Sean O'Connell

Credit and Community examines the history of consumer credit and debt in working class communities. Concentrating on forms of credit that were traditionally very dependent on personal relationships and social networks, such as mail-order catalogues and co-operatives, it demonstrates how community-based arrangements declined as more impersonal forms of borrowing emerged during the twentieth century. Tallymen and check traders moved into doorstep moneylending during the 1960s, but in subsequent decades the loss of their best working class customers, owing to increased spending power and the emergence of a broader range of credit alternatives, forced them to focus on the 'financially excluded'. This 'sub-prime' market was open for exploitation by unlicensed lenders, and Sean O'Connell offers the first detailed historical investigation of illegal moneylending in the UK, encompassing the 'she usurers' of Edwardian Liverpool and the violent loan sharks of Blair's Britain. O'Connell contrasts such commercial forms of credit with formal and informal co-operative alternatives, such as 'diddlum clubs', 'partners', and mutuality clubs. He provides the first history of the UK credit unions, revealing the importance of Irish and Caribbean immigrant volunteers, and explains the relative failure of the movement compared with Ireland. Drawing on a wide range of neglected sources, including the archives of consumer credit companies, the records of the co-operative and credit union movements, and government papers, Credit and Community makes a strong contribution to historical understandings of credit and debt. Oral history testimony from both sides of the credit divide is used to telling effect, offering key insights into the complex nature of the relationship between borrowers and lenders.

Etsitkö jännitystä, uusia näkökulmia tai rentouttavaa lukuelämystä? Tutustu kirjakategorioihimme ja löydä seuraava suosikkikirjasi.

UNBREAKABLE: THE ENDURING LEGACY OF BRUCE WILLIS ON FILM

Inquiry Learning is an innovative, hands-on, and collaborative approach to student learning. The Inquiry Learning Model shifts the heavy cognitive lifting from the teacher to the student. Documents and artifacts are used to provoke deep analysis and hone critical-thinking skills as students work in teams to interpret and connect clues to solve a mystery. A detailed step-by-step methodology is provided as well as six multidisciplinary lessons. Lessons are suitable for collaborative teaching or stand alone in discipline specific classes. For example, Exploitation and Immortality: The Story of Henrietta Lacks, is a lesson that can be used in the science, social studies, English or math classroom, or a combination of any of these disciplines. In addition to the methodology and lessons, Teaching with Inquiry includes differentiation strategies to adapt lessons to all learners, suggestions for lesson use in multiple disciplines, and a variety of graphic organizers to help students organize, process, and summarize the information throughout the lesson.

Inquiry Learning is an innovative, hands-on, and collaborative approach to student learning. The Inquiry Learning Model shifts the heavy cognitive lifting from the teacher to the student. Documents and artifacts are used to provoke deep analysis and hone critical-thinking skills as students work in teams to interpret and connect clues to solve a mystery. A detailed step-by-step methodology is provided as well as six multidisciplinary lessons. Lessons are suitable for collaborative teaching or stand alone in discipline specific classes. For example, Exploitation and Immortality: The Story of Henrietta Lacks, is a lesson that can be used in the science, social studies, English or math classroom, or a combination of any of these disciplines. In addition to the methodology and lessons, Teaching with Inquiry includes differentiation strategies to adapt lessons to all learners, suggestions for lesson use in multiple disciplines, and a variety of graphic organizers to help students organize, process, and summarize the information throughout the lesson.

This is the Golden Age of comic-book blockbusters. Since his introduction in August 1962, Spider-Man's pop culture reach has extended from comic books and clothing to video games, toys, and television shows. His strongest impact, however, is in the feature-film realm, where eight different Spider-Man movies collectively boast more than $7.2 billion in worldwide tickets sold. If Hollywood had a superhero throne, Spider-Man would be sitting on it. Of the five highest-grossing film franchises in Hollywood history, Spider-Man now plays a pivotal role in three: the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the four-film Avengers franchise; and the Spider-Man series. This ranks the character ahead of James Bond, the Transformers, every on-screen Batman, and Peter Jackson's complete Tolkien series in Hollywood's box-office hierarchy. Marvel's wall-crawler has come a long way since his earliest days, but his cinematic journey has yet to be documented. Unusual, since Spider-Man's Hollywood history is littered with A-list names (such as James Cameron and Leonardo DiCaprio), behind-the-scenes squabbles, franchise reboots, and Tom Holland preventing Disney from booting Spidey out of the MCU. The prized creation of Marvel guru Stan Lee has helped create and cultivate the current Golden Age of comic-book blockbusters, and lessons learned on the Spider-Man franchises are applied to all comic-book movies today. Veteran film reporter and author Sean O'Connell uses his exclusive access to directors, actors, producers, and screenwriters to get the inside angles on Spider-Man's climb to the top of the superhero heap in With Great Power.

