A tribute to the distinguished diplomatic historian, Professor Michael Dockrill (1936-2018), this collection provides a comprehensive overview of the field of twentieth-century British foreign and defence policy. With contributions from the most esteemed academic thinkers in the field, this collection will be of great value to anyone interested in British foreign and strategic policy, whether they are a senior academic or an undergraduate researcher. In memory of the late Professor Dockrill, the essays place British foreign policy in a wide range of geographical, thematic and chronological perspectives.

Volume I examines international diplomacy in relation to the conduct of the First World War, the peace-making process that followed it, and the origins of the Second World War, mapping very closely to the interests of Professor Dockrill in the early stages of his career. Focusing on Great Power diplomacy seen through the lens of bi-lateral relations between states, the essaysexplore Britain's relations not only with European powers, but also with the United States and Japan. The views and operations of the British Foreign Office feature heavily, as do the lives and opinions of diplomats, primarily from the British Diplomatic Service, during the years 1890-1939. Analysing British strategic thinking around war and its consequences, this collection sheds light on the first steps in the evolution of international bodies built to preserve order around the world.

A history of European immigrants in Texas and how they redefined racial identity.

While the creation of a Black-White racial binary was foundational to most of the United States, nineteenth-century Texas developed a unique tripartite system that acknowledged the role of individuals of Mexican ancestry in a region that was Spanish, Mexican, and an independent nation before becoming a US (and briefly Confederate) state. Yet this framework was fraught, struggling to accommodate new arrivals from beyond North America, in particular the Irish, Germans, and Czechs. Texan Crucible tells the story of these immigrants and how they became Anglo.

Marian Barber reveals the ways language, religion, alcohol use, and attitudes toward slavery distinguished these newcomers to Texas from those arriving from the eastern United States and how they nevertheless created thriving, influential communities. Their status was shaped by events inside and far beyond Texas, including an 1887 prohibition fight, the Civil War, and two world wars that encouraged them to erase their distinctiveness. As segregation was formally outlawed and civil rights activism grew, understandings of race shifted, cementing these groups' status as Anglo. Texan Crucible recovers the histories of German, Irish, and Czech immigrants and unveils the social construction of racial difference underpinning Texan identity.

Bringing together leading African scholars from across the continent, this insightful book interrogates the persistent dominance of Western curricula models and pedagogical traditions. Contributing authors combine theoretical frameworks such as Ubuntu, connectivism, stakeholder theory and social constructivism, with practical case studies and empirical research from across Africa and beyond. They illuminate how African universities can design curricula that are contextually relevant, socially responsive and epistemically wide-ranging. Blending conceptual analyses with empirical case studies from diverse African regions, the chapters provide diverse national and regional insights on higher education curriculum and pedagogy, highlighting the need for comprehensive reform to address systemic inequities, strengthen relevance and enhance student learning experiences. The book reiterates the need for collaborative and participatory curriculum reform involving academics, students, employers, communities and policymakers.

African Higher Education is an indispensable resource for students and scholars in higher education and development, particularly those focused on higher education in African nations. It is also a valuable reference source for academics, researchers, policymakers, university leaders, and curriculum designers in African higher education institutions, as well as international development organizations and funders.

Edwin K. Broadhead challenges the traditional assumption that the meaning and identity of New Testament texts rest in the intentions of an author expressed in a foundational narrative fixed in writing. He argues that for ancient literature the decisive factor is the viability and variability of a text's tradition history, encompassing composition, preservation, transmission, editing, interpretation, memory, and performance. These developments draw intermittently and interchangeably upon oral, scribal, memorial, and performative modes and respond to the needs of communities of tradents. The author maintains that the writings of the followers of Jesus belong to this ancient, normative way of Traditionshandlung and Traditionsverhalten, making it unlikely that these writings provide unmediated access to intentions of an author.
Employing a formalistic analysis set within a history of traditions context, the author seeks to move beyond the myopic focus on written manuscript and the attachment to the image of the New Testament author as a consistent theologian and literary genius. This renewed attention to Traditionshandlung in wider literature highlights two key traits of the New Testament material. First, the New Testament appears as a collection of traditions in a wide variety of forms: oral traditions such as hymn, story, preaching, prayer; performed traditions such as worship, eucharist, baptism, blessings; and iconic traditions such as sign, symbol, icon. Secondly, because these writings were shaped over time within communities of believers and developed across generations for changing contexts, they come to us as living traditions. This metabolic quality becomes fully visible only when we look beyond the authors - beyond the vision of a personal and punctiliar production of unchanging texts.

