Michael Mason – författare

What did the Victorians think about sex? What was the reality of their sexual behaviour? What wider concepts - biological, political, religious - influenced their sexual moralism? The Making of Victorian Sexuality directly confronts one of the most persistent clichés of modern times. Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of evidence about 19th-century behaviour and opinion - from modern demographic analysis to the travel writing of foreign visitors, and from popular medicine to Malthusian polemic - Michael Mason shows how much of our perception of 19th-century sexual culture is simply wrong. Far from being a licence for prudery and hypocrisy, Victorian sexual moralism is shown to be in reality a code intelligently embraced by wealthy and poor alike as part of a human and progressive vision of society's future. The "Average" Victorian man, for example, was not necessarily the church-going, tyrannical, secretly lecherous, bourgeois pater familias of modern-day legend, but often an agnostic, radical-minded, sexually continent citizen, with a deliberately restricted number of children. A lively and fascinating synthesis of a wealth of new research. The Making of Victorian Sexuality is a timely disruption of our present comfortable consensus on nineteenth-century society. Moreover, it persuasively argues that in Victorian sexual moralism there may be much to teach the complacently libertarian 20th century.

At a time when AIDS, abortion, and sexual abuse have become favourite topics of media and academic debate, it is no surprise that the Victorians, with their strong associations with prudery and puritanism, are frequently held up as an example of a sexual culture far different from our own. Yet what did the Victorians really think about sex? What was the reality of their sexual behaviour, and what wider concepts - biological, political, religious - influenced their sexual moralism?The Making of Victorian Sexuality directly confronts one of the most persistent clichés of modern times. Drawing on a wealth of sources from popular and professional medical and scientific texts to fiction, evangelical writing, and the work of radicals such as Godwin and Mill, Michael Mason shows how much of our perception of nineteenth-century sexual culture is simply wrong. Far from being a license for prudery and hypocrisy, Victorian sexual moralism is shown to be in reality a code intelligently embraced by wealthy and poor alike as part of a humane and progressive vision of society's future. The `average' Victorian man was not necessarily the church-going, tyrannical, secretly lecherous, bourgeois `paterfamilias' of modern-day legend, but often an agnostic, radical-minded, sexually continent citizen, with a deliberately restricted number of children.Persuasively arguing that there is much in Victorian sexual moralism to teach the complacently libertarian twentieth century, this lively and fascinating study offers a radical challenge to one of the most persistent myths of our age.

In 1967 Israel occupied the western section of Syria’s Golan Heights, expelling 130,000 residents and leaving only a few thousand Arab inhabitants clustered in several villages. Sometimes characterised as the ‘forgotten occupation’, the western Golan Heights have been transformed by Israeli colonisation, including the appropriation of land and water resources, economic development and extensive military use.This landmark volume is the first academic study in English of Arab politics and culture in the occupied Golan Heights. It focuses on an indigenous community, known as the Jawlanis, and their experience of everyday colonisation and resistance to settler colonisation. Chapters cover how governance is carried out in the Golan, from Israel's use of the education system and collective memory, to its development of large-scale wind turbines which are now a symbol of Israeli encroachment. To illustrate the ways in which the current regime of Israeli rule has been contested, there are chapters on the six-month strike of 1982, youth mobilisation in the occupied Golan, Palestinian solidarity movements, and the creation of Jawlani art and writing as an act of resistance.Rich in ethnographic detail and with chapters from diverse disciplines, the book is unique in bringing together Jawlani, Palestinian and UK researchers. The innovative format - with shorter ‘reflections’ from young Arab researchers, activists and lawyers that respond to more traditional academic chapters - establishes a bold new ‘de-colonial’ approach.

In 1967 Israel occupied the western section of Syria’s Golan Heights, expelling 130,000 residents and leaving only a few thousand Arab inhabitants clustered in several villages. Sometimes characterised as the ‘forgotten occupation’, the western Golan Heights have been transformed by Israeli colonisation, including the appropriation of land and water resources, economic development and extensive military use.This landmark volume is the first academic study in English of Arab politics and culture in the occupied Golan Heights. It focuses on an indigenous community, known as the Jawlanis, and their experience of everyday colonisation and resistance to settler colonisation. Chapters cover how governance is carried out in the Golan, from Israel's use of the education system and collective memory, to its development of large-scale wind turbines which are now a symbol of Israeli encroachment. To illustrate the ways in which the current regime of Israeli rule has been contested, there are chapters on the six-month strike of 1982, youth mobilisation in the occupied Golan, Palestinian solidarity movements, and the creation of Jawlani art and writing as an act of resistance.Rich in ethnographic detail and with chapters from diverse disciplines, the book is unique in bringing together Jawlani, Palestinian and UK researchers. The innovative format - with shorter ‘reflections’ from young Arab researchers, activists and lawyers that respond to more traditional academic chapters - establishes a bold new ‘de-colonial’ approach.

