Time-honored practices for a more self-reliant and satisfying lifestyle. Ever have the urge to raise your own chickens, grind your own flour, or start your own compost pile? If any of these ideas sound appealing, this is the book for you. A growing number of people are intrigued by the "homesteader" experience and the idea of doing things themselves, whether they own a big spread in the wilderness or live on a small plot of land in the suburbs. Traditional Crafts and Skills from the Country presents the practical information necessary to become more self-reliant at home, pick up a new hobby, or even learn a skill that may provide a secondary income. The authors' crafts and skills include: beekeeping; raising sheep and goats; starting seeds; composting; felling trees; building split-rail fences; making soap and candles; drying and preserving foods; laying stone; making butter and cheese; reading the weather; and much more. From raising livestock to woodcrafting, from the garden to the kitchen, Monte and Joan Burch have a fresh and easy-to-follow approach to country wisdom that is sure to win over even the most die-hard city dweller.

I. Introduction - Brief overview of Yemen's history and culture - Importance of Yemen's architectural heritage - Purpose and scope of the book II. Vernacular Architecture of Yemen - Definition of vernacular architecture and its characteristics - Examples of vernacular architecture in Yemen - Use of local materials and construction techniques - Adaptation to environmental conditions - Examples of mosques, fortresses, and palaces III. Challenges to the Preservation of Yemen's Architectural Heritage - Ongoing conflict and destruction of historic buildings and sites - Displacement of people and loss of traditional knowledge and skills - The need for conservation and restoration efforts IV. Supporting the Preservation of Yemen's Architectural Heritage - Training of local experts in conservation and restoration techniques - Creation of digital archives - Support of local cultural organizations - International initiatives led by organizations such as UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund V. Traditional Crafts and Skills in Yemen - Overview of traditional crafts and skills in Yemen - Examples of pottery, weaving, metalwork, and woodworking - Other traditional crafts and skills in Yemen, including basket weaving, leatherwork, stone carving, and calligraphy VI. Supporting Traditional Crafts and Skills in Yemen - Training and support for artisans - Promotion of the use of traditional materials and techniques - Economic opportunities for communities that rely on traditional crafts and skills VII. Yemen's Cultural Heritage Beyond Architecture and Crafts - Overview of other aspects of Yemen's cultural heritage, including literature, music, dance, theater, cuisine, traditional dress, and festivals - Influences of ancient trade routes and Islamic scholarship and learning on Yemen's cultural heritage VIII. Conclusion - Summary of the importance of preserving Yemen's cultural heritage - Call to action for supporting preservation efforts - Final thoughts and reflections on Yemen's unique and valuable cultural legacy

Drawing on a wide range of archival evidence, Abigail McGowan argues that crafts seized the political imagination in western India because they provided a means of debating the present and future of the country.

Neil Netanel has edited this compilation of articles in order to examine the development agenda and the broader issues it touches upon. The contributors include leading scholars from various disciplines, including economics, political science, and law.

The dramatic career of the Irish playwright J.M. Synge, from his first plays in 1902 to his premature death in 1909, almost exactly coincided with the years of Edward VII's reign. Those years have long been studied in a British context, but Synge and Edwardian Ireland is the first book to explore the cultural life of Edwardian Ireland as a distinctive period. By emphasizing several less familiar Irish contexts for Synge's work - including a new sociological awareness, the rise of a local celebrity culture, an international theatre context, the arts and crafts movement, Irish classical music, and comedic writing by Somerville and Ross - this collection shows how the Revival's preoccupation with folk culture intersected with the new networks of mass communication in the late imperial world. Although Synge is best known as a dramatist, this book concentrates on his prose and the ethnography of his photographs, the work in which his engagement with Edwardian Ireland can be most significantly seen. Often misunderstood as apolitical, Synge's writings and photography display a romantic resistance to modernity alongside their more accurate observations of contemporary conditions. It is through this ambivalent modernity that his work continued to haunt not just advocates like W.B. Yeats but even Synge's critics, including Padraig Pearse and James Joyce, all of whom were forced to come to imaginative terms with Synge through their own work. This book aims to change readers' sense of Synge's significance, and by doing so to illuminate in a quite new way the era of Edwardian Ireland during this period of rapid modernization.

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, and described by A.S.Byatt as 'one of the finest biographies ever published', this is Fiona MacCarthy's magisterial biography of William Morris, legendary designer and father of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement. 'Thrilling, absorbing and majestic.' Independent 'Wonderfully ambitious ... The definitive Morris biography.' Sunday Times 'Delicious and intelligent, full of shining detail and mysteries respected.' Daily Telegraph ' Oh, the careful detail of this marvellous book! . . . A model of scholarly biography'. New Statesman Since his death in 1896, William Morris has been celebrated as a giant of the Victorian era. But his genius was so multifaceted and so profound that its full extent has rarely been grasped. Many people may find it hard to believe that the greatest English designer of his time - possibly of all time - could also be internationally renowned as a founder of the socialist movement, and ranked as a poet with Tennyson and Browning. In her definitive biography - insightful, comprehensive, addictively readable - the award-winning Fiona MacCarthy gives us a richly detailed portrait of Morris's complex character for the first time, shedding light on his immense creative powers as artist and designer of furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, stained glass, tapestry, and books; his role as a poet, novelist and translator; on his psychology and his emotional life; his frenetic activities as polemicist and reformer; and his remarkable circle of friends, literary, artistic and political, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. It is a masterpiece of biographical art.