Paul James

Gloucester was a significant city in Roman Britain and has played an important role in the history of this country in the two millennia since then. It has also had an individual and often strange history over this period and in this book local historian author Paul James takes a look at his home city and uncovers some of its quirkier aspects. From Pinchbelly Alley to Rainbow Streets; from Ron Taylor’s Boxing Booth to W. G. Grace this book explores some of the oddities and characters that help characterise this ancient city. Readers will find stories of long-lost legal cases, ancient customs, modern myths, unusual foodstuffs, curious attractions, remarkable animals and much, much more. Drawing on archive material as well as his own, extensive, local knowledge Paul James presents a fresh look at Gloucester - from a slightly different angle – as he delves into lesser known but fascinating tales from the city’s past. Quirky Gloucester celebrates the unusual and often strange history of Gloucester and its characters over the years. This fascinating insight into Gloucester will be of interest to all those who want to know more about the city’s quirky history.

From the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, to the escalating effects of climate change, public consciousness of existential threat waxes and wanes. Despite the occasional intense capacity to imagine the global consequences of our cumulative actions, we seem to lack a collective will to act alternatively and systematically to conserve the fundamental conditions for human life. This book confronts the basic challenges of insecurity, violence, genocide, refugee displacement and technoscientific intrusions on embodiment and identity – but it also points to other worlds that are possible. It argues for an engaged cosmopolitanism, grounded in place and guided by local and global debates around principles of what constitutes good ways of living. In order to create a positive change, we must better understand the human condition in crisis, the causes of the global crisis and the possible pathways to human flourishing.

From the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, to the escalating effects of climate change, public consciousness of existential threat waxes and wanes. Despite the occasional intense capacity to imagine the global consequences of our cumulative actions, we seem to lack a collective will to act alternatively and systematically to conserve the fundamental conditions for human life. This book confronts the basic challenges of insecurity, violence, genocide, refugee displacement and technoscientific intrusions on embodiment and identity – but it also points to other worlds that are possible. It argues for an engaged cosmopolitanism, grounded in place and guided by local and global debates around principles of what constitutes good ways of living. In order to create a positive change, we must better understand the human condition in crisis, the causes of the global crisis and the possible pathways to human flourishing.

Gloucester’s history stretches back almost 2,000 years to its foundation by the Romans. This city has had royal connections throughout, from the Saxon warrior queen Aethelflaed to being the burial site of King Edward II in the cathedral but has also been associated with important names in manufacturing and industry, including the Gloster Aircraft Company and the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company, Moreland’s matches and Wall’s ice cream. The importance of Gloucester’s port in its history can also be seen today in its docks and quays. The city was besieged during the English Civil War but held out against the King’s much larger army. It also has proud military connections with the Gloucestershire Regiment. Famous names associated with Gloucester include the eighteenth-century philanthropist Robert Raikes, the banker and miser Jemmy Wood and the Victorian poet W. E. Henley, as well as legendary or folk tale figures such as King Lucius, Humpty Dumpty and Doctor Foster. Celebrating Gloucester chronicles the proud heritage of the city, its important moments and what draws so many to this dynamic place today. Illustrated throughout, this fascinating book offers a marvellous and refreshingly positive insight into Gloucester’s rich heritage, its special events and important moments. Celebrating Gloucester will be a valuable contribution to the history of the city and will provide a source of many memories to those who have known it well over the years.

This book defines the processes used for delivering a range of food items to the city of Rome and its hinterland from the first century AD using modern supply chain modelling techniques. The subject matter delves into the wider supply of goods, such as wood and building products, to add further perspective to the breadth of the system managed by the Roman administration to ensure supply and political stability. It assesses the impact of strategic changes such as the introduction of water-powered milling technology and restructuring of the annona in this period, as well as administrative reforms. Evidence from ancient sources, both literary and epigraphic, along with relevant archaeological comparative evidence is used to develop a detailed supply model, including the mapping of warehouse management systems; port and river traffic co-ordination; quality control mechanisms and administrative structures. Unlike other contemporary studies, this model takes into consideration supply chain losses to correct the erroneous assumption that supply is equal to consumption. A product flow map from the source of supply to the consumer details the labour, equipment and infrastructure required at each stage, painting a graphic picture of just what an achievement it was for the administration to have maintained such a complex system over this long time period.Food Provisions for Ancient Rome provides an in depth exploration of this topic that will be of interest to anyone working on the city of Rome under the empire, as well as those interested in imperial administration and logistics.

