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This volume tackles an array of complex and interrelated phenomena which are usually referred to as the post-truth condition – from confirmation bias to science denialism, misinformation, and the rise of polarized ‘epistemic tribes’ on social media. Based on a multi-disciplinary approach, the book seeks not just to chart the landscape of post-truth but to equip the readers with the intellectual tools to navigate and counteract its most detrimental aspects. ‘Post-truth’ denotes a cluster of phenomena that pose significant epistemic and societal challenges, including the proliferation of confirmation bias, denial of scientific findings, reinforcement of beliefs within echo chambers, ...
RecordCovid19. Historicizing Experiences of the Pandemic provides insights into the experience of the Covid19 pandemic from an historical and sociological perspective. Using the first-hand testimonies submitted as part of the #RecordCovid19 project as its inspiration, the chapters in this edited collection explore and contextualise the initial responses to the Covid19 pandemic. The collection examines people’s relationships with Covid19 as an historical event, including their own experiences of living through history; their relationship with their surroundings, including their relationships with family, the soundscapes and the emotional environments of a pandemic world; the impact and tone of political rhetoric, including the use (and misuse) of wartime myths and language in the United Kingdom; and finally, what lessons can be learnt from how people discuss their own personal stories and what lessons can we draw from previous examples of storytelling in moments of crisis. The result is a fascinating and rich discussion derived from an archive full of idiosyncratic experiences of life changing during the Covid19 pandemic.
This is not a book about Winston Churchill. It is not principally about his politics, nor his rhetorical imagination, nor even about the man himself. Instead, it addresses the varied afterlives of the man and the persistent, deeply located compulsion to bring him back from the dead, capturing and explaining the significance of the various Churchill myths to Britain's history and current politics. The authors look at Churchill's portrayal in social memory. They demonstrate the ways in which politicians have often used the idea of Churchill as a means of self-validation - using him to show themselves as tough and honest players. They show the man dramatized in film and television - an onscreen persona that is often the product of a gratuitous mixing of fact and fantasy, one deliberately shaped to meet the preferences of the presumed audience. They discuss his legacy in light of the Brexit debate - showing how public figures on both sides of the Leave/Remain debate were able to use elements of Churchill's words and character to argue for their own point-of-view.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book offers a comprehensive and accessible study of the electoral strategies, governing approaches and ideological thought of the British Conservative Party from Winston Churchill to David Cameron. Timothy Heppell integrates a chronological narrative with theoretical evaluation, examining the interplay between the ideology of Conservatism and the political practice of the Conservative Party both in government and in opposition. He considers the ethos of the Party within the context of statecraft theory, looking at the art of winning elections and of governing competently. The book opens with an examination of the triumph and subsequent degeneration of one-nation Conservatism in the 1945 to 1965 period, and closes with an analysis of the party's re-entry into government as a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, and of the developing ideology and approach of the Cameron-led Tory party in government.
The first comprehensive, authoritative study of the political, economic and social forces which led to Brexit and its likely consequences.
Decadence and Literature explains how the concept of decadence developed since Roman times into a major cultural trope with broad explanatory power. No longer just a term of opprobrium for mannered art or immoral behaviour, decadence today describes complex cultural and social responses to modernity in all its forms. From the Roman emperor's indulgence in luxurious excess as both personal vice and political control, to the Enlightenment libertine's rational pursuit of hedonism, to the nineteenth-century dandy's simultaneous delight and distaste with modern urban life, decadence has emerged as a way of taking cultural stock of major social changes. These changes include the role of women in forms of artistic expression and social participation formerly reserved for men, as well as the increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ relationships, a development with a direct relationship to decadence. Today, decadence seems more important than ever to an informed understanding of contemporary anxieties and uncertainties.
Winner of the Political Book of the Year Award 2015 The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is the most significant new party in British politics for a generation. In recent years UKIP and their charismatic leader Nigel Farage have captivated British politics, media and voters. Yet both the party and the roots of its support remain poorly understood. Where has this political revolt come from? Who is supporting them, and why? How are UKIP attempting to win over voters? And how far can their insurgency against the main parties go? Drawing on a wealth of new data – from surveys of UKIP voters to extensive interviews with party insiders – in this book prominent political scientists Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin put UKIP's revolt under the microscope and show how many conventional wisdoms about the party and the radical right are wrong. Along the way they provide unprecedented insight into this new revolt, and deliver some crucial messages for those with an interest in the state of British politics, the radical right in Europe and political behaviour more generally.
With The Constitution of Power, Mark Haugaard provides an introduction to the analysis of social and political power, and discusses the relationship between power, structure and knowledge.