This path-breaking addition to the Comparative Politics of Education series studies the influence of public opinion on the contemporary politics of education reform in Western Europe. The authors analyze new data from a survey of public opinion on education policy across eight countries, and they also provide detailed case studies of reform processes based on interviews with policy-makers and stakeholders. The book's core finding is that public opinion has the greatest influence in a world of 'loud' politics, when salience is high and attitudes are coherent. In contrast, when issues are salient but attitudes are conflicting, the signal of public opinion turns 'loud, but noisy' and party politics have a stronger influence on policy-making. In the case of 'quiet' politics, when issue salience is low, interest groups are dominant. This book is required reading for anyone seeking to make sense of policy-makers' selective responsiveness to public demands and concerns.
This thematic examination of Britten's operas focuses on the way that ideology is presented on stage. To watch or listen is to engage with a vivid artistic testament to the ideological world of mid-twentieth-century Britain. But it is more than that, too, because in many ways Britten's operas continue to proffer a diagnosis of certain unresolved problems in our own time. Only rarely, as in Peter Grimes, which shows the violence inherent in all forms of social and psychological identification, does Britten unmistakably call into question fundamental precepts of his contemporary ideology. This has not, however, prevented some writers from romanticizing Britten as a quiet revolutionary. This book argues, in contrast, that his operas, and some interpretations of them, have obscured a greater social and philosophical complicity that it is timely - if at the same time uncomfortable - for his early twenty-first-century audiences to address.
Bring the magical creatures and plants of the Wizarding World to colorful life with this stunning watercolor book, featuring 32 new original watercolor projects inspired by the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films.The exciting follow-up to Harry Potter: Watercolor Magic, the blank second book in the series continues the artistic fun with 32 all-new, ready-to-paint watercolor projects featuring your favorite magical creatures and plants. From a soaring Buckbeak to temperamental Mandrake, to a quiet Thestral forest scene, these pages burst with brand new opportunities for fans to create gorgeous art inspired by the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films. Each project features a fully painted sample image to get you started plus a list of supplies and colors, followed by clear, easy-to-follow instructions to help you recreate the image in minutes. The book also includes 64 pages of perforated high-quality watercolor paper with light pencil sketches of each project, making it super eas
An innovative memoir connecting ideas of grief, memory, and animals to illustrate the importance of storytelling.When his mother died, Timothy C. Baker discovered that there was almost no record of her existence, and no stories that were his to tell: the only way to bring her back was through reading. Reading My Mother Back is a genre-bending memoir that explores a life marked by trauma, illness, religion, and abuse through a focus on the books Baker and his mother shared. The book combines accounts of rereading childhood classics with true and apocryphal stories of a quiet life, marked by great sorrow and great joy. The book is about grief and memory and how our childhood reading shapes the way we see the world; it’s about loneliness and the search for belonging; it’s about how ordinary lives are transfigured by storytelling. Moving from accounts of American evangelical communities to kidney failure, from literary criticism to psychoanalysis, and from guilt to love, Baker shows how li
From New York Times bestselling author Jeff Abbott, an exciting new thriller in which undercover agent Sam Capra must capture the last American traitor.Sam Capra and his thirteen-year-old son, Daniel, are living a quiet life in Austin, Texas, where Sam continues to run his collection of bars and nightclubs around the world. He's had no recent contact with his former partner, Mila, and is working for America's most secret espionage agency, known as Section K―all while trying to be a good suburban dad. Suddenly, Sam is approached by a fellow spy with an incredible revelation: Markus Bolt is missing. Bolt is the last American traitor, who had turned over allied agent names and military secrets to the Russians. He fled to Moscow when he was discovered, but now a trusted source inside Russia tells Section K that Markus Bolt has vanished from Moscow―and the Americans need to find him before the Russians do. Sam is charged with making contact with Bolt's abandoned American daughter, Amanda, a
Alien meets A Quiet Place in this science fiction tale of terror for fans of Josh Malerman’s Bird Box and Tim Lebbon’s The Silence about a post-apocalyptic world in which monsters hunt the things that make us human – where feeling is a dangerous thing.Live. Laugh. Love. Scream.DIE.Dax and Bisa love each other. But in this new and terrifying world, love is dangerous. Feeling anything is dangerous. Love. Hate. Joy. Fear. Any of these in strong doses will bring a swift death. Earth has a new and terrible invader―monsters that smell the scent of emotion, salivate over the prey, and hunt the very feelings that make us human. A shocking tale of pent-up emotions and forced composure in the face of unspeakable horror…from one of the most celebrated writers in comics, Peter Milligan (X-Force, Enigma, Shade the Changing Man, Hellblazer) and breakout horror artist Sally Cantirino (I Walk With Monsters, The Final Girls).Collects the entire series."Human Remains might be the scariest Vault series