We're currently in the Golden Age of superhero blockbusters. Movies like Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Joker, and Avengers: Endgame routinely break box office records and compete for Oscars. Yet, Zack Snyder's 2017 behemoth Justice League--a veritable sure bet at the Hollywood casino--tanked miserably, and the behind-the-scenes reasons for the movie's demise are fascinating. The true story behind Justice League's failure is only half of the juicy narrative, though. Snyder--who left the project months before filming concluded--still fans the flames that surround the rumor of a "Snyder Cut" of the film. This allegedly is the version of the story he wanted to tell before the studio, Warner Bros., pulled him off of the project. Hence, the "Snyder Cut." Pop-culture fans love a meaty mystery, and the controversy swirling around the lost Snyder Cut of Justice League has been captivating comic-book movie fans for years. Additionally, an army of passionate DC and Snyder fans are committed to getting the "Cut" released. They already have gone to incredible lengths to fight for the movie's opening, and have found strength, support, and charitable goals in their global "family" of Snyder Cut supporters. Their stories are remarkable, and the book is just as much about the dedicated fans who make up the Snyder Cut movement as it is about the unreleased film. Their efforts finally paid off with the recent announcement that Snyder's cut will be released in 2021 by Warner Bros. and HBO Max. Release the Snyder Cut tells the entire story.

As early as the 1930s, Britain had a highly innovative and profitable mortgage sector that promoted a major extension in home ownership. These controversial and risky offerings had an equivalent in numerous hire purchase agreements, with which new homes were furnished. Such developments were forerunners of the 'easy credit' regime more commonly associated with the 1980s. Taking a long-term perspective on this issue indicates that Britain's departure from European models of consumer credit markets was not simply a by-product of neoliberalism's influence on the Thatcher administration, and this book offers a much fuller explanation to the phenomenon. It explores debates within and between the major political parties; reveals the infighting amongst civil service departments over management of consumer demand; charts the varying degrees of influence wielded by the Bank of England and finance capital, as opposed to that of consumer durable manufacturers; reviews the perspectives of consumers and their representatives; and explains the role of contingency and path dependency in these historical events. The central focus of this book is on consumer credit, but this subject provides a case study through which to explore numerous other important areas of British history. These include debates on the issues of post-war consensus, the impact of rising home ownership and its impact on consumer credit and personal finance markets, the management of consumer society, political responses to affluence, the development of consumer protection policy, and the influence of neoliberalism.

Since its inception in the late 19th century, Britain's mail order industry both exploited and generated social networks in building its businesses. The common foundation of the sector was the agency system; Sales were made through catalogues held by agents, ordinary people in families, neighbourhoods, pubs, clubs and workplaces. Through this agency system mail order firms in Britain were able to tap social networks both to build a customer base, but also to obtain vital information on creditworthiness. In this, the first comprehensive history of the British mail order industry, the authors combine business and social history to fully explain the features and workings of this industry. They show how British general mail order industry firms such as Kay and Co., Empire Stores, Littlewoods, and Grattan grew from a range of businesses as diverse as watch sales or football pools. A range of business innovations and strategies were developed throughout the twentieth century, including technological development and labour process rationalisation. Indeed, the sector was in the vanguard of many aspects of change from supply chain logistics to computerization. The social and gender profile of the home shopper also changed markedly as the industry developed. These changes are charted, from the male-dominated origins of the industry to the growing influence of women both within the firm and, more importantly, as the centre of the mail order market. The book also draws parallels and contrasts with the much more widely studied mail order industry of the United States. The final section of the book examines the rise of internet shopping and the new challenges and opportunities it provided for the mail order industry. Here the story is one of continuity and fracture as the established mail order companies struggle to adjust to a business environment which they had partly created, but which also rested on a new range of core competencies and technological and demographic change.