Reaktion Books – serie
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47 produkter
47 produkter
Häftad, Engelska, 2020
145 kr
Skickas
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2019‘Richly evocative and entertaining.’ – Guardian‘A delightful read.’ – Tatler‘An essential book for anyone who wants to Polari Bona!’ – AttitudePolari is a language that was used chiefly by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century. It offered its speakers a degree of public camouflage and a means of identification. Its colourful roots are varied – from Cant to Lingua Franca to dancers’ slang – and in the mid-1960s it was thrust into the limelight by the characters Julian and Sandy, voiced by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, on the BBC radio show Round the Horne. (‘Oh hello Mr Horne, how bona to vada your dolly old eek!’) Paul Baker recounts the story of Polari with skill, humour and tenderness. He traces its historical origins and describes its linguistic nuts and bolts, explores the ways and the environments in which it was spoken, explains the reasons for its decline and tells of its unlikely re-emergence in the twenty-first century. With a cast of drag queens and sailors, Dilly boys and macho clones, Fabulosa! is an essential document of recent history – a fascinating and fantastically readable account of this funny, filthy and ingenious language.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
289 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
An Irish Times Book of the Year 2025Liam Cagney is residing in a Berlin squat when one night he finds himself at Berghain. Fascinated by the strange techno and even stranger dance floor, he sets out to explore Berlin’s unique club culture in all its intensity. Berghain Nights is the result, the first major literary exploration of Berlin’s club scene.Blending essay and memoir, Berghain Nights features interviews with major electronic dance music artists like Ellen Allien, Rrose, Luke Slater, Eris Drew and Function, alongside other figures from Berlin’s night-time economy and the history of techno. From kinky parties at KitKat Club to the industrial gloom of Tresor, from the queer garden of Buttons to the gay psychedelia of Cocktail d’Amore, Berghain Nights not only captures the excitement of Berlin’s clubs, it explores how spaces like these can help one find a truer self.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
306 kr
Skickas
The Yardbirds were trailblazers in the rapid development of pop music in Britain between 1963 and 1968. With members including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, they helped to set the basic template of what has been known ever since as rock music, and gave rise to one of the most commercially successful bands of all time: Led Zeppelin. Peter Stanfield situates the band in the evolution of British R&B and the tumult of the psychedelic era. Obsessively detailed about both the band and 1960s pop culture, this is the book fans of the Yardbirds have always needed.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
199 kr
Skickas
This book takes the reader on an immersive journey through medieval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a medieval narrator – including a parchment-maker, scribe and illuminator – introducing various aspects of manuscript production. Sara J. Charles poses the question ‘What actually is a scriptorium?’, and explores the development of the medieval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press. With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labour, planning and networks needed to produce each individual manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, we can experience medieval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
219 kr
Skickas
One of Daily Telegraph’s Greatest Books of 2025.Winter Dreams is an evocative history of the ways the old have thought, felt and expressed themselves over two millennia, tracking the experience of ageing through artistic, literary and historical records. While old age is often depicted as ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’, Barbara H. Rosenwein shows that the elderly have always retained their emotional depth and desires. She explores how these have changed over time, as societies’ views of the elderly and of a ‘good’ old age have changed. And through careful exegesis, she allows the elderly, so often absent from the historical record, to speak to us.We live in a rapidly ageing society, yet ageism is rampant and death and dying are taboo subjects. Rosenwein’s book is a finely wrought testimony to the value of ageing and the richness of our Winter Dreams.
Häftad, Engelska, 2025
194 kr
Skickas
This book takes the reader on an immersive journey through medieval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a medieval narrator – including a parchment-maker, scribe and illuminator – introducing various aspects of manuscript production. Sara J. Charles poses the question ‘What actually is a scriptorium?’, and explores the development of the medieval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press. With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labour, planning and networks needed to produce each individual manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, we can experience medieval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.
Häftad, Engelska, 2025
120 kr
Skickas
Now available in paperback, The English Soul portrays the spirit and nature of English Christianity as it has developed over the last 1,400 years. As the predominant faith of the people, Christianity has been the reflection, perhaps the embodiment, of the English soul. This fascinating new history argues that Christianity has been the anchoring and defining doctrine of England, while accepting respectfully that other powerful and significant faiths have also influenced the religious sensibility of this nation.Peter Ackroyd surveys the lives and faith of the most important figures of English Christianity, from the Venerable Bede to C. S. Lewis, exploring the mysticism of Julian of Norwich and William Blake, the tumultuous years of the Reformation, the emergence of the English Bible, the evangelical tradition, including John Wesley, and the contemporary contest between tradition, revival and atheism. This is an essential, comprehensive and accessible survey of English Christianity.
