Alabaster Images of Medieval England

From the late 1300s to the Reformation, alabaster carving was a major activity in the English Midlands, in an area centred on Nottingham. Altarpieces and panels were produced for the home market, but also for export; the sculptures have a distinctive style, dictated by the religious subjects and by the material, and were usually painted and gilded. At the Reformation, such items were hidden or destroyed, and it is the survival of numerous continental examples, particularly in France, together with the remaining examples from England, that enables the history of alabaster carving to be documented.

The Familiar Enemy - Chaucer, Language and Nation in the Hundred Years War

The Familiar Enemy re-examines the linguistic, literary, and cultural identities of England and France within the context of the Hundred Years War. During this war, two profoundly intertwined peoples developed complex strategies for expressing their aggressively intimate relationship. This special connection between the English and the French has endured into the modern period as a model for Western nationhood.

Essential Economics (Economist Essentials)

Economics is "the study of how society uses its scarce resources" or, more snappily, "the science of choices" that helps people make decisions about how to use such scarce things as land, labour, raw materials, capital, entrepreneurial spirit and time. An understanding of economics can therefore help people in politics and public service, in business and the professions, and even in their private life make decisions that will produce the results they are seeking to achieve. For anyone who wants a better understanding of this far from dismal science, which has such a powerful influence on world affairs, business, and the way we live, this clear and entertaining guide will prove invaluable.

Canadian Literature (Edinburgh Critical Guides)

An important critical study of Canadian literature, placing internationally successful anglophone Canadian authors in the context of their national literary history.

While the focus of the book is on twentieth-century and contemporary writing, it also charts the historical development of Canadian literature and discusses important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors. The chapters focus on four central themes in Canadian culture: Ethnicity, Race, Colonisation; Wildernesses, Cities, Regions; Desire; and Histories and Stories. Each chapter combines case studies of five key texts with a broad discussion of concepts and approaches.

Yankee Doodle Dead

Unless you find the idea of a woman who runs a mystery book store as an amateur crime solver just too cute for comfort, you'll have some fun with Carolyn G. Hart's latest cozy yarn about Annie and Max Darling, the Nick and Nora Charles of the South Carolina island resort town called Broward's Rock. Annie, of course, still keeps her Death on Demand book shop, matching wits with customers about unlikely murder methods from classic mysteries while serving them iced café lattes to ward off the summer heat.