Bøger udgivet af Bloomsbury Academic

What does it mean to exist in the age of social media? This is a question that French philosopher Bernard Stiegler thoroughly explores in his broad body of work regarding the futurity of the human and its relation to technologies. Yet this book argues that this question would be best answered by reading Stiegler in close connection with Jean-Paul Sartre's existential phenomenology and Foucault's biopolitics. Taking the philosophy of Bernard Stiegler as main departure point, Amelie Berger-Soraruff examines to what extent a politics of Self is of a crucial importance in the current digital culture. Refreshingly original, this book offers a closer look at Stiegler's lesser known contributions such as Taking Care of Youth and the Generations, often criticized or overlooked due to its odd conservatism. It also newly frames Stiegler's philosophy as a contemporary echo to Sartrean existentialism, shedding light on the ways in which Sartre appears as a figure who is paradoxically absent from his work and is yet influential in many respects. Extending Stiegler's views to the field of media studies, this book brilliantly brings nuance to his portrayal of digital culture which he perceived as increasingly alienating.

Advocating for best practice within aviation English language research, this volume offers deeper insights into the practical, political, and economic contexts in which International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) language standards are embedded. English is the official language for international pilot-air traffic controller (ATC) communications, mandated by the ICAO. It is also the de facto universal common language for all other forms of communication, including the language of maintenance technicians (and maintenance manuals), aeronautical engineers, cabin crew, ground staff, and aviation business professionals. In this book, renowned academic experts and aviation professionals come together to explore a variety of research trends, providing an effective and efficient analysis of the language needs of the aviation industry, its future directions, and an extended look at linguistic principles in action. Chapters engage in detail with research data, case studies, and concrete examples of interactional tasks, transactional exchanges and radiotelephony. They also examine the common vocabulary and phrasal patterns in aviation discourse required to communicate successfully in various roles and contexts within the aviation industry. The result is a meaningful contribution to the global development and improvement of standards of aviation research; investigations of the role of language in aviation accidents; and research into language as a human factor in aviation communications, customer service, and intercultural (mis)communication.

Focusing on the Greek world during the high Roman Empire between the first and third centuries CE, this edited volume examines the representation of space in literary evidence. During this period of vast trade networks, imperial expansion, cosmopolitan culture and high elite mobility, geography was part of the language of power. The topographies of the Greek world - urban, rural, cultic and monumental - were reshaped and curated by writers to tell new stories about Hellenic space. The contributors explore the topographical imagination in classical texts as diverse as novels, declamations, handbooks of dream interpretation, history writing and fictional dialogues. Paying particular attention to a persistent tension between mobility and cultural rootedness and connection, each chapter examines how Greek writers of the imperial era represented and manipulated the multi-temporal landscapes of the contemporary world. Authors under discussion include Dio of Prusa, Aelius Aristides, Artemidorus, Herodes Atticus, Lucian, Pausanias and Dionysius the Periegete. Greek Literary Topographies in the Roman Imperial World presents a composite picture of how imperial-era Greek writers understood the imperative of topographical engagement and the possibilities of topographical imagination for constructing landscapes of cultural encounter and reflection.

Investigating the representation of artefacts, objects and 'things' in a range of predominantly Western archaeological fiction from the late Victorian period to the modern day, this book examines the narratives through which humanity represents its own material heritage in relation to notions of enchantment, exhibition, estrangement, adventure, tourism and waste. Kerry Dodd asserts that comprehending the structures through which material culture is presented within archaeological media reveals the structures that transform an object from rubbish to relic. Calling upon such indicative literature, films, TV series and video games as Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones, Uncharted and Relic Hunter, this book explores the depiction of material culture through three principal areas - relics, exhibition and adventure. Outlining a critical framework of artefact representation, Dodd argues that such iconic moments as Howard Carter's remark that he saw 'wonderful things' when he broke into the antechamber of Tutankhamun's tomb remain recognisable through the evocation of a spectacular visual, despite little concrete definition of the objects witnessed. This book offers a unique exploration of how such figures as Indiana Jones, Lara Croft and Carter have cemented a cultural recognition of what an artefact constitutes as being dependent on how an object is encountered. It is through the very 'wonder' of things that Dodd breaks down the boundaries between popular and professional archaeology by pushing forward critical considerations of material culture.

