How does the male masochist provide a metaphor for modern and postmodern power? Present orthodoxy understands masculine power as invested in unity, identity, presence and technology. In this provocative work, however, Mansfield challenges our fundamental assumptions about masculine power in the postmodern era. Utilizing representations of masochism in literature, psychopathology, philosophy and cultural theory, the author argues that masculine power can now best be understood as masochistic.

What am I referring to when I say -I-? This little word is so easy to use in daily life, yet it has become the focus of intense theoretical debate. Where does my sense of self come from? Does it arise spontaneously or is it created by the media or society?

This concern with the self, with our subjectivity, is now our main point of reference in Western societies. How has it come to be so important, and what are the different ways in which we can approach an understanding of the self? Nick Mansfield explores how our notions of subjectivity have developed over the past century....

War is always defined in relation to something else: peace, society, civilisation, friendship or love. What is the relationship between war and its 'other'? Are they opposites or versions of one another? This book surveys four hundred years of thinking about the definition of war, from Hobbes and Clausewitz to Badiou and Zizek.

No topic has caused more discussion in recent philosophy and political theory than sovereignty. From late Foucault to Agamben, and from Guantanamo Bay to the 'war on terror, ' the issue of the extent and the nature of the sovereign has given theoretical debates their currency and urgency. New thinking on sovereignty has always imagined the styles of human selfhood that each regime involves. Each denomination of sovereignty requires a specific mode of subjectivity to explain its meaning and facilitate its operation. The aim of this book is to help outline Jacques Derrida's thinking on...

No topic has caused more discussion in recent philosophy and political theory than sovereignty. From late Foucault to Agamben, and from Guantanamo Bay to the 'war on terror, ' the issue of the extent and the nature of the sovereign has given theoretical debates their currency and urgency. New thinking on sovereignty has always imagined the styles of human selfhood that each regime involves. Each denomination of sovereignty requires a specific mode of subjectivity to explain its meaning and facilitate its operation. The aim of this book is to help outline Jacques Derrida's thinking on...

The First World War was one of the prime motors of social change in modern British history. Culture and technology at all levels were transformed. The growing impact of the state, the introduction of modern democracy and change in political allegiance affected most aspects of the lives of UK citizens.Whilst most of the current centenary interest focuses on military aspects of the conflict, this volume considers how these fundamental changes varied from locality to locality within Britain's Home Front. Taken together, did they drastically alter the long-established importance of regional...

The book outlines how class is single most important factor in understanding the British army in the period of industrialisation. It challenges the 'ruffians officered by gentlemen' theory of most military histories and demonstrates how service in the ranks was not confined to 'the scum of the earth' but included a cross section of 'respectable' working class men.
Common soldiers represent a huge unstudied occupational group. They worked as artisans, servants and dealers, displaying pre-enlistment working class attitudes and evidencing low level class conflict in numerous ways. Soldiers...