In August 2023, our digital platform manchesterhive celebrated its fifth anniversary and we are proud that manchesterhive is now the home of all MUP’s open access content. Simply click on the OPEN ACCESS tab on the hive homepage to browse, or go straight to the most-read titles via our selection below, as we spotlight our top 5 most widely read open access texts.
5. Incest in Sweden, 1680–1940: A history of forbidden relations
Bonnie Clementsson
In early modern Sweden, if a man and his deceased wife’s sister were found guilty of engaging in sexual intercourse they would be sentenced to death by beheading. Today the same relationship is not even illegal. Covering the period 1680–1940, this book analyses both incest crimes and applications for dispensation to marry, revealing the norms underpinning Swedish society’s shifting attitudes to incestuous relations and comparing them with developments in other European countries. It demonstrates that, even though the debate on incest has been dominated by religious, moral and – in due course – medical notions, the values that actually determined the outcome of incest cases were frequently of quite a different character.
4. Male witches in early modern Europe
Lara Apps and Andrew Gow
This is the first ever full book on the subject of male witches addressing incidents of witch-hunting in both Britain and Europe and uses feminist categories of gender analysis to critique the feminist agenda that mars many studies. It advances historians’ assumptions about witch-hunting, challenging the marginalisation of male witches by feminist and other historians and shows that large numbers of men were accused of witchcraft in their own right, in some regions, more men were accused than women. It uses feminist categories of gender analysis to challenge recent arguments and current orthodoxies providing a more balanced and complex view of witch-hunting and ideas about witches in their gendered forms than has hitherto been available.
Richard Bellamy and Andrew Mason
Offering a sophisticated analysis of central political concepts in the light of recent debates in political theory, this title introduces readers to some of the main interpretations of key political concepts highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. It tackles the principle concepts employed to justify any policy or institution and examines the main domestic purposes and functions of the state and examines the relationship between state and civil society and finally looks beyond the state to issues of global concern and inter-state relations. Finally, it studies the relationship between state and civil society and looks beyond the State to issues of global concern and inter-state relations.
2. Witchcraft continued: Popular magic in modern Europe
Willem de Blécourt and Owen Davies
The study of witchcraft accusations in Europe during the period after the end of the witch trials is still in its infancy. Witches were scratched in England, swum in Germany, beaten in the Netherlands and shot in France. The continued widespread belief in witchcraft and magic in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France has received considerable academic attention. This book discusses the extent and nature of witchcraft accusations in that period and provides a general survey of the published work on the subject for an English audience. It explores the presence of magical elements in everyday life during the modern period in Spain. The book provides a general overview of vernacular magical beliefs and practices in Italy from the time of unification to the present, with particular attention to how these traditions have been studied. By functioning as mechanisms of social ethos and control, narratives of magical harm were assured a place at the very heart of rural Finnish social dynamics into the twentieth century. This work draws on over 300 narratives recorded in rural Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that provide information concerning the social relations, tensions and strategies that framed sorcery and the counter-magic employed against it. It is concerned with a special form of witchcraft that is practised only amongst Hungarians living in Transylvania.
1. Understanding political ideas and movements: A guide for A2 politics students
Kevin Harrison and Tony Boyd
Written specifically to cover the A2 component of the GCE Government and Politics A-level, this title provides a comprehensive introduction to the various political ideas and movements that have shaped the modern world. Underpinned by the work of major thinkers such as Marx, Locke, Weber, Hobbes and Foucault, the book examines political concepts including the State and sovereignty, the nation and democracy, representation and legitimacy, freedom, equality and rights, obligation and citizenship. It addresses traditional theoretical subjects such as socialism, marxism and nationalism as well as contemporary movements such as environmentalism, ecologism and feminism. Written in a clear, accessible style, including a number of student-friendly features like chapter summaries, key points to consider, definitions and pointers to further sources of information.
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