An in-depth exploration of the stardom and authorship of Stephen Chow Sing-chi, one of Hong Kong cinema's most enduringly popular stars and among its most commercially successful directors. In the West, Chow is renowned as the ground-breaking director and star of global blockbusters such as Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Shaolin Soccer (2001), and among Hong Kong audiences, Chow is celebrated as the leading purveyor of local comedy, popularising the so-called mo-lei-tau ("gibberish") brand of Cantonese vernacular humour, and cultivating a style of madcap comedy that often masks a trenchant social commentary. This volume approached Chow from a diverse range of critical perspectives. Each of the essays, written by a host of renowned international scholars, offers compelling new interpretations of familiar hits such as From Beijing with Love (1994) and Journey To the West (2013). The detailed case studies of seminal local and global hits provide overdue critical attention to Chow's filmmaking, highlighting the aesthetic power, economic significance and cultural impact of his films in both domestic and global markets.

Exploring the history of Cold War censorship legislation on the French publishing industry for children, this open access book focuses on the publisher Hachette to examine how it dominated the country's new context of surveillance and control. It traces the history of the French Communist Party's (PCF) efforts to prevent American 'propaganda' reaching the hands of children, and Hachette's strategic and editorial responses, covering such events as the PCF's major intervention against the global multi-media phenomenon Tarzan; the compromises and modifications to Hachette's publishing of Disney books and comics; and their translated series fiction from Nancy Drew to The Famous Five, which were designed to stimulate American-style consumer culture whilst not provoking the Cold War campaigners. Using extensive new multilingual archive material from French legal records, American Department of State archives and Hachette's own business records, Sophie Heywood reveals both the covert operations by transatlantic business partners and the American Embassy to rewrite the laws of a sovereign nation, and the publisher's long-standing power struggle with, but also influence over, French politics. It breaks new ground in understanding the people and processes involved in self-censorship, uncovering how national policies were enacted and given meaning by the low-paid, mostly female, pieceworker-employees on the creative assembly line, and foregrounds a study of censorship and its interactions with American market power in the Western sphere. An incredibly original and important study, Children's Publishing in Cold War France illuminates how the struggle for hearts and minds shaped the expansion of the creative industries in the 'free world'. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Reading.

Examining early Chinese ritual discourse during the Warring States and early Western Han Periods, this book reveals how performance became a fundamental feature of ritual and politics in early China. Following the view that Ruists (Confucians) conceived ritual as primarily a dramaturgical matter, this book explores the influence of these performer/spectator relationships on early Chinese religious, ethical, and political discourse. Thomas Radice suggests that theatrical "presence" was necessary for expression and deception in a community of spectators and shows us how the ornamented self became essential to all forms of public life in early China.

The main debates in the philosophy of time have centred on whether A-theory, with events ordered by pastness, presentness and futurity, or B-theory, ordered by earlier than or later than, are equally fundamental. Emiliano Boccardi, L. Nathan Oaklander and Erwin Tegtmeier instead uphold the Russellian theory, or R-theory, and consider not only the fundament differences but also its superiority. They argue McTaggart's misinterpretation of Russell has led to a false dichotomy between the A- and B-theories, while exploring the connection between temporal relations, temporal facts and time. In defence of the R-theory, they argue how it offers a metaphysical explanation of the nature of time, in addition to investigating whether ontological theories of time can be considered from a moral or existential point of view. Using an ontological approach, this volume clarifies what is mistaken about both theories can only be resolved by adopting a Russellian philosophy, reaching beyond the A-theory vs B-theory debate.

Tracing Walter Benjamin's convergences with, and divergences from, influential German theorist Carl Schmitt, this edited collection places his thinking in the context of broader 20th century political philosophy of his time, and examines the question of whether Benjamin presents the possibility for a distinctive political theology, mapping the coordinates of this question without collapsing the tensions internal to Benjamin's thought. Benjamin's thought has been a touchstone, explicitly or implicitly, in numerous efforts to conceive of a 'new' political theology, not anchored in legitimizing and preserving power, but in justice and liberation. He interrogates the political-theological complex from what may be construed as an opposing vantage point; whereas Schmitt excavates the theological elements in modernity in order to shore up liberalism's illiberal inheritance, Benjamin arguably roots out these latent structures in order to dissolve them and liberate us from their oppressive legacy. Representing a multiplicity of voices, this volume brings together a host of multifaceted contributions that explore why Benjamin has been a fertile source for thinking about political theology beyond - and often against - Schmitt. With Benjamin as a model of how the existing genealogies of political theology can be challenged and expanded, this book makes a much wider range of work valid and available for study in this context whilst also allowing us to read his work from a new perspective.

