John Benson

"A Nation of Shopkeepers" reflects research on retail history and cultures of consumption. The contributors challenge existing ideas about retail development, showing how, for example, large-scale retailers played a far lesser role in the development of the modern city that is generally thought, and how the success of department stores was determined less by "entrepreneurial" spirit and more by the unforseen consequences of legislation. With the growing interest in cultures of consumption, this book should be useful to specialists and students in retail history, human geography and social and cultural history.

Presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy, John Benson introduces the fundamentals of environmental ethics by asking whether a concern with human well-being is an adequate basis for environmental ethics. He encourages the reader to explore this question, considering techniques used to value the environment and critically examining 'light green' to 'deep green' environmentalism. Each chapter is linked to a reading from a key thinker such as J. S. Mill and E. O. Wilson. Key features include activities and exercises, enabling readers to monitor their progress throughout the book, chapter summaries and guides to further reading.

Presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy, John Benson introduces the fundamentals of environmental ethics by asking whether a concern with human well-being is an adequate basis for environmental ethics. He encourages the reader to explore this question, considering techniques used to value the environment and critically examining 'light green' to 'deep green' environmentalism. Each chapter is linked to a reading from a key thinker such as J. S. Mill and E. O. Wilson. Key features include activities and exercises, enabling readers to monitor their progress throughout the book, chapter summaries and guides to further reading.

Numerous studies consider the history of childhood, adolescence and old age, yet the middle aged, consistently the most productive and powerful of age groups have been consistently ignored. In this pioneering study John Benson considers how perceptions and experience of middle age have changed, and how its power-base has diminished, affected by the steady ageing of the population the increasing independence of the yound and growing economic insecurity. This thought-provoking study also illuminates the whole economic, social and cultural history of twentieth-century Britain.