Delve into Rome's lost history through the stories of a single city block.

Cutting through the heart of Rome is Via delle Botteghe Oscure, a time-worn street named for the mysterious "shops" said to run beneath it. History lies thick here, a museum atop a convent atop ancient ruins; layered in are the traces of artisans and poets, pilgrims and saints, a Fascist deportation, a communist coffee bar, a political assassination, and shopkeepers, too. These stories all rest upon a single city block, the same place where, in 13 BCE, the triumphal Roman general Lucius Cornelius Balbus built a monumental theater complex in his own honor.

Elizabeth Rodini's On the Street of the Hidden Shops digs deep into this corner of the city, uncovering a set of surprising, often poignant narratives that range across two thousand years. For as the walls of Balbus's compound decayed and the neighborhood was rebuilt, this block would come to shelter Romans from all walks of life: the daughters of local prostitutes, an earnest young man in search of a bride, an entrepreneur determined to preserve the city's colorful dialect, a Jewish family recently liberated from the nearby Ghetto, a band of idealistic archaeologists unearthing a long-forgotten past, as well as a gifted baker, a medieval donkey, and a Renaissance ghost. Their stories survive in archives and artifacts, but also in the enduring power of rumor and legend.

On the Street of the Hidden Shops invites us on a captivating journey to one place across many centuries. Its tight urban focus reveals a Rome most visitors miss, while uncovering some of the many Romes that have been largely lost to history.

This book examines the enduring appeal of Odysseus in artistic representation from antiquity to the present. The volume aims to provide a sense of how this character changes from ancient Greek myth through modern poetry, and how this capacity for change both perpetuates the motif of a mutable and devious character while reflecting essential anxieties over what it means to be a person. Why Odysseus? demonstrates that Odysseus was already a figure of dynamic reception in Homer's Odyssey, then examines his varied uses in antiquity, his resurgence in the twentieth century, and his flexibility in modern reception. It concludes with the challenges of translating the character from one period to the next. Why Odysseus? explores how a uniquely indeterminate character becomes an important "shifting signifier" for reflecting different periods' and peoples' values on what it means to survive-and sometimes thrive-in a world that is definitively non-heroic.

This monograph demonstrates how a teacher continuing professional development (CPD) programme effectively enhances English language teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and classroom practices in formative assessment (FA). It introduces the "Pathway for Teacher CPD of AL", a practical framework offering direct guidance for teacher educators, researchers, and practitioners seeking to advance FA practice and literacy. The book makes distinctive empirical and theoretical contributions to FA research in language education, examining FA as an integrated process rather than isolated techniques. The study explores the full FA cycle-clarifying learning goals, eliciting and interpreting evidence, providing feedback and acting on it-providing a comprehensive account of effective implementation. It offers much-needed evidence on how enhanced teacher FA literacy improves student English achievement and supports self-regulated learning, clarifying the link between teacher development and student outcomes. Overall, the book advances a more nuanced and context-sensitive understanding of FA in real classroom environments. It is a valuable resource for researchers, teachers, teacher educators, and graduate students in applied linguistics, second language education and teacher education, among other disciplines.

This book examines the political thought expressed in the imaginative fiction of three prominent British writers and its contribution to the development of socialism, particularly through the prism of the Labour Party. It traces this influence from the late nineteenth century through much of the twentieth century and concludes by considering its relevance to socialism and the Labour Party in the twenty-first century. The three writers-William Morris, Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells-first met at meetings of the Socialist League in London and knew each other well. However, their hopes and expectations for the future differed profoundly, as did the nature of their respective contributions to the development of socialism in Britain. This book explores the political philosophy of each writer as manifested primarily in their creative work and assesses the impact of that work on the evolution of socialism in Britain.

The Hell of Holy War reads Jean de Joinville's famous account of King Louis IX and his Seventh Crusade as a powerful and unique representation of war, memory, and loss during the Middle Ages. In 1248, Joinville, a French nobleman, set out for the Holy Land, having taken the Cross and vowed to follow King Louis IX - Saint Louis (d. 1270) - across the Mediterranean. It would be more than six years before he returned home, having survived devastating military defeat; capture, imprisonment, and ransom; disease and perilous sea voyages. Later, Joinville wrote a riveting, first-person account of the king he admired, the war he survived, and the people he encountered.

