"Jazz" and "poker," "sucker" and "scam" all derive from Irish. While demonstrating this, Daniel Cassidy simultaneously traces the hidden history of how Ireland fashioned America, not just linguistically, but through the Irish gambling underworld, urban street gangs, and the powerful political machines that grew out of them. Cassidy uncovers a secret national heritage, long discounted by our WASP-dominated culture.Daniel Cassidy is the founder and co-director of the Irish Studies Program at New College in San Francisco.

    Now Garfield takes on a subject even dearer to our fanatical human hearts: maps.Imagine a world without maps. How would we travel? Could we own land? What would men and women argue about in cars? Scientists have even suggested that mapping—not language—is what elevated our prehistoric ancestors from ape-dom. Follow the history of maps from the early explorers’ maps and the awe-inspiring medieval Mappa Mundi to Google Maps and the satellite renderings on our smartphones, Garfield explores the unique way that maps relate and realign our history—and reflect the best and worst of what makes us human.Featuring a foreword by Dava Sobel and packed with fascinating tales of cartographic intrigue, outsize personalities, and amusing “pocket maps” on an array of subjects from how to fold a map to the strangest maps on the Internet, On the Map is a rich historical tapestry infused with Garfield’s signature narrative flair. Map-obsessives and everyone who loved Just My Type will be lining up to join Garfield on his audacious journey through time and around the globe.

    This is a vividly-written, compelling narrative placing events in Ireland in the wider context of a world in turmoil after the ending of a global war: one that saw the collapse of empires and the rise of fascist Italy and communist Russia. Walsh shows how developments in Europe and America had a profound effect on Ireland, influencing the attitudes and expectations of combatants and civilians. Walsh also brings to life what Irish people who were not fully involved in the fighting were doing - the plays they went to, the exciting films they watched in the new cinemas, the books they read and the work they did. The freedom from Britain that most of them wanted was, when it came, a bitter disappointment to a generation aware of the promise of modernity.

    Whether you’re a parent trying to raise them, a pastor trying to reach them, or an employer trying to retain them, they’re disruptive. As the largest living generation, millennials are one of the most studied but misunderstood groups of our day. And the chasm between the generations is only getting wider.Speaker and founder of the Initiative Network Grant Skeldon pulls back the confusing statistics about millennials to reveal the root issue: it’s not a millennial problem, it’s a discipleship problem. Millennials are known for their struggle to hold jobs, reluctance to live on their own, and alarming migration away from the church. And now our culture is feeling the results of a mentor-less, fatherless generation. But how do you start discipling young people when you struggle to connect with them?Written by a millennial, The Passion Generation will guide you beyond the stats of what millennials are doing to the why they’re doing it and how we can all move toward healthy community. With wit, compassion, and startling insights, this book shares stories and studies drawn from Skeldon’s years of working to bridge generational gaps. In his signature conversational style, Skeldon offers researched strategies that will spark healthy connections, and practical methods that will help you disciple the millennials you love.This book is your guide to understanding the millennials in your life who are seemingly reckless but far from hopeless, for the future of the church that depends on them.

    

    

    She's never short of advice, a kind word and a cup of tea (making sure to scald the teapot first, of course).Bring the coat anyway. If it's too hot you can take it off.Comedian Colm O'Regan explores the phenomenon of the Irish Mammy and what she might say about everything from the 'new mass' to the cardinal sin of not owning a cough bottle and the importance of airing clothes properly. The global influence of the Irish Mammy, through history, science, politics and literature, is undeniable. Did you know, for instance, that Hamlet had an Irish Mammy?So if you're an Irish Mammy, have one, know one or suspect you might be turning into one, this book will act as your guide. But be aware that though this book might think it knows it all, it doesn't, only Mammy knows it all.

    The world's most venerable and self-confident civilisation, home to the largest unified race of people on the planet, China manufactures the objects that fill our lives. We see a country peopled by docile and determined factory workers, domineering 'Tiger Mothers' obsessed with education and achievement, and a society that has put the accumulation of wealth above political freedom. Above all, we see a superpower on the rise, destined to overtake the West and to dominate the 21st century. But how accurate is this picture? What if, as Ben Chu argues, we are all engaged in a grand game of Chinese Whispers, in which the facts have become more and more distorted in the telling? We have been getting China and the Chinese wrong for centuries. From the Enlightenment philosophes, enraptured by what they imagined to be a kingdom of reason, to the Victorians who derided the 'flowery empire', outsiders have long projected their own dreams and nightmares onto this vast country. With China's economic resurgence today, many have fallen once more under the spell of this glittering new global hegemon, while others foretell terrible danger in China's return to the centre of the world stage. CHINESE WHISPERS tugs aside this age-old curtain of distortion in a powerful counterblast to modern assumptions about China. By examining the central myths, or 'whispers', that have come to dominate our view of China, Ben Chu forces us to question everything we thought we knew about world's most populous nation. The result is a surprising, penetrating insight into modern China.

