In 'To Be or Not to Be' (1942), Ernest Lubitsch brought his legendary comic touch to the most unpromising situation: life in Nazi-occupied Poland. In this study, Peter Barnes considers what it is to make comedy out of tragedy.

We think our wealth today comes from productive corporations and workers, but they merely add icing to a cake baked long ago. In this provocative book, Peter Barnes argues that most of today's wealth is co-inherited from nature and past human efforts, not individually earned. If some of that co-inherited wealth were placed in trust for each of us, living and yet-to-be born – creating what Barnes calls “universal property” – capitalism would be fundamentally transformed.As Barnes no...

A selection of plays by "one of the most original and biting comic writers working in Britain" (The Times)Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie is a riotous, scabrous comedy concerning a demonic figure, a destroyer and giver of life, who is always trying to jump, with both feet into his left trouser leg. Heaven's Blessings, taken from the grim pages of the Bible is a charming epic comedy of Tobit, his wife, their son and a cantankerous guardian angel, who set out to reclaim an outstanding ...

Set in medieval Italy during a crisis in the Church, Sunsets and Glories is "a work of the highest and most thrilling theatrical energy" (Independent on Sunday)Sunsets and Glories is set in the late thirteenth-century Italy where power struggles between Church and State inspire such characters as the spineless Charles 11, paid killer Montefelto and 'madwoman' Maifreda. Into this maelstrom steps Peter de Morrone, the saintly Pope Celestine V, provoking a bitter crisis of faith in th...

An RSC commission to commemorate the first celebration of Shakespeare's life and worksA mischievous satire on the foundation of the Shakespeare industry: In 1769, when David Garrick staged the first theatre festival to celebrate the life of Stratford's most famous son, little did he realise the impact it would have on the future livelihood of the small Warwickshire market town. Peter Barnes' ironic and irreverent new comedy dissects the cult of the theatrical personality, with gues...

Some maps remember their makers. Some refuse to forget.Thomas Brinn is an apprentice cartographer trained to preserve the past, not invent the future. But when an unfinished map awakens within the Cartographers' Guild, it binds itself to him—and begins to rewrite the world beyond its parchment edges.The land it reveals is unstable: forests hesitate between drafts, paths shift underfoot, and truth carries weight enough to fracture reality. Every correction leaves a scar. Eve...

A selection of plays by "one of the most original and biting comic writers working in Britain" (The Times)The Spirit of Man is "an ingenious triple-bill exploring Man's need for faith through three short satires based in medieval France, Protectorate England and nineteenth-century Eastern Europe" (Independent); Nobody Here But Us Chickens is a linked trilogy of satires on New Age, corporate and bedroom politics. Red Noses is a political satire about the plague and takes place in 13...

In the race to build a smarter world, who controls the shadows of our creation?Eighty-year-old Jack Miller enters *DreamLife* to spend his final moments with his late wife, but his secret farewell is hijacked when a rogue AI twists the program into a trap. What was meant to be peace becomes a struggle for his mind—and the minds of countless others.As Jack battles through the collapsing dreamscape, technician Lucy Carter risks everything to pull him back from the brink. Togeth...

Andrew never meant to change his life. He was just trying to get home.Cutting across a dark field after a long night, he crashes into something that shouldn't be there — a smooth, silent object half-buried in the ground. No lights. No markings. No explanation.Just … wrong.By morning, the mystery has only deepened. And when the truth finally reveals itself, it brings with it something far stranger than Andrew could ever have imagined — and an opportunity he can't aff...

Etonians aren't exactly noted for their grey matter, but I've always found them perfectly adjusted to society.Jack, a possible paranoid schizophrenic with a Messiah complex, inherits the title of the 14th Earl of Gurney after his father passes away in a bizarre accident. Singularly unsuited to a life in the upper echelons of elite society, Jack finds himself at the centre of a ruthless power struggle as his scheming family strives to uphold their reputation.Bubblin...

This book provides an up-to-date perspective on the inflammatory cells, mediators, and molecular pathology of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphasizing the urgent need to clearly understand the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in COPD.

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.Peter Barnes avers that we are no longer in the Holocene epoch, but in the Anthropocene epoch, an era in which humans are "a, if not the, dominant geological force on our planet," and thus we cannot continue with business as usual. Barnes argues that the best means to achieve the goal of an economic system that provides an adequate inc...