Textbooks

 

Explore our diverse range of digital textbooks designed for course adoption and recommended reading at universities and colleges. We publish over 140 textbooks across the social sciences, and an annual subscription to digital textbooks is possible via BUP Digital.

Our content is fully searchable and can be accessed on and off-campus through Shibboleth, OpenAthens or an institutional authenticated IP. For any questions on digital textbook pricing and subscription information, please contact simon.bell@bristol.ac.uk.

We are happy to provide digital samples of any of our coursebooks by completing this form. To see the full collection of all our core textbooks, browse our main website.
 

Books: Textbooks

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Gender is widely recognized as an important and useful lens for the study of International Relations. However, there are few books that specifically investigate masculinity/ies in relation to world politics.

Taking a feminist-inspired understanding of gender as its starting point, the book:

  • explains that gender is both an asymmetrical binary and a hierarchy;

  • shows how masculinization works via ‘nested hierarchies’ of domination and subordination;

  • explores the imbrication of masculinities with the nation-state and great-power politics;

  • develops an understanding of the arms trade with commercial processes of militarization.

Written in an accessible style, with suggestions for further reading, this book is an invaluable resource for students and teachers applying ‘the gender lens’ to global politics.

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A Practical Guide

Nearly 20% of the population has a disability. Despite this, mainstream research often does not explicitly address the methodological and practical issues that can act as barriers to disabled people’s participation in social research. In this book, Aidley and Fearon provide a concise, practical introduction to making it easier for everyone to take part in research.

Requiring no prior knowledge about accessible research methods, the book:

• explains how removing barriers to participation will improve the quality of the research;

• covers the research process from design, to collecting data, to dissemination and publication;

• includes checklists and further reading, as well as useful examples and vignettes to illustrate how issues play out in practice.

This book will be invaluable to researchers from a variety of backgrounds looking to increase participation in their research, whether postgraduate students, experienced academic researchers, practitioners or professionals.

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Making connections

Drawing on a range of theorists and competing perspectives, this substantially updated and expanded second edition places social theory at the heart of social work pedagogy.

This book imaginatively explores ways in which practitioners and social work educators might develop more critical and radical ways of theorising and working. It is an invaluable resource for students and contains features, such as Reflection and Talk Boxes, to encourage classroom and workplace discussions.

This new edition includes:

· An extensive additional chapter on Foucault

· Reworked and expanded versions of the chapters featured in the highly-praised first edition

· Revised Reflection and Talk Boxes

· New and updated references to stimulate further reading and research

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Theory and application
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Interest in the contribution narrative can make across many disciplines has been booming in recent years, but its impact in social work has been limited. It has mainly been used in therapeutic intervention such as narrative therapy, social work education or personal accounts. This is the first book to extend the narrative lens to explore the contribution of narrative to social work values and ethics, social policy and our understanding of the self in social, cultural and political context. The book firstly sets out theoretical concerns and then applies them to specific areas of social work, including child protection, mental health and disability. The author argues that narrative is a richly textured approach to social work that can enhance both theory and practice. As such the book will be of interest to social work students, practitioners and educators, policy makers and those interested in the application of narrative to professional practice.

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Understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann

This exciting and innovative book fills a gap in the growing area of discourse analysis within the social sciences. It provides the analytical tools with which students and their teachers can understand the complex and often conflicting discourses across a range of social science disciplines.

Examining the theories of Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau and Luhmann, the book:

  • focuses on the political and social aspects of their writing;

  • discusses and combines their theories to suggest new analytical strategies for understanding society;

  • combines theory with practical illustrations.

A best seller in Denmark, this English edition is vital reading for anyone with an interest in discourse analysis. It will also be invaluable to anyone looking at the analytical works of Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau and Luhmann. Students will find the clear exposition of the theories and strategies supported by an easy-to-digest, easy-to-read layout, which includes summaries and boxed examples highlighting the relevance of analytical strategies to social and policy research.

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