Author: Christopher W. Brooks File Type: pdf Law, like religion, provided one of the principal discourses through which early-modern English people conceptualised the world in which they lived. Transcending traditional boundaries between social, legal and political history, this innovative and authoritative study examines the development of legal thought and practice from the later middle ages through to the outbreak of the English civil war, and explores the ways in which law mediated and constituted social and economic relationships within the household, the community, and the state at all levels. By arguing that English common law was essentially the creation of the wider community, it challenges many current assumptions and opens new perspectives about how early-modern society should be understood. Its magisterial scope and lucid exposition will make it essential reading for those interested in subjects ranging from high politics and constitutional theory to the history of the family, as well as the history of law.ReviewBrooks ability to penetrate the fog of the laws technical language and to explain complicated legal instruments, procedures, and fictions in elegant and accessible prose therefore make this an invaluable work of reference as well as a book that deserves, and demands, to be read from cover to cover. -Tim Stretton, H-AlbionBased on a remarkable range of research, consistently thoughtful, and often fascinating, the book should obtain a wide readership among early modernists. -K. J. Kesselring, Journal of British StudiesHighly recommended. -Choice Book DescriptionThis innovative and authoritative study transcends traditional distinctions between social, legal and political history. Brooks examines the development of legal thought and practice from the later middle ages through to the mid-seventeenth century, and explains how law mediated and constituted a variety of social and economic relationships.

Author: Stavros Stavrides File Type: pdf How often do we consider the availability of shared, public space in our daily lives? Governmental efforts in placesuch as anti-homeless spikes, slanted bus benches, and timed sprinklersare all designed to discourage use of already severely limited public areas. How we interact with space in a modern context, particularly in urban settings, can feel increasingly governed and blocked off from common everyday encounters. With Common Space, activist and architect Stavros Stavrides calls for a reconceiving of public and private space in the modern age. Stavrides appeals for a new understanding of common space not only as something that can be governed and open to all, but as an essential aspect of our world that expresses, encourages, and exemplifies new forms of social relations and shared experiences. He shows how these spaces are created, through a fascinating global examination of social housing, self-built urban settlements, street peddlers, and public art and graffiti. The first book to explicitly tackle the notion of the city as commons, Common Space, offers an insightful study into the links between space and social relations, revealing the hidden emancipatory potential within our urban worlds. **Review Stavrides was one of the first to open my eyes to the importance of the urban commons. His writings are exciting, a valuable reference for urban activists around the world. He is right the city is the place where we can and should truly reinvent the commons. (Lieven De Cauter, coeditor of Art & Activism in the Age of Globalization) How shall we understand the pulse and power of commoning, the subtle force that is constantly shaping the spaces and experiences of modern cities? Stavrides provides a rich, erudite exploration of this neglected topic and the potential for human emancipation. (David Bollier, author of Think Like a Commoner) Stavrides provides a wonderful guide to how we can make urban space common.He draws from the history of social housing and the successes of contemporary protest movements to formulate an exciting political project. (Michael Hardt, coauthor of Empire Multitude and Commonwealth) A much needed breath of fresh air. This is a book for all those interested in moving beyond the politics of enclosure, fear and individualism to a politics of hope, possibility and social inclusion in the contemporary city. (Sophie Watson, the Open University) About the Author Stavros Stavrides is an architect, activist, and associate professor of architecture at the National Technical University in Athens, Greece.

Author: Timothy Ferris File Type: epub From Publishers WeeklyThe ancient Egyptians regarded the sky as a kind of tent canopy. Thirty centuries later, astronomer William Herschel argued that the sun belongs to a huge cluster of stars (a galaxy, as we call it today) and charted great swaths of intergalactic space through a telescope. How the human species slowly awakened to the vast reaches of space and time is the story absorbingly told by popular science writer Ferris (The Red Limit, Galaxies). His narrative humanizes the scientific enterpriseGalileo emerges here as a careerist, and Johannes Kepler as a self-loathing neurotic. Although it covers well-trod ground, this remarkable synthesis makes broad areas of science accessible to the layperson, from Darwins and Lyells investigations of the age of the earth to modern physicists quest for a perfectly symmetrical, hyperdimensional universe. BOMC alternate. 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library JournalYA In the first section, Ferris uses historical anecdotes to relate astronomical discoveries and the foibles of their discoverers in a successful attempt to show the codecodebig names of science as real persons, warts and all. The second section, on the history of space and time, is also well done, if lacking in the human details. The third section, which deals with cosmology and modern physics, uses a philosophical approach to discuss difficult material the result is not easy to absorb, but it is good base material for students who will ask questions and go further on their own. Throughout the book, introductory quotations are used to advantage to tease readers into the next topic. Bob Fliess, Episcopal High School, Bellaire, Tex . 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Author: Olivier Rieppel File Type: epub Where do turtles hail from? Why and how did they acquire shells? These questions have spurred heated debate and intense research for more than two hundred years. Brilliantly weaving evidence from the latest paleontological discoveries with an accessible, incisive look at different theories of biological evolution and their proponents, Turtles as Hopeful Monsters tells the fascinating evolutionary story of the shelled reptiles. Paleontologist Olivier Rieppel traces the evolution of turtles from over 220 million years ago, examining closely the relationship of turtles to other reptiles and charting the development of the shell. Turtle issues fuel a debate between proponents of gradual evolutionary change and authors favoring change through bursts and leaps of macromutation. The first book-length popular history of its type, this indispensable resource is an engaging read for all those fascinated by this ubiquitous and uniquely shaped reptile. **