This book examines the history of goblins from the Middle Ages to the present. It shows that goblins-whether interpreted as creatures, objects, ideas, or people-were historically contingent and grounded in an often-hazy interplay between folkloric and folkloresque traditions. As products of their historical environ-ments, goblins have been imagined and reimagined throughout history. Their various incarnations include demons working on behalf of Satan, residents of Fairyland making mischief for humans, and cave-dwelling villains in Tolkien's or Dungeons & Dragons' fantasy universes.

Some authors, often early modern and modern Anglophone elites, used goblins as crude, destructive mimicries of what they deemed abnormal. They chose to label certain humans as goblins to indicate those people fell outside of normative ideas about proper appearances and behavior. In the twenty-first century, however, goblins have seen a sympathetic reappraisal; now, they are often portrayed in ways that see these longstanding stereotypes as assets in an age of unreasonable societal expectations.

The first book based exclusively on Arabic sources in the study of the early modern religious encounters between Western Europe and the Islamic Mediterranean, this volume elucidates the impact of the Protestant and Catholic reformations on the Islamic Mediterranean from Morocco to Bilad al-Sham. Drawing on the vast collection of Arabic Christian manuscripts and Arabic books printed in Europe from the Ottoman conquest to the Napoleonic invasion, it provides an account of the Christian culture of Arabicity as reflected in Christian Arab pilgrimages, multiple calendars, and the role of the Arabic language in the construction of Christian identity. Through contemporaneous debates, disputations, autobiographies, correspondence, and histories, it analyzes the missionary efforts to convert Eastern Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Druzes to the new Christianities of Western Europe and the resulting consequences on the Arab East, thereby calling attention to the differences in the ideologies of conversion between Christianity and Islam.

Uncovering America's past through the archaeology of its shipwrecks

The Archaeology of American Shipwrecks highlights the essential role of watercraft in United States history and demonstrates how the study of submerged sites contributes to a deeper understanding of the nation's past. Combining evidence from shipwreck excavations with historical documentation, this volume reveals how maritime archaeologists locate, document, and preserve these important sites.

This book examines a variety of vessels through time, including Indigenous-built dugout canoes, colonial ships that brought Europeans to the Americas, ships created for the whaling industry, and modern ships built for coastal defense. By tracing the role of watercraft in exploration, commerce, warfare, and expansion, it underscores the pivotal influence of maritime transport well into the twentieth century. Providing an overview of major discoveries along with little-known and previously unpublished research and discussing technological advances, new and evolving methodologies, and ethical issues relevant to the field, this book is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the dynamic story of America's waterways.

Examining celebrity and fan studies together, Professor Superstar argues that academia shares key traits with fandom, including collective emotional investment, shared interpretation of texts, and identity formation. Universities are often seen as isolated from everyday life, creating an atmosphere of both fascination and resentment. Some academics even go on to become field-specific microcelebrities. Some celebrate their influence while others resent their prominence, leading to both fandom and anti-fandom and reflecting broader social struggles as universities become battlegrounds for economic and political debates. The audiences engaging with academia extend beyond the students and faculty directly involved, creating multiple and conflicting interpretations of what academia represents. Public perceptions of academia are shaped less by its reality than by competing narratives about its role in society. By taking these dynamics seriously, we can better understand the cultural forces shaping both admiration and hostility toward higher education.

