David Martin Jones examines how China has been portrayed in European and subsequently North American social and political thought and what, if anything, this depiction tells us about the character of this thought. Such a question immediately evokes the spectre of orientalism and subsequent chapters explore whether the identification of an orientalist project invalidates the knowledge claims of European and North American social and political thought as it evolved from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.

This fascinating study explores the multifarious erotic themes associated with the magic lantern shows, which proved the dominant visual medium of the West for 350 years, and analyses how the shows influenced the portrayals of sexuality in major works of Gothic fiction.

Aneclectic and insightful collection of essays predicated on the hypothesis that popular cultural documents provide unique insights into the concerns, anxieties and desires of their times. 1950s popular cultureisanalysed by leading scholars and critics such as Christopher Frayling, Mark Jancovich, Kim Newman and David J. Skal."

The notion of counter-insurgency has become a dominant paradigm in American and British thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This volume brings together international academics and practitioners to evaluate the broader theoretical and historical factors that underpin COIN, providing a critical reappraisal of counter-insurgency thinking.

Sacred Violence and Religious Violence examines the place that ideology or political religion plays in legitimizing violence to bring about a purer world. In particular, the book examines Islamism and the western secular, liberal democratic responses to it.