Häftad, Engelska, 2000
212 kr
Skickas
The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse – a fear of corruption or contamination through colour – lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge colour, either by making it the property of some ‘foreign body’ – the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological – or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.Chromophobia has been a cultural phenomenon since ancient Greek times; this book is concerned with forms of resistance to it. Writers have tended to look no further than the end of the nineteenth century. David Batchelor seeks to go beyond the limits of earlier studies, analysing the motivations behind chromophobia and considering the work of writers and artists who have been prepared to look at colour as a positive value. Exploring a wide range of imagery including Melville’s ‘great white whale’, Huxley’s reflections on mescaline, and Le Corbusier’s ‘Journey to the East’, Batchelor also discusses the use of colour in Pop, Minimal, and more recent art.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
248 kr
Skickas
One of Financial Times’s Best Books of 2025: HistoryOn 14 December 1825 a group of young Russian army officers led 3,000 troops to Senate Square in St Petersburg, aiming to force the Senate to adopt a liberal constitution and transform the Russian Empire. The Decembrist Revolt – as it came to be known – was suppressed, with a second uprising in the south meeting the same fate. Five leaders were executed, and many others exiled to Siberia.Why did so many young noblemen risk their lives for regime change, what was their vision for an alternative society, and what were the consequences for participants and their families? This book highlights the often-neglected liberal tradition in Russian political thought and the experiences of Decembrist wives and fiancées, offering a fresh reinterpretation in the light of recent events in Russia.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
201 kr
Tillfälligt slut
We live in an age where Hitler and the Nazis dominate our cultural imagination, shaping values once defined by religion. In this book historian Alec Ryrie explores why society remains captivated by this struggle, from history and fiction to modern myths such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. He examines the costs of our Nazi obsession and questions what will come as our anti-Nazi moral consensus frays and both the Left and Right begin to move on. With a fresh take on modern history and pop culture, The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It offers a thought-provoking look at the culture wars and our shifting political crises, challenging assumptions on both sides and asking what a new moral vision might look like.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2017
239 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Hayek vs Keynes: A Battle of Ideas offers a clear historical account of the works of the two great totems of modern economic thought: Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money were written against a background of devastation following the First World War. Thomas Hoerber explains the historical context in which the books were written and shows how lessons can be drawn for current economic and political phenomena, such as the recent financial crisis, globalization and European integration. He illustrates how classical economic theory as well as a qualitative method in economics can enlighten our understanding of the present economic environment. With a broad European perspective, this book places the two great economic thinkers of the twentieth century in their historical context, and asks what we can learn from their work today.
Häftad, Engelska, 2023
145 kr
Skickas
On 23 May 1988, Paul Baker sat down with his family to eat cake on his sixteenth birthday while The Six O’Clock News played in the background. But something was not quite right. There was muffled shouting – ‘Stop Section 28!’ – and a scuffle. The morning papers would announce: ‘Beeb Man Sits on Lesbian’.The next day Section 28 passed into law, forbidding local authorities from teaching ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. It would send shockwaves through British society, silencing gay pupils and teachers while galvanizing mass protests and the formation of the LGBTQ+ rights groups OutRage! and Stonewall.Now available in paperback, Outrageous! tells the full story: the background to the Act, how the press fanned the flames and what politicians said during debates, how protestors fought back to bring about the repeal of the law in the 2000s, and its eventual legacy. Based on detailed research, interviews with key figures – including Ian McKellen, Michael Cashman and Angela Mason – and personal recollection, it is an impassioned, warm, often moving account of unthinkable prejudice enshrined within law, and of the power of community to overcome it.
Häftad, Engelska, 2023
145 kr
Skickas
Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring not only the rituals and customs linked to the different seasons, but the profound relationship between human life and the rhythms of nature. Eleanor Parker provides an imaginative connection to the Anglo-Saxon world, tracing the surprising history of its festivals – many of which are still celebrated today – unearthing traditions now long forgotten and celebrating some of the finest treasures of medieval literature.
Häftad, Engelska, 2023
145 kr
Skickas
‘There is more history in a bowl of pasta than in the Colosseum,’ writes Andreas Viestad in Dinner in Rome. From the table of a classic Roman restaurant, Viestad takes us on a fascinating culinary exploration of the Eternal City, and global civilization. Food, he argues, is history’s secret driving force. From the starter of bread, Viestad traces the origins of wheat and its role in Rome’s rise and downfall; from his sorbet dessert he recounts how the hunger for sugar fuelled the slave trade. Viestad’s dinner may be local, but his story is universal. His ‘culinary archaeology’ is an entertaining, flavourful journey across the dinner table and time. You’ll never look at spaghetti carbonara the same way again.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
280 kr
Skickas
Tangled Paths tells the life story of Aby Warburg, one of the most influential historians of art and culture of the twentieth century. It also tells the story of a man who, throughout his life, struggled to assert his place in the world. Charting Warburg’s many projects and identities – ground-breaking historian, public intellectual, ethnographer, shrewd academic administrator and founder of a library – Hans C. Hönes explores not only the vagaries of an academic career but the personal demons of a man who relentlessly sought to live up to his own expectations. This biography – the first in English for over fifty years – presents an evocative and richly detailed portrait of Warburg’s personality and career, and of his attempts to make sense of the tangled paths of his life.
