Using previously unpublished material from the National Archives, David Thomas, David Carlton, and Anne Etienne provide a new perspective on British cultural history. Statutory censorship was first introduced in Britain by Sir Robert Walpole with his Licensing Act of 1737. Previously theatre censorship was exercised under the Royal Prerogative. By giving the Lord Chamberlain statutory powers of theatre censorship, Walpole ensured that confusion over the relationship between the Royal Prerogative and statute law would prevent any serious challenge to theatre censorship in Parliament until the...

For nearly forty years 'among the glades of Epping Forest' Churchill found a base for his distinguished parliamentary life: it sustained him during his ten years in the political wilderness and during the fierce ordeals of tragedy and triumph in the war years. This book relates with anecdotal and archival evidence the attempt to unseat him after what many supporters thought an injudicious Munich speech. However Churchill was persuaded to stay on by loyal friends, thus ensuring his availability for a Cabinet post a few months later at the outbreak of war.

The contributions to this volume, which come from the Fifth Mingana Symposium, survey the use of the Bible and attitudes towards it in the early and classical Islamic periods. The authors explore such themes as early Christian translations of the Bible into Arabic, the use of verses from it to defend the truth of Christianity, to interpret the significance of Islam and to prove its error, Muslim accusations of corruption of the Bible, and the influences that affected production of Bibles in Muslims lands. The volume illustrates the centrality of the Bible to Arab Christians as a source of...

This is the first volume in the series Theatre in Europe: a documentary history. The authors have compiled a documentary account of the theatre in Britain during the Restoration and Georgian period, which covers some 120 years of theatrical activity. It was an exciting period that saw the first arrival of the scenic stage in the public theatres of London, bringing with it a whole new approach to staging and performance. The development outlined in the volume shows the progression of the theatre from a tightly controlled, court-based institution in the Restoration to an ebullient, bustling,...

This book provides an integrated, thorough and up-to-date review of the nature and development of the Kalahari environment, an environment of great ecological and geomorphological diversity. Its complex climatic and geological history and its long association with human societies attempting to utilise its natural resources are aspects of increasing scientific interest. The book has evolved from the authors' own research in the Kalahari, and attempts to provide explanations and answers to some of the many questions raised about this region, ranging from the commonly asked 'is it really a...