The Last Years of Austria-Hungary. A Multi-National Experiment Century Europe edited by Mark Cornwall: ISBN 0 85989 563 7
Mark Cornwall, recently promoted to a readership in the department of history, has edited this stimulating series of essays on the final decades of the Habsburg Empire. Each of the eight chapters aims, from different angles, to tackle the political, social and international challenges to Austria-Hungary and the reasons for its sudden demise at the end of the first world war. Through its dissolution, a vacuum was created in east-central Europe, which the forces of Nazism and Stalinism could invade, traumatising the region for the rest of the century.
In post-Cold War Europe, the emergence of central Europe and the Balkans as a major area of international interest has given the Habsburg Empire's collapse much contemporary resonance. It can be viewed as an early experiment in multi-national politics: how different ethnic and social groupings tried to cohabit on the same territory is very much what this book is about.
The book has been substantially updated and expanded from its first edition to include extra chapters, documents and maps. It successfully fills a gap in the market between expensive textbooks and specialist articles and monographs. As such it will appeal to students of European history, but also to the general reader interested in the Habsburg 'myth', the impact of the Great War and the potential for European unity. Copies are available in the University bookshop.
Modern Dundee: Life in the City Since World War Two by Andrew Murray Scott, Breedon Books: ISBN 1 85983 331 4
University alumnus and author Andrew Murray Scott's latest book features the dramatic and news-worthy events of the past six decades in Dundee, from bomb damage and life on the home front to the fall and rise of industries such as jute and shipbuilding, the popularity of dance halls, the spread of housing schemes and private housing to the trials and tribulations of local politics.
Notorious crimes; the Mone murders, the Templeton Woods cases, the Gows gunshop murder, the Roseangle double-murder are recalled as well as the hesitant advent of bingo in 1960, the sporting prowess of the city's football and ice hockey teams and athletes such as Liz McColgan, Dick McTaggart and George Kidd - and the visits of entertainers such as the Beatles, Sinatra, Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard and Gracie Fields.
This first-ever post-war history of the city includes an index and statistical tables, as well as over 190 photographs.
General Surgical Anatomy and Examination by Alastair Thompson
Alastair Thompson's textbook General Surgical Anatomy and Examination has just won the Richard Asher prize 2002 for the best student text written in collaboration from the Society of Authors and the Royal Society of Medicine. It also won the British Medical Association prize for the best surgical textbook. Alastair is reader in the department of surgery and molecular oncology.
