An in-depth look at British–Polish literary pre-Enlightenment contacts, The Call of Albion explores how the reverberations of British religious upheavals in distant Poland–Lithuania surprisingly served to strengthen the impact of English, Scottish, and Welsh works on Polish literature. The book argues that Jesuits played a key role in that process. The book provides an insightful account of how the transmission, translation, and recontextualization of key publications by British Protestants and Catholics served Calvinist and Jesuit agendas, while occasionally bypassing barriers between confessionally defined textual communities and inspiring Polish–Lithuanian political thought, as well as literary tastes.

Defending Albion is the first published study of Britain's response to the threat of invasion from across the North Sea in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. It examines the emergency schemes designed to confront an enemy landing and the problems associated with raising and maintaining the often derided Territorial Force. It also explores the long-neglected military and political difficulties posed by the spontaneous and largely unwanted appearance of the 'Dad's Army' of the Great War, the Volunteer Force.

Murph is a story about a man whose unthinking actions deeply affect people around him in ways he never imagines. It begins as a small story about self-pity, temptation, and a breakdown of moral and ethical boundaries but grows into an epic accounting of cause and effect that takes place in six countries on three continents, spanning forty years. It is ultimately a compilation of several stories, intertwined by actions and events, built on the intrigue of romance, war, kidnapping, theft, and murder.

When the Second World War broke out, ballet in Britain was only a few decades old. Few had imagined that it would establish roots in a nation long thought to be unresponsive to dance. Nevertheless, the war proved to be a boon for ballet dancers, choreographers and audiences, for the nation's dancers were forced to look inward to their own identity and sources of creativity. As author Karen Eliot demonstrates in this fascinating book, instead of withering during the enforced isolation of war, ballet in Britain flourished, exhibiting a surprising heterogeneity and vibrant populism that moved ballet outside its typical elitist surroundings to be seen by uninitiated, often enthusiastic audiences. Ballet was thought to help boost audience morale, to render solace to the soul-weary and to afford entertainment and diversion to those who simply craved a few hours of distraction. Government authorities came to see that ballet could serve as a tool of propaganda; the ways it functioned within the larger public discourse of propaganda and sacrifice, and how it answered a public mood of pragmatism and idealism, are also topics in this story of the development of a national ballet identity. This narrative has several key players-- dance critics, male and female dancers, producers, audiences, and choreographers. Exploring the so-called "ballet boom" during WWII, the larger story of this book is one of how art and artists thrive during conflict, and how they respond pragmatically and creatively to privation and duress.

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

George Mann's Newbury & Hobbes steampunk mystery series concludes in this thrilling final volume as our Victorian special agent heroes discover a grand plot to that threatens the state of the world. The time has finally come. Queen Victoria has given the order for her agents to move against the Secret Service — to eliminate the fledgling organisation with extreme prejudice. Caught in the middle of the conflict, Newbury, Veronica and Bainbridge are forced to face up to the truth: that the Queen no longer represents the best interests of the Empire. Now rogue and in league with the Queen's enemies, they must enact the "Albion Initiative": a desperate plan to break Prince Edward out of Bedlam and install him on the throne in the Queen's stead. But with the Queen's executioner and his army on their trail, as well as a possible traitor in their midst, can they do enough to stop the malign tyrant from destroying everything they once swore to protect? With everything falling apart around them, Newbury and Veronica must uncover the macabre truth behind the crown, and in doing so, unravel the very foundations of the Empire.