Michael Woods

Rural issues have gained national prominence in Britain in recent years. The future of hunting, the Foot and Mouth outbreak, farm income and agricultural reform and housing development have all claimed political and media attention, promoted by a vocal rural lobby and headline-grabbing protests and demonstrations. Combining detailed empirical research and case studies with theoretically informed critical analysis, this book provides an overview of the contemporary politics of the British countryside. It explores how and why rural issues have suddenly achieved such political prominence, by examining the changing politics and governance of rural Britain from the local to the national scale over the past century. It investigates the social, economic and institutional restructuring of rural communities and argues that we are witnessing not so much a rural politics, but a 'politics of the rural' in which the definition and representation of rurality itself has become the key focus of conflict.

Politics in the British Countryside

Contesting Rurality

Mary B. Woods

A winter snowfall can be beautiful. But if conditions call for dense snow, freezing temperatures, and bone-chilling wind, you are in for a dangerous blizzard. These blinding, swirling storms can shut down roads and damage buildings. Violent winds can thrash vehicles driving on icy roads. Snowdrifts can pile up to block streets or even cover houses. Blizzards can knock out power and threaten the lives of people stranded inside for days or worse, those caught outside in the storm. With dramatic images and first-hand survivor stories plus the latest facts and figures this book shows you blizzard disasters up close.

Blizzards

Did you know that people first used road signs more than 2,000 years ago? Did you know that Ancient Rome had its own postal service? Did you know that Egyptian writers used flakes of limestone for scrap paper? Pens, storytelling, alphabets communication technology is as old as human society itself. The first humans on Earth used simple communication tools. They painted on cave walls with twigs and animal fur. They carved simple pictures into bones and rocks. Over the centuries, ancient peoples improved the ways they communicated. People in the ancient Middle East kept records on clay tablets. The ancient Chinese made paper from wood pulp. The ancient Greeks and ancient Mayans thought of different ways to design books. So what kinds of tools and techniques did ancient people use? How did writing systems improve over time? And how did ancient communication set the stage for our own modern communication technology? Learn more in Ancient Communication Technology.

From Hieroglyphics to Scrolls

Ancient Communication Technology

Looks at seven natural wonders, including the Bay of Fundy, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Mariana Trench.

Seven Natural Wonders of the Arctic, Antarctica, and the Oceans

Mary Boyle Woods

Mudflows and Landslides

With dramatic images and first-hand survivor stories plus the latest facts and figures, this series takes you up close with the world's most devastating disasters. Each book covers a disaster from both the scientific and human side, capturing the impact and the emotion through primary source quotations and photographs.

Discusses the methods of computation developed in various civilizations around the world, from prehistoric times up until the end of the Roman Empire.

From Counting to Calendars

Ancient Computing

Computing technology is as old as human society itself. The first humans on Earth used basic computing skills. They counted by carving tally marks in bone. They used body parts and basic tools to measure. Over the centuries, ancient peoples learned more about computing. People in the ancient Middle East used scales to measure goods for trading. The ancient Egyptians wrote textbooks including multiplication and division problems. The ancient Chinese developed an abacus for speedy calculations. Ancient Greeks made advances in geometry. What kinds of tools and techniques did ancient mathematicians use? Which of their inventions and discoveries have stood the test of time? And how did the ancients set the stage for our own modern computing? Learn more in Ancient Computing Technology.

From Abacuses to Water Clocks

Ancient Computing Technology

Even before Vatican Council II, individuals like Virgil Michel and Catholic social movements like the National Catholic Rural Life Conference attempted to promote greater social justice by reconnecting rural life in the United States with the liturgical life of the church. Efforts to remedy this dislocation between agrarian life and church liturgy meshed the liturgical year with the rural agricultural cycle. The introduction of devotions, sacramentals, ritual, music, dance, poetry, and dramatic performances helped farmers rediscover the sacramental character of the soil and al the elements of agrarian life that emerge from it. Those interested in issues of social justice, sacramental engagement, and even the development of the vernacular in the liturgy will explore these and other topics in this unique archival investigation. Michael Woods, SJ, STD, is assistant professor of religious studies at Gonzaga University, teaching liturgical and sacramental theology. His interests focus on the relationship between liturgy and life, especially as they pertain to ecological sustainability. He is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Twentieth-Century Catholic Agrarians Embrace the Liturgical Movement

Cultivating Soil and Soul

An introduction to the people, places, and beliefs behind seven creations of ancient Central and South America.