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
219 kr
Skickas
Zerox Machine is an immersive journey through the vibrant history of British punk and its associated fanzines from 1976 to 1988. Drawing on an extensive range of previously unpublished materials sourced from private collections across the UK, Matthew Worley describes and analyses this transformative era, providing an intimate glimpse into the hopes and anxieties that shaped a generation.Far more than a showcase of covers, this book examines the fanzines themselves, offering a rich tapestry of first-hand accounts, personal stories and subcultural reflections. Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, Matthew Worley captures the spirit and essence of British youth culture, not only shedding new light on a pivotal movement in music history but crafting a unique alternative history of Britain in the 1970s and ’80s.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
325 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
The Crimean Tatars were the Turkic-speaking native peoples of Crimea who established a powerful khanate in the 1440s, which remained in power until 1783. In this, the first history in English for over 100 years, eminent scholar Donald Rayfield shows that this misunderstood and much-feared nation was in fact a flourishing state with a vibrant literary culture, religious tolerance, a sophisticated constitution and a prosperous economy. Rayfield’s book describes the establishment of the khanate, its reign and its eventual fall, concluding with a vivid portrayal of the Tatars’ ruthless suppression – first by Russia and then the Soviet Union – and the final, effectively genocidal, invasion under Vladimir Putin.This vibrant and ultimately tragic chronicle is essential reading for anyone interested in the background to the current war in Ukraine.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
475 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Filippo Brunelleschi is at once the most famous and most misunderstood architect of the Renaissance. The founding architect of the movement that led the way to modernity, his originality was not expressed in words or theory but rather in the materials he used, the scenography of space he engineered, the ingenuity of his designs, the exquisite workmanship of his detailing and the strikingly creative reworking of classical elements that make up his buildings. Marvin Trachtenberg offers a new view of Brunelleschi’s brilliant career as well as his life, guiding the reader through his most iconic works in Florence. In the process, this book sheds light on the driven, competitive culture of Renaissance Italy. This is an original, lively account of a key Renaissance figure.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
299 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Winner of the Franco-British Society Literary Award 2025.Émile Zola is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest writers, whose reputation was reinforced by his historic intervention in the Dreyfus Affair. This book explores Zola’s life and work and the ways in which these were determined by the traumatic history of his times. From humble beginnings, Zola's life was marked by the determination to succeed. Robert Lethbridge traces Zola's development as a writer, including the earliest texts and his novel-cycles, and further shows how Zola’s extraordinary creativity extended from his journalism to experiments in the theatre and even his own operatic adaptations of his novels. Lethbridge offers the reader new perspectives, informed by the most recent research, which bring together Zola’s writing and its historical context.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
306 kr
Skickas
The Idea of Waste starts with the premise that waste is inevitable in human society. It explores how we have grappled with both the material reality and the spectre of this shape-shifting phenomenon throughout history – utilizing it, dreaming of overcoming it, yet never escaping it. John Scanlan investigates what waste is and why it seems to be intrinsic to human life, at every turn, in every age and epoch. He demonstrates how waste never disappears completely but rather only proliferates anew. The compelling narrative shows waste to be both an enduring material consequence of human activity and an idea or state of being.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
171 kr
Skickas
Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy offers a captivating journey through the history of religious rituals in Western Europe, showcasing the profound impact of Christian liturgy on art, literature, music and architecture. Through ten evocative stories, it explores medieval rituals and their cultural influence up to the present day, providing fresh insights into the enduring legacy of the liturgy as an expression of human emotion and religious experience. Accessible to all, this guide provides translations and explanations to uncover the hidden treasures of ancient rites and their lasting significance, appealing to those seeking a deeper understanding of Western liturgical traditions.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
170 kr
Skickas
Rough Music explores transgression and shame in British folklore and customs from ancient Britain to the present day. From Bonfire Night to Wassail, Morris dancing, Mari Lwyd and Twelfth Night, along with events like street football and the Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, Liz Williams reveals the roots and roles of violence, mockery, protest and public shaming. She also looks at alternative culture and modern protests, such as the Battle of the Beanfield and the Stonehenge Free Festival, as well as interaction between racism and traditions involving blackface, alongside the emergence of all-female Morris sides.This engaging book offers an entertaining and revealing look at British folklore and culture.
