|
Independent Publishing of Independent Views |
|
Book Catalogue |
|
Can the Prizes Still Glitter? The Future of British Universities in a changing World
Edited by Hugo de Burgh, Anna Fazackerley and Jeremy Black
“This is a timely and provocative book addressing some of the key challenges facing the HE sector in a series of papers by the leaders and innovators in the field.” Dame Nancy Rothwell FRS, Vice President and MRC Research Professor, The University of Manchester.
Contributors include: Sir Harry Kroto, David Palfreyman, Bernard Lamb, Kenneth Minogue, Boris Johnson, Bill Rammell, Terence Kealey, Alex Reed and other leading authorities in the HE field.
ISBN 095546420X RRP £15.99 |
|
Science vs Superstition The case for a new scientific enlightenment
Edited by: James Panton and Oliver Marc Hartwich
The enemies of the future are those people who have given up on the very principles on which the enlightenment is founded, preferring mysticism to rationality, ideology to evidence and superstition to science. This collection of essays challenges the common belief that in today’s world the is no such thing as progress which is not dangerous of at least questionable. If the attack on science continues it will endanger the very foundations of the social economic and cultural success of the past three centuries.
ISBN 0-9551909-8-3 RRP £9.99
Published by UBPL on behalf of The Policy Exchange
|
|
Inside the Secret Garden The progressive decay of liberal education
Tom Burkard Foreword by Dennis O’Keeffe
Despite unprecedented increases in education spending, standards are plummeting, and at least 20% of our children can’t even read. Tom Burkard shows how an intellectually misguided elite - claiming to be experts in child development and psychology - have subverted the will of the people and used our children as guinea pigs in a grand “experiment” that has gone horribly wrong.
Tom Burkard highlights the central paradox of progressive education - that despite the professed aim of creating a more democratic society it would be almost impossible to design a system better suited to perpetrating both class divisions and the gulf between the have and have-nots
ISBN 0955464218 RRP £12.99 |
|
Crescent and Delta (published Oct 2008) The Bangladesh Story
David Urch Edited by John Clarke
Proceeds of the sale go to the University of Buckingham Bangladesh Scholarship
In 2007 the media gave comprehensive coverage to India and Pakistan on the 60th anniversary of independence. Nothing was said about East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Crescent and Delta redresses this injustice.
This is the story of Bengal; now at last a state that can enjoy independence and, free of exploitation, be allowed to enjoy its beauty and natural riches. By no means free of problems, many caused by globalisation and climate change, the state of Bangladesh has a last its destiny in its own hands.
David Urch’s vivid narrative tells the history but also evokes the people and the place describing the long history of outside influence that has created modern Bangladesh. Despite centuries of external domination the Bangladeshis remain a proud and unique people and able at last to benefit themselves from their own rich and diverse country.
ISBN 0955464242 RRP £20.00
|
|
Shakin the Ketchup Bottle (published Nov 2008) The Queen’s English Society
A fascinating collection of ideas observations anecdotes and some really curious bits culled from “Quest”. The magazine of the Queen’s English Society
How can a slim chance and a fat chance mean the same? This is a book full of controversy or should that be controversy? It is about whether spelling matters said John Gilpin as he rowed his horse across the river.
This collection contains some of the bits that the editors have enjoyed most over the years since its first publication. The English are known for their sense of humour and their ability to laugh at themselves whilst retaining a pride in their traditions. Perhaps the way that the English language can laugh at itself goes to the very heart of Englishness. But there is an important sub text to all this amusement. The use of humour is the best way to illustrate and then learn the important lessons that are essential if we are to retain our ability to communicate clearly.
This book is for all those who love the language and who are amused by its lunacy, tickled by its inconsistencies but respect and want to preserve something of its majesty. It will make all readers entirely gruntled.
ISBN 978-0-9554642-7-0 RRP £15.99 Society Members £12.99
|
|
The Head Speaks (published October 2008) Challenges and Visions in Education
Edited by Julian Lovelock Foreword by Sir Eric Anderson
Seventy years ago Kegan Paul published two influential volumes: The Headmaster Speaks and The Headmistress Speaks. The Editor of each volume invited twelve of the most influential Head Teachers of the day to contribute an essay which outlined his or her vision of education. The results were often surprising. Who, for example, would have thought that the Girls Schools of the 1930’s were hotbeds of progressive educational thought?
Seventy years on, the University of Buckingham Press is repeating the exercise. The current Head Teachers of those schools represented in 1936 and 1937 to contribute to a new volume and provide their take on the challenges facing education today.
