As the UK enters a period of intense public introspection in the wake of Brexit, this book takes on one of the key questions emerging from the divisive process: what is Britain's place in the world? The Middle East is one of the regions the UK has been most engaged in historically. This book assesses the drivers of foreign policy successes and failures and asks if there is a way to revitalise British influence in the region, and if this is even desirable. The book analyses the values, trade and security concerns that drive the UK's foreign policy. There are separate chapters on the non- Arab powers – Israel, Turkey and Iran – as well as chapters on the Middle Eastern Arab states and regions including the Gulf, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria and the Levant. The contributions are from leading specialists in the field: Rosemary Hollis, Michael Clarke, Ian Black, Bill Park, Christopher Phillips, Sanam Vakil, Michael Stephens and Louise Kettle. They each explain and re-assess the declining western influence and continued instability in the region and what this means for the UK's priorities and strategy towards the MENA. This is an essential book for policy makers, journalists and researchers focused on foreign policy towards the Middle East.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Manchester University. This book examines the business of charity - including fundraising, marketing, branding, financial accountability and the nexus of benevolence, politics and capitalism - in Britain from the development of the British Red Cross in 1870 to 1912. Whilst most studies focus on the distribution of charity, Sarah Roddy, Julie-Marie Strange and Bertrand Taithe look at the roots of the modern third sector, exploring how charities appropriated features more readily associated with commercial enterprises in order to compete and obtain money, manage and account for that money and monetize compassion. Drawing on a wide range of archival research from Charity Organization Societies, Wood Street Mission, Salvation Army, League of Help and Jewish Soup Kitchen, among many others, The Charity Market and Humanitarianism in Britain, 1870-1912 sheds new light on the history of philanthropy in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

"Food and Identity in England, 1540-1640 considers early modern food consumption in an important new way, connecting English consumption practices between the reigns of Henry VIII and Charles I with ideas of 'self' and 'otherness' in wider contexts of society and the class system. Examining the diets of various social groups, ranging from manual labourers to the aristocracy, special foods and their preparation, as well as festive events and gift foods, this all-encompassing study reveals the extent to which individuals and communities identified themselves and others by what and how they ate between the Reformation of the church and the English Civil Wars. This text provides remarkable insights for anyone interested in knowing more about the society and culture of early modern England."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Spanning over 2 centuries, James Gregory's Mercy and British Culture, 1760 -1960 provides a wide-reaching yet detailed overview of the concept of mercy in British cultural history. While there are many histories of justice and punishment, mercy has been a neglected element despite recognition as an important feature of the 18th-century criminal code. Mercy and British Culture, 1760-1960 looks first at mercy's religious and philosophical aspects, its cultural representations and its embodiment. It then looks at large-scale mobilisation of mercy discourses in Ireland, during the French Revolution, in the British empire, and in warfare from the American war of independence to the First World War. This study concludes by examining mercy's place in a twentieth century shaped by total war, atomic bomb, and decolonisation.

"With austerity biting hard and fascism on the march at home and abroad, the Britain of the 1930s grappled with many problems familiar to us today. Moving beyond the traditional focus on 'the Auden generation', this book surveys the literature of the period in all its diversity, from working class, women, queer and postcolonial writers to popular crime and thriller novels. In this way, the book explores the uneven processes of modernization and cultural democratization that characterized the decade. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, the book covers such writers as Eric Ambler, Mulk Raj Anand, Katharine Burdekin, Agatha Christie, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Christopher Isherwood, Storm Jameson, Ethel Mannin, Naomi Mitchison, George Orwell, Christina Stead, Evelyn Waugh and many others"--

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1970s shape Contemporary British Fiction? Exploring the impact of events like the Cold War, miners' strikes and Winter of Discontent, this volume charts the transition of British fiction from post-war to contemporary. Chapters outline the decade's diversity of writing, showing how the literature of Ian McEwan and Ian Sinclair interacted with the experimental work of B.S. Johnson. Close contextual readings of Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and English novels map the steady break-up of Britain. Tying the popularity of Angela Carter and Fay Weldon to the growth of the Women's Liberation Movement and calling attention to a new interest in documentary modes of autobiographical writing, this volume also examines the rising resonance of the marginal voices: the world of 1970s British Feminist fiction and postcolonial and diasporic writers. Against a backdrop of social tensions, this major critical reassessment of the 1970s defines, explores and better understands the criticism and fiction of a decade marked by the sense of endings.

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"Britain's vote to leave the European Union in the summer of 2016 came as a shock to many observers. But writers had long been exploring the issues and fractures in British society -- from immigration, to devolution, to post-truth narratives -- that came to the fore in the Brexit campaign and its aftermath. Reading these tensions back into 21st-century British writing, BrexLit is the first in-depth study of how writers engaged with these issues before and after the referendum result. Examining a wide-range of authors, including Ali Smith, Julian Barnes, China Mieville, Sanjeev Sahota, Nicola Barker and Zadie Smith as well as popular fiction by Andrew Marr and Stanley Johnson, Kristian Shaw explores how a new and urgent genre of post-Brexit fiction is beginning to emerge."--

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1950s shape modern British fiction? As Britain emerged from the shadow of war into the new decade of the 1950s, the seeds of profound social change were being sown. Exploring the full range of fiction in the 1950s, this volume surveys the ways in which these changes were reflected in British culture. Chapters cover the rise of the 'Angry Young Men', an emerging youth culture and vivid new voices from immigrant and feminist writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, the book covers such writers as Margery Allingham, Kingsley Amis, E. R. Braithwaite, Rodney Garland, Martyn Goff, Attia Hosain, George Lamming, Marghanita Laski, Doris Lessing, Colin MacInnes, Naomi Mitchison, V. S. Naipaul, Barbara Pym, Mary Renault, Sam Selvon, Alan Sillitoe, John Sommerfield, Muriel Spark, J. R. R. Tolkien, Angus Wilson and John Wyndham.

"This title remains the definitive work on British nationality law. Written by the recognised world authority on the subject, this is a ëmust-haveí book for all involved in nationality law and related immigration and human rights issues. In depth discussion and an all-encompassing range of subject areas are covered, plus expert commentary of the highest standard make this a reference source of major importance for all practitioners in this field. New edition due in 2007."