New Releases

“A journey as epic, and varying, as the Silk Road itself...[The Fabric of Civilization is] like a swatch of a Florentine Renaissance brocade: carefully woven, the technique precise, the colors a mix of shade and shine and an accurate representation of the whole cloth” (The New York Times)...

While animals have played a central part in human society over the years, when it comes to the social sciences they have largely been neglected. However, interest in Human–Animal Studies (HAS) has grown exponentially in recent years, giving rise to university and college courses around the world specifically on this compelling and vital subject. Considering topics ranging from the human–animal bond, meat eating, and animals in entertainment, this book presents key concepts in simple and easy-to-understand ways as it covers the breadth of empirical work currently being done in the field.

Japan's blissful isolation changed with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. In awe of the American weapons and ships, the Tokugawa shogunate quickly realized that they needed to evolve and modernize their military to survive, and a time of rapid change descended on Japan. Within a mere 30 years, the Tokugawa period’s great samurai caste was extinct. Military service was no longer the exclusive domain of the privileged warrior class who had combined the military with an intricate network of social status and vassalship to their feudal lords.

The vast expanse, unknown depths, dangers, and mysteries of the sea have led mariners to create fantastical stories of ghosts and monsters for centuries; it is a world strange and other to the experience of land dwellers. This body of lore has served to bond nautical communities together around the world and throughout history, with international stories fusing with local tales. The Perilous Deep explores why these stories were told, how they were repeated and mutated, and what fears, anxieties, and desires they helped to express.

Every Conflict Turns on a Single, Decisive Moment. History is not a slow, inevitable tide. It is a series of explosive fractures—a spark of defiance, a white flag of capitulation, a covert act of destruction. These are the pivot points upon which the fate of empires, revolutions, and wars are balanced. STRIFE! journeys into the heart of these critical turning points.

It is said that the dead do not tell stories, but their resting places continue to fuel legends, immortalising their memory in a way. I will take you on a journey to discover extraordinary tombs and enigmatic myths that surround these places steeped in mystery. Tragic love stories, paranormal tales, strange superstitions and anecdotes follow one after another.

A gripping and deeply researched exploration of the hidden influence of organized crime on the global economy that reveals the mafia as an uncredited architect of modern society. In Mafia: A Global History, Ryan Gingeras takes readers on a fascinating journey into the shadowy world of organized...

A spirited exploration of the diary, from pen-and-paper to TikTok, for the people who write—and read—them Featuring iconic diary keepers like Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel, and Taylor Swift We know what it was like to be an out lesbian in 19th-century England, what the inner...