Policy Press

General non-fiction

We publish serious non-fiction social commentary and debate for a wide audience. These high quality books are written by academics, professionals and other experts in an accessible way bringing key issues of social, political and cultural significance to a wide readership. These books have an impact: advancing knowledge, raising awareness and encouraging social change.

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Showing 109-120 of 124 items.

What Have Charities Ever Done for Us?

The Stories Behind the Headlines

What Have Charities Ever Done for Us? uses case studies and interviews to illustrate how charities support people and communities, foster heritage and culture and pioneer responses to crucial social, ethical and environmental questions.

Policy Press

What Is Anthropology For?

Should the line be maintained between nature and cultural, the biological and the informational, the human and the planetary? Kriti Kapila argues that anthropology provides an essential set of tools for analysing our social reality and makes a case for its unique insights into our human connection, relatedness and exchange.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is Counterterrorism For?

Focusing on the costs of counterterrorism, this book takes a global view to understand what is done in the name of our safety.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is Cybersecurity For?

Cybersecurity is one of the key practical and political challenges of our time. This book explains the complexities of global information systems, the challenges of providing security to users, societies, states and the international system, and the multitude of competing players and ambitions in this arena.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is History For?

Gildea suggests that the more people who really understand what good history entails, the more likely history is to triumph over myth. He sees positive signs in public history, citizen historians and community projects, debunking claims that ‘you cannot rewrite history’, arguing that good history that’s attuned to its times must be rewritten.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is Philanthropy For?

Philanthropy, the use of private assets for public good, has been much criticized in recent years. Rhodri Davies, drawing on his deep knowledge of the past and present landscape of philanthropy, examines pressing questions that philanthropy must tackle if it is to be equal to the challenges of the 21st century.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is Veganism For?

Catherine Oliver shows why the veganism movement has become a powerful social, political and environmental force. She discusses the health and environmental benefits of veganism, explores the practical and social impacts of the shift to eating plants, and explains why veganism is not just a diet, but a way of life.

Bristol Uni Press

What Is War For?

This book examines how changes to social rules reshape how states explain their military actions, and changes to technology and society transform contemporary warfare. Analysing the role that war serves in global politics, it outlines the ways in which war affects the contemporary world, from international relations to our day-to-day lives.

Bristol Uni Press

What Kind of Democracy Is This?

Politics in a Changing World

Has there ever been a period in modern history when democratic politics seemed more unpredictable or unruly? Matthew Flinders ranges expertly across architecture, art, fell running and fairy tales in an attempt to understand the emerging democratic landscape. This refreshing and stimulating book seeks to provoke and inform in equal measure.

Policy Press

What’s Wrong with Work?

What’s wrong with work shows that how workers are treated has wide implications beyond the lives of workers themselves.

Recognising gender, race, class and global differences, the book considers the ways formal work is often dependent on informal work and concludes by considering what might make work better.

Policy Press

When This Is Over

Reflections on an Unequal Pandemic

Academics, activists and artists remember and reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic in an inclusive commemorative overview which honours the experience of a global disaster lived up close and suggests the steps needed to ensure we do better next time.

Policy Press

White Privilege

The Myth of a Post-Racial Society

Why and how do those from black and minority ethnic communities continue to be marginalised? Bhopal explores how neoliberal policy-making has increased discrimination faced by those from non-white backgrounds. This important book examines the impact of race on wider issues of inequality and difference in society.

Policy Press