Robert Shepherd – författare

This is the remarkable story of Westminster, a royal capital that became the birthplace of parliamentary government and the centre of a world power. It is about the place, its people and their close relationship. They have made and shaped one another. The ancient heart of Westminster is only the size of a village, yet it boasts world famous buildings: the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Number 10 Downing Street. As befits a village, Westminster is rich in folklore and gossip, yet its story is central to Britain's history and anywhere that has parliamentary government.This biography of Westminster traces the extraordinary transformation of a secluded island on the banks of the Thames into a spiritual centre, a royal ceremonial stage and a political capital. It brings to life the monarchs and prime ministers for whom Westminster has been home, the architects and writers whom it inspired, and the protestors and rebels whom it provoked. It is a tale of inspiration, intrigue, power, protest and terror.

Arguing that there has never been a consensus on which rights all people are entitled, Beyond Illiberalism: Rights, Rhetoric, and Reality in a Pluralistic World traces how the concept of human rights is tied to a global project rooted in colonialism and grounded in nineteenth-century liberalism and post-World War II social democratic principles.This book contends that human rights are conceived, imagined, and promoted by dominant states, organizations, and activists within a specific liberal framework, and that, after more than 200 years, the dream of a universal history rooted in the worldview of G.W.F. Hegel has been displaced by the stuff of practical reality.Robert J. Shepherd shifts our attention to rights as a matter of human practice and emphasizes the importance of the actualization of rights within local contexts, demonstrating the spuriousness of categorizing governments as "liberal" or "illiberal" based on preconceived notions of what counts as legitimate rights. This book will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology, socio-legal studies, and cultural studies.

Within tourism studies, the cosmopolitan potentials of tourism have often been situated within a broader conversation about globalization, an approach that implies that cosmopolitanism is a predictable by-product of globalization and becoming more cosmopolitan should be the goal of travel. And yet a fundamental value of a cosmopolitan outlook—namely, to not only to be “at home in the world” but also to experience the world in an authentic sense—depends on the culturally embedded, parochial, and particular world views which it rejects. In Cosmopolitanism and Tourism: Rethinking Theory and Practice, contributors take this as a starting point. What does a “worldly” consciousness mean to people situated in different cultural landscapes and to what extent might these intersect with cosmopolitan values? How is cosmopolitanism marketed in tourism and tourist-related industries such as service learning and study abroad? And finally, what roles do social and economic class, educational background, gender, and other factors have in cosmopolitan claims? The contributors to this edited collection address these questions in a series of case studies that range from Guatemala, Bolivia, and Ireland to China, India, and Dubai.For more information, check out A Conversation with Robert Shepherd, author of Cosmopolitanism and Tourism: Rethinking Theory and Practice.