviour on- and offline – this vicious cycle of anger and outrage – is real. And it can be corrected. Here’s how.
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The Dialectic Is in the Sea: The Black Radical Thought of Beatriz Nascimento
Collected writings by one of the most influential Black Brazilian intellectuals of the twentieth century
Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) was a poet, historian, artist, and political leader in Brazil’s Black movement, an innovative and creative thinker whose work offers a radical reimagining of gender, space, politics, and spirituality around the Atlantic and across the Black diaspora. Her powerful voice still resonates today, reflecting a deep commitment to political organizing, revisionist historiography, and the lived experience of Black women. The Dialectic Is in the Sea is the first English-language collection of writings by this vitally important figure in the global tradition of Black radical thought.
The Dialectic Is in the Sea traces the development of Nascimento’s thought across the decades of her activism and writing, covering topics such as the Black woman, race and Brazilian society, Black freedom, and Black aesthetics and spirituality. Incisive introductory and analytical essays provide key insights into the political and historical context of Nascimento’s work. This engaging collection includes an essay by Bethânia Gomes, Nascimento’s only daughter, who shares illuminating and uniquely personal insights into her mother’s life and career.
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The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism
The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism uncovers the role that footballers and fans have played in the fight against fascism and the far right. Follow the path of football activism from the turbulent 1920s to the culture wars of the 21st century. What role did footballers play in World War Two? How did a Portuguese Cup Final help bring down Western Europe’s longest-running dictatorship? What impact did the football community have in bringing the atrocities of Latin America’s cruellest dictators to global attention? Football historian and author Chris Lee shines a spotlight on the roles of players, fans, coaches and officials in the fight against the dictatorships of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Salazar and authoritarian states in Latin America, bringing us an intriguing cast of rebels, partisans, spies and activists. Featuring interviews with leading authors and academics, fans and progressive football clubs, The Defiant shows that football and politics cannot be separated and asks what the future holds.Read more
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A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics
Jürgen Habermas’s book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, first published in 1962, has long been recognized as one of the most important works of twentieth-century social thought. Blending philosophy and social history, it offered an account of the public sphere as a domain that mediates between civil society and the state in which citizens could discuss matters of common concern and participate in democratic decision-making through the formation of public opinion. Now, in view of the digital revolution and the resulting crisis of democracy, he returns to this important topic.
In this new book Habermas focuses on digital media, in particular social media, which are increasingly relegating traditional mass media to the background. While the new media initially promised to empower users, this promise is being undermined by their algorithm-steered platform structure that promotes self-enclosed informational ‘bubbles’ and discursive ‘echo chambers’ in which users split into a plurality of pseudo-publics that are largely closed off from one other. Habermas argues that, without appropriate regulation of digital media, this new structural transformation is in danger of hollowing out the institutions through which democracies can shape social and economic processes and address urgent collective problems, ranging from growing social inequality to the climate crisis.
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Pearson Edexcel A-level Politics Student Guide 3: Political Ideas Second Edition
This Student Guide will help you to:
* Identify key content for the exams with our concise coverage of topics
* Avoid common pitfalls with clear definitions and exam tips throughout
* Reinforce your learning with bullet-list summaries at the end of each section
* Make links between topics with synoptic links highlighted throughout
* Test your knowledge with rapid-fire knowledge check questions and answers
* Find out what examiners are looking for with our Questions & Answers section, for the core political ideas, plus Anarchism, Feminism and NationalismRead more
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The Politics (Penguin Classics)
Raising questions that are as relevant to modern society as they were to the ancient world, Aristotle’s The Politics remains central to the study of political science millennia after its compilation. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Greek by T.A. Sinclair, revised and re-presented by Trevor J. Saunders.