The Middle East region is one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This book assesses the extent to which there is political and economic space for Middle Eastern states to transition into a sustainable, just and climate resilient future. The book offers a regional political economy perspective, comparing the hydrocarbon-rich Gulf States with those Arab states in the Mashreq (Levant) and Maghreb (North Africa) lacking matching resources to undertake investments in low-carbon growth and societal-wide climate change adaptation. While recent scholarship has focused on the impact of the energy sector on climate policy, this book covers other key issues including climate finance, food security, water security, Arab ‘climate urbanism’, and more immediate threats to human security such as conflict and political instability. It concludes that uneven economic development and major variations in governing capacity are more important determinants of climate mitigation and adaptation policy than exposure to the biophysical impacts of climate change. Through a comprehensive analysis of the Middle East, authors in the volume explore the challenges and opportunities to advance alternative development pathways in a post-oil era. The wide-ranging and perceptive chapters are written by leading scholars, featuring mostly researchers from the region.

Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a unique work of literature. first published in 1798, it marked a radical change in the direction of English Literature. Lyrical Ballads represented a movement away from the overwrought, highly formal and learned verse of the 18th century and in so doing ushered in a new, more democratic poetic era.Written in the language of the common man and addressing the concerns of the common man, Lyrical Ballads was the first - and remains the most - truly revolutionary collection of poetry, paving the way for the great Romantic poets - keats, Byron, Shelley et al. - and proving that, while there was no actual revolution on the ground, England could still be the most revolutionary of places.Lyrical Ballads was not a single phenomenon but a sequence of four editions spread over seven years; its appearance in English literature was not a historical moment but a sequence of moments - 1798, 1800, 1802, 1805. This edition - based on the 1805 edition, but looking back on each of the previous publications - shows how this collection developed, how it was refined and added to by the authors. No other edition on the market has such a wealth of key background information.

Energy insecurity is not normally associated with the Middle East. However, away from the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the countries of the eastern Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable. Their fossil fuel endowments are low, while their fractious relationships with each other have long fostered wider political insecurities. Focusing on the Jordan Basin (Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan), this timely volume addresses the prospects for the adoption of renewable energy in the oil-poor Middle East. Featuring regional energy experts, it offers an invaluable survey.After outlining the regional security context, this book first reviews renewable energy policy and practices in the Jordan Basin. It then considers options for greening energy use, including promising pilot projects in North Africa. The initiatives discussed encompass renewable energy finance, energy-efficient rural communities, and solar and wind energy. There is significant potential for an increase in the uptake of renewable energy technologies in the eastern Mediterranean. This window of opportunity has been created by high oil prices, energy infrastructure investment opportunities, and the UN climate change regime. In conclusion, the book considers the institutional conditions for collaborative decision-making on renewable energy. Such cooperation would deliver substantial security and human development benefits to the region, and indeed the world.

Energy insecurity is not normally associated with the Middle East. However, away from the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the countries of the eastern Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable. Their fossil fuel endowments are low, while their fractious relationships with each other have long fostered wider political insecurities. Focusing on the Jordan Basin (Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan), this timely volume addresses the prospects for the adoption of renewable energy in the oil-poor Middle East. Featuring regional energy experts, it offers an invaluable survey.After outlining the regional security context, this book first reviews renewable energy policy and practices in the Jordan Basin. It then considers options for greening energy use, including promising pilot projects in North Africa. The initiatives discussed encompass renewable energy finance, energy-efficient rural communities, and solar and wind energy. There is significant potential for an increase in the uptake of renewable energy technologies in the eastern Mediterranean. This window of opportunity has been created by high oil prices, energy infrastructure investment opportunities, and the UN climate change regime. In conclusion, the book considers the institutional conditions for collaborative decision-making on renewable energy. Such cooperation would deliver substantial security and human development benefits to the region, and indeed the world.

Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a unique work of literature. first published in 1798, it marked a radical change in the direction of English Literature. Lyrical Ballads represented a movement away from the overwrought, highly formal and learned verse of the 18th century and in so doing ushered in a new, more democratic poetic era.Written in the language of the common man and addressing the concerns of the common man, Lyrical Ballads was the first - and remains the most - truly revolutionary collection of poetry, paving the way for the great Romantic poets - keats, Byron, Shelley et al. - and proving that, while there was no actual revolution on the ground, England could still be the most revolutionary of places.Lyrical Ballads was not a single phenomenon but a sequence of four editions spread over seven years; its appearance in English literature was not a historical moment but a sequence of moments - 1798, 1800, 1802, 1805. This edition - based on the 1805 edition, but looking back on each of the previous publications - shows how this collection developed, how it was refined and added to by the authors. No other edition on the market has such a wealth of key background information.

The growth of pollution that crosses national borders represents a significant threat to human health and ecological sustainability. Various international agreements exist between countries to reduce risks to their populations, however there is often a mismatch between national territories of state responsibility and transboundary hazards. All too often, state priorities do not correspond to the priorities of the people affected by pollution, who often have little recourse against major polluters, particularly transnational corporations operating across national boundaries. Drawing on case studies, The New Accountability provides a fresh understanding of democratic accountability for transboundary and global harm and argues that environmental responsibility should be established in open public discussions about harm and risk. Most critically it makes the case that, regardless of nationality, affected parties should be able to demand that polluters and harm producers be held accountable for their actions and if necessary provide reparations.