This book explores social justice and education inequalities globally for upper undergraduate and postgraduate students on education and other social science degree programmes. Using examples from a range of different countries, it examines the experiences of children and young people in education systems around the world and the policies that have sought, with differing degrees of success, to make education fairer.It provides you with the theoretical, conceptual and empirical tool...

'Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.' In Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, the Roman general Titus incurs the wrath of the Queen of the Goths when he enslaves her and kills one of her sons. The shocking violence of her revenge and his retaliation earn Titus its reputation as Shakespeare's bloodiest play. This New Oxford Shakespeare edition offers a range of critical approaches to th...

High blood glucose levels are a hallmark of diabetes mellitus, the medical term for a metabolic condition that can last for years. This disorder develops when insulin production is inadequate or when insulin is not used efficiently by the body. The pancreas secretes the hormone insulin, which is essential for controlling blood sugar levels. Millions of people all around the world are living with diabetes, making it a major public health issue. The purpose of this essay is to delve into the...

A history of one of humankind’s most resilient and influential technologies over the past millennium—the book. Revelatory and entertaining in equal measure, Portable Magic will charm and challenge literature lovers of all kinds as it illuminates the transformative power and eternal appeal of the written word.Stephen King once said that books are “a uniquely portable magic.” Here, Emma Smith takes readers on a literary adventure that spans centuries and cir...

This is a biography of a book: the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays printed in 1623 and known as the First Folio. It begins with the story of its first purchaser in London in December 1623, and goes on to explore the ways people have interacted with this iconic book over the four hundred years of its history. Throughout the stress is on what we can learn from individual copies now spread around the world about their eventful lives. From ink blots to pet paws, from annotations...

'I have had a most rare vision.' A Midsummer Night's Dream evokes images of fairies, dreams, changeling children, and actors being transformed into asses. But is the play as ethereal as these associations suggest? Varsha Panjwani argues that it a rare work of art that is both hilarious and profound, dream and nightmare, submissive and yet subversive. She demonstrates how this play uses dreams as a device to make us examine our reality and the power structures that...

'Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, That I may see my shadow as I pass.' Richard III is Shakespeare's most charismatic protagonist-villain, exercising his wrongdoing with devilish glee and dazzling loquaciousness. He is also one of the most notorious examples in English literature of a damaging equation of disability with moral failing. The introduction to this edition provides a fresh take on this play's attractions and repulsions. Susan L. Anderson details...

'Born in a tempest when my mother died! This world to me is as a lasting storm.' Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a tale of adventure, fateful journeys, true love, and marvels. The play recycles a millennia-old story of a prince who sails around a mythic Mediterranean, starts a family, loses his wife and daughter, and is miraculously reunited with them years later. It packs in exciting incidents, from shipwreck to storms to murder, and a colourful cast of characters in...

As the Elizabethan era gave way to the reign of James I, England grappled with corruption within the royal court and widespread religious anxiety. Dramatists responded with morally complex plays of dark wit and violent spectacle, exploring the nature of death, the abuse of power and vigilante justice. In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a father failed by the Spanish court seeks his own bloody retribution for his son's murder. Shakespeare's 1603 version of Hamlet creates an aven...

The Far Cry was the first book on MacGibbon & Kee's newly-launched list. This 'savage comedy with a vicious streak' (Elizabeth Bowen in the Tatler in 1949) describes the 'second passage to India' of 'Teresa, whose elderly, wilful father drags her off to spare her from the clutches of her mother…I can think of no writer, British or Indian, who has captured so vividly, with such intensity, the many intangibles of the Indian kaleidoscope; Emma Smith harnessed those intense impressions of her ...

'How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in't!' Performed variously as escapist fantasy, celebratory fiction, and political allegory, The Tempest is one of the plays in which Shakespeare's genius as a poetic dramatist found its fullest expression. Significantly, it was placed first when published in the First Folio of 1623, and is now generally seen as the playwright's most penetrating statement about his art. The New Oxford Shakespear...

'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?' Dark and violent, Macbeth is a restless, haunting exploration of the human costs of violence and power. One of the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth has endured as a psychologically and supernaturally sinister work. Emma Smith's introduction considers the historical and contemporary contexts of the play, from the influence of the Gunpowder Plot as an act of domestic te...