Many existing embankment dams were designed and constructed to standards below current requirements, potentially posing risks to downstream populations. Dam owners must assess whether these structures provide adequate safety or require upgrades to reduce risks to acceptable levels. This book provides in-depth analysis of dam failure mechanics alongside relevant engineering assessment methods.The book provides comprehensive methods for assessing embankment dam safety across four cri...

Disabled as a result of childhood meningitis, Paul Hodgson has written this autobiography in order to challenge the stereotype of the wheelchair-bound victim. Far from being a passive spectator, we learn how Paul struggled to care for his mother through several strokes and Alzheimer's disease and of the rift this caused within his family. He also speaks of the Community Care system, his experiences of education and employment, and the loyalty of his friends. This is his account of life as ...

'As gripping as Mark's greatest races' – Zoe Ball'Incredibly brave and uplifting' – Rebecca AdlingtonThe moving story of one of Britain's best-loved sportsmen, and his thirty-year coming out journeyWITH A FOREWORD BY CLARE BALDINGAs a five-time Olympian, six-time World Champion and eight-time World Record holder, if anyone was going to be openly gay at the height of their sporting career it s...

When Tonya and her friends decide to sail around the world, they want to see exciting things, and visit exciting places. But one day, they meet an orca – a killer whale – one of the most dangerous animals in the sea. And life gets a little too exciting.

‘How can Mr Frank be angry now?’ thinks Mike happily. His film is good and he is the only cameraman on the volcano. Now he can go home. But then he finds Jenny and she is dying. Rocks start to move and Mike is afraid. Can they get off the volcano alive? And what happens to Mike’s camera and film?

The empty centre of Australia. The sun is hot and there are not many people. And when Bill meets a man, alone, standing on an empty road a long way from anywhere, he is surprised and worried. And Bill is right to be worried. Because there is something strange about the man he meets. Very strange . . .

Long before the invention of electricity or the discovery of underground reservoirs of fossil fuels, people depended on whale oil to keep their lamps lit. A few brave Colonial farmers left their fields and headed out to sea to chase whales and profits farther and farther off shore. When they did, towns sprung up around their harbors as demand grew for sailors, blacksmiths, ropewalkers, and the many other craftsmen needed to support the growing whaling industry. Through the fictional villag...

How can architecture develop better aesthetic directions for the twenty-first-century built environment?Our world, increasingly defined by efficient but unconsidered architecture and cities, seems to be getting uglier. In On the Appearance of the World, Mark Foster Gage asks why. He imagines a future scenario where architectural design and ideas from aesthetic philosophy align toward the production of a built world that is more humane, habitable, beautiful...

How aesthetics—understood as a more encompassing framework for human activity—might become the primary discourse for political and social engagement.These essays make the case for a reignited understanding of aesthetics—one that casts aesthetics not as illusory, subjective, or superficial, but as a more encompassing framework for human activity. Such an aesthetics, the contributors suggest, could become the primary discourse for political and social engagement. Dep...

This book provides a comprehensive text on the geotechnical and geological aspects of the investigations for and the design and construction of new dams and the review and assessment of existing dams. The book provides dam engineers and geologists with a practical approach, and gives university students an insight into the subject of dam engineering. All phases of investigation, design and construction are covered, through to the preliminary and detailed design phases and ultimately the co...

In Designing Social Equality, Mark Foster Gage proposes a dramatic realignment between aesthetic thought, politics, social equality, and the design of our physical world. By reconsidering historic concepts from aesthetic philosophy and weaving them with emerging intellectual positions from a variety of disciplines, he sets out to design a more encompassing social theory for how humanity perceives its very reality, and how it might begin to more justly define that reality through n...

A collection of pivotal ideas about beauty from throughout history, with an introduction and critical headnotes.This collection of writings on beauty includes selections from twenty key philosophers and theoreticians spanning two millennia:Plato • Aristotle • Vitruvius • Alberti • Kant • Burke • Fiedler • Nietzsche • Wilde • Bergson • Bell • Scott • Benjamin • Bataille • Sontag • Jameson • Scarry • Nehamas • Zangwill • Freedberg and GalleseWith an i...