This volume explores a broad range of perceptions, receptions and constructions of the soldierly body in the ancient world, putting the notion of embodiment at the forefront of its engagement with ancient warfare. The 10 chapters presented here respond directly to the question of how war was embodied in antiquity by drawing on detailed case studies to examine the sensory and bodily experience of combat across wide-ranging time periods and geographies, from classical Greece and Rome to Roman Britain and Persia. Together they illustrate how the body in war is a vital universal element that unites these vastly different contexts. Although the centrality of the human body in war-making was recognized in antiquity, a body-centric approach to combat has yet to be widely adopted in modern Classical Studies. This collection brings together new research in ancient history, classical literature, material culture, bioarchaeology and art history within a theoretical framework drawn from recent developments in War Studies that places the body front and centre. The new perspectives it offers on brutality in battle, the physical expression of warrior identity, and post-combat remembrance and recovery challenge readers to re-assess and expand their existing ideas as part of a broader ongoing 'call to arms' to revolutionize the study of ancient warfare in the 21st century.

The definitive textbook for reflective professionals in further, adult and vocational education. Now updated with the latest research, the book offers extensive support for trainee and practising teachers in a variety of settings, for both practice-based training and career-long professionalism. Written by a collaborative author team of sector experts led by Maggie Gregson and Sam Duncan, Reflective Teaching in Further, Adult and Vocational Education offers two levels of support: - practical guidance for practitioner success, with a focus on the key issues including planning and assessing learning and collaborative approaches to reflective practice - evidence-informed 'principles' to aid understanding of how theories can effectively inform and develop teaching practices In addition to new case studies from a wider range of settings than ever before, the new edition offers broader national and international coverage, greater emphasis on work-based learning, and more ideas for exploring classroom communication and meeting a wider range of learner needs. Readings for Reflective Teaching in Further, Adult and Vocational Education directly compliments this book, providing access to key texts, working as a compact and portable library. reflectiveteaching.co.uk provides a treasure trove of additional support, including supplementary sector-specific material for considering questions around society's educational aims.

An in-depth look at the motivations behind immigration to America from 1607 to 1914, including what attracted people to America, who was trying to attract them, and why.Between 1820 and 1920, more than 33 million Europeans immigrated to the United States seeking the "American Dream." They came in response to an image of America as a land of opportunity and upward mobility sold to them by state governments, railroads, religious and philanthropic groups, and other boosters. But Christina A. Ziegler-McPherson shows that the desire to make and keep America a "white man's country" meant that only Northern Europeans would be recruited as settlers and future citizens while Africans, Asians, and other non-whites would either be grudgingly tolerated as slaves or guest workers or be excluded entirely.This book reframes immigration policy as an extension of American labor policy and connects the removal of American Indians from their lands to the settlement of European immigrants across the North American continent. Ziegler-McPherson contends that western and midwestern states with large American Indian, Asian, or Mexican populations developed aggressive policies to promote immigration from Europe to help displace those peoples, while Southern states sought to reduce their dependency upon Black labor by doing the same. Chapters highlight the promotional policies and migration demographics for each region of the United States.

This book presents the history of immigration to the United States, debates over criminalization under the Trump administration, and the effects on immigrants, U.S. residents, the U.S. economy, and its relationships with other nations.Robert Hartmann McNamara offers a comprehensive understanding of past and current immigration policy in the United States and exposes falsehoods in the rhetoric and narrative portraying Latino and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. Repeated statements by federal officials, including the U.S. president, that immigrants pose a threat to national security, contribute to crime, and take jobs away from native-born residents have predicated intensified immigration enforcement and deportation policies. However, the evidence has consistently concluded that these narratives are inaccurate.This book highlights white nationalism as a backdrop to understanding current immigration policy and tactics. It examines how political and economic factors, broadly defined as neoliberal policies, shape the immigration narrative and unpacks the criminal justice system's role in immigration, law enforcement efforts, problems with immigration courts and judges, and the detention of immigrants as part of a larger mass incarceration of people of color. Finally, the text illuminates the reasons for massive migration, with the U.S. contributing to the problem by supporting regimes that endorse or allow humanitarian crises.

