{"title":"History \u0026 Politics","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"the-earth-transformed-peter-frankopan-signed","title":"The Earth Transformed Peter Frankopan (Signed)","description":"\u003cp\u003ePaperback  - bookplated\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilisations across time. When we think about history, we rarely pay much attention to the most destructive floods, the worst winters, the most devastating droughts or the ways that ecosystems have changed over time. In The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan, one of the world’s leading historians, shows that the natural environment is a crucial, if not the defining, factor in global history – and not just of humankind.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVolcanic eruptions, solar activities, atmospheric, oceanic and other shifts, as well as anthropogenic behaviour, are fundamental parts of the past and the present. In this magnificent and groundbreaking book, we learn about the origins of our species: about the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; about how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; about how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; about how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long and deep history. All provide lessons of profound importance as we face a precarious future of rapid global warming.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTaking us from the Big Bang to the present day and beyond, The Earth Transformed forces us to reckon with humankind’s continuing efforts to make sense of the natural world\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"City Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43969676280016,"sku":"","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0595\/8113\/7104\/files\/9781526622556.jpg?v=1713788768"},{"product_id":"pre-order-fly-wild-swans-by-jung-chang-signed","title":"Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (Signed)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"imageBlockWrap\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"imageBlock\"\u003eHardback \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"imageBlock\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productContentWrap\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productContent\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\"\u003eJung Chang’s Wild Swans was a book that defined a generation, an epic personal history of Jung, her mother and grandmother – ‘three daughters of China’. The book opens in 1909 with her grandmother’s birth – and foot-binding – when China was under the last emperor, moving through Mao Zedong’s rule, especially the Cultural Revolution during which Jung’s parents were subjected to horrendous ordeals because of their courage. It finishes in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping officially ended the Mao era and started the ‘reforms’.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJung, at that propitious juncture, became one of the first Chinese to leave Communist China for the West. Nearly half a century on, China has risen from a decrepit and isolated state to a global power, the challenger to the United States’ dominant position in the world. Through those decades, Jung’s life has been intimately entwined with her native land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer experiences dealing with the regime in those years were rich and revealing – especially so because all her books were (and are) banned. Fly, Wild Swans is the follow-up to Wild Swans and brings the story of Jung’s family – along with that of China – up to date. The book is in many ways Jung’s love letter to her mother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is inevitably also about her grandmother and father, both of whom died tragically in the Cultural Revolution but are often recalled in this book. In fact, the past is never far away in Jung’s subsequent life. It has shaped her, and moulded the present China, and what’s more, it promises to herald the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChina is now at another watershed moment with the era of Chairman Xi Jinping greatly affecting the lives of Jung and her mother. Fly, Wild Swans is Jung’s heartfelt response to that experience, and a book filled with drama, love, curiosity and incredible history – both personal and global. Ultimately uplifting, told in Jung’s clear, honest and compelling voice, it is memoir writing at its best.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"City Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56589764362621,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0595\/8113\/7104\/files\/9780008661069.jpg?v=1753958883"},{"product_id":"sun-fun-bungaroosh-by-anthea-ballam","title":"Sun, Fun \u0026 Bungaroosh by Anthea Ballam","description":"\u003cp\u003eA selection of seaside delights and devotions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe City of Brighton and Hove is warm and welcoming - it welcomes tourists, conference delegates, refugees and seagulls. We have a cool festival and a very noisy Pride and we claim to be one of the most popular locations for Jedis. 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Or some pots of paint abandoned in the eruption at Pompeii? Why should we be bothered with the distant past anyway? What's the point? The life, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome have something to offer everyone. They are not the property of wealthy white men only. They make us wonder how to make sense of people who lived long ago (from angry landlords to giggling senators) - and to think harder about our own world, to look at it differently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn Talking Classics, Mary Beard points to the surprising connections between antiquity and the present. From revolutionaries to dictators, Bob Dylan to Beyoncé, she joins forces with the varied modern characters who have been transfixed by the ancient world. 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Drawing on decades of experience at the heart of politics, alongside new research and original polling of nearly 100,000 people across forty-five countries, Gordon Brown reveals how global instability and civic decline are connected. The Future Starts With Us is more than a guide to our present turmoil. By uncovering and targeting the root causes, Brown offers a practical and hopeful roadmap to bring us back together, renew the global order, and set us on a more equitable and sustainable course.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis most urgent insight is that the future will not be decided by the declarations of presidents or prime ministers or at conferences or summits, but by citizens becoming actively engaged in their communities and by what we choose to do together. The change we seek starts here and now. 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