Martin Shaw

This fully revised edition of Martin Shaw's classic, award-winning text proposes a way through the intellectual confusion surrounding genocide. In a thorough account of the idea's history, Shaw considers its origins and development and its relationships to concepts like ethnic cleansing and politicide. Offering a radical critique of the existing literature on genocide, he argues that what distinguishes genocide from more legitimate warfare is that the 'enemies' targeted are groups and individuals of a civilian character. He vividly illustrates his argument with a wide range of historical examples - from the Holocaust to Rwanda and Palestine to Yugoslavia - and shows how the question 'What is genocide?' matters politically whenever populations are threatened by violence. The second edition of this compelling book will continue to spark interest and vigorous debate, appealing to students and scholars across the social sciences and in international law.

This comprehensive introduction to the study of war and genocide presents a disturbing case that the potential for slaughter is deeply rooted in the political, economic, social and ideological relations of the modern world. Most accounts of war and genocide treat them as separate phenomena. This book thoroughly examines the links between these two most inhuman of human activities. It shows that the generally legitimate business of war and the monstrous crime of genocide are closely related. This is not just because genocide usually occurs in the midst of war, but because genocide is a form of war directed against civilian populations. The book shows how fine the line has been, in modern history, between ‘degenerate war’ involving the mass destruction of civilian populations, and ‘genocide’, the deliberate destruction of civilian groups as such. Written by one of the foremost sociological writers on war, War and Genocide has four main features: an original argument about the meaning and causes of mass killing in the modern world;a guide to the main intellectual resources – military, political and social theories – necessary to understand war and genocide;summaries of the main historical episodes of slaughter, from the trenches of the First World War to the Nazi Holocaust and the killing fields of Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda;practical guides to further reading, courses and websites. This book examines war and genocide together with their opposites, peace and justice. It looks at them from the standpoint of victims as well as perpetrators. It is an important book for anyone wanting to understand – and overcome – the continuing salience of destructive forces in modern society.

Globalisation is widely understood as a set of processes driven by technological, economic and cultural change. Few have successfully defined the changing character and role of politics in global change. Political institutions such as the nation-state have been seen as undermined by globalisation, or needing to respond to it. This book clarifies the tensions which global change has provoked in our understanding of politics. Politics and Globalisation suggests that globalisation is a process which is politically contested and even politically constituted. The volume presents five key intellectual and political contests in globalisation: · the extent and political significance of globalising changes in economy and society · how and how far the relations and forms of nation-state organisation are transformed · whether the given concepts and methods of political science as a discipline can be applied to global and regional politics, and whether they require radical reformulation; · the role and significance of ethical questions in global change · whether global change is constituted by, or denies, radical political agency

From "one of the greatest storytellers we have" (Robert Bly), an invitation to allow the oldest stories--and the Greatest Story--to reshape our own. There's an old Celtic belief that if you aren't wrapped in the cloak of story you are liable to experience huge rushes of angst as you age. You are, in some grievous way, unprepared for what the world will hurl at you. You remain adolescent, stuck, unable to act or to rest. In Liturgies of the Wild, acclaimed mythographer, storyteller, and Christian thinker Martin Shaw proposes that we look to the "ancient technologies" the myths and initiatory rites for help achieving maturity and wholeness. Drawing on his experience as a guide for wilderness rites of passage, Shaw teaches you to read a myth the way it wants to be read; provides vivid retellings of tales powerful enough to carry you through life's travails; and shows you how to gather and reshape your own thrown-away stories. Most vividly, he shares how these ancient technologies led him--unexpectedly--to Christ, "the True Myth," by way of a thirty-year journey and a 101-night vigil in a Dartmoor forest. Combining scholarly erudition with earthy storytelling in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Liturgies of the Wild is an invitation to let the great myths make us more fully human.

The Israeli destruction of Gaza has returned the idea of genocide to the centre of world politics, with sharp conflicts between protesters and international lawyers who invoke it and Western governments and media that deny it. The idea has now been part of global politics and intellectual life for eighty years, but attitudes to it have waxed and waned according to political circumstances and intellectual fashion, with its meaning becoming unclear and contested. Recently, influential thinkers have argued that the term has become redundant. This book, by the foremost sociological theorist of genocide, defends the concept and argues that in the current period it is urgent to make it more coherent, restoring it to a central place in thinking about mass atrocities. Examining genocide in Gaza, in the Russian attempt to eliminate Ukraine, and the longer histories of Palestine and British complicity, together with the problem of ‘political groups’ as targets, this book brings the debate up to date and is essential reading for all concerned with the problem.

