Reviews of Artisans of the body

Sandra Cavallo, author of Artisans of the body in early modern Italy, has had some wonderful reviews of the book, both in the latest issue of Gender in History and at the enormous Reviews in History website.


Click here to go to our web page and learn a little more about it. It also has a sample chapter there which is completely free for you to read.



Reviews in History has this to say about the book:-

'The book is a meticulous study… and has the merit of interweaving several lines of inquiry into one coherent picture.'

Guido Giglioni, Warburg Institute



Gender in History says:-

'The wealth of the archival evidence, together with Cavallo's continuous attempts to make sense of a wide range of issues from the artisans' own point of view makes this an exceptionally valuable source, and a highly important contribution to the scholarship on the social, cultural and medical history of early modern Italy.'

Paula Hohti, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies



Judge for yourself - order the book online from Blackwell, Amazon or direct from our distributors, NBN International.

Sample chapters

A lot of our titles have a sample chapter attached to them so you can get a great free preview of the book. Simply browse our catalogue and individual pages for titles will have a sample chapter that you can view as a pdf online.



Jukebox Britain, which has just been published with us, has the introduction up for you now. Simply click here to be taken to the webpage where you can read it for free.







We'll be showcasing titles with sample chapters available online on the blog from time to time. Meanwhile, keep checking titles that you're interested in at our website for free chapters.

A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party - Book launch

By Aaron Edwards

The launch of A History of the Northern Ireland Labour Party: Democratic Socialism and Sectarianism took place at Queen’s Bookshop in Belfast on Thursday 26th March to a packed audience of 80-100 people from across the divide in Northern Ireland. Apart from five prominent members of the NILP – Brian Garrett, Douglas McIldoon, Erskine Holmes, George Chambers and Sidney McDowell – several politicians from three present-day parties were also in attendance. The leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, Dawn Purvis MLA, was there, as was Brian Wilson, a former NILP member now Green Party MLA, and Conor Maskey, Sinn Fein Councillor for Belfast Oldpark. All three expressed their interest in the book’s attempt to rehabilitate and re-examine the historical record of the NILP and to challenge the orthodox narrative of the party’s political fortunes throughout the Twentieth Century.

Attendees from the unionist, loyalist, nationalist and republican communities, as well as many more from the leftist and socialist centre-ground, made it a special occasion indeed. Academics, journalists, and even the family of the towering NILP (and later SDLP) politician Paddy Devlin made an appearance, including his daughter, the critically-acclaimed Irish writer Anne Devlin, who turned up to show her support for the book.

Acknowledging the support of a host of people who helped out at critical junctures with the book, I moved on to say something about my study of the NILP. Researching a political party that, in the words of one former member, “died almost without a gasp” was a huge undertaking. Some of those I interviewed turned up on the night: sadly, others had since passed on. But the story of the NILP – their story - has universal relevance. It is a book about toil and struggle, political success and defeat, which, above all, records the contribution of those socialists and labourists who stood tall in working class areas as chaos and anarchy threatened the very fabric of their communities. As I made clear to those gathered on a blustery Belfast evening it was my personal and professional view that, had it not been for the NILP’s restraining influence, the conflict would have been much worse.

Last September I had cause to ponder the case of the NILP when I found myself in another, albeit very different, conflict zone. Gazing out at the city of Basra with the dry heat of the arid desert wafting off my face and the warm glow of controlled oil well flames reflecting off the night’s sky I pondered how ordinary people in this part of the world have themselves sought to restrain the excesses of ethnic conflict and political violence. The struggle of socially conscious and peace-loving people amidst the turmoil and upheaval of armed conflict is what continues to fascinate me in my own academic work.

Concluding my remarks I echoed a point pressed home by my guest speaker on the night, Professor Graham Walker, author of A History of the Ulster Unionist Party: Protest, Pragmatism, Pessimism (MUP, 2004), who said that the NILP was a truly working class party made up of men and women who struggled to mobilise political support across the ethnic divide. For the first time, in one volume, it is explained how and why the NILP ultimately failed in its bid to transform the political culture of Northern Ireland along left-right lines vis-à-vis the more familiar party system that took hold since the outbreak of ‘the troubles’.

Pertinently, the unanimous mood of all of those former members in attendance for the launch seemed to be that this book would make a valid contribution to moving the trials and tribulations of the NILP from the margins to the mainstream of the historical record where they rightfully belong.

Upcoming conferences

AAH Conference

We're at the AAH conference tomorrow; come and visit our stand and browse our titles. We'll be located in the Geoffrey Manton building, on the Manchester Metropolitan University campus.

Everything on the stand will be discounted - take this opportunity to get hold of titles at juicily reduced prices! We'll be there until Saturday.

SHS/EHS Conference

Friday and Saturday of this week, we'll also be here at the University of Warwick. Our book stand will be located in Warwick Arts Centre, at the heart of the campus. We'll have numerous discounted books on display and available to buy.

Then on Saturday evening starting at 6:30pm, we'll be launching The secret battle by Michael Roper in the Scarman building bar. Come and join us - the book will be available half price!

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We'll be at many more conferences over the Summer - keep checking back here for updated news.