Häftad, Engelska, 2025
124 kr
Skickas
Those They Called Idiots traces the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities from the communities of eighteenth-century England to the nineteenth-century asylum and care in today’s society. Using evidence from civil and criminal court-rooms, joke books, slang dictionaries, novels, art and caricature, it explores the explosive intermingling of ideas about intelligence and race, while bringing into sharp focus the lives of people often seen as the most marginalized in society.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
227 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
A radical history of England, Contested Commons is a gripping overview of increasingly restrictive policing and legislation against protest in public spaces. It tells the long history of contests over Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Cable Street and Kinder Scout, as well as sites in towns and rural areas across the country. Navickas reveals how protesters claimed these spaces as their own commons, resisting their continuing enclosure and exclusion by social and political elites. She investigates famous and less well-known demonstrations and protest marches, from early democracy, trade union movements and the Suffragettes to anti-fascist, Black rights and environmental campaigners in more recent times. Contested Commons offers positive as well as troubling lessons on how we protect the right to protest.
- Nyhet
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
204 kr
Skickas
From ancient fables to modern science, insects and their metamorphoses have long inspired human understanding of life’s transitions. This original and engaging book traces how these transformations have shaped rituals around birth, marriage and death, while also provoking deep questions about identity. Through stories that connect Zhuang Zhou’s butterfly dream to figures such as Kafka, Merian and Dürer, it explores the strange, beautiful and sometimes unsettling ways in which cultures have understood insects – as miracles, messengers or monsters. Blending humour, history and environmental insight, Boria Sax offers an imaginative lens on the growing crisis of insect extinction. More than just a natural history, this is a cultural and philosophical journey that shows why losing insects means losing part of ourselves.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
289 kr
Kommande
Comics at the Movies explores the rich and often overlooked history of comic-book film adaptations, from 1930s serials like Flash Gordon to today’s Marvel and DC blockbusters. It traces how the comic and film industries have intersected over the decades, analysing how adaptations reflect their economic, political and cultural contexts. The book examines neglected works such as Doc Savage, Popeye and Sheena, alongside iconic franchises like Superman, Batman and X-Men. It also investigates how these films represent nationhood, race, gender and class, revealing the social politics beneath their spectacle. Accessible and engaging, Comics at the Movies is essential reading for students, scholars and fans alike interested in adaptation, popular genres and the lasting impact of comic-book cinema.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
226 kr
Skickas
Why do certain women become icons of evil? This book offers the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karla Homolka and Karla Faye Tucker. It examines their lives, crimes and cultural reception in the UK, USA and Canada, asking how violence committed by women is understood, judged and remembered. Going beyond moral outrage or tabloid headlines, the book explores how concepts of 'evil' are shaped by history, belief systems and social context. Through historical and ethical reflections, it offers a deeper, more critical engagement with female violence, and considers how society should respond to those who commit acts of unimaginable harm.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
219 kr
Skickas
We often think of medieval medicine as strange, unhygienic and unscientific, but The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living reveals a far richer story. Long before modern wellness trends, people in the Middle Ages were actively thinking about how to live well. They followed detailed health regimens, balanced diet with exercise, considered the effects of emotions and sought to avoid illness through environmental awareness and routine care. This book sheds light on the practical and surprisingly relatable ways medieval individuals cared for body and mind. Drawing from historical sources that echo today’s wellness concerns, it offers a fresh, thoughtful view of a misunderstood era. In understanding their world, we might see our own in a new, more connected light.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
176 kr
Skickas
From haunted barrows to ruined castles, Britain’s landscape is rich with tales of hidden treasure – stories not just of gold, but of ghosts, curses and forbidden knowledge. Treasures on Earth gathers hundreds of these traditions for the first time, showing how folklore, shaped by local memory and longing, has imagined wealth not merely as currency, but as power, danger and loss. These legends tell of dragons, demons and seekers armed with spells, but also of real hopes stirred by poverty, war and the mysteries of place. Through vivid storytelling and careful insight, this book reveals how treasure lore carries the emotional weight of history. In the end, these are stories not just about what is buried, but about why we still yearn to uncover it.
Häftad, Engelska, 2026
162 kr
Skickas
The follow-up to the bestselling Wanderers, Kerri Andrews’s Way Makers, now available in paperback, is the first anthology of women’s writing about walking. Moving from the eighteenth century to the present day, and across poetry, letters, diaries, novels and more, this anthology traces a long tradition of women’s walking literature. Walking is, for the women included in this anthology, a source of creativity and comfort; it is a means of expressing grief, longing and desire. It is also a complicated activity: it represents freedom but is also sometimes tinged with danger and fear. What cannot be denied any longer is that walking was, and continues to be, an activity full of physical and emotional significance for women. This anthology is testament to the rich literary heritage created by generations of women walker-writers over the centuries.