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Explore a selection of publications by alumni and academics, and books with a link to the University or Cambridge

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A Manner of Walking
Michael Dawes (Queens' 1966)

It is the Roaring Twenties. Life in England has picked itself up after the war, but things are not as they were. Times are changing on all fronts, especially in the norms of social conduct. The worlds of the Wellington-Smythes, Larkins and Randalls are about to collide. Revelations from the past and the consequences of selfish behaviour of the day throw family against family. Antics of the "Bright Young People" of the time, made famous by the tabloid press and by writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Evelyn Waugh, play against a darkened canvas.

America's Political Inventors: The Lost Art of Legislation
George W. Liebmann (Visiting Fellow 1996)

A discussion of ten American political institutions and the men who designed them, including John Winthrop and the New England town; John Locke and the Southern plantation; Thomas Jefferson and the north-western township; William Leggett and the general business corporation; Joseph Pulitzer and municipal home rule; Justin Morrill and land grant colleges; Hugh Hammond Bennett and Soil Conservation Districts and Byron Hanke and Residential Community Associations, among others.

The Great Darkness
Jim Kelly (Press Fellow Wolfson 1985)

The first in a new series of crime mysteries set in Cambridge in the Second World War. Eden Brooke, once of Michaelhouse College, is a veteran of the Great War, and now a detectve inspector on the 'Borough' - one of the smallest police forces in the country, charged with keeping the peace in the university town's medieval centre. It is the opening weeks of the war and first complete Black Out - dubbed The Great Darkness - provides a platoon of soldiers with the cover they need to dig pits on St John's Wilderness. What lies beneath?

Cybertwists: Hacking and Cyberattacks Explained
Richard Paul Hudson (Trinity 1994)

Cybertwists is an introduction to how hacking and cyberattacks work that is aimed at the general reader. It provides a lively illustration of the manifold techniques with which both criminals and secret services infiltrate other people’s computers, accessing and sometimes manipulating their data.

Beethoven's Symphony no. 9
Alexander Rehding (Queens' 1991)

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has held musical audiences captive for close to two centuries. Few other musical works hold such a prominent place in the collective imagination; each generation rediscovers the work for itself and makes it its own. Honing in on the significance of the symphony in contemporary culture, this book establishes a dialog between Beethoven's world and ours, marked by the earthshattering events of 1789 and of 1989. In particular, this book outlines what is special about the Ninth in millennial culture.

American Empire: A Global History
Tony Hopkins (Pembroke 1994)

This book offers a fresh approach to the history of U.S international relations during the past three centuries. The central argument holds that the United States was part of an evolving Western imperial system from the period of colonial rule to the present. This proposition is set in motion by identifying three phases of globalisation and assigning empires a starring role in the process. The transition from one phase to another generated the three crises that form the turning points the book identifies.

Follow the Child
Sacha Langton-Gilks (Trinity 1985)

Drawing on her family's own experiences and those of other parents facing the death of a child from illness or a life-limiting condition, Sacha Langton-Gilks explains the challenges, planning, and conversations that can be expected during this traumatic period. Practical advice such as how to work with the healthcare professionals, drawing up an Advance Care Plan, and how to move care into the home sit alongside tender observations of how such things worked in her own family's story.

Psycho-nationalism: Global Thought, Iranian Imaginations (The Global Middle East)
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam (Hughes Hall 2000)

States routinely and readily exploit the grey area between sentiments of national affinity and hegemonic emotions geared to nationalist aggression. In this book, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam focuses on the use of Iranian identity to offer a timely exploration into the psychological and political roots of national identity and how these are often utilised by governments from East to West.

The Hesitant Architect
Maria Haka Flokos (Girton 1980)

Post Millenium Britain...Cambridge after the 800th

"At what point," he thought, "did one's youth become part of history?..."

The return of architects Eleanor Sanders and Peter Hunter, both 80’s alumni, to the University town for a charity event―the televised renovation of a college house in the 12 days leading up to Christmas―is marred by tragedy. As the story unfolds, it soon becomes apparent that the case may not be as cut and dried as it seems and that, perhaps, everyone (save one) could be missing the wood for the Christmas tree…

 

The Stand Back Train
John Ironside (Peterhouse 1952)

Born to the sound of an express whistling through the station, Pal Shripney’s complacent existence of standing back and letting others in life’s train do the rushing by ends when his sister Alice and her Anglican curate husband Jack become lottery winners and call for help. Irreverent Pal finds himself in a strange new ecclesiastical world of diocesan dignitaries and parochial pastoral care. He is enlightened by sharing in a mission project in Thailand, but it is interrupted by Jack catching dengue fever. Publicity of Jack’s win brings grief when his sister Janet is abducted for ransom.

BP Blowout: Inside the Gulf Oil Disaster
Daniel Jacobs (Trinity Hall 1983)

The story of the worst environmental disaster in american history and its enduring consequences....

No Secrets Are Hid
John Ironside (Peterhouse 1952)

Railway enthusiast Pal Shripney’s life ends gently as he listens to Arthur Honneger’s steam engine romp Pacific 231.  But for his son Pip, with his concubine Petra, and for his nephew Harry, a Cambridge history don, the locomotion gains pace. Wanting to marry and raise a family, Pip and Petra face hurdles. Where in this complicated world can an uncle legally marry his niece?  Meanwhile on an aid project in Cambodia they discover mysterious Chloe and unsettling Kevin.

Varian Studies Volume One: Varius
Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (Trinity 1964)

Varius is the nomen of the Roman emperor misnamed Elagabalus or Heliogabalus. These are names of the Syrian sun god Elagabal, whose high priest Varius was while emperor. There is no evidence that he was ever so called when alive. Thus named, his posthumous legendary or mythical avatar thrives, in academic prose and popular imagination, as a Semitic monster of cruelty, depravity, fanaticism, mockery and extravagance. Recently, this monster has metamorphosed into an anarchist saint and martyr of gay liberation.

Varian Studies Volume Two: Elagabal
Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (Trinity 1964)

Elagabal is the name of the Syrian sun god whose high priest Varius was, at the same time as Roman emperor, AD 218-222. Because of this connexion, Varius was misnamed Heliogabalus or Elagabalus long after his death. Second in the series VARIAN STUDIES, this book discusses Elagabal’s architectural and sculptural legacy in Rome. These are represented by the Palatine site of THE VARIAN TEMPLE OF ELAGABAL IN ROME, and by relief sculpture on column capitals found in the Roman Forum, showing Elagabal with other deities, in a scene of sacrifice here reconstructed as ELAGABAL’S IDYLL.

Varian Studies Volume Three: A Varian Symposium
Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (Trinity 1964)

Heliogabalus and Elagabalus are names given since late antiquity to the mythical or legendary avatar of Varius Avitus Bassianus. Varius was Roman emperor AD 218-222, ruling as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. He was simultaneously High Priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabal. Heliogabalus and Elagabalus, names derived from Elagabal, are often used as misnomers for Varius himself, but more properly designate his avatar, who is far better known than Varius.

Flying With Emma
John Ironside (Peterhouse 1952)

Helicopter pilot Emma Shripney’s steady world is to be shaken up as much as the ground below her as she flies over earthquake stricken Hastings and Napier on New Zealand’s North Island east coast. Rescuing the eighteen stranded people from Te Mata Peak leads to a sharing of tragedy and frustration, to a doomed romantic entanglement, to an involvement in commercial intrigue conflicting with ancient Maori lore, and to the experiencing of happy loyalty and a deepened love for her adopted country.

Things We Nearly Knew
Jim Powell (Trinity Hall 1968)

Jim Powell was chosen as one of the best new novelists by BBC2’s ‘The Culture Show’ in 2011. His third novel explores our ignorance and misconceptions of the people and situations we think we know best. It is a story set in an unnamed place, at an unspecified time, told by an unnamed narrator, that asks: how much do we really know about those closest to us…and how much do we want to know?

So High a Blood: The Life of Margaret, Countess of Lennox
Morgan Ring (Caius 2008)

Sometime heir to the English throne, courtier in danger of losing her head, spy-mistress and would-be architect of a united Catholic Britain: Lady Margaret Douglas is the Tudor who survived and triumphed — but at a terrible cost.

366 Days: Compelling Stories From World History
Scott Allsop (Emmanuel 1999)

Stretching from Ancient Rome to the World Wide Web and from the Danelaw to the Cold War, 366 Days is an engaging and entertaining chronicle of the highs and lows of world history. Whether it heralded a world-changing new discovery, the assassination of a leading politician, or a cow flying in a plane, this collection of true stories and trivia from world history proves that there is always something to be remembered 'on this day'. Each historical account has been painstakingly researched to clearly explain its causes, course and consequences.

Deep Sahara
Leslie Croxford (Selwyn 1963)

Recovering from a nervous breakdown provoked by the death of his wife, a man takes advice from a family friend and retreats to a monastery in the deep Sahara to sketch desert insects for a book.

Upon arrival, however, he comes upon an appalling crime. Numb and exhausted, he declines a police chief’s urgent suggestion that he leave. Despite his shock, the desert seems to promise solace, a vast nullity against which he can take stock of himself and do his work.

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