Augustus John Polly is a restless academic, uncomfortable in the colonial environment of 1950s Hong Kong. Prompted by sexual fantasies, he is drawn into a conspiracy that unfolds disastrously. "Amidst the decline of empire, a restless colonialist in Hong Kong debates the meaning of history. By turns funny and philosophical, this story of one man's whimsy – but also courage – in taking a side challenges our own complacencies with political notions of right and wrong, as well as the inequali...

What is lean communication and why do you need it?Lean communication is a mindset and a set of principles and practices to apply lean thinking to become a better thinker and communicator.In the manufacturing world, lean thinking has produced exceptional improvements in productivity and customer value. Manufacturing is a process that takes in raw materials, applies work to them, and produces something a customer values. Lean thinking, with its single-minded focus on creating...

Exploratory, investigative, and energetically analytical, 1650–1850 covers the full expanse of long-eighteenth-century thought, writing, and art while delivering abundant revelatory detail. Essays on well-known cultural figures combine with studies of emerging topics to unveil a vivid rendering of a dynamic period, simultaneously committed to singular genius and universal improvement. Welcoming research on all nations and language traditions, 1650–1850 invites readers int...

How was Hong Kong perceived and described by writers from the 1950s during the last colonial period? Was it a British city or was it Chinese? The writers show how different life was for ex-pats ensconced on the Peak and leading a glitzy lifestyle compared to refugees who came pouring into the colony from mainland China and lived in dire poverty in squatter camps. Find out if that East and West ever mingled in My Hong Kong.

Lisbon: City of the Sea is a beautifully written portrait of a much loved city, from its origins in Greek legend to the present day. Malcolm Jack vividly captures the rich and unique history of this haunting and attractive port whose prominent position on the Tagus estuary has inextricably bound its character with the sea. Lisbon is a city of steep inclines and complicated, unsymmetrical streets that criss-cross the hills only in the Baixa area near the river and in the more modern, northe...

Rigorously inventive and revelatory in its adventurousness, 1650–1850 opens a forum for the discussion, investigation, and analysis of the full range of long-eighteenth-century writing, thinking, and artistry. Combining fresh considerations of prominent authors and artists with searches for overlooked or offbeat elements of the Enlightenment legacy, 1650–1850 delivers a comprehensive but richly detailed rendering of the first days, the first principles, and the first effo...

Beckford's Gothic novel Vathek, an Arabian tale, was originally written in French when the author was twenty-one. Published in English in 1786, it was one of the most successful of the oriental tales then in fashion. This edition makes available to a new generation of scholars and general readers, the originality of Beckford's ideas, and the excellence of his prose.

Rob Roy is a historical novel by Walter Scott. It is narrated by Frank Osbaldistone, the son of an English merchant who travels first to the North of England, and subsequently to the Scottish Highlands, to collect a debt stolen from his father. On the way he encounters the larger-than-life title character, Rob Roy MacGregor.The story takes place just before the 1715 Jacobite Rising, with much of Scotland in turmoil. Frank Osbaldistone, the narrator, quarrels with his father and is ...

Lord Byron's satirical poem 'Don Juan' is based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it an Epic Satire. Byron completed 16 cantos, leaving an unfinished 17th canto before his death in 1824. Byron claimed he had no ideas in his mind as to what would happen in subsequent cantos as he wrote his work.

In 1809, New Yorkers were buzzing about a series of classified ads concerning the whereabouts of Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker. They were unaware that Washington Irving had invented the man entirely and placed the ads himself. Knickerbocker's purported manuscript, A History of New York, was Irving's own. Told from Knickerbocker's point of view, A History of New York is a chronicle of New York's fifty years under Dutch rule in the 1600s that plays fast and loose with the facts, to ...

"The Alhambra" is one of the most famous collections of essays, stories and small sketches by Washington Irving. The book and most of the stories were written during his stay in Granada, Spain.