Meanwhile, here are some of the titles we've published recently, grouped by subject. Click on the title links to find out more about each book, including how to order.

POLITICS

Identities, discourses and experiences

The international dimension of the failed Algerian transition

Global justice networks

Full participation

IRISH INTEREST

Michael Logue and the Catholic Church in Ireland, 1879–1925

Women, marriage and property in wealthy landed families in Ireland, 1750–1850

The making of the Irish poor law, 1815-43

The 35th Association of Art Historians conference is coming to Manchester Metropolitan University!

By Patricia Allmer, Conference Convener

Five hundred international scholars of art history and related disciplines will attend the conference, which runs from April 2 – April 4 2009.

Since 1974, the Association of Art Historians (AAH) has been the national organisation for professional art and design historians, researchers and students involved in education, galleries, museums and art-related publishing, or any other activity linked with art and design history. It supports, fosters and promotes the study of art.

I’m honoured to be the convener of the 2009 AAH conference – one of the most important annual arts events worldwide. It is hosted by MIRIAD, the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/), at MMU. We have chosen ‘Intersections’ as a thematic focus, as it characterises the AAH09 conference as constituting a wide range of collaborations, and reflects Manchester itself, a place of cultural diversity and intersections.

This annual conference is one of the rare chances for scholars to experience a thorough overview of new, cutting-edge research, and to be able to update on current publications by talking to representatives from twenty Anglophone leading publishers at the bookfair.

It is an opportunity to spend a couple of days fully focused on art – immersing oneself in three days of talks and events is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying sides of the AAH conference. It is also the one moment of the year where we can catch up on and spend some time with colleagues and friends, and also meet new people.

The AAH09 will be accompanied by a variety of exciting and stimulating events which will involve talks by leading scholars in dramatic Manchester settings. The opening keynote will be given by Professor Marsha Meskimmon (Loughborough University) and the closing keynote will be given by Professor Ernst van Alphen (Leiden University).

I’m particularly thrilled about the extent to which Manchester institutions and organisations are supporting the AAH09. The conference is a huge, communal effort between these institutions.

Manchester University Press are the sponsors of the opening keynote which will be held at Manchester’s breathtaking Town Hall. This will be followed by a Reception at Manchester Art Gallery where delegates will be free to roam the current exhibitions.

Delegates will be able to attend exclusive viewings of a number of exhibitions. The opening of the State Legacy exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, at MMU’s Holden Gallery and Cornerhouse, has been timed to coincide with the AAH09. A Reception will be held at Whitworth Art Gallery, which will include a viewing of the Subversive Spaces: Surrealism and Contemporary Art exhibition. Both events will be accompanied by curatorial talks.

The AAH09 is a particularly significant event for students in all art-related fields. It is an opportunity for students to join the dynamic AAH Student Members Committee (SMC), which organises a number of activities to help members get a head-start in the job market. The AAH conferences and the SMC are also the first stepping-stones for students for meeting future colleagues and friends in the fields of art.

We have therefore particularly focused aspects of the conference on students and employability and have organised, together with MMU’s Careers Services, an informal Careers Fair. This will allow students an opportunity to chat to and meet representatives from leading local institutions and arts-related institutions and organisations including MUP, the BBC, Arts about Manchester, Manchester City Council.

Under- and postgraduate students will be able to explore a wide range of different, arts-related jobs, ranging from publishing, print journalism, gallery work, volunteering and special collections to business start-up, community arts and public sector arts. The Careers Fair will enable students to experience a wide range of career opportunities in the arts.

I’m keenly awaiting the opening of the conference, the culmination of months of hard work. My co-organiser Cheryl Platt and I are looking forward to meeting all the delegates and hearing the fruits of their research.

If you’d like to attend AAH09, please visit:

http://www.aah.org.uk/conference/index.php

Booking deadline is 13 March 2009.

Let’s get to the dance already!

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Celestino Deleyto

Never did the slums look so pretty, as if already perceived through the eyes of the protagonist after winning millions (of rupees) at the fictional TV quiz programme. Not only are all the children and teenagers gorgeous looking but the constantly imaginative camera work never allows us to think about the real living conditions of the Mumbai underworld, purportedly what the story is about. This is the quintessential feel-good movie: in one of the best touches, a couple of larger-than-life U.S. tourists give the protagonist a 100$ tip after their car has been wrecked by the boy’s friends. It is also a gorgeous-looking one: almost every shot is “spectacular”, employing expressive cinematography, from extreme close-ups of pretty faces to constant high- and low-angle shots, including frequent overhead shots, more canted shots than The Third Man, rhythmic editing, stop motion, graphic matches, wide angles, shallow focus close-ups with artistically fuzzy backgrounds and all the tricks of the visual trade, not to mention the lively “authentic” soundtrack. Even Jamal and Salim’s mother looks stunning in her green sari when she is clubbed to death by wild demonstrators at the beginning of the story, and nobody is very bothered when Jamal approaches the Bollywood star for an autograph covered in shit. It’s all fun, fun, fun. We get frequent glimpses of the dire living conditions of the children and those around them but we are never allowed to feel queasy about them, nor do we bother much about Jamal being tortured at the police station for no very clear reason. Having said this, Danny Boyle’s breathless storytelling, dazzling cinematography and careful narrative construction, based as it is on a very gimmicky flashback structure – each successive question Jamal gets at the quiz show takes him and us back to an important episode in his life (such luck at a quiz program was never seen before) –, make for a very uplifting movie with a very timely message in times of crisis: resilience, love and spiritual strength will eventually win the day. However, the most important message of Slumdog Millionaire is in the medium. On the surface comparable to the visual virtuosity of contemporary filmmakers like Wong Kar-wai, Alejandro González Iñárritu or Pedro Almodóvar, Boyle’s film mesmerizes us with its spectacular images but hides nothing underneath them, no secret meanings, no interpretation, please. For this reason the absolute best and most representative scene of the movie is the final credit sequence with the Bollywood-like dance at the railway station, where everybody joins in the celebration of the never-doubted and not particularly exciting final reunion of the young lovers. Here the film is probably being totally honest for the first time, assuaging our fears that there might have been some degree of social concern behind its stylistic pyrotechnics, and showing itself for what it is: a celebration of the affirmative potential of popular art and of the visual sophistication of contemporary cinema.

