John Belchem

The History of the Liverpool-Irish, 1800-1939

Irish, Catholic and Scouse

Bryan Biggs

Bluecoat is a unique and much-loved Liverpool institution, its oldest city centre building. This book tells the fascinating story of its transformation from charity school to contemporary arts centre, the UK’s first. Its early 18th century origins shed light on the religious and maritime mercantile environment of the growing port, whose merchants supported the school. Echoes from then are revealed in themes explored by artists in the 20th century, including slavery and colonial legacies. The predominant focus is on an inclusive building for the arts, starting with colourful bohemian society, the Sandon, who established an artistic colony in 1907, hosting significant exhibitions by the Post-Impressionists and many leading modern British artists. Bluecoat Society of Arts emerged as the building’s custodians, paving the way for the arts centre which, despite financial struggles and wartime bomb damage, survived and continues to play a prominent role in Liverpool’s and the UK’s culture. Bluecoat is described as where ‘village hall meets the avant-garde’. In its rich story, Picasso, Stravinsky, Yoko Ono, Captain Beefheart, Simon Rattle and the inspirational Fanny Calder are just some of the names encountered, as key strands, including music, visual art, performance and the building’s tenants, are traced.

The UK's first arts centre

Bluecoat, Liverpool

'Before the Windrush' is a fascinating study that enriches our understanding of how the empire 'came home'. By drawing attention to Liverpool's mixed population in the first half of the 20th century and its approach to race relations, it provides historical context and perspective to debates about Britain's experience of empire in the 20th century.

Race Relations in Twentieth-century Liverpool

Before the Windrush

Harold Mytum

Richard Chiverrell

Dr. Geoff Thomas

Seán Duffy

A New History of the Isle of Man will provide a new benchmark for the study of the island’s history. In five volumes, it will survey all aspects of the history of the Isle of Man, from the evolution of the natural landscape through prehistory to modern times. The Modern Period is the first volume to be published. Wide in coverage, embracing political, constitutional, economic, labor, social and cultural developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the volume is particularly concerned with issues of image, identity and representation. From a variety of angles and perspectives, contributors explore the ways in which a sense of Manxness was constructed, contested, continued and amended as the little Manx nation underwent unprecedented change from debtors’ retreat through holiday playground to offshore international financial center.

A New History of the Isle of Man: The modern period 1830-1999

Neville Kirk

This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language in relation to the subject of history. The British and American contributors put forward the idea that language is a broadly based means of communication with contested and consensual meanings, and that such meanings must be revealed and evaluated by precise historical contextualisation of language and proper attention to established rules of historical method. The essays contend that the connections between the linguistic and the social must be rethought. The book aims to move beyond the unproductive fragmentation and relativism, the narrow textual range and the literal and anti-realist readings of the postmodern 'linguistic turn' to offer a rigorous approach to the study of language and the subject of history.

Languages of Labour

This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language in relation to the subject of history. The British and American contributors put forward the idea that language is a broadly based means of communication with contested and consensual meanings, and that such meanings must be revealed and evaluated by precise historical contextualisation of language and proper attention to established rules of historical method. The essays contend that the connections between the linguistic and the social must be rethought. The book aims to move beyond the unproductive fragmentation and relativism, the narrow textual range and the literal and anti-realist readings of the postmodern ’linguistic turn’ to offer a rigorous approach to the study of language and the subject of history.

This study of the Isle of Man surveys all aspects of its history, from the evolution of the landscape to coverage of the political, constitutional, economic, labour, social and cultural developments in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Emeritus Professor of History John Belchem

This first full-scale biography finally brings to light Hunt's vital role in molding the English working-class into an effective political force. Converted to the reform cause during the wars against Napoleonic France, Hunt gave popular radicalism a distinctly working-class perspective that countered the contemporary belief in a laissez-faire political economy. Hero of the unrepresented and repressed, scourge of the moderate reformers and gradualists, Hunt set the standard for the Chartist challenge. This work, based on a wide range of primary sources, reassessed Hunt's influential career and illuminates a formative period in the development of radical politics in England.

Henry Hunt and English Working-class Radicalism

"Orator" Hunt

The Isle of Man is a small island off the northwest coast of England in the Irish Sea. Though heavily influenced by nearby England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, it possesses a distinct culture all its own that is reflected in everything from its language, Manx, to its independent parliament, the Tynwald, a legacy of Viking rule. A New History of the Isle of Man takes a fascinating, in-depth look at the island's past. The first volume of the series comprises a natural history of the island from some 500 million years ago to the present day. Beginning with the story of the first arrival of plants and animals on the island's rocky shores, it concludes with an appraisal of changes in the environment of the island wrought by its human residents.

John Belchem

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