Mo Stewart
New Generation Publishing

Commended by Danny Dorling and Sir Bert Massie, this study represents six years of self-funded research by Stewart, an independent scholar, disabled veteran and former healthcare worker. ¡°Objective¡±? No. Full of heartbreaking truths? Surely. Courageous? Without a doubt. Bristling with references, footnotes, boxes, cartoons and determinedly emphatic use of boldface, this study crosses a minefield of acronyms, austerity, elected quislings and outsourced bad-deed-doers, coroners¡¯ reports and incapacity benefit reassessments. Research done as though it were a matter of life or death ¨C and it is.

Kari Kallioniemi
Intellect

A Finnish cultural historian raised on Pink Floyd and David Bowie vows to ¡°criss-cross through ephemeral debate concerning the various manifestations of pop music in its relation to Englishness¡±; the result is much better than most books in this field. Theory interludes rarely stifle insights that, if they lack (say) Owen Hatherley¡¯s dazzling mots justes, are often acute, and born of close, loving listening. A bumper mixtape of relevant artists fast-forwards through the ¡°sturdy purity¡± of Vera Lynn, Rick Wakeman¡¯s ¡°middle England conservative laddishness¡±, Spandau Ballet¡¯s ¡°sexless funk¡±, the ¡°pop Orwellianism¡± of the Beautiful South, PJ Harvey¡¯s hauntology and Danny Boyle¡¯s 2012 Olympics ceremony ¨C and asks the inevitable question: ¡°Is Birmingham the most uncool of all British rock cities?¡±

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Leonora Neville
Oxford University Press

Neville would be commended for a much duller, less sharp and less well-written book on Anna Komnene (1083-1153), daughter of Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, given the paucity of studies of this fascinating figure ¨C the last was published in 1929. Anna¡¯s epic history of her father¡¯s reign, The Alexiad, is the prime source material for this study, and Neville is especially perceptive on her posthumous reputation (¡°arrogant and ambitious¡±) in the eyes of mostly male scholars. A beautifully argued conclusion makes a case for her importance ¨C and for Neville¡¯s admiration for a long-ago fellow historian.

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Iwan Morgan
I.B. Tauris

¡°The prime minister handbagged other leaders who treated Reagan with disrespect at the Ottawa summit. ¡®Pierre, you¡¯re being obnoxious,¡¯ she snapped at Trudeau. ¡®Stop behaving like a naughty schoolboy.¡¯¡± The author is an eminent scholar; his book is a trade title through and through. Seamless prose, swear-you-were-there mise en sc¨¨nes, folksy asides (¡°Needing to count the pennies when first married¡­¡±) and voice-of-experience musings tailored to this year¡¯s Trump-candidacy market (¡°Whether the 40th president would have thought that American politics has changed for the better since his day is unlikely, however¡±) will please a mass readership. On-the-other-handisms whip it to a brisk close.

Matt Hern
MIT Press

Food trucks and craft beer: who wouldn¡¯t love Portland, Oregon? But, as Hern observes, ¡°bam! ¨C in the time it takes to order a locally brewed, kombucha-and-bacon-flavored donut, the African American community has been scattered¡±. He says ¡°I¡¯m frankly not all that interested in Portland¡± ¨C but he is. His study of the cleansing of its black-majority Albina neighbourhood makes for a thoughtful, first-person book that unpicks both ¡°warm and fuzzy¡± sloganeering and ¡°the hostile cynicism thing¡± as Hern asks ¡°who deserves access to land and why¡­those questions strike me as right at the heart of what a city should be for¡±.

karen.shook@tesglobal.com