Russian soldiers did not go to war with only guns and orders-they went with fantasies that made killing feel meaningful. Drawing on diaries, social media posts, memoirs, poems, and battlefield songs, Maria Kurbak reconstructs the war from below. She shows how Russian combatants turn old wounds-NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, the collapse of the USSR, personal shame, and perceived national betrayal-into narratives that make violence feel purposeful and necessary. These fantasies echo official slogans but also exceed them, binding private grievances to collective myths and turning imagined injuries into real acts of brutality.

The book moves backward through time: from the full-scale invasion, to the myths of "Novorossiya" in Donbas, to deeper crises of masculinity and memory carried from the late Soviet decades. Across this arc, Destructive Imagination demonstrates that fantasies do not distort war; they design it. The result is a new framework for understanding Russia's invasion of Ukraine-one that brings into view the emotional and symbolic worlds that structure political behavior and make violence imaginable long before it becomes real.

2025 Best Single Author Book, Midwest Popular Culture Association
2025 Longlist, Reading the West Book Award in Nonfiction, Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association

A history of American Western genre comics and how they interacted with contemporaneous political and popular culture.

Redrawing the Western charts a history of the Western genre in American comics from the late 1800s through the 1970s and beyond. Encompassing the core years in which the genre was forged and prospered in a range of popular media, Grady engages with several key historical timeframes, from the origins of the Western in the nineteenth-century illustrated press; through fin de siecle anxieties with the closing of the frontier, and the centrality of cowboy adventure across the interwar, postwar, and high Cold War years; to the revisions of the genre in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Western's continued vitality in contemporary comics storytelling.

In its study of stories about vengeance, conquest, and justice on the contested frontier, Redrawing the Western highlights how the "simplistic" conflicts common in Western adventure comics could disguise highly political undercurrents, providing young readers with new ways to think about the contemporaneous social and political milieu. Besides tracing the history, forms, and politics of American Western comics in and around the twentieth century, William Grady offers an original reassessment of the important role of comics in the development of the Western genre, ranking them alongside popular fiction and film in the process.

This open access edited book provides a unique entry point to the understanding of politicized journalistic practices as well as rhetorical and linguistic strategies recruited for the coverage of the full-scale war in Ukraine initiated by the Russian Federation in 2022. It consists of a comprehensive set of studies on mediated political discourses from countries neighboring Ukraine - Poland and Romania - presented against the backdrop of English-language reporting of the conflict. The individual studies in the collection explore conflict discourses using either corpus-assisted comparative approaches or interpretative case studies of specific phenomena across languages and genres, basing on a representative dataset from an international project (CORECON, 2024-2026). The authors document the dynamic nature of contemporary war coverage, given a variety of patterns of reception of the discourses of conflict. The collection also highlights a range of problematic journalistic practices in emerging media formats and inspires further research on mediated conflict discourses and war coverage.

"In a carefully reasoned and methodologically transparent approach, the collection explores war media discourses in Romania and Poland, as well as in a comparative sample of English-language coverage. It offers a number of well-founded scientific studies of terminology, stance-making, narratives, visuals, news values, and representations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. By systematically analyzing stylistic, discursive and rhetorical strategies, the authors also interrogate current editorial practices. They highlight critical issues with media outputs and ideologies co-produced by structural and technological affordances of online conflict coverage." -- Prof. Valentyna Ushchyna, Chair of the English Philology Department, Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, Lutsk, Ukraine

Folklore Fieldwork the first book to present systematic research based on the author's more than 20 years of fieldwork in urban and rural areas throughout China. It addresses the theory and methodology of Chinese folkloristics, highlighting the unique characteristics of Chinese culture and society in the process, and explores the core process of modern Chinese folkloristics, making the field accessible to an international audience.

Bringing together emerging and established scholars, this Handbook illustrates anthropologically-oriented practices and methods for researching the complexity, heterogeneity and diversity of contexts for learning and education. It explores the ongoing modification of traditional practices in response to emerging theoretical and ethical concerns such as critical race theory and feminist theory, as well as the impact of new AI technologies. The Handbook encompasses key topics of educational justice, inequality and policy, examining challenges to conventional practices and methods and offering new directions and innovative forms of representation.