Usually read as a hagiography of Saint Louis and a founding myth of the French nation, Joinville's memoir, Irit Kleiman argues, is also a raw, even brutal, meditation on what it means to go to war, survive combat and illness, witness the deaths of almost all of one's companions, then return home again. In a series of capacious, lyrical, and historically grounded close readings, The Hell of Holy War reframes our understanding of Joinville's narrative as one that addresses the hubris of invasion, the friendship between men at arms, and the economic, ecological, and moral violence of war.

A cultural history of the American faith in alien life, from the Puritans to Heaven's Gate

Over the past three centuries, belief in extraterrestrial life has had a profound influence on American religion. Faith in Space examines the key thinkers and religious leaders throughout American history who built faith communities around the notion that we are not alone in the universe, and that the path to spiritual truth leads heavenward to the stars.

Paul Gutjahr reveals the pivotal role Protestant Christianity played in the formation of extraterrestrial belief in many of these traditions, sharing new perspectives on prominent Americans such as Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. He goes on to examine familiar religious movements such as Spiritualism, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Scientology, the Nation of Islam, and Heaven's Gate as well as lesser-known belief systems such as Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, and Ashtar Command. Gutjahr shows how prophetic figures in these traditions created rich cosmological tapestries for their followers, bridging the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial with their spiritual insights.

A panoramic work of scholarship, Faith in Space traces how these traditions have offered generations of Americans cosmically oriented religious thinking through the belief in alien life, propounding a view that humanity's salvation is inextricably tied to the actions and interventions of intelligent beings from other worlds.

The proposed book undertakes a critical examination of the relationship between technologies of automation, migration and citizenship. Automation is refers to the use of technological systems to carry out operations independently, without human intervention (Nof, 2009). Typically automation is used to augment, improve, and complete tasks in a more efficient manner, promising significant benefits, from standardization to financial savings, freeing labour time for humans (Borry and Getha-Taylor, 2019; Restrepo, 2023). While technologies of automation are accompanied by narratives of progress and freedom, they are linked not only with increased surveillance but also with a shift in surveillance practices from discipline to prediction (Andrejevic, 2019; Zuboff, 2019). Automating technologies, especially machine learning algorithms, operate through sorting and categorisation, which are subsequently used to identify patterns and make predictions on the basis of these patterns. It comes as no surprise therefore that such technologies are involved in replicating discriminatory patterns of the past.

The untold story of West Berlin, the island city deep inside the Soviet bloc that withstood the decades-long confrontation between the USSR and the West

Located more than one hundred miles behind the Iron Curtain, West Berlin served as a stage on which the confrontation between nuclear-armed superpowers played out across nearly five decades. Portrayed in the West as an island of freedom in a totalitarian sea, it increasingly came to be seen by some as a bleak enclave without a future, yet the city also embodied a remarkable openness to alternative lifestyles and radical forms of cultural experimentation. Cold War City is a definitive history of West Berlin that takes readers from the end of the Second World War to the withdrawal of Allied troops in 1994.

Drawing on substantial new research in archives on both sides of the Atlantic, David Barclay vividly describes how some of the most dramatic events of the Cold War took place in and around West Berlin, including the perilous crises that culminated in the building of the notorious Berlin Wall in 1961. A product of the postwar division of Germany, the city was a roiling ideological battleground comprised of American, British, and French sectors. Barclay shows how it became a distinct political and cultural entity despite its connections to the West and he sheds light on the Cold War as a lived experience for West Berliners and the city's Allied occupiers.

A nuanced portrait of a city that came to symbolize the divided postwar world, Cold War City locates the history of West Berlin at the flashpoint between grand geopolitics and the daily concerns of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

This book presents a critical and comparative history of how human populations have been socially constructed and categorized through racializing processes. Building on Renato Foschi's Italian volume Storia dei razzismi (2022), this expanded English edition offers a unique synthesis of historical case studies and the underlying logics that have sustained racism across time and cultures.