    By 1960 this number had dwindled to 358 and, with the “Big Six” increasingly dominant, the prospects for British beer looked weak, yellow and fizzy. In 2012, however, UK breweries topped 1,000 for the first time since the Great Depression. Moreover, they are now producing and exporting more varied and inventive ale than ever before. Across the country, evidence of this national brewing renaissance is easy to find: the Campaign for Real Ale has more members than the Conservative Party; beer festivals proliferate with every passing month; the Camden Brewery and Meantime have become international brands, producing acclaimed lagers and IPAs; the ultra-fashionable BrewDog dispenses shots of strange 40%-proof liquids to hipster media types; and cyberspace plays host to hundreds of thousands of beer enthusiasts, all debating and virtually savoring the merits of New Zealand hops, or the latest chocolate stout. The Strange Rebirth of British Beer will tell the story of this remarkable reversal. Following a disparate group of Trotskyite hacks, eccentric City bankers, hippie “micro brewers” and a lot of men in pubs, the writers behind the acclaimed Boak & Bailey blog promise to reveal how punter power pulled the British pint back from the brink.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Paradoxically characterized as both barbaric and innocent, the Celts appeal to the modern world as a symbol of a bygone era, a world destroyed by theambition of empire and the spread of Christianity throughout Western Europe. Despite the pervasive cultural and literary influence of the Celts, shockingly little is known of their way of life and beliefs, because very few records of their stories exist. In this book, for the first time, PhilipFreeman brings together the best stories of Celtic mythology.Everyone today knows about the gods and heroes of the ancient Greeks, such as Zeus, Hera, and Hercules, but how many people have heard of the Gaulish god Lugus or the magical Welsh queen Rhiannon or the great Irish warrior C� Chulainn? We still thrill to the story of the Trojan War, but the epicbattles of the Irish T�in B� Cuailgne are known only to a few. And yet those who have read the stories of Celtic myth and legend-among them writers like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis-have been deeply moved and influenced by these amazing tales, for there is nothing in the world quite like them.In these stories a mysterious and invisible realm of gods and spirits exists alongside and sometimes crosses over into our own human world; fierce women warriors battle with kings and heroes, and even the rules of time and space can be suspended. Captured in vivid prose these shadowy figures-gods, goddesses, and heroes-come to life for the modern reader.

    I know tomorrow.” This inscription in Tutankhamun’s tomb summarizes The Fifth Beginning. Here, archaeologist Robert L. Kelly explains how the study of our cultural past can predict the future of humanity.   In an eminently readable style, Kelly identifies four key pivot points in the six-million-year history of human development: the emergence of technology, culture, agriculture, and the state. In each example, the author examines the long-term processes that resulted in a definitive, no-turning-back change for the organization of society. Kelly then looks ahead, giving us evidence for what he calls a fifth beginning, one that started about AD 1500. Some might call it “globalization,” but the author places it in its larger context: a five-thousand-year arms race, capitalism’s global reach, and the cultural effects of a worldwide communication network.   Kelly predicts that the emergent phenomena of this fifth beginning will include the end of war as a viable way to resolve disputes, the end of capitalism as we know it, the widespread shift toward world citizenship, and the rise of forms of cooperation that will end the near-sacred status of nation-states. It’s the end of life as we have known it. However, the author is cautiously optimistic: he dwells not on the coming chaos, but on humanity’s great potential.

    As war and conflict replaced peace, Africa's infrastructure crumbled. Instead of bemoaning the myriad difficulties facing the continent today, Ayittey boldly proposes a program of development--a way forward--for Africa. Africa Unchained investigates how Africa can modernize, build, and improve its indigenous institutions, and argues forcefully that Africa should build and expand upon traditions of free markets and free trade rather than continuing to use exploitative economic structures. The economic model here is uniquely African and takes little heed from the developed world; this is sure to be a highly controversial plan for moving Africa forward.

    Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details--plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette--To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

    Reading it is like unravelling the bandages on a mummy to find the face of the past staring back in all its terrible and poignant humanity’ Financial TimesA groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians.Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?What did John Sell Cotman, a handsome drawing room operator who painted some of the most exquisite watercolours the world has ever seen, feel about marrying a woman whose big nose made smart people snigger?How did a working-class child called Fanny Adams disintegrate into pieces in 1867 before being reassembled into a popular joke, one we still reference today, but would stop, appalled, if we knew its origins?Kathryn Hughes follows a thickened index finger or deep baritone voice into the realms of social history, medical discourse, aesthetic practise and religious observance – its language is one of admiring glances, cruel sniggers, an implacably turned back. The result is an eye-opening, deeply intelligent, groundbreaking account that brings the Victorians back to life and helps us understand how they lived their lives.