Celestino Deleyto's new book is available now...

The secret life of romantic comedy offers a fresh approach to one of the most popular Hollywood genres in recent years and analyses the cultural impact of generic conventions in the construction of issues of intimacy and sexuality.

The combination of theory and analysis will help upper level students and academics in Film Studies, Cultural Studies and Literary Theory put theory into practice.

For more info, visit our website www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk.

To order your copy, email orders@nbninternational.com

His vision, our culture

Fans of William Holman Hunt are gearing up for the most high profile exhibition of his work in Canada to date.

The new show, Sin and Salvation: Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, is currently showing at the newly reopened Art Gallery of Ontario until until May 10th. And it's already creating quite a buzz in art circles across the pond, as an article published this morning in the leading newspaper in Canada suggests.

A detailed account of William Holman Hunt's work can be found in Carol Jacboi's William Holman Hunt, Painter, Painting, Paint.

"A fascinating appraisal of Hunt's work which superbly describes the artist's work in its historical and biographical context. Jacobi's analysis casts a great deal of light on the prejudices of earlier critics, she also usefully, assesses the artist's originality in the light of recent scholarship on the cultural pillars of the nineteenth century The paintings reproduced here, in all their vivid frightfulness, suddenly seem all the more fascinating as a result of this captivating book."
Timothy Brittain-Catlin, The Tablet

NEW TITLE

Three Renaissance usury plays

The Three Ladies of London, Englishmen for My Money, The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl

Edited by Lloyd Edward Kermode

This book provides for the first time modern-spelling, fully annotated editions of three important Elizabeth and Jacobean 'usury plays' - The Three Ladies of London, Englishmen for My Money, The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl. The edition includes an extensive scholarly introduction to the attitudes toward money-lending in early modern England, and to the authors, texts and historical contexts of this drama.

The plays included in this edition also represent examples of 'city plays' and 'alien plays', thus making them widely relevant to scholars and teachers in many areas of early modern studies. They are also gaining new appreciation in their own right.

As befits a volume in the Revels Plays Companions Library series, the edition is academically advanced to cater for specialised scholars. However, the introduction, editing and annotation remain accessible for undergraduates and theatregoers.

Please click on the title for more information, including details on how to order.

NEW TITLE

The family tree detective

Fourth edition

Colin Rogers

The long-awaited fourth edition of this best-selling manual continues to offer up-to-date guidance both to newcomers and to the more experienced, on how to make best use of the labyrinth of genealogical sources in England and Wales. It takes into account recent, and even some future, changes to the civil registration system, and incorporates many of the vast sources newly available on the internet. There is also a substantial bibliography for those who discover that their ancestors migrated from other countries. New appendices provide research into underregistration of birth and death, and hitherto unpublished details from the 1915 and 1939 National Registers.

The family tree detective remains an indispensible source of information on how to locate births, marriages and deaths, and alternative strategies if those searches fail.

Dr Colin D. Rogers is a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists, a member of AGRA (the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives), and was for thirty years the Hon. General Editor of the Lancashire Parish Register Society. He runs a consultancy helping banks and solicitors to identify and locate beneficiaries.

NEW TITLE

The empire in one city?

Liverpool's inconvenient imperial past

Edited by Sheryllynne Haggerty, Anthony Webster & Nicholas J. White

From the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, Liverpool was frequently referred to as the ‘second city of the empire’. Yet, the role of Liverpool within the British imperial system and the impact on the city of its colonial connections remain underplayed in recent writing on both Liverpool and the empire. However, ‘inconvenient’ this may prove, this specially-commissioned collection of essays demonstrates that the imperial dimension deserves more prevalence in both academic and popular representations of Liverpool’s past.

Indeed, if Liverpool does represent the ‘World in One City’ – the slogan for Liverpool’s status as European Capital of Culture in 2008 – it could be argued that this is largely down to Merseyside’s long-term interactions with the colonial world, and the legacies of that imperial history.

Click on the title above for more information on this book.