Seven Wonders of Ancient Central and South America

Mark Whitehead

Rhys Jones

Matthew G. Hannah

Martin Jones

Deborah Dixon

An Introduction to Political Geography continues to provide a broad-based introduction to contemporary political geography for students following undergraduate degree courses in geography and related subjects. The text explores the full breadth of contemporary political geography, covering not only traditional concerns such as the state, geopolitics, electoral geography and nationalism; but also increasing important areas at the cutting-edge of political geography research including globalization, the geographies of regulation and governance, geographies of policy formulation and delivery, and themes at the intersection of political and cultural geography, including the politics of place consumption, landscapes of power, citizenship, identity politics and geographies of mobilization and resistance. This second edition builds on the strengths of the first. The main changes and enhancements are: four new chapters on: political geographies of globalization, geographies of empire, political geography and the environment and geopolitics and critical geopolitics significant updating and revision of the remaining chapters to discuss key developments, drawing on recent academic contributions and political events new case studies, drawing on an increasing number of international and global examples additional boxes for key concepts and an enlarged glossary. As with the first edition, extensive use is made of case study examples, illustrations, explanatory boxes, guides to further reading and a glossary of key terms to present the material in an easily accessible manner. Through employment of these techniques this book introduces students to contributions from a range of social and political theories in the context of empirical case study examples. By providing a basic introduction to such concepts and pointing to pathways into more specialist material, this book serves, both as a core text for first- and second- year courses in political geography, and as a resource alongside supplementary textbooks for more specialist third year courses.

Space, Place and Politics

An Introduction to Political Geography

A look into an idea of a reality which would exist beyond the sum of the mechanics beneath the mountains which he wishes would crumble. The technogolies are the antagonists and halves of religions relaying and documenting and endangering lives throughout the past one hundred years. A tiny amphibian becomes a protagonist and remains nameless in a small room throughout the story. Below the shell of each location is an escape into a dream from all other escapes. The city is accepted as the vitriolic encapsulation of reality as well as a hiding place from a world which is a product of a threat and is either quaking or flooded or in flames. The environment in which he exists is a journal of mistakes where all fantasies lead to further aberrations.

Snail Gun

The dichotomy of ' rural' and ' urban' is one of the most basic yet powerful ideas in Geography. ' Rural' and ' urban' ' and their related terms ' city' and ' country' , ' town' and ' countryside' , ' urbanity' and ' rurality' ' describe and permit an ordering of space that goes beyond a mere territorial classification to imply particular forms of social and economic organization, cultures, lifestyles and landscapes. Without the ' rural' there could be no ' urban' , yet rural space is not just...

Rural

Take a new look at ancient history through the seven wonders of a geographical or cultural region. Each book in this series explains the qualities that makes something a 'wonder', with information about how the wonders were constructed, how they were discovered or preserved, how they are studied, and if and how they are used in modern times.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Seven Wonders of Ancient Africa

Presents seven wonders of the ancient Greek world, including Knossos, Delphi, Mycenae, Olympia, and the Parthenon.

Seven Wonders of Ancient Greece

Describes seven monumental ancient Asian architectural sites that still exist today, including the Great Wall of China, Angkor Wat, and Borobudur Temple.

Seven Wonders of Ancient Asia

A winter snowfall can be beautiful. But if conditions call for dense snow, freezing temperatures, and bone-chilling wind, you are in for a dangerous blizzard. These blinding, swirling storms can shut down roads and damage buildings. Violent winds can thrash vehicles driving on icy roads. Snowdrifts can pile up to block streets or even cover houses. Blizzards can knock out power and threaten the lives of people stranded inside for daysor worse, those caught outside in the storm. With dramatic images and first-hand survivor storiesplus the latest facts and figuresthis book shows you blizzard disasters up close.

Between 1854 and 1861, the struggle between pro-and anti-slavery factions over Kansas Territory captivated Americans nationwide and contributed directly to the Civil War. Combining political, social, and military history, Bleeding Kansas contextualizes and analyzes prewar and wartime clashes in Kansas and Missouri and traces how these conflicts have been remembered ever since. Michael E. Woods’s compelling narrative of the Kansas-Missouri border struggle embraces the diverse perspectives of white northerners and southerners, women, Native Americans, and African Americans. This wide-ranging and engaging text is ideal for undergraduate courses on the Civil War era, westward expansion, Kansas and/or Missouri history, nineteenth-century US history, and other related subjects. Supported by primary source documents and a robust companion website, this text allows readers to engage with and draw their own conclusions about this contentious era in American History.

Michael Woods

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