In The Politics Aristotle addresses the questions that lie at the heart of political science. How should society be ordered to ensure the happiness of the individual? Which forms of government are best and how should they be maintained? By analysing a range of city constitutions – oligarchies, democracies and tyrannies – he seeks to establish the strengths and weaknesses of each system, and to decide which are the most effective, in theory and in practice. Like his predecessor Plato, Aristotle believed that the ideal constitution should be good in itself and in accordance with nature, and that it is needed by man – ‘a political animal’ – to fulfil his potential. A hugely significant work, which has influenced thinkers as diverse as Thomas Aquinas and Machiavelli, The Politics remains an outstanding commentary on fundamental political issues and concerns, and provides fascinating insights into the workings and attitudes of the Greek city-state.
The introductions by T.A. Sinclair and Trevor J. Saunders discuss the influence of The Politics on philosophers, its modern relevance and Aristotle’s political beliefs. This edition contains Greek and English glossaries, and a bibliography for further reading.
Aristotle (384-322BC) was born at Stagira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia. For twenty years he studied at Athens in the Academy of Plato. Some time later, became the tutor of young Alexander the Great. His writings, including De Anima, The Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics, and The Politics, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy.
If you enjoyed The Politics, you might like Plato’s Republic, also available in Penguin Classics.
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£9.50£12.30The Politics (Penguin Classics)
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The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism
The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism uncovers the role that footballers and fans have played in the fight against fascism and the far right. Follow the path of football activism from the turbulent 1920s to the culture wars of the 21st century. What role did footballers play in World War Two? How did a Portuguese Cup Final help bring down Western Europe’s longest-running dictatorship? What impact did the football community have in bringing the atrocities of Latin America’s cruellest dictators to global attention? Football historian and author Chris Lee shines a spotlight on the roles of players, fans, coaches and officials in the fight against the dictatorships of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Salazar and authoritarian states in Latin America, bringing us an intriguing cast of rebels, partisans, spies and activists. Featuring interviews with leading authors and academics, fans and progressive football clubs, The Defiant shows that football and politics cannot be separated and asks what the future holds.Read more
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Politics of the Mind: Marxism and Mental Distress (2nd edition)
Mental distress has become one of the key “public issues of the 21st century”. This edition of Politics of the Mind: Marxism and Mental Distress looks at the link between the economic and political system under which we live ― capitalism ― and the enormously high levels of mental distress that we see in the world today.
A new introductory chapter explores the impact on mental health of the “multiple crises” of the system including the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, discusses the significance of new research that challenges the biomedical model and assesses the implications for mental health and mental health services of political developments since the book was first published in 2017.
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The Russo-Ukrainian War: From the bestselling author of Chernobyl
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND TELEGRAPH
Do you know what is at stake in Ukraine? Urgent, compelling reading from the author of Chernobyl on the defining conflict of our times
On 24 February 2022, Russia stunned the world by launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst of checking on the family and friends who were now on the front lines of Europe’s largest conflict since the outbreak of the Second World War, acclaimed Ukrainian-American historian Serhii Plokhy inevitably found himself attempting to understand the deeper causes of the invasion, analysing its course and contemplating the wider outcomes.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is the comprehensive history of a war that has burned since 2014, and that, with Russia’s attempt to seize Kyiv, exploded a geo-political order that had been cemented since the end of the Cold War. With an eye for the gripping detail on the ground, both in the halls of power and down in the trenches, as well as a keen sense of the grander sweep of history, Plokhy traces the origins and the evolution of the conflict, from the collapse of the Russian empire to the rise and fall of the USSR and on to the development in Ukraine of a democratic politics.
Based on decades of research and his unique insight into the region, he argues that Ukraine’s defiance of Russia, and the West’s demonstration of unity and strength, has presented a profound challenge to Putin’s Great Power ambition, and further polarized the world along a new axis. A riveting, enlightening account, this is present-minded history at its best.
BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2023: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * TLS
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Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics
The Sunday Times bestseller.
‘A compulsively readable, carefully researched account of how a malignant combination of rightwing ideology, secretive money (much of it from the US) and weaponisation of social media have shaped contemporary British (and to a limited extent, European) politics… Remarkable’ Observer, Book of the WeekDemocracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it.
This is the story of how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy. Antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, secretive lobbying is bending our politics out of shape and Silicon Valley tech giants collude in selling out democracy. Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions on social media.
Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through the shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond.
