Winner, 2020 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize A fascinating reinterpretation of the radical and socialist origins of ecology Twenty years ago, John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature introduced a new understanding of Karl Marx’s revolutionary ecological materialism. More than simply a study of Marx, it commenced an intellectual and social history, encompassing thinkers from Epicurus to Darwin, who developed materialist and ecological ideas. Now, with The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, Foster continues this narrative. In so doing, he uncovers a long history of the efforts to unite questions of social justice and environmental sustainability, and helps us comprehend and counter today’s unprecedented planetary emergencies. The Return of Nature begins with the deaths of Darwin (1882) and Marx (1883) and moves on until the rise of the ecological age in the 1960s and 1970s. Foster explores how socialist analysts and materialist scientists of various stamps, first in Britain, then the United States, from William Morris and Frederick Engels, to Joseph Needham, Rachel Carson, and Stephen J. Gould, sought to develop a dialectical naturalism, rooted in a critique of capitalism. In the process, he delivers a far-reaching and fascinating reinterpretation of the radical and socialist origins of ecology. Ultimately, what this book asks for is nothing short of revolution: a long, ecological revolution, aimed at making peace with the planet while meeting collective human needs.

r s1mily Ties provides a vivid and accessible introduction to the dynamics of life in English families of all ranks from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of World War I. Sections on methods, approaches and sources allow readers new to the study of the past to explore some of the historian's fundamental concerns: cause and effect; continuity and change and the nature and reliability of evidence. The chronological and thematic organization of the book enables readers to examine a number of sub-themes such as the history of childhood or of marriage. Combining extensive contemporary quotations and an unusual variety of illustrations with a wide range of written and material sources, the book provides a fascinating insight into the history of the family and encourages the reader to become a sceptical and imaginative investigator, prepared to venture beyond the historian's traditional documentary sources.

First published between 1914 and 1930, this biography offers a fascinating insight into the life of the eugenicist Francis Galton.

A timely and stimulating collection of essays about the impact of Darwin's ideas on visual culture

In the well-known Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925, famously portrayed in the film and play Inherit the Wind, William Jennings Bryan’s fundamentalist fervor clashed with defense attorney Clarence Darrow’s aggressive agnosticism, illustrating what current scholars call the conflict thesis. It appeared, regardless of the actual legal question of the trial, that Christianity and science were at war with each other. Decades later, a new generation of evangelical scientists struggled to restore peace. After the Monkey Trial is the compelling history of those evangelical scientists in Britain and America who, unlike their fundamentalist cousins, supported mainstream scientific conclusions of the world and resisted the anti-science impulses of the era. This book focuses on two organizations, the American Scientific Affiliation and the Research Scientists’ Christian Fellowship (today Christians in Science), who for more than six decades have worked to reshape the evangelical engagement with science and redefine what it means to be a creationist.

Reissuing works originally published between 1978 and 1992, this collection includes books across the span of sociolinguistics, from its theory and philosophy to specific language change study. This small set will be of benefit to sociology and linguistics but also to psychology, media and communication, education and development studies.

Bloomsbury Scientists is the story of the network of scientists and artists living in a square mile of London before and after the First World War. This inspired group of men and women viewed creativity and freedom as the driving force behind nature, and each strove to understand this in their own inventive way. Their collective energy changed the social mood of the era and brought a new synthesis of knowledge to ideas in science and art. Class barriers were threatened as power shifted from the landed oligarchy to those with talent and the will to make a difference.