Alumni Services

October 2015

This month’s bookshelf is buckling under the weight of deep thought and analysis. From world history through the eyes of buildings, to the impact of the Great War on the people of Shetland.

1.

Author James Crawford
Degree Law LLB(H)
Book The Lives and Deaths of Twenty Lost Buildings from the Tower of Babel to the Twin Towers

Fallen Glory offers a unique, panoramic take on world history – through the eyes of the buildings that have witnessed it unfold. The narrative travels from the deserts of Iraq, the cloud forests of Peru, and the Mongolian steppes to the great cities of Jerusalem, Rome, London, Istanbul, Paris, Berlin and New York. It is a story told through people, places, ideas, artworks, literature and artefacts. And it is a story that crosses huge expanses of time, from the first ever cities, built some 7,000 years ago, to the mind-bogglingly-large virtual structures of the web.

The Lives and Deaths of Twenty Lost Buildings from the Tower of Babel to the Twin Towers

2.

Author Lea O’Harra
Degree English PhD
Book Imperfect Strangers

President Nomura, head of a small university in Kyushu, the westernmost island of Japan, is found with his throat slit in his office; Chief Inspector Inoue of the local police, learns that the victim had many enemies and few friends. Inoue uncovers a web of deceit and self-deception, with nearly everyone involved harboring his own secrets and lies. To find Nomura’s killer, Inoue realises he must take into account issues festering in modern-day Japanese society. He faces his greatest challenge, risking professional ruin and personal disgrace, in his race to solve the case.

Imperfect Strangers

3.

Author Linda Riddell
Degree Arts MA, Scottish Historical Studies MA
Book Shetland and the Great War

The Great War was a global disaster whose social and political repercussions are still being felt today. Its impact on the people of Shetland is, however, much less well known than that of World War II and this book remedies that disparity. It shows that the experience of Shetlanders was varied, having much in common with that of the people in the UK and elsewhere, but also features which were specific and unusual.

Based on extensive research of original documents and a wide range of secondary historical analysis, this book provides an impressive synthesis of wide-ranging information and new insights into Shetland a hundred years ago.

Shetland and the Great War

4.

Author Margitta Beil-Hildebrand
Degree Nursing and Heath Studies MSc, Social Science PhD
Book Change Management in der Pflege: Gestalten und Verhalten von und in Gesundheitsorganisationen

This book on the management of change in healthcare organisations covers a wide, though far from exhaustive, range of topics: the nature of change, explaining organisational change and human behaviour, organisational context and organisational technologies, organisation structures and design, organisation strategy and organisational development, corporate culture and the change of human resources. Each chapter shows how these topics are examined in mainstream analysis, but also challenges the conventional assumption that healthcare organisations function as coherent and self-reproducing systems. In the mainstream, the consideration of politics, conflict or cultural diversity is fleeting and / or is seen as a disruptive element that needs to be cauterised or contained. More critical management approaches explore the recurrence and proliferation of such disruptions and the integral nature of their relationship to day-to-day life in healthcare organisations and their significance for its continually changing forms. Only available in German language.

Change Management in der Pflege: Gestalten und Verhalten von und in Gesundheitsorganisationen

5.

Author John Llewelyn
Degree Philosophy MA
Book Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Spell of John Duns Scotus

A fresh look at Gerard Manley Hopkins and his celebration of John Duns Scotus.

The early medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus shook traditional doctrines of universality and particularity by arguing for a metaphysics of ‘formal distinction’. Hundreds of years later, why did the 19th-century poet and self-styled philosopher Gerard Manley Hopkins find this revolutionary teaching so appealing?

John Llewelyn answers this question by casting light on various neologisms introduced by Hopkins and reveals how Hopkins endorses Scotus’s claim that being and existence are grounded in doing and willing.

Drawing on modern responses to Scotus made by Heidegger, Peirce, Arendt, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, Derrida and Deleuze, Llewelyn’s own response shows why it would be a pity to suppose that the rewards of reading Scotus and Hopkins are available only to those who share their theological presuppositions.

Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Spell of John Duns Scotus

Please note

All of the further information links listed are the external websites of the book publisher, the author, or the bookseller. The University of Edinburgh is not responsible for the content and functionality of these sites.