front cover of Churchill's Britain
Churchill's Britain
From the Antrim Coast to the Isle of Wight
Peter Clark
Haus Publishing, 2020
Clark takes us on a geographical journey through Churchill's life, following his footsteps through Britain and Ireland.

More than half a century after his death, Winston Churchill, the most significant British statesman of the twentieth century, continues to intrigue us. Peter Clark’s book, however, is not merely another Churchill biography. Churchill’s Britain takes us on a geographical journey through Churchill’s life, leading us in Churchill’s footsteps through locations in Britain and Ireland that are tied to key aspects of his biography. Some are familiar–Blenheim Palace, where he was born; Chartwell, his beloved house in the country; and the Cabinet War Rooms, where he planned the campaigns of World War II. But we also are taken to his schools, his parliamentary constituencies, locations of famous speeches, the place where he started to paint, the tobacco shop where he bought his cigars, and the graves of his family and close friends. 

Clark brings us close to the statesman Churchill by visiting sites that were important to the story of his long life, from the site where his father proposed to his American mother on the Isle of Wight to his grave in a country churchyard in Oxfordshire. Designed as a gazetteer with helpful regional maps, Churchill’s Britain can be dipped into, consulted by the traveler on a Churchill tour of Britain, or read straight through—and no matter how it’s read, it will deliver fresh insights into this extraordinary man. 
 
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front cover of Isle of Fire
Isle of Fire
The Political Ecology of Landscape Burning in Madagascar
Christian A. Kull
University of Chicago Press, 2004
Long considered both best friend and worst enemy to humankind, fire is at once creative and destructive. On the endangered tropical island of Madagascar, these two faces of fire have fueled a century-long conflict between rural farmers and island leaders. Based on detailed fieldwork in Malagasy villages and a thorough archival investigation, Isle of Fire offers a detailed analysis of why Madagascar has always been aflame, why it always will be aflame, and ultimately, as Christian Kull argues, why it should remain aflame.
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front cover of Isle of Rum
Isle of Rum
Havana Club, Cultural Mediation, and the Fight for Cuban Authenticity
Christopher Chávez
Rutgers University Press, 2024
Focusing on Havana Club rum as a case study, Isle of Rum examines the ways in which western cultural producers, working in collaboration with the Cuban state, have assumed responsibility for representing Cuba to the outside world. Christopher Chávez focuses specifically on the role of advertising practitioners, musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists, who stand to benefit economically by selling an image of Cuba to consumers who desperately crave authentic experiences that exist outside of the purview of the marketplace.

Rather than laying claim to authentic Cuban culture, Chávez explores which aspects of Cuban culture are deemed most compelling, and therefore, most profitable by corporate marketers. As a joint venture between the Cuban State and Pernod Ricard, a global spirits marketer based in Paris, Havana Club embodies the larger process of economic reform, which was meant to reintegrate Cuba into global markets during Cuba’s Special Period in a Time of Peace.
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