Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Ian Gadd
‘This Lane is commonly called Pie Lane, but I will call it Winking Lane’. So noted the Christ Church canon, Leonard Hutten, in his perambulatory Antiquities of Oxford, written at some point in the early seventeenth century.
To celebrate the publication of the first three volumes of The History of Oxford University Press on Thursday and University Press Week, we’re sharing various materials from our Archive and brief scholarly highlights from the work’s editors and contributors. To begin, we’d like to introduce a silent film made in 1925 by the Federation of British Industry.
By Jean Adams
When we set out to quantify the volume of alcohol marketing in televised English football, I knew there would be some, but I was caught off guard by quite how much there was.
By Yair Amichai-Hamburger
I believe that the Internet has special characteristics which together create an exceptional environment for the user. To start with, many websites allow you to maintain your anonymity. You may do this by assuming a pseudonym, using your initials or just “leaving the space blank”. This characteristic frees people from many of the issues that constrict them in their day to day offline lives.
This mesmerizing video has received over 21 million views, and is spreading rapidly through social media. The baby is 10 month-old Mary Lynne Leroux, who weeps as her mother Amanda sings My Heart Can’t Tell You No, a song most recently popularized by Sara Evans.
By Matthew Flinders
Out Paxo’ing Paxman might be one thing but it is quite another to make the leap from comedian to serious political commentator.
By Andrew Pettinger
I was recently invited by Oxford University Press (OUP) to have my book, The Republic in Danger, published on the online open access library OAPEN. After a few general questions, I happily accepted. Why?
What is the future of warfare? Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen’s fieldwork in supporting aid agencies, non-government organizations, and local communities in conflict and disaster-affected regions, has taken him from the mountains of Afghanistan to the cities of Syria. His experience in the last few years has led to new ways of thinking about the face of global conflict.
In a world of 9.1 billion people… where 61% of the world’s population lives in urban centers… primarily with coastal cities as magnets of growth… and the people within these cities becoming ever more connected… with mobile phones as tools for destruction…
By Damien McCallig
Through the use of email, social media, and other online accounts, our lives and social interactions are increasingly mediated by digital service providers. As the volume of these interactions increases and displaces traditional forms of communication and commerce the question of what happens to those accounts, following the death of the user, takes on greater significance.
By Melissa Aronczyk
Since the US government shutdown last week, lawmakers and public commenters have been worrying about the massive costs to American taxpayers and the US economy. Previous government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 cost us an estimated $2.1 billion in 2013 dollars.
By Matthew Flinders
Could it be that conventional party politics has simply become too tame to stir the interests of most citizens? With increasing political disaffection, particularly amongst the young, could George Monbiot’s arguments about re-wilding nature and the countryside offer a new perspective on how to reconnect disaffected democrats? In short, do we actually need feral politics?
Reflecting on his futuristic 2002 film Minority Report, Steven Spielberg said “one of the most exciting scenes” he had to shoot was this action scene – in which two characters (John and Agatha) traverse a busy shopping mall with armed police in pursuit, relying on Agatha’s ability to see into the future in order to hide and successfully evade capture.
By Ian Hargreaves
Returning to any book script created a decade ago involves lexical shock. When the subject is journalism and the decade the one just gone, the effect is more that of lexical implosion.
By Luciana O’Flaherty
All those who have read and loved a Very Short Introduction know that they offer a short but sophisticated route into a new or slightly familiar topic. The series was launched in 1995 and has continued to offer new books each year (around 30 a year, at the last count) for students, scholars, and the avidly curious.
By Robert Eaglestone
So here’s the first thing about the books on the Booker Prize lists, both short and long: until the end of August, it was hard-to-impossible to get hold of most of them. Only one was in paperback in July (well done, Canongate). And while some were in very pricey hardback, several hadn’t even been published. This begs the question: who is the Booker Prize for?