These inspiring stories of prominent reformers fighting for the Common Good help concerned readers and voters recognize which actions and proposals will substantially elevate the happiness and well-being of citizens. Philip Kotler describes how today's society is in a state of "durable disorder," with authoritarianism on the rise and democracy on the decline around the world. He highlights the role of the Common Good and offers readers a guide to fortifying democratic values and creating organizations that pursue a better vision of the world. This text is essential for: Public citizens who want to help solve their community's problemsBusinesses that want to contribute to the public goodGovernment agencies aiming to improve services and innovationsNonprofit organizations dedicated to meeting public needsKotler details tools for public action used by luminaries such as Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, Rachel Carson, and Nelson Mandela, describing the advances these reformers achieved and mapping out strategies for delivering "the greatest good for the greatest number." Advancing the Common Good inspires concerned readers to recognize which actions and proposals will substantially elevate the happiness and well-being of all citizens.

Written for general readers and professionals alike, this succinct but comprehensive work examines the hybrid nature of the two violent extremist movements threatening the United States: Islamist extremism and white nationalism.Scholarship as well as popular discourse on terrorism often focuses disproportionately on specific groups without paying sufficient attention to the ideology that motivates them. This book emphasizes understanding and countering the ideology that fuels extremism over preoccupation with specific organizations such as Al Qaeda or ISIS. It sets contemporary terrorist threats in perspective, avoiding fearmongering and political rhetoric.The book examines the nature of violent extremism today in all its forms, including lone wolves and cyber threats. Focusing on both international and domestic terrorism, it analyzes each threat in depth as a multidimensional hybrid phenomenon: as an ideology, as distinct groups espousing that ideology, and as a network of followers. Written in an accessible style by an author who has studied terrorism for more than 30 years and provided extensive media coverage on the subject, this book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on violent extremism.

As a comprehensive resource for readers interested in contemporary security issues in Africa, this compelling book details the impact of complex challenges in Africa and explains why addressing them grows increasingly important.Presenting both general overviews and specific case studies, this book introduces contemporary security issues in Africa, home to more than thirty of the fifty most fragile nations in the world. It covers the past three decades of conflict on the continent, focusing on such topics as weak and failing states, ethnic conflict and civil wars, natural resources and environmental security, political violence and terrorism, piracy and maritime security, food security and poverty, international responses, and future prospects. The core of the book comprises detailed analysis of the nexus between culture, politics, and security in Africa, while the volume as a whole examines key regional and transnational security issues affecting Africa and their implications at the state, regional, and international levels. The book explores the dynamic role that African nations play in influencing international security and investigates and articulates factors heightening the importance of Africa's role in international affairs.

Beyond the Numbers - Elevating sales negotiation from transactional to transformational is an essential guide to sales negotiation where you transform yourself merely from a sales person to a long term business associates . This insightful tome delves into the alchemy of negotiation, offering a comprehensive recap of strategies, from the foundations to advanced tactics. It will act as a perfect mentor for management students, working professionals and MSME (Micro Small Medium Enterprises) owners by empowering them with the art of rapport, trust and value creation. It will help you to navigate objections, embrace continuous improvement, and stay industry-savvy. With the help of this guide, you can able to master the finesse of negotiation, turn it into a life skill and join the ranks of esteemed negotiators who make every deal count.

How did a low-key prison drama which was considered a box-office flop on its original release become one of the most popular movies of all time? Mark Kermode traces the history of this unexpected audience favourite, from its source in Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, through the icy corridors of Ohio's Mansfield Reformatory (whose imposing gothic architecture dominates the film), to the television and video screens on which The Shawshank Redemption became a phenomenon. Kermode's account includes insights from writer/director Frank Darabont and leading players Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. He also explores the near-religious fervour that the film continues to inspire its huge number of devoted fans.This new edition, published to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Shawshank's release, includes a new foreword by Mark Kermode re-assessing the film's impact and legacy.