The Israeli destruction of Gaza has returned the idea of genocide to the centre of world politics, with sharp conflicts between protesters and international lawyers who invoke it and Western governments and media that deny it. The idea has now been part of global politics and intellectual life for eighty years, but attitudes to it have waxed and waned according to political circumstances and intellectual fashion, with its meaning becoming unclear and contested. Recently, influential thinkers have argued that the term has become redundant. This book, by the foremost sociological theorist of genocide, defends the concept and argues that in the current period it is urgent to make it more coherent, restoring it to a central place in thinking about mass atrocities. Examining genocide in Gaza, in the Russian attempt to eliminate Ukraine, and the longer histories of Palestine and British complicity, together with the problem of ‘political groups’ as targets, this book brings the debate up to date and is essential reading for all concerned with the problem.

Bardskull is the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned fifty. It is unlike anything he has written before. This is not a book about myth or narrative; rather, it is a sequence of incantations, a series of battles.Each of the three journeys sees Shaw walk alone into a Dartmoor forest and wait. What arrive are stories – fragments of myth that he has carried within him for decades: the deep history of Dartmoor itself; the lives of distant family members; Arthurian legend; and tales from India, Persia, Lapland, the Caucasus and Siberia. But these stories and their tellers don’t arrive as the bearers of solace or easy wisdom. As with all quests, Shaw is entering a domain of traps and tests.Bardskull can be read as a fable, as memoir, as auto-fiction or as an attempt to undomesticate myth. It is a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination.

The launch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 signalled the first modern protest movement in Britain. Martin Shaw details CND's rise, the activists involved, the tensions with the Committee of 100 around direct action, and the culture, radicalism and social groups that were mobilized to "ban the bomb". The book discusses how a new movement in the 1980s, led by European Nuclear Disarmament and the Greenham women’s peace camp, helped remove cruise missiles from Europe and end the Cold War. It examines how the campaign influenced – and was influenced by – antiwar movements from Vietnam to Iraq and Gaza, as well as the environmental and women’s movements. As the nuclear threat returns in the 2020s, this study shows that the antinuclear movement’s ideas and the non-violent direct action it pioneered still reverberate in the campaign against the UK’s "nuclear deterrent" – and in protest movements from Stop the War to Extinction Rebellion.

The launch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 signalled the first modern protest movement in Britain. Martin Shaw details CND's rise, the activists involved, the tensions with the Committee of 100 around direct action, and the culture, radicalism and social groups that were mobilized to "ban the bomb". The book discusses how a new movement in the 1980s, led by European Nuclear Disarmament and the Greenham women’s peace camp, helped remove cruise missiles from Europe and end the Cold War. It examines how the campaign influenced – and was influenced by – antiwar movements from Vietnam to Iraq and Gaza, as well as the environmental and women’s movements. As the nuclear threat returns in the 2020s, this study shows that the antinuclear movement’s ideas and the non-violent direct action it pioneered still reverberate in the campaign against the UK’s "nuclear deterrent" – and in protest movements from Stop the War to Extinction Rebellion.

‘A modern-day bard.’ Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles ‘Shaw has so much wisdom and knowledge about the old stories, it emanates from his pores.’ John Densmore, The Doors ‘Through feral tales and poetic exegesis, Martin Shaw makes you re-see the world, as a place of adventure and of initiation, as perfect home and as perfectly other. What a gift.’ David Keenan, author of Xstabeth ‘I can still remember the first time I heard Martin Shaw tell a story. The tale that emerged was like a living thing, bounding around, throwing itself at us there listening. I had never heard anything like it before.’ Paul Kingsnorth, Booker shortlisted author of The Wake Today, as we are confronted by not one, but many crossroads in our lives – identity, technology, love, seduction, politics – celebrated mythologist and wilderness guide Martin Shaw delivers Smoke Hole – three ancient myths that serve as metaphors for our world today. Assailed by the seductive promises of social media and shadowed by a pandemic that brought loneliness to an all-time high, Martin argues that we are losing our sense of direction, our sense of self. He invites us to use these stories to help find ‘a commons for the imagination, a place to breathe deeper, feel steadier and become acquainted with rapture.’ Smoke Hole is a passionate call to arms and an invitation to use these stories to face the complexities of contemporary life, from fake news to parenthood, climate crises, addictive technology and more. Available now as a podcast! Subscribe to Smoke Hole Sessions to hear amazing conversations between Martin Shaw and some of our most admired writers, actors, comedians, musicians and more, including Sir Mark Rylance and Tommy Tiernan (Derry Girls).