Foschi distinguishes between spiritual and scientific racisms, tracing their development through religious, philosophical, and pseudo-scientific traditions. He examines how various groups-including Jewish communities, people of African descent, women, working-class individuals, and LGBTQ+ people-have been positioned as distinct "races" through shifting systems of exclusion. The book also explores lesser-known cases, such as the racialization of Southern Italians, to demonstrate how these dynamics operate within national and regional contexts.

The second half of the book focuses on resistance-how racialized communities have mobilized pride, solidarity, and intersectional alliances to challenge discrimination. The final chapter reflects on human biodiversity and the enduring misconceptions that continue to shape contemporary forms of racialization.

With its interdisciplinary scope and original theoretical framing, this book offers essential tools for understanding the historical and conceptual foundations of racism. It will be of interest to scholars and students in history, philosophy, psychology, and critical race studies.

The volume offers a timely, multidisciplinary examination of the evolving Indian higher education landscape in the wake of COVID-19, changes and policy implications. The volume explores pedagogical innovation, digital integration, mental well-being, ethics, and institutional resilience. Organized into five thematic sections, it addresses pressing issues such as AI in education, challenges in self-financing institutions, teacher training, and inclusive education. The book also engages with policy shifts, including the NEP 2020, and the broader implications of digital transformation. With its intersectional approach and diverse perspectives, the book is an essential resource for educators, researchers, and policymakers seeking to understand and navigate the dynamic shifts shaping higher education in India.

This book examines dominant discourses of globalisation and history education in schools and their impact on democracy, equality, social justice, and human rights. It explores how historical narratives shape societies' political and cultural evolution over time and how critical understanding of these narratives reinforces cultural identity. Drawing on Bruner's meaning-making process and constructivist approaches, the book argues that history pedagogies grounded in transformational paradigms can create meaningful learning experiences that define identity and belonging.

The book calls for building critical literacy in students, enabling them to critically examine different historical accounts and distinguish history class learning from representations in films, various historical texts and artifacts. It encourages critical appraisal of diverse worldviews and offers different ways to reconstruct and re-imagine history education pedagogy and its connection to social justice, democracy, and equality.

An African Approach to Population Ethics offers an important and long-overdue shift away from Western, individualistic models of population ethics, grounding its analysis in Indigenous African communal ethics. The contributors explore a wide range of historical and contemporary issues affecting African population dynamics. They critically examine urgent questions of procreation, resource allocation, and environmental sustainability, from the ethics of climate change to the reinterpretation of traditional fertility proverbs. By prioritizing African voices and experiences, the book establishes a unique and much-needed framework for addressing population challenges with respect for African needs and priorities. It is an essential resource for scholars, policymakers, and all readers focused on Africa's future.

Showcases new measurement strategies for assessing the impact of a liberal arts education on students and society.

More than ever before, our society is questioning the meaning and value of higher education, and liberal arts education, in particular, has come under substantial scrutiny. Economic detractors characterize liberal arts education as impractical, claiming that college should prepare students for the workforce. Others object to the curriculum, portraying it as broken or misdirected. According to these critics, the liberal arts education being offered in the United States is marked by its rejection of core intellectual and ideological commitments.

In The Liberal Arts Advantage, a wide range of scholars argue for how and why a liberal arts education uniquely develops skill sets and expertise needed for individuals and society to thrive in the twenty-first century. The contributors address foundational questions about what liberal arts education is, how it has been conceptualized in the past, and what we can learn from its societal and professional impacts. They present compelling, unique research and new methodological tools for assessing the outcomes of liberal arts graduates. Offering grounded and well-founded arguments in favor of our education system, The Liberal Arts Advantage persuasively explains why educational leaders should reinvest in liberal arts education.

A provocative account of how empire and absolutism institutionalized slavery in America

The original draft of the Declaration of Independence condemned British kings for supporting slavery in their empire. England's two seventeenth-century revolutions were in part a reaction to the crown's proslavery policies, with politicians such as John Locke arguing that all people were born equal and that government should be based on consent. But while these principles would underpin the American Revolution, the treaty that ended that war protected the legal foundations of the plantation system in the new republic. The King's Slaves untangles this thorny history, arguing that American slavery was borne from authoritarian rule.

