Presents a history of the British Isles, from the earliest times to the present day.

The Penguin Atlas of British and Irish History

History

Bourke, Joanna

Briggs, Asa

Morrill, John

Bartlett, Robert

CUNLIFFE, Barry

Americas

Penguin??Books

The Second World War saw an unprecedented expansion of suffering beyond the frontlines. Of the 1,355,000 tons of bombs dropped on Germany, for instance, most fell on non-military targets, and of the 55 million people killed worldwide, two-thirds were civilians. In The Second World War: A People's History, Joanna Bourke uncovers the grim stories of death and destruction lost behind those statistics.  Using diary entries, oral histories, poetry and letters home, Bourke allows the people that lived and died in the global bloodletting to tell their own stories. Soldiers who fought for all sides and in all of the major theatres tell of the fear and horror of combat. Partisan fighters recount the daring risks they took and the torments of captivity. Civilians describe the anxiety of approaching war, their struggle for survival, and their despair and helplessness as the war consumed their world. Bourke chillingly demonstrates that all of this sorrow and woe was the direct result of political and military decisions on both sides. A brief, objective synopsis of each campaign in the war clarifies the link between strategic, military decisions and the massacre and inhumane treatment of non-combatants--events now known only by names like Nanking, Sobibor, Dresden, and Nagasaki--that was all too common in this brutal war.  This short, engaging history is a poignant testimony to the memory of the innocents lost and a stark reminder that their demise was not inevitable--indeed it was often strategically planned and methodically executed.

The Second World War: A People's History

Military

Oxford University Press

Birkbeck traces the 200-year history of Birkbeck, University of London from its founding at a time when social elites deplored the notion of educated working people to the present day. Joanna Bourke writes a lively history of the institution, and how it contributed to the shaping of modernBritish higher education.Two hundred years ago, Birkbeck was founded as the London Mechanics' Institution (LMI). When it was established in 1823, one third of all men and half of all women were unable to read or write. British elites were vehemently hostile to educating working people. The country was in political turmoiland it was feared that education would destroy society. This was the context in which the LMI was established. From its foundation, it was unique. Birkbeck traces its history from 1823 to the present, with Joanna Bourke using the history of Birkbeck to reflect on life and culture in London over thepast two centuries. What does it mean to be educated? Why have Birkbeck's students been prepared to give up so much in order to study for a higher degree? How does education help us become fully human and self-fulfilled by learning how to use all our faculties - knowledge, imagination, sympathy? Thestory of Birkbeck contains some blood, oceans of scholarly sweat, and not a few tears. But it is also a story of laughter, intellectual excitement, scholarly eccentricity, collective as well as personal ambition, and, most of all, the quirky passions and personalities that make up the Birkbeckcommunity. It is a story of a unique university but also of higher education of Britain. It shows how knowledge can empower people to better themselves and improve the world.

Birkbeck: 200 Years of Radical Learning for Working People (History of Universities Monographs)

Historical Study & Educational Resources

This book examines the lives of Irish women between 1890 and 1914, tracing the shift of their labor out of the fields and into the home. Joanna Bourke shows how, in this period, women's position within the employment market deteriorated: married women came to be increasingly dependent on their husbands' wages and economic opportunities for unmarried and widowed women collapsed.  Women increasingly devoted all their time to performing housework. Bourke analyzes the crucial elements in this change: the coincidence of sectoral shifts in the employment market, investment in the rural economy, and the growth of a labor and capital intensive household sector.  Controversially, she demonstrates that Irish women welcomed their altered role, finding housework preferable to many of the other options available to them.

Husbandry to Housewifery: Women, Economic Change, and Housework in Ireland, 1890-1914