Founded on a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River in 1791, Knoxville was a frontier town as well as the birthplace and first capital of Tennessee. From the postcolonial years through the Civil War and on to Knoxville's emergence as an industrial, dynamic, and thoroughly American city, downtown was where everything happened--the setting of the city's most memorable stories and legends. Spanning First and Second Creeks and connecting the river to the railroad, downtown is where Knoxvillians have built their most defining churches, opera houses, movie theaters, and hotels. Here, traditions, holidays, and the endings of wars have been celebrated; suffrage leaders exhorted politicians to pass a national amendment; conservationists planned a national park; idealistic engineers and architects of a New Deal program reimagined a multistate valley; and musicians convened to record and broadcast new forms of folk music that would be called country. Downtown is where bizarre gunfights drew national attention and a notorious outlaw escaped from jail and rode the sheriff's horse to freedom across the Gay Street Bridge.

This book defines the processes used for delivering a range of food items to the city of Rome and its hinterland from the first century AD using modern supply chain modelling techniques. The subject matter delves into the wider supply of goods, such as wood and building products, to add further perspective to the breadth of the system managed by the Roman administration to ensure supply and political stability. It assesses the impact of strategic changes such as the introduction of water-powered milling technology and restructuring of the annona in this period, as well as administrative reforms. Evidence from ancient sources, both literary and epigraphic, along with relevant archaeological comparative evidence is used to develop a detailed supply model, including the mapping of warehouse management systems; port and river traffic co-ordination; quality control mechanisms and administrative structures. Unlike other contemporary studies, this model takes into consideration supply chain losses to correct the erroneous assumption that supply is equal to consumption. A product flow map from the source of supply to the consumer details the labour, equipment and infrastructure required at each stage, painting a graphic picture of just what an achievement it was for the administration to have maintained such a complex system over this long time period.Food Provisions for Ancient Rome provides an in depth exploration of this topic that will be of interest to anyone working on the city of Rome under the empire, as well as those interested in imperial administration and logistics.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, globalization - both the process and the idea - bestrode the world. Widely acclaimed by political and economic pundits as the most important phenomenon of our time, it took the world by storm. Two decades later, it has come under sustained attack by the re-invigorated forces of the extreme right and radical left. Does globalization still matter in our unsettled world? Responding in the affirmative, this study develops and applies a new framework of an 'engaged theory of globalization' to analyze some of today's most pressing global challenges: the rise of national populism, ecological degradation, rapid urbanization, new sources of insecurity, and the changing landscape of higher education. Offering a comprehensive appraisal of globalization in our unsettled times, the authors explain why and how transplanetary interrelations continue to matter in a world that is wavering between globalist expansion and nationalist retrenchment.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, globalization - both the process and the idea - bestrode the world. Widely acclaimed by political and economic pundits as the most important phenomenon of our time, it took the world by storm. Two decades later, it has come under sustained attack by the re-invigorated forces of the extreme right and radical left. Does globalization still matter in our unsettled world? Responding in the affirmative, this study develops and applies a new framework of an 'engaged theory of globalization' to analyze some of today's most pressing global challenges: the rise of national populism, ecological degradation, rapid urbanization, new sources of insecurity, and the changing landscape of higher education. Offering a comprehensive appraisal of globalization in our unsettled times, the authors explain why and how transplanetary interrelations continue to matter in a world that is wavering between globalist expansion and nationalist retrenchment.