In this incisive and thought-provoking book, Holly Brewer challenges the notion that slavery arose naturally in the colonies through the interests of merchants and planters, showing how behind them lay a British crown that believed in absolute power over subjects and granted similar powers to proprietors and masters. British kings used their authority over navies and armies, judges and royal governors to create an elaborate plantation system that produced more crops for export and greater wealth from tariffs. Royal propaganda supported claims that some peoples had no rights while edicts and proclamations circumvented the legislative process. Brewer describes how African and Indigenous peoples resisted the king's slavery, as did some colonists, English politicians, and reformers. Yet slavery persisted, becoming enshrined after independence as a dehumanizing legal foundation of American capitalism.

A bold work of scholarship by a historian at the height of her powers, The King's Slaves shares new perspectives on America's founding, exposing empire's pervasive role in spreading and justifying slavery in the new world.

This is Not the End: Transforming Accreditation Sanctions into University Success is a compelling blueprint for higher education leaders, especially at HBCUs, confronting the existential threat of accreditation sanctions. Drawing from the lived presidential experiences of Dr. Hakim J. Lucas and Dr. Roderick L. Smothers, the book transforms what is often seen as institutional demise into a moment of strategic leadership, strategic clarity, and organizational renewal. Anchored in a theory of institutional recovery and resiliency (IRR), the book introduces a methodology for diagnosing institutional decay, monitoring organizational health, and implementing recovery strategies that reposition a university for long-term success.

Through practical case studies-such as using expert advice to build internal compliance standards, identifying the critical role of CFOs, and leveraging teamwork and accreditation visits for transformation-the book illustrates how to turn crisis into opportunity. Lucas and Smothers also emphasize the importance of transcendent leadership, cultural reform, strategic planning, and the discipline of surviving chaos. The work introduces a leadership toolkit and the leadership mindset needed to restore confidence and drive mission alignment.

With deep insight into governance, compliance, and executive decision-making, This Is Not the End offers more than a survival guide-it is a declaration that institutional excellence can emerge from adversity. This book is essential for presidents, provosts, trustees, and aspiring leaders who believe their university has the ability to overcome the most daunting accreditation challenges.

An electrifying narrative history that reframes Britain's constitutional revolution as a full-scale Dutch invasion

In popular accounts of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the autocratic Catholic King James II was ousted by his subjects and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary Stuart, wife of James's nephew, the Dutch William III of Orange. Devoted to her husband, Mary would not accept the crown alone, and so William and Mary were crowned together, securing a smooth dynastic succession. The Last Invasion of England recounts the forgotten campaign that carried William and his army to English shores and led directly to James's fall, bringing a revolutionary age vividly to life-and rewriting the history of Britain, Europe and the transatlantic world more widely.

In this bold work of revisionist history, Arthur der Weduwen tells the momentous story of the Dutch Armada, describing the immense risks and near failures of the last seaborne invasion of England-which occurred exactly one hundred years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The sixteen thousand Dutch troops who accompanied William were not on hand for moral support. They came with sword, musket and cannon. Der Weduwen argues that the political revolution in Britain could not have been achieved without the willpower, might and resources of William and the Dutch nation, and explains why the Dutch Republic, a small state that celebrated peace and commerce above all else, would dare to undertake a reckless preemptive military strike on its more powerful neighbour.

Transforming our understanding of the Glorious Revolution and Britain's ascendancy as a global powerhouse, The Last Invasion of England relies entirely on contemporary sources, many from leading protagonists who prepared and executed the invasion, evoking the historical realities of the women and men who lived during turbulent and uncertain times.

This edited book offers new perspectives on a problem that was once considered futuristic but has now become a daunting reality. The book takes a unique approach by considering the evolution of humans as both a biological and societal process, two intertwined aspects that cannot be separated. It will be of interest to a general audience, policymakers, as well as researchers and graduate students specializing in various branches of biology, medicine, sociology and philosophy.