The British Overseas

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Pamela McCorduck

"Pamela McCorduck first went among the artificial intelligentsia when the field was fresh and new, and asked the scientists engaged in it what they were doing and why. She saw artificial intelligence as the scientific apotheosis of one of the most enduring, glorious, often amusing, and sometimes alarming, traditions of human culture: the endless fascination with artifacts that think. Machines Who Think was translated into many languages, became an international cult classic, and stayed in print for nearly twenty years." "Now, Machines, Who Think is back, along with an extended Afterword that brings the field up to date in the last quarter century, including its scientific and its public faces. McCorduck shows how, from a slightly dubious fringe science, artificial intelligence has moved slowly (though not always steadily) to a central place in our everyday lives, and how it will be even more crucial as the World Wide Web moves into its next generation."--Jacket.

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Katie Pickles

"Through a detailed study of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, or the IODE, the British Empire's largest women's patriotic organisation, this book examines the relationship between female imperialism and national identity. It throws new light on women's involvement in imperialism; on the history of 'conservative' women's organisations; on women's interventions in debates concerning citizenship and national identity; and on the history of women in white settler societies." "This important study of a fascinating organisation will be of interest to historians of Imperial History, Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies."--Jacket.

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Paul Thompson

The author offers advice on designing an oral history project and discusses the reliability of oral evidence. This third edition considers the use of new technologies, including video, in the recording of historical information.

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Donald R. Wehrs

"In his study of the origins of political reflection in twentieth-century African fiction, Donald Wehrs examines a neglected but import ant body of African texts written in colonial (English and French) and indigenous (Hausa and Yoruba) languages. He explores pioneering narrative representations of pre-colonial African history and society in seven texts: Casely Hayford's Ethiopia Unbound (1911), Alhaji Sir Abubaker Tafawa Balewa's Shaihu Umar (1934), Paul Hazoume's Doguicimi (1938), D.O. Fagunwa's Forest of a Thousand Daemons (1938), Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958). Wehrs highlights the role of pre-colonial political economies and articulations of state power on colonial-era considerations of ethical and political issues, and is attentive to the gendered implications of texts and authorial choices. By positioning Things Fall Apart as the culmination of a tradition, rather than as its inaugural work, he also reconfigures how we think of African Fiction. His book supplements recent work on the importance of indigenous contexts and discourses in situating colonial-era narratives and will inspire fresh methodological strategies for studying the continent from a multiplicity of perspectives."--Jacket.