ISBN 978-0-9554642-3-2 RRP £12.99 paperback |
|
Compassionate Economics Jesse Norman We live in a world of deep public concern: at the fragmentation of British Society, at the prospect of economic recession, at the loss of social trust and social respect. But as we reach the limits of state control and top-down government, does the centre-right really have anything more to offer than areheat of the 1980s? Must we choose between Brown and Thatcher?
Compassionate Economics answers these questions. It shows how we have become obsessed with neo-classical economics, and how this obsession undermines our understanding of people and society. It rejects the false promises of happiness theory. It shows how an ancient theory of human well-being can be used to guide public policy. And it explains how we can rebuild the foundations of our prosperity—and our society.
Published with the Policy Exchange ISBN 978-1-906097-26-4 £12.99 paperback |
|
Don’t Fence Me In: Essays on the Rational Truant Edited by Dr Michael Conolly and Dennis O’Keeffe
“One of the most intriguing ideas advanced in this book is that, at least in some circumstances, truancy represents a rational choice, a better and more productive use of time than the pointless tedium of the classroom. If that is true rigid enforcement of attendance is not only oppressive but also irrational.” John Clarke
Don’t Fence Me In: Essays on the Rational Truant assumes that most truancy is the logical outcome of rational decisions made by students in the face of the circumstances that characterise their school experience. It declines to attribute and consign all acts of truancy to the dustbin of deviance and anti-social behaviour. While it does not seek to absolve young people from responsibility for their actions, it seeks to show that structural weaknesses in the state-supported school system play a significant role in the causation of truancy both from class and school.
The book consists of a series of essays written from a perspective that seeks to explain and understand truancy rationally. Some contributors report on recent research including the relation of teaching style to truancy, the incidence of truancy as a function of ethnic group and linguistic proficiency, the student as consumer, and the importance of establishing a literate order to decrease truancy rates. Other essays are more speculative and theoretical, including an assessment of political attitudes to truancy, a personal account by a recalcitrant former truant, a study of conflicting explanations of the phenomenon, an examination of the measurement of truancy and an account of ‘truant’ and its numerous synonyms.
Don’t Fence Me In is intended for those who have a critical interest in education and schooling including teachers, headteachers and principals, administrators, students of education, education departments, inspectors and superintendents and not least citizens with a commitment to good education.
ISBN 978-0955464263 15.99 Paperback
|
|
Compassionate Conservatism Jesse Norman
David Cameron has made compassionate conservatism a priority for the Conservative Party, famously saying that; there is such a thing as society; it's just not the same thing as the state. But what is compassionate conservatism? What does it have to say about the challenges that face Britain today? What vision of society does it offer to inspire and guide future policymaking? These are the subjects of this provocative and important book.
Superb ... What the Conservatives need now is not re-branding but an actual philosophical and policy basis for action. This book brilliantly provides that basis. It shows not just why the Tories are ready for government again, but why Britain needs them - badly. --Andrew Sullivan, author, blogger and Sunday Times columnist.
Published with the Policy Exchange ISBN 978-0955190933 £12.99 paperback |
|
Book Catalogue |
|
Classical Liberalism in the 21st Century; (December 2009) Essays in honour of Norman P Barry Edited by Michael James
In March 2009 a symposium was held in honour of Norman P. Barry at the University of Buckingham, where he had been Professor of Social and Political Theory since 1984. Originally planned for his retirement, the symposium became a fitting commemoration for him following his death in October 2008.
Most of the contributions to this collection are based on the papers read at the symposium, by distinguished authors from Britain, the United States and beyond. Some of them review and assess Norman Barry’s achievement as a scholar and a teacher. Several are devoted to topics to which Norman Barry made major contributions, such as business ethics and the modern relevance of Hayek’s “road to serfdom” thesis. Others deal with topics such as environmental protection and social capital, which present equal challenges to the future relevance and vitality of the classical liberal tradition.
A few years before his death, Norman Barry’s reputation as a scholar and exponent of classical liberalism in the tradition of F. A. Hayek earned him a commission to write a book about Ronald Dworkin, a leading exponent of “modern” liberalism and its foundation in an expansive conception of human rights in place of the individual liberty that classical liberals stress. Norman Barry was unable to complete the project, but he did compose an extended essay on Dworkin, which was never published in full in his lifetime. The complete version included in this collection is welcome compensation for the vigorous contribution Norman would undoubtedly have made at his own retirement symposium.
£20 Hardcover ISBN 9780956071644
|