This book shines a light on one of the most controversial legal principles in Chinese criminal justice: the presumption of innocence. Drawing on broader legal-political discourses within the Party-state and institutionalised academia, it observes decades of legal reforms in China and explains why the principle of presumption of innocence is contested. Beginning with the Mao era, the book traces the evolution of presumption of innocence from the 1950s to China. It analyses the official narrative of a presumption of innocence 'with Chinese characteristics', which reflects the idea of a presumption of innocence that is understood to suit China's national conditions. The book highlights the impact of the official human rights doctrine of national conditions on the implementation of presumption of innocence. It illustrates how successful competing scholarly calls for greater human rights protection in the criminal justice have been. Even if it could be argued that Chinese law established a fragile presumption of innocence, this book finds that there is no genuine acceptance of the principle of presumption of innocence, as codified in international law, in China. The official doctrine of national conditions has resulted in the human right of presumption of innocence being broken down into various fragments, rendering it ineffective.

This edited collection of papers comes from the well-established Modern Studies in Property Law biennial conference. It examines a diverse range of topics in property law and uses a wide range of methodological approaches to reflect on a variety of current and emerging themes and important issues that have been overlooked, offering new analysis and insights that will be valuable for property lawyers, academics, and students. It considers new developments in property law, including those connected with digital assets and the issues that have arisen from co-housing. The contributors are leading academics and practitioners from several common law jurisdictions, which expands the book's focus and enhances its value to the reader.

This book presents an original theory of the just price, and it is a welcome addition to scholarship on a radically underdeveloped field. This work reassesses the age-old idea that there is a just price of things, one that goes beyond the Scholastic tradition of the just price and its exclusive concern with commutative justice. There is more to just price theory than the concern for keeping equality of value between goods exchanged. Modern concerns over efficiency, autonomy, and distributive justice, can also find a place within a theory of the just price. The book: - Presents a new approach to just price theory through a broad analysis of different values and the incorporation of those conceptions into a wider normative framework- Argues that these different values ground varied conceptions of the just price, and>Perfect for scholars and students in the fields of jurisprudence, philosophy of private law, contract law, and political theory, this book makes a significant contribution to legal theory and the emerging field of the philosophy of economics.

This book engages the problem of how, in the 21st century, we are to speak about experiences of the extraordinary/anomalous/extreme which occur on a transhistorical and transcultural basis. Critical re-readings of seminal texts show how 20th-century theoreticians in the humanities sought to erase madness from their irrational subjects. This propensity to sanitize madness in the study of religions was mirrored by the instinct of psychiatrists to degrade religious experiences by reducing mad consciousness to psychosis or dissociation. Richard Saville-Smith introduces explanatory pluralism as a way of recognizing these disciplinary biases and mad studies as a way of negotiating this understanding. The disproportionate significance of madness in shaping the fabric of the human story can then be recovered from both erasure and dismissal to be given the recognition previously denied - as acute religious experiences. Acute Religious Experiences divides into three sections, beginning with re-readings of William James's pathological programme, Rudolf Otto's numinous, T. K. Oesterreich's possession, Mircea Eliade's shamanism, Walter Stace's mysticism, Walter Pahnke's psychedelic experience, and Abraham Maslow's peak experiences. These ideas are shown to constitute the beginnings of a fractured discourse on the irrational. In part two, contemporary psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and Foucault's History of Madness are re-read to reposition madness as not necessarily pathological. This opens the way for the identification of acute religious experiences as a new holistic and post-colonial approach through which religious data can be organized and addressed on a comparative basis. In part three, The Gospel of Mark is re-read as a case study to demonstrate the novel insights which flow from the identification of acute religious experiences. Richard Saville-Smith draws on his own experiences of madness and his PhD from the School of Divinity at The University of Edinburgh to elucidate his research.

Across Colonial Lines takes a multi-perspective approach to the study of empire and commodities, and encourages readers to look at commodity histories in alternative spatial and temporal contexts. It offers a comparative understanding of commodities in the Venetian, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British Empires. Highlighting the interwoven character of multiple commodity networks, this book situates commodities like gold, coffee, tea and indigo, to name a few, within pre-existing networks of labour, consumption and knowledge production. It explores the nexus between the local and the global, and highlights the role played by individual producers, petty traders, sailors and even consumers in creating regional circulations within a global political economy. In this volume, commodity networks are not just sites of production and trade, but also of political control, social organisation and consumption choices. They provide the impetus for globalisation from as early as the thirteenth century. Each chapter takes an individual commodity to illustrate the history of commodity transmission within imperial contexts. From early modern Venetian commerce to the trade networks of the Eurasian world; from the trading ambitions of British sailors to Portuguese global imperial ambitions; from the cross-imperial knowledge networks of indigo to the assertion of indigenous agency in Angola; and from the commodification of labour to the experience of tourism in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean World, Across Colonial Lines uses commodity networks as a lens to study empire building across varied yet connected geographies and chronologies.