Europe

Clarendon Press

Everyone knows what is feels like to be in pain. Scraped knees, toothaches, migraines, giving birth, cancer, heart attacks, and heartaches: pain permeates our entire lives. We also witness other people - loved ones - suffering, and we 'feel with' them. It is easy to assume this is the end of the story: 'pain-is-pain-is-pain', and that is all there is to say. But it is not. In fact, the way in which people respond to what they describe as 'painful' has changed considerably over time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, people believed that pain served a specific (and positive) function - it was a message from God or Nature; it would perfect the spirit. 'Suffer in this life and you wouldn't suffer in the next one'. Submission to pain was required. Nothing could be more removed from twentieth and twenty-first century understandings, where pain is regarded as an unremitting evil to be 'fought'. Focusing on the English-speaking world, this book tells the story of pain since the eighteenth century, addressing fundamental questions about the experience and nature of suffering over the last three centuries. How have those in pain interpreted their suffering - and how have these interpretations changed over time? How have people learnt to conduct themselves when suffering? How do friends and family react? And what about medical professionals: should they immerse themselves in the suffering person or is the best response a kind of professional detachment? As Joanna Bourke shows in this fascinating investigation, people have come up with many different answers to these questions over time. And a history of pain can tell us a great deal about how we might respond to our own suffering in the present - and, just as importantly, to the suffering of those around us.

The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Medical Books

Pharmacology

Some historians contend that femininity was "disrupted, constructed and reconstructed" during World War I, but what happened to masculinity? Using the evidence of letters, diaries, and oral histories of members of the military and of civilians, as well as contemporary photographs and government propoganda, Dismembering the Male explores the impact of the First World War on the male body. Each chapter explores a different facet of the war and masculinity in depth. Joanna Bourke discovers that those who were dismembered and disabled by the war were not viewed as passive or weak, like their civilian counterparts, but were the focus of much government and public sentiment. Those suffering from disease were viewed differently, often finding themselves accused of malingering. Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. Dismembering the Male concludes that ultimately, attempts to reconstruct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.

Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain, and the Great War

Business & Money

Economics

University of Chicago Press

Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960

Integrating a variety of historical approaches and methods, Joanna Bourke looks at the construction of class within the intimate contexts of the body, the home, the marketplace, the locality and the nation to assess how the subjective identity of the 'working class' in Britain has been maintained through seventy years of radical social, cultural and economic change. She argues that class identity is essentially a social and cultural rather than an institutional or political phenomenon and therefore cannot be understood without constant reference to gender and ethnicity. Each self contained chapter consists of an essay of historical analysis, introducing students to the ways historians use evidence to understand change, as well as useful chronologies, statistics and tables, suggested topics for discussion, and selective further reading.

Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity

Bourke, Prof Joanna

Routledge

The characteristic act of men at war is not dying, but killing. Politicians and military historians may gloss over human slaughter, emphasizing the defense of national honor, but for men in active service, warfare means being - or becoming - efficient killers. In An Intimate History of Killing, historian Joanna Bourke asks: What are the social and psychological dynamics of becoming the best ”citizen soldiers?” What kind of men become the best killers? How do they readjust to civilian life?These questions are answered in this groundbreaking new work that won, while still in manuscript, the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History. Excerpting from letters, diaries, memoirs, and reports of British, American, and Australian veterans of three wars (World War I, World War II, and Vietnam), Bourke concludes that the structure of war encourages pleasure in killing and that perfectly ordinary, gentle human beings can, and often do, become enthusiastic killers without being brutalized.This graphic, unromanticized look at men at war is sure to revise many long-held beliefs about the nature of violence.

An Intimate History of Killing: Face to Face Killing in Twentieth Century Warfare

Basic Books

That femininity was 'disrupted, constructed and reconstructed' during the Great War of 1914-18 is a subject currently preoccupying many historians, but what happened to masculinity during these same catastrophic years? Using the evidence supplied by letters, diaries and oral histories of members of the armed forces and of civilians as well as a large number of fascinating illustrations, Dismembering the Male explores the impact on the male body of the 'war to end all wars'.Each chapter deals with a different facet of the war and masculinity in depth. Joanna Bourke concludes that those who were dismembered or disabled by the war were not viewed as passive or weak, like so many of their civilian counterparts were, but were the focus of much Governmental and public sentiment. Those suffering from disease were viewed differently, often finding themselves accused of malingering.Dismembering the Male also examines the way in which the War affected men socially. The absence of women encouraged male intimacy, but differences of class or religion, ethnicity or even regiment acted as barriers between men, and the trauma of battle and the constant threat of death did not encourage closeness. The dead male body, which during the war became the property of the state, is also discussed.Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. Post-war debates on what constitutes masculinity were fuelled by the actions of men's movements. She concludes that, ultimately, attempts to reconstruct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.

Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain and the Great War

Social Sciences

Reaktion Books

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