The Research Handbook on the Anthropology of Education is an essential resource for educational scholars, particularly those with an interest in educational anthropology and comparative education more broadly. It will also be useful for students and academics in the sociology of education, qualitative research methods and interdisciplinary research.

This open access book delves into the management of data imperfection, a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of archaeological research. By bringing together diverse voices and expertise, the book offers a pioneering examination of how researchers across Europe deal with the challenges posed by incomplete, fragmented or ambiguous data in archaeology. One of the most problematic issues when working with humanistic data, and specifically with archaeological data, is their imperfection. The data is ambiguous, partial, imprecise, uncertain. This imperfection, which can be intrinsic to the data themselves or be generated later with its processing, makes it difficult to produce reliable results. In recent years, some researchers have become increasingly interested in the need to address in their research, especially those using databases, the problem of data imperfection and all the implications that this entails.

This volume bring together researchers who are or have worked on the imperfection of archaeological data in its broadest sense, from theoretical reflections to proposals for managing the imperfection or part of it (uncertainty, inaccuracy, incompleteness, etc.) in any chronological period and application, both during the collection of data in the field or its processing in the laboratory. The book comprises 12 chapters, in addition to an introduction and a conclusion. It brings together contributions from European researchers from various academic levels, providing a rich tapestry of insights into the topic. The chapters span a broad historical range, featuring case studies that cover periods from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages.

A novel cross-cultural exploration of how maritime peoples have engaged with the sea through cosmology, spirituality, and ritual

Sentient Seas offers a global perspective on maritime cultures, examining how societies across time and space have understood and interacted with the sea. Synthesizing archaeological evidence, historical documents, and ethnographic accounts, Ian McNiven explores maritime traditions from ancient civilizations in the Middle East and Mediterranean to medieval Europe and Scandinavia to contemporary Indigenous communities in the South Pacific.

McNiven investigates diverse cultural practices including shipbuilding, the treatment of shipwrecks and shipwreck victims, and maritime resource use, interpreting the evidence through the perspectives of mariners who understood the seas to be sentient and capable of acting with intentionality. He introduces the concepts of "terrestrial seascapes" and "ontological switching" to illustrate how land-based shrines and votive offerings extend maritime cosmologies and maintain a liminal transition from land to sea. By bridging anthropological and archaeological research with transdisciplinary blue humanities scholarship, Sentient Seas approaches seas as spiritscapes, recontextualizing folkloric beliefs about maritime superstitions.

This book explores the psychological dimensions of migration, identity formation, and intragroup dynamics within global diaspora communities. By examining the mental and social processes that shape the experiences of ethnic minorities, this book, the first of a two-volume edited collection, offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact of migration and cultural adaptation. The book's central theme is that migration is not only a social and cultural phenomenon but a deeply psychological experience that shapes individuals' identities and group relations in complex and often challenging ways. The volume advances understanding of how migration affects psychological well-being, cultural identity, and both inter and intragroup relations, making a significant contribution to the field of migration studies and psychological research.

This edited book captures the urgent, complex and evolving landscape of decolonisation in UK higher education. Emerging in the wake of the 2020 racial justice uprisings and amid a resurgence of white supremacist violence, it interrogates whether the momentum for anti-racist change can withstand political backlash and entrenched structural inequalities. The volume moves beyond abstract theory to offer a grounded, interdisciplinary exploration of how decolonisation is being implemented, contested and lived across academic spaces. It highlights the pedagogical and institutional challenges faced by staff and students, while amplifying the voices of those at the forefront of transformative change. By bridging theory and practice, and foregrounding lived experience, this collection offers a timely and necessary contribution to the ongoing struggle for equity and justice in higher education.

The story of an influential Black Panther member who has lived in exile in Africa for 55 years

Florida Book Awards, Silver Medal for General Nonfiction

In the tumultuous year after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, 29-year-old Pete O'Neal became inspired by reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and founded the Kansas City branch of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The same year, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declared the BPP was the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country." Black Panther in Exile is the gripping story of O'Neal, one of the influential members of the movement, who now lives in Africa-unable to return to the United States but refusing to renounce his past.