Praise for Democracy for Sale:
‘Thorough, gripping and vitally important’ Oliver Bullough‘A brilliant description of the dark underbelly of modern democracy. Everyone should read it’ Anne Applebaum
‘A compelling and very readable story of the ongoing corruption of our government and therefore ourselves’ Anthony Barnett
‘As urgent as it is illuminating’ Fintan O’Toole
‘This urgent, vital book is essential reading for anyone who wants to make sense of our politics’ Carole Cadwalladr
‘This forensic and highly readable book shows how so many of our democratic processes have moved into the murky, unregulated spaces of globalisation and digital innovation’ Peter Pomerantsev
‘A call to arms for all those who value democracy’ The Herald
‘Geoghegan’s words are those of someone who is prepared to keep fighting to defend and revitalise what shadows of democracy still remain’Scotsman
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Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends
A FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020
‘The most important non-fiction book of the year’ David Hare
In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people from across the political spectrum in Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. Yet over the following decades the euphoria evaporated, the common purpose and centre ground gradually disappeared, extremism rose once more and eventually – as this book compellingly relates – the relationships soured too.
Anne Applebaum traces this history in an unfamiliar way, looking at the trajectories of individuals caught up in the public events of the last three decades. When politics becomes polarized, which side do you back? If you are a journalist, an intellectual, a civic leader, how do you deal with the re-emergence of authoritarian or nationalist ideas in your country? When your leaders appropriate history, or pedal conspiracies, or eviscerate the media and the judiciary, do you go along with it?
Twilight of Democracy is an essay that combines the personal and the political in an original way and brings a fresh understanding to the dynamics of public life in Europe and America, both now and in the recent past.
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Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics
*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*
*A Financial Times 2023 book to watch*‘Forceful … The fundamental thrust of Goodwin’s argument is right … a new centre ground of British politics is being formed – even if both parties have yet to fully comprehend it’ The Times
What has caused the recent seismic changes in British politics, including Brexit and a series of populist revolts against the elite? Why did so many people want to overturn the status quo? Where have the Left gone wrong? And what deeper trends are driving these changes?
British politics is coming apart. A country once known for its stability has recently experienced a series of shocking upheavals. Matthew Goodwin, acclaimed political scientist and co-author of National Populism, shows that the reason is not economic hardship, personalities or dark money. It is a far wider political realignment that will be with us for years to come. An increasingly liberalised, globalised ruling class has lost touch with millions, who found their values ignored, their voices unheard and their virtue denied. Now, this new alliance of voters is set to determine Britain’s fate.
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American Politics: A Beginner’s Guide (Beginner’s Guides)
To understand the world events today, you need to understand American politics. Exploring the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Jon Roper provides a sharp analysis of how history has shaped the way America governs itself. Examining the recent emergence of the right-wing Tea Party movement, President Obama’s administration, American foreign policy, and the role of powerful lobbies, this is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the world’s most powerful (and controversial) country.
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The Fighter of Auschwitz: The incredible true story of Leen Sanders who boxed to help others survive
**A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**‘He had the dream again last night… He taps the gloves of his unbeaten Polish opponent. There are rumours that the loser will be sent to the gas chamber.’
In 1943, the Dutch champion boxer, Leen Sanders, was sent to Auschwitz. His wife and children were put to death while he was sent ‘to the left’ with the others who were fit enough for labour. Recognised by an SS officer, he was earmarked for a ‘privileged’ post in the kitchens in exchange for weekly boxing matches for the entertainment of the Nazi guards. From there, he enacted his resistance to their limitless cruelty.
With great risk and danger to his own life, Leen stole, concealed and smuggled food and clothing from SS nursing units for years to alleviate the unbearable suffering of the prisoners in need. He also regularly supplied extra food to the Dutch women in Dr. Mengele’s experiment, Block 10. To his fellow Jews in the camp, he acted as a rescuer, leader and role model, defending them even on their bitter death march to Dachau towards the end of the war.
A story of astonishing resilience and compassion, The Fighter of Auschwitz is a testament to the endurance of humanity in the face of extraordinary evil.
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