North Korea's Nuclear Cinema examines why and how North Korea has transitioned to an image-based nuclear power in the changing context of a post-Cold War world. What exactly is the North Korean nuclear threat? Why is North Korea engaging in hostilities when its erstwhile adversaries have offered a diplomatic exit ramp? Chapter by chapter, it explains how North Korea's footage-based nuclear politics is presented as military practice, but ultimately traces its lineage to cinematic propaganda, a tradition that blurs the line between image and reality. By leveraging cinematic resources in place of physical military mobilization, North Korea continues to move international political actors with the mere suggestion of nuclear power. At a moment when North Korea is enhancing media representation, this book dives into a timely exploration of how the regime is projecting state power as South Korean televisual media challenges the North Korean communist spectacle that has held a captive audience for decades.

In this open access book, Stephen Wooten offers a holistic historical ethnography of cooking and female agency in North Africa, and of the broader cultural and historical significance of women's culinary agency.Drawing on archaeological evidence, deep historical accounts, and extensive, field-based ethnographic research, Wooten documents and theorizes Malian women's culinary agency and creativity throughout history and its impact on their lives and lifeways of their families, communities, and society. He finds that women's cooking in Mali not only transforms raw ingredients into cooked fare, thereby producing essential physical nourishment for women and their families, but also helps foster fundamental values and dispositions, facilitate elemental family and community dynamics, and reproduce gender identities and relations. These findings ultimately shed light on the broader issues of what food and food-production within a specific region of Africa can tell us about Africa's culinary and cultural diversity more broadly. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.

The central country in the Western Balkans, Serbia puzzles observers by balancing its domestic and foreign policy between two competing great powers - Russia and the West. What drives a small country to behave like this? In this book, Vuk Vuksanovic explores the strategic trends which have shaped Serbian foreign policy, beginning in 2008, when the country's international position was permanently changed by the global financial crisis and the unilateral declaration of independence by Serbia's former province Kosovo. Since then, this small Balkan country has become a tipping point between two external great powers against each other.Demonstrating how this, and other major international developments have affected the country's stance towards these great powers, including the Russian annexation of Crimea, Brexit, the migrant crisis, the rise and fall of Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic and the on-going war in Ukraine, Vuksanovic reveals how Serbia has placed itself at the centre of a deeply opportunistic and precariously balanced partnership, which impacts both its domestic and international policy in a multitude of ways.

"Winter has come to the Montgomery Estate Vineyard in Atoka, Virginia. Lucie Montgomery and winemaker Quinn Santori have decided to make champagne ... But then Gino Tomassi, Quinn's [cousin], turns up on their doorstep one afternoon, demanding help in solving the mystery of what happened to Zara Tomassi, the first wife of his grandfather, who died in a San Francisco hotel in 1923 under suspicious circumstances. And it seems there's no coincidence that her death came the day after President Warren Harding passed away in that same hotel. Gino needs answers before his blackmailer takes him for all he's worth--or exposes an explosive family secret"--

The French countryside is as beloved by the many millions of tourists who visit it each year as it is of French people themselves. But it has not always looked like it does today. An Environmental History of France instead presents the countryside in which people live and work and through which they travel as a human creation across 250 years of economic and cultural change, war and revolution. It is a book about the 'making' of the French landscape and an engrossing story linking human geography, history, agriculture and culture. Showing an awareness of the origins and nature of current ecological and social challenges, Peter McPhee uses a blend of environmental and cultural approaches to paint a vivid picture of rural France's modern history. From the aristocratic control of agrarian resources in the 1770s, to widespread mechanisation in the 19th century, through to the impact of the World Wars and an intriguing discussion about the uncertain future of French rural communities, McPhee provides a nuanced, detailed and absorbing account of a distinctive version of France that is essential to the country's identity.