Looks beyond intellectual history to local social and cultural history. Arguing that the academy did not exist in a scholarly vacuum, the author contends that its location in the city of Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta embedded it in social settings and networks that determined who utilised its resources and who celebrated its success.
Airbnb, gaming, escape rooms, major sporting contemporary capitalism no longer demands we merely consume things, but that we buy experiences. This book is concerned with the social, cultural and personal implications of this shift. The technologically-driven world we live in is no closer to securing the utopian ideal of a leisure society. Instead, the pursuit of leisure is often an attempt to escape our everyday existence. Exploring examples including sport, architecture, travel and social media, Steven Miles investigates how consumer culture has colonised 'experiences', revealing the ideological and psycho-social tensions at the heart of the 'experience society'. This first critical analysis of the experience economy sheds light on capitalism's ever more sophisticated infiltration of the everyday.
Torture doctors administer and invent techniques to inflict pain and suffering without leaving scars.Their knowledge of the body and its breaking points and their credible authority over death certificates and medical records make them powerful and elusive perpetrators of the crime of torture. In The Torture Doctors, Steven H. Miles fearlessly explores who these physicians are, what they do, how they escape justice, and what can be done to hold them accountable.At least one hundred countries employ torture doctors, including both dictatorships and democracies. While torture doctors mostly act with impunity--protected by governments, medical associations, and licensing boards--Miles shows that a movement has begun to hold these doctors accountable and to return them to their proper role as promoters of health and human rights. Miles's groundbreaking portrayal exposes the thinking and psychology of these doctors, and his investigation points to how the international human rights community and the medical community can come together to end these atrocities.
Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China
Focusing on the late Qing period, the book examines the migration of Cantonese people along the West River and overseas, presenting it as a significant phase of diasporic growth rather than merely a time of state decline. Steven B. Miles reframes this historical narrative, highlighting the interconnectedness of upriver and overseas movements, and shedding light on the broader implications of Cantonese migration during this transformative era.
In this concise and compelling survey of internal and external Chinese migration from the sixteenth century to the present day, Steven B. Miles traces the experiences of Chinese migrants and their families. Essential reading for those interested in the history of the Chinese diaspora and the history of migration more broadly.
Tracing journeys of Cantonese migrants along the West River and its tributaries, Steven B. Miles describes the circulation of people through one of the world's great river systems between the late sixteenth and mid- nineteenth centuries.