Arrested in 1969 and convicted for transporting a shotgun across state lines, O'Neal was free on bail pending his appeal when Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the BPP, was assassinated by the police. O'Neal and his wife fled the United States for Algiers. Eventually they settled in Tanzania, where the O'Neals continue the social justice work of the Panthers through community and agricultural programs and host study-abroad programs for American students.

Paul Magnarella-a veteran of the United Nations Criminal Tribunals and O'Neal's attorney during his appeals process from 1997 to 2001-describes his unsuccessful attempts to overturn what he argues was a wrongful conviction. He lucidly reviews the evidence of judicial errors, the prosecution's use of a paid informant as a witness, perjury by both the prosecution's key witness and a federal agent, as well as other constitutional violations. He demonstrates how O'Neal was denied justice during the height of the COINTELPRO assault on black activists in the United States.

The volume explores how racism has shaped the lives of Roma across Europe and how scholarship itself has often perpetuated exclusion. The volume is structured into three parts and assembles empirical evidence, critical theoretical insights, and innovative strategies: Part I advances conceptual clarifications on racism and antigypsyism and examines academia's historical role in shaping Roma representations; Part II analyzes manifestations of antigypsyism across diverse contexts-from policing practices and institutional structures to labor market exclusion and media portrayals. Part III proposes innovative strategies and approaches for confronting racism against Roma, emphasizing the importance of Roma participation in knowledge production and policymaking. Contributions from a diverse pool of established and emerging scholars dissect topics such as the legacy of gypsylorism, systemic racism in welfare systems, education, visual misrepresentations in popular culture, and the role of racial capitalism in Roma marginalization. Through empirical studies, critical historiographies, and theoretical reflections, contributors illuminate the persistent entanglement between academic discourse, state practices, and racialized governance. In showing how racism operates at structural and individual levels, the volume stands as an essential resource for scholars of ethnic and racial studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, and policy studies, as well as activists, and policymakers committed to challenging centuries of discrimination.

This book is a practical, research-informed guide to using generative AI as a multi-purpose writing tool. Unlike existing resources that either treat AI as an intrinsic threat to academic integrity or focus on its philosophical implications, this book repositions AI as a powerful collaborator throughout all stages of the writing process-pre-writing, drafting, and revision. It is designed for undergraduates in the humanities and sciences. Drawing on years of hands-on experimentation and teaching, this book provides students with a series of strategies and classroom-tested exercises that demonstrate how to meaningfully integrate AI into their writing workflows. Moreover, this project synthesizes all of its individual materials into a comprehensive framework grounded in process pedagogy, making the book comprehensive in ways that will prove appealing to educators interested in writing instruction, curriculum design, and digital literacy. This book is organized into three parts aligned with the natural flow of composition: Part 1: Pre-Writing - rhetorical situation/prompt engineering, invention, researchPart 2: Writing - outlining, drafting, paragraphingPart 3: Post-Writing - revision, editing, self-assessment With strong potential for academic markets, The Process of Generative AI Writing equips undergraduate readers with a practical framework to ethically and effectively write with AI.

Derek Spears examines classical quotations and allusions in early Christian writings up to the end of the 2nd century CE. His starting point is Paul's use of an iambic trimeters. From there, Spears takes a linear approach, beginning with the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers. He questions prevaili in 1 Corinthianng interpretations that often rely on educational models from 5th and 4th century BCE literature-models shaped more by later academic institutions than by the actual social contexts of early Christianity.
The author then discusses Christian apologists, especially Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria. Derek Spears notes a growing confidence in engaging with classical authors: Justin is the first to name them explicitly, while Clement quotes them extensively. Instead of listing all of Clement's 1,700 references, the author compares Clement's approach to that of contemporary miscellanists like Aulus Gellius and Athenaeus. He suggests that Christian authors created their own collections and interacted directly with classical texts. Their effective quotation practices indicate a familiarity with original sources.
By tracing this development, the author shows how the growing number of classically educated individuals in the Christian community influenced the way the classical tradition was adopted and reinterpreted for Christian purposes.