Monsters, ghosts, the supernatural, the fantastic, the mysterious. These are not usually considered the “stuff” of modernism. More often they are regarded as inconsequential to the study of the modern, or, at best, seen as representative of traditional beliefs that are overcome and left behind in the transformation toward modernity. In Civilization and Monsters Gerald Figal asserts that discourse on the fantastic was at the heart of the historical configuration of Japanese moderni...

Japan’s oceans demand our attention. Violent, prolific, and changeful, they define life and death on the archipelago: pushing the shore under the rush of tsunami, charging typhoon circulation, feeding millions, and seeding conflicts over territory and resources. And yet, Japan studies remains largely beholden to a terrestrial view of the world that is at odds with the importance of the sea. This “terrestrial bias” also means that on those occasions when oceans are recognized they are most ...

Scottish Highlanders, and their descendants all over the world, are no better and no worse than any other people where “sinful” behaviour is concerned. Standards of morality and social conventions changed dramatically during the 19th century – and most of the people engaged in recording and commenting upon Highland life and tradition were puritanical ministers and priests who left out the racy bits. So, while there are many useful books that provide a wide range of Scottish Gaelic vocabula...

The Gospel According to Blindboy is a surreal and genre-defying collection of short stories and visual art exploring the myths, complacencies and contradictions at the heart of modern Ireland. Covering themes ranging from love and death to sex and politics, there's a story about a girl from Tipp being kicked out of ISIS, a van powered by Cork people's accents and a man who drags a fridge on his back through Limerick.Whip-smart, provocative and animated by the author's unmi...

Horrendous news from the Middle East fills our newspapers and screens every day. How can we begin to understand what drives people to treat each other as they do? “Medieval” is a word often used. Well-informed commentators analyse political and military issues but give little insight into the cultural and domestic backgrounds of the protagonists.Living With Arabs is an account of nine years spent visiting and living among the Bedouin tribes of Petra in southern Jordan; in ...

We live in a world obsessed by luxury. Long-distance airlines compete to offer first-class sleeping experiences and hotels recommend exclusive suites where you are never disturbed. Luxury is a rapidly changing global industry that makes the headlines daily in our newspapers and on the internet. More than ever, luxury is a pervasive presence in the cultural and economic life of the West - and increasingly too in the emerging super-economies of Asia and Latin America. Yet luxury is hardly a ...

This book is a compendium of material, in English and Irish, on the festival of Christmas from the manuscripts of the National Folklore Collection recalling how Christmas was celebrated in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in all its regional diversity. The book begins with accounts of the Christmas preparations, before moving through Christmas Eve, with its fasting, feasting and a multitude of superstitions, Christmas Day, with its focus on the home and family, a...

What happens to punks, clubbers, goths, riot grrls, soulies, break-dancers and queer scene participants as they become older?For decades, research on spectacular 'youth cultures' has understood such groups as adolescent phenomena and assumed that involvement ceases with the onset of adulthood. In an age of increasingly complex life trajectories, Ageing and Youth Cultures is the first anthology to challenge such thinking by examining the lives of those who continue to parti...

Elibron Classics. Replica of 1841 edition by John Murray, London.Asahel Grant (1807-1844) was a doctor, he supposed that this ancient Christian sect were descendants of the ten “lost tribes” of Israel (Israelites exported by the Assyrians in the 8th-century BC). The book contains evidence of the identity of the Nestorians, an account of their manners, customs and ceremonies, together with sketches of travel in ancient Assyria, Armenia, Media, and Mesopotamia, illustration of Scriptu...

Drawing attention to domestic space as the critical juncture between the global and the local, Home Away from Home is an innovative ethnography of the daily lives of middle-class Japanese housewives who accompany their husbands on temporary corporate job assignments in the United States. These women are charged with the task of creating and maintaining restful Japanese homes in a foreign environment so that their husbands are able to remain productive, loyal workers for Japanese m...

Elibron Classics. Replica of 1825 edition by John Murray, London.This edition comes with maps available as a free download. This edition contains illustrations.This edition is published in 2 volumes sold separately.The Author has endeavoured to collect every fact which relates to the government, the resources and the prospects of the countries which he visited. This is a very interesting sketch of life and culture in South America in the early 19th century.

This history of Edwardian fashion takes the reader on a journey of the millinery trends and social history of the era.With superb fashion color plates of the day, together with images of amazingly creative and colorful hat pins from both the UK and America, author Peter Kimpton shares the fruits of his forty years of postcard collecting of hats as worn by Edwardian women from over one hundred year ago. Kimpton also details the amazing life story of one of the world...