Cities are home to the most consequential current attempts at human adaptation and they provide one possible focus for the flourishing of life on this planet. However, for this to be realized in more than an ad hoc way, a substantial rethinking of current approaches and practices needs to occur. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice responds to the crises of sustainability in the world today by going back to basics. It makes four major contributions to thinking about and acting upon cities. It provides a means of reflexivity learning about urban sustainability in the process of working practically for positive social development and projected change. It challenges the usually taken-for-granted nature of sustainability practices while providing tools for modifying those practices. It emphasizes the necessity of a holistic and integrated understanding of urban life. Finally it rewrites existing dominant understandings of the social whole such as the triple-bottom line approach that reduce environmental questions to externalities and social questions to background issues. The book is a much-needed practical and conceptual guide for rethinking urban engagement.Covering the full range of sustainability domains and bridging discourses aimed at academics and practitioners, this is an essential read for all those studying, researching and working in urban geography, sustainability assessment, urban planning, urban sociology and politics, sustainable development and environmental studies.

Cities are home to the most consequential current attempts at human adaptation and they provide one possible focus for the flourishing of life on this planet. However, for this to be realized in more than an ad hoc way, a substantial rethinking of current approaches and practices needs to occur. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice responds to the crises of sustainability in the world today by going back to basics. It makes four major contributions to thinking about and acting upon cities. It provides a means of reflexivity learning about urban sustainability in the process of working practically for positive social development and projected change. It challenges the usually taken-for-granted nature of sustainability practices while providing tools for modifying those practices. It emphasizes the necessity of a holistic and integrated understanding of urban life. Finally it rewrites existing dominant understandings of the social whole such as the triple-bottom line approach that reduce environmental questions to externalities and social questions to background issues. The book is a much-needed practical and conceptual guide for rethinking urban engagement.Covering the full range of sustainability domains and bridging discourses aimed at academics and practitioners, this is an essential read for all those studying, researching and working in urban geography, sustainability assessment, urban planning, urban sociology and politics, sustainable development and environmental studies.

Papua New Guinea is going through a crisis: A concentration on conventional approaches to development, including an unsustainable reliance on mining, forestry, and foreign aid, has contributed to the country's slow decline since independence in 1975. Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development attempts to address problems and gaps in the literature on development and develop a new qualitative conception of community sustainability informed by substantial and innovative research in Papua New Guinea. In this context, sustainability is conceived in terms that include not just practices tied to economic development. It also informs questions of wellbeing and social integration, community-building, social support, and infrastructure renewal. In short, the concern with sustainability here entails undertaking an analysis of how communities are sustained through time, how they cohere and change, rather than being constrained within discourses and models of development. From another angle, this project presents an account of community sustainability detached from instrumental concerns with economic development. Contributors address questions such as: What are the stories and histories through which people respond to their nation's development? What is the everyday social environment of groups living in highly diverse areas (migrant settlements, urban villages, remote communities)? They seek to contribute to a creative and dynamic grass-roots response to the demands of everyday life and local-global pressures. While the overdeveloped world faces an intersecting crisis created by global climate change and financial instability, Papua New Guinea, with all its difficulties, still has the basis for responding to this manifold predicament. Its secret lies in what has been seen as its weakness: underdeveloped economies and communities, where people still maintain sustainable relations to each other and the natural world.

Papua New Guinea is going through a crisis: A concentration on conventional approaches to development, including an unsustainable reliance on mining, forestry, and foreign aid, has contributed to the country's slow decline since independence in 1975. Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development attempts to address problems and gaps in the literature on development and develop a new qualitative conception of community sustainability informed by substantial and innovative research in Papua New Guinea. In this context, sustainability is conceived in terms that include not just practices tied to economic development. It also informs questions of wellbeing and social integration, community-building, social support, and infrastructure renewal. In short, the concern with sustainability here entails undertaking an analysis of how communities are sustained through time, how they cohere and change, rather than being constrained within discourses and models of development. From another angle, this project presents an account of community sustainability detached from instrumental concerns with economic development. Contributors address questions such as: What are the stories and histories through which people respond to their nation's development? What is the everyday social environment of groups living in highly diverse areas (migrant settlements, urban villages, remote communities)? They seek to contribute to a creative and dynamic grass-roots response to the demands of everyday life and local-global pressures. While the overdeveloped world faces an intersecting crisis created by global climate change and financial instability, Papua New Guinea, with all its difficulties, still has the basis for responding to this manifold predicament. Its secret lies in what has been seen as its weakness: underdeveloped economies and communities, where people still maintain sustainable relations to each other and the natural world.