Old Ireland in Colour celebrates the rich history of Ireland and the Irish through the colour restoration of stunning images of all walks of Irish life, and the Irish abroad, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the chaos of the Civil War to the simple beauty of the islands, each image has been exquisitely transformed and every page is bursting with life.

The first English-language book to present a complete picture of this intriguing East European borderland, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture, illuminates the perennial problems of identity politics and cultural change that the country has endured.

An engaging and informative chronicle of a hiking and wildlife research expedition along the Carpathian and Sudety Mountains, from Romania to Germany, some 800 miles as the crow flies, that took place in 2005. (This volume, Part 1, covers the first half of the journey, through Romania and Ukraine.) On the trail of wolves, we are led deep into the misty hills, enchanting forests, and intriguing history of this fabled landscape, where encounters with wolves, bears, and lynx; werewolves, vampires, and witches; lumberjacks, shepherds, and outlaws; poets, tyrants, and saints; deities, demons, and sirens—and such ancient peoples as Proto-Indo-Europeans, Dacians, and Rus', and such imposing historical figures as Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, and Volodymyr the Great—provide broad insight into the natural, historical, and mythological forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the nations, cultures, and psyches along the way (including roots of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia that is violently erupting today).

The journey continues in Part 2 of Into the Carpathians: an engaging and informative chronicle of a 2005 hiking and wildlife research expedition along the Carpathian and Sudety Mountains, from Romania to Germany, some 800 miles as the crow flies. Still on the trail of wolves, we now explore the enchanting mountain landscapes of Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic, where encounters with wolves, bears, and lynx; lumberjacks, shepherds, and outlaws; poets, tyrants, and saints; nomads, nobles, and knights; sprites, spirits, and witches—and such ancient peoples as Neanderthals, Celts, and Quadi, and such imposing historical figures as Marcus Aurelius of the Roman Empire, Svatopluk I of Great Moravia, Stephen I of the Kingdom of Hungary, Boleslaw the Brave of the Kingdom of Poland, and Jan Sobieski of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—provide broad insight into the natural, historical, and mythological forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the nations, cultures, and psyches along the way.

Asia Past and Present is an expansive survey of the social, political, and economic history of the continent from the Paleolithic era to the early 21st century. As there is no physically discrete continent, rather an arbitrary division of the Eurasian landmass, this book focuses on terrain that encompasses India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia―the area which most modern scholars identify as Asia.

One China, Many Taiwans shows how tourism performs and transforms territory. In 2008, as the People's Republic of China pointed over a thousand missiles across the Taiwan Strait, it sent millions of tourists in the same direction with the encouragement of Taiwan's politicians and businesspeople. Contrary to the PRC's efforts to use tourism to incorporate Taiwan into an imaginary "One China," tourism aggravated tensions between the two polities, polarized Taiwanese society, and pushed Taiwanese popular sentiment farther toward support for national self-determination.

Australia on the World Stage: History, Politics, and International Relations offers a fresh examination of Australia’s past and present. From the complex interactions of First Nations to modern international relations with significant partners and allies, it examines the forces that have influenced the place now called Australia both historically and today. It is a unique history told in two parts.

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition in the region would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was also one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands. His instructions from the Admiralty were to endeavor at all costs to cultivate friendly relations with tribes and peoples he might encounter, and to regard any native people as the natural and legal possessors of any land they were found to occupy. Cook, of course, was not engaged on an expedition of colonization, so when he encountered for the first time a war party of Maori, he certainly had no intention of challenging their overlordship of Aotearoa, although he certainly was interested in discovering more about them.

Becoming Creole explores how people become who they are through their relationships with the natural world, and it shows how those relationships are also always embedded in processes of racialization that create blackness, brownness, and whiteness. Taking the reader into the lived experience of Afro-Caribbean people who call the watery lowlands of Belize home, Melissa A. Johnson traces Belizean Creole peoples’ relationships with the plants, animals, water, and soils around them, and analyzes how these relationships intersect with transnational racial assemblages. She provides a sustained analysis of how processes of racialization are always present in the entanglements between people and the non-human worlds in which they live.

Encompassing Amazonian rainforests, Andean peaks, coastal lowlands, and the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador’s geography is notably diverse. So too are its history, culture, and politics, all of which are examined from many perspectives in The Ecuador Reader. Spanning the years before the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1500s to the present, this rich anthology addresses colonialism, independence, the nation’s integration into the world economy, and its tumultuous twentieth century.

Whether it's the brevity of Barry Davies, the boundless enthusiasm of Clive Tyldesley or the sheer eloquence of Peter Drury's monologues, the canon of football commentary is replete with memorable lines that would have some of the great classical orators nodding in appreciation. Curated by football journalist Charlie Eccleshare, The Beautiful Poetry of Football Commentary is a glorious anthology of iconic lines, set out as poems, celebrating the best commentators that have ever graced a microphone. Each poem is accompanied by 'scholarly' analysis capturing the enduring power of language on the beautiful game.

China’s Law of the Sea is the first comprehensive study of the law and geopolitics of China’s maritime disputes. It provides a rigorous empirical account of whether and how China is changing “the rules” of international order—specifically, the international law of the sea.

This volume offers the first interdisciplinary study of the socio-cultural understanding of the castle in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a period duringwhich the castle has largely been seen as in decline. Bringing together a wide range of source material - from architectural remains and archaeological finds to household records and political papers - it investigates the personnel of the castle; the use of space for politics and hospitality; the landscape; ideas of privacy; and the creation of a visual legacy. By focusing on such an iconic structure, the book allows us to see some of the ways in which men and women were negotiating the space around them on a daily basis; and just as importantly, it reveals the impact that the local communities had on the spaces of the castle.

Textiles play a decisive role in history: attire not only indicates status, gender, ethnicity, and religion but illustrates how such boundaries are continuously being negotiated, shifted, and recreated. Fashionable Traditions captures the complex reality of Asian handmade textile production and consumption. From traditionalist discourse and cultural authenticity to fashion and market trends, the contributors to this collection demonstrate the multilayered influence of often contradictory forces. In-depth, ethnographic case studies reveal the entangled relationships between local artisans, external interventions, and consumers, while acknowledging the broader frameworks in which such relationships are situated. Together these stories offer a vivid account of the socio-economic, political, and cultural dynamics in various parts of Asia and emphasize that fashion is neither a Western prerogative nor do its roots reside solely in the West.

This book showcases the avian wonders of Ecuador, highlighting more than 320 regularly occurring species that can be seen by most visitors to the country, including the Galápagos. Pocket-sized yet authoritative, this is the perfect companion for any wildlife-friendly visitor to Ecuador.

An in-depth investigation of the complex relationships among food, culture, and society, Communicating Food in Korea features contributors from a variety of disciplines, including economics, political science, communication studies, nutrition research, tourism research, and more. Each chapter presents a unique interpretation of food’s economic, political, and sociocultural relevance. Situated in Korea’s shifting historical contexts, contributors explore themes, such as colonialism, food symbolism, gastronationalism, multiculturalism, food tourism, food security, and food sovereignty to research the ways food intersects with social issues in Korean society.