‘Fabulous.’ Dan Richards, author of Holloway ‘Terrifically strange and thrilling.’ Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley 'A modern-day bard.' Madeline Miller, author of Circe This is a book of literary activism – an antidote to the shallow thinking that typifies our age. In Courting the Wild Twin, acclaimed scholar, mythologist and author of Smoke Hole and Bardskull, Martin Shaw unravels two ancient European fairy tales concerning the mysterious ‘wild twin’ located deep inside all of us. By reading these tales and becoming storytellers ourselves, he challenges us to confront modern life with purpose, courage, and creativity. Martin summons the reader to the ‘ragged edge of the dark wood’ to seek out this estranged, exiled self – the part we generally shun or ignore to conform to societal norms – and invite it back into our consciousness. If there was something we were meant to do with our few, brief years on Earth, we can be sure that our wild twin is holding the key. After all, stories are our secret weapons – and they might just save us.

Bardskull is the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned fifty. It is unlike anything he has written before. This is not a book about myth or narrative; rather, it is a sequence of incantations, a series of battles.Each of the three journeys sees Shaw walk alone into a Dartmoor forest and wait. What arrive are stories – fragments of myth that he has carried within him for decades: the deep history of Dartmoor itself; the lives of distant family members; Arthurian legend; and tales from India, Persia, Lapland, the Caucasus and Siberia. But these stories and their tellers don’t arrive as the bearers of solace or easy wisdom. As with all quests, Shaw is entering a domain of traps and tests.Bardskull can be read as a fable, as memoir, as auto-fiction or as an attempt to undomesticate myth. It is a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination.

Political Racism conceptualizes a distinctive form of racism – intentional, organized hostility mobilized by political actors – and examines its role in the Brexit conflict and in the rise of a new nationalist politics in the UK. In a compelling analysis the book argues that Powellite anti-immigrant racism, reinterpreted in numerical terms, was combined with anti-East European and anti-Muslim hostility to inform the Vote Leave victory. This type of racism, which has a special significance in societies where racism has been delegitimized, is shown to have further shaped the form of EU withdrawal and also the government’s post-Brexit policies.

Political Racism conceptualizes a distinctive form of racism – intentional, organized hostility mobilized by political actors – and examines its role in the Brexit conflict and in the rise of a new nationalist politics in the UK. In a compelling analysis the book argues that Powellite anti-immigrant racism, reinterpreted in numerical terms, was combined with anti-East European and anti-Muslim hostility to inform the Vote Leave victory. This type of racism, which has a special significance in societies where racism has been delegitimized, is shown to have further shaped the form of EU withdrawal and also the government’s post-Brexit policies.

In this beautifully illustrated gift edition, you’ll discover more than 240 mythological tales from around the world, featuring gods, heroes, princesses, villains, magicians and monsters, as well as animals with extraordinary powers. Let this collection guide you through stories from every corner of the globe, from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome through the Vikings to the Slavic East, Japan and China and the Americas. Each culture is rich in folklore and magical tales, and this book offers a fascinating introduction to them all. This is a radical collection of stories, filled with voltage. Whether ninety or nine, there’s something in these tales that wants to speak directly to you. From tales of creation and the first humans to apocalyptic battles at the end of time, explore the most thrilling tales in all mythology: thunder god Thor losing his hammer, Theseus callously abandoning Ariadne after defeating the Minotaur, Hindu god Shiva destroying his rival Kama with a blast of flame, Egyptian goddess Isis forcing the sun god to reveal his name … and much more.