On January 5, 1858, when British and French forces stormed Canton, the British seized a sizable quantity of archival materials belonging to the yamen of high functionaries of Kwangtung. After the documents had served their initial purpose of helping the British in the administration of Canton and in their subsequent dealings with the Chinese, they were stashed away and became mixed up with a much larger bulk of Chinese-language manuscripts in the Chinese Secretary's Office of the British Legation at Peking. For over a century, these important documents of the Opium War period remained unrecognized and were seldom exploited by scholars.

The collection as it stands today contains two thousand items of varying length ranging from a single page to multi-ts’e works, totaling nearly 10,000 folios. Although a few of the documents date back to the last quarter of the 18th century, the majority fall within the first half of the 19th. David Pong presents an extensive and carefully researched list of these documents, as well as an index, a bibliography, a concordance, and a critical introduction. With the aid of this invaluable research guide to a very important collection of archival materials, the Public Record Office has been able to reclassify its rich Chinese-language collection, and scholars will now be able to use these materials far more effectively in the future.

The political dynamics of the European Union can often appear confusing, shrouded as they are in complex legislative processes. This book offers a clear and thorough critical introduction to the origins, development and current direction of the EU, and pinpoints the major policy debates animating decision-makers.

This revised and updated edition offers a well-illustrated analysis of each of the EU¹s major policy areas, and covers arguments both for and against the EU. McGiffen explores subjects including enlargement, internal and external security, the Euro, trade, the environment, employment, transport and regional policy. He explains how and why the debate about membership is frequently and falsely presented as if it were a conflict between 'nationalism' and Œinternationalism', and argues instead that the EU is merely one of a number of possible solutions to the the economic and political problems facing Europe.

Published in association with Spectre.

Steve McGiffen is a writer, author and consultant. Until recently he worked for the United Left Group in the European Parliament and the Socialist Party of the Netherlands. He is editor of Spectre, a radical left website which can be read at www.spectrezine.org, His previous books include Biotechnology (Pluto Press, 2005).

The purpose of this book is to provide an authoritative guide to a number of important authors and genres of Middle English prose. Although, distinguished work has been undertaken on particular authors or groups of works, no previous study has attempted a comprehensive overview of this highly diversified range of material.

All of this information at our fingertips—and we might not need any of it

Concurrent with the compulsory connectivity of the digital age is the rise of the spoiler. The inevitability of information has changed the critical quality of modernity, leaving us with acute vertigo—a feeling that nothing new is left out there. Encompassing memes and trigger warnings, Vilem Flusser and Thomas Pynchon, Spoiler Alert wrangles with the state of surprise in post-historical times. Aaron Jaffe delivers a timely corrective to post-critical modes of reading that demonstrates the dangers of forfeiting critical suspicion.

Forerunners: Ideas First
Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead