Showing results by publisher "John Murray" in Politics & Social Sciences

As a young, queer, plus-size person, Essie Dennis has spent a lot of time feeling like they weren't enough—not queer enough, not feminine enough, not perfect enough. When they took to social media to share how they felt, they were overwhelmed by how many others felt the same. Inviting you to challenge accepted beauty standards and the concept of 'the perfect body', Essie takes everything they have learned on their journey to self-acceptance and body satisfaction to help guide you towards loving your queer body.

In Britain in the 1750s, women had no power and no rights - all money and property belonged to their fathers or husbands. A brave group risked everything to think and live as they wished, despite the sneers of contemporaries who argued that books frazzled female brains and damaged their wombs. Bluestockings provides unexpected and inspiring stories of the forgotten heroines of Britain's very first women's movement.

First came the secretaries who struggled to get past the typing pool. Then came the first Harvard Business School grads who were laughed out of interviews. But by the 1980s, with markets in turbo-drive, women were playing for high stakes in Wall Street's bad-boy culture by day and clubbing by night. As engaging as it is enraging, She Wolves is a fascinating behind-the-scenes deep dive into the collision of women, finance and New York.

A dazzling new history of the modern world, as told through the remarkable story of population change. Every phase since the advent of the industrial revolution - from the fate of the British Empire, to the global challenges from Germany, Japan and Russia, to America's emergence as a sole superpower, to the Arab Spring, to the long-term decline of economic growth that started with Japan and has now spread to Europe, to China's meteoric economy, to Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump - can be explained better when we appreciate the meaning of demographic change across the world.

Why does music affect you so profoundly? It impacts the way you think, talk, feel, behave and even spend money. With his conversational style, humour, and endless knowledge, scientist and musician John Powell showcases fascinating studies - for example, that shoppers spend more money in stores that play classical music, and, even more astounding, they are more likely to buy German wine in stores playing German music.

Political and generational divides often dictate how questions such as these are answered, and when asked most people give automatic answers that roughly align with the broader position they believe is right - though many flounder when asked to detail their reasoning. This creates cultural and political tribes, makes people nervous about engaging at all, or leads to the issues to be trivialised or attributed to the excessive sensitivity of 'snowflakes' to 'identity politics'.

How did South Africa turn out the way it did? In Moederland - 'Motherland', in Afrikaans - Cato Pedder takes us on an eye-opening journey across four centuries, tracing the country's turbulent past and the rise and fall of apartheid (and her family's charged legacy) through the lives of nine very different women.

In this blazing, razor-sharp takedown of popular culture in the twenty-first century, Girl on Girl turns 90s and 00s nostalgia on its head, and shows how the media of that era repackaged the feminist movement as a containable, commodifiable (and hugely successful) product: 'Girl Power'. From the Spice Girls to the Kardashians, to #GirlBoss and OnlyFans, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Sophie Gilbert illustrates how the cultural forces of the last few decades have systematically shaped - and warped - women's relationships with themselves and other women.

In this raw, intimate and unflinchingly honest book, we follow Harry as he navigates the sometimes fraught and contradictory worlds of contemporary gay culture as a trans gay man, from Grindr, dating and gay bars, to saunas, sex and ultimately, falling in love. Harry's brave and uplifting journey will show you there is joy in finding who you are.

On July 4th, 2013, Connor Sparrowhawk, also known as Laughing Boy or LB, was found dead in a specialist NHS unit. Connor, who had autism and epilepsy, had a seizure while in the bath, and no member of staff was on hand to stop him from drowning. An entirely preventable death. Sara Ryan presents a frank, sometimes funny and touching account of her son's early life and preventable death and the unfolding #JusticeforLB campaign.

A mayor's inspirational story of a Midwest city that has become nothing less than a blueprint for the future of American renewal. Once described by the Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of," Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has now emerged as one of America's most visionary politicians. With soaring prose that celebrates a resurgent American Midwest, Shortest Way Home narrates the heroic transformation of a "dying city" (Newsweek) into nothing less than a shining model of urban reinvention.

All white people understand cultural differences from a platform of relative privilege, affecting their personal and professional interactions. How should they respond when confronted with this knowledge? This introductory book looks at the concept of whiteness and shows how individuals can 'unmask' their own whiteness and take meaningful steps to break down unconscious bias and structural racism.

There is untold history of Tudor England - the history of the several million subjects of their famous kings and queens. What did ordinary people do all day, in their homes, their work, their leisure and travel? An Accidental History of Tudor England explores the history of everyday life, and everyday death.

The Baltic's time has come. It is not only critical to Europe's security and increasingly a centre of political and military power in its own right; it is a reservoir of ideas and experiences that could shape the continent's future. This books explores the history, their culture, their peculiarities and national dilemmas of all nine Baltic countries. At its core is a search for fresh answers to Europe's problems, at a point where the continent's previously dominant powers appear tired and divided.

Based on freshly uncovered primary sources and new firsthand interviews, The Most Dangerous Man in America is an American thriller that takes listeners along for the gonzo ride of a lifetime. Spanning 28 months, President Nixon's global manhunt for Dr. Timothy Leary winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and secret agents on four continents, culminating in one of the trippiest journeys through the American counterculture.

A globe-trotting work of relentless investigative reporting, Waste Wars exposes the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade in which almost everyone in the world unknowingly engages and asks: If the handling of its trash reveals deeper truths about a particular society, what does the global business of trash say about our world today?

A difficult home life. A missed diagnosis. A disrupted education. Falling in with the wrong crowd. Every year thousands of children fall through the cracks in our society and become victims of a destructive cycle that ends in exploitation, violence, and lost life chances. As Commissioner for Children in England, Anne Longfield CBE witnessed the devastating effects of this cycle as vulnerable young people were failed by systems too underfunded and overstretched to protect them. Young Lives, Big Ambitions is a plan to fix our broken system and give every young person the chance to succeed.

The New Digital Age is the product of an unparalleled collaboration: full of the brilliant insights of one of Silicon Valley's great innovators - what Bill Gates was to Microsoft and Steve Jobs was to Apple, Schmidt (along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin) was to Google - and the Director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, formerly an advisor to both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Never before has the future been so vividly and transparently imagined. From

What if I don't want intimacy at all? It is selfish to pursue a relationship if I don't want romance? These questions are not only a source of deep anxiety and frustration for ace and aro people - but limit the heights that ace and aro folks believe they can reach for in their lives. These questions make us believe that we should settle for less, when in fact we all deserve more.

In the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it. What began as a trip down the safe and well-worn path of organizing soon morphed into something more dangerous. Hong journeyed to China, outwitting Chinese security services as he helped ferry asylum-seeking North Korean escapees to safety.