To Shakespeare's contemporaries, Richard II was a balanced dramatisation of the central political and constitutional issue of the time, how to cope with an unjust ruler. But over the last century or so, the play came to be regarded as the poetic fall of a tragic hero. The Introduction to this edition provides a full context for both the Shakespearean and the modern views of King Richard's fall. For this updated edition the editor has added a new section to the Introduction which takes account of the number of important professional theatre productions and the large output of scholarly criticism on the play which have appeared in recent years. The Reading List has also been revised and augmented.

Charles Edelman focuses on the play's sexual politics and recent scholarship devoted to the position of Jews in Shakespeare's time in this new edition. He surveys the international scope of theatrical interpretations of The Merchant in the 1980s and 1990s as well as different ways of tackling the troubling figure of Shylock.

Much Ado has always been popular on the stage. This edition pays especial attention to the history and range of theatrical interpretation, in which the most famous actors, from the time of Garrick to the present, have appeared as the sparring lovers Benedick and Beatrice. A full commentary includes annotation of the many sexual jokes in the play that have been obscured by the complexity of Elizabethan language. For this updated edition Angela Stock has added a new section to the Introduction in which she reviews the romantic and the darker, more cynical aspects of the play in the light of late twentieth-century stage, film and critical interpretations. She also tackles the interesting question of Beatrice's proper age and the critical fortunes of Hero and Claudio in terms of the play's interest in sexuality and misogyny, eavesdropping and deception.

Scott McMillin has added a new section on key events in scholarship and theater since the 1980s (including international, political, feminist and postcolonial analysis) to this updated edition of Shakespeare's Othello. The influence of historicism and cultural materialism are also taken into account, and a complete description of performances of the play on stage, film and television considers the issue of the interracial casting of main characters.

One of Shakespeare's most popular yet controversial plays, this edition of The Taming of the Shrew considers its reception in the light of the hostility and embarrassment it often arouses, taking account of both scholarly defences and modern feminist criticism of the play. For this updated edition Ann Thompson has added new sections to the Introduction which describe the 'deeply problematic' nature of debates about the play and its reception since the 1980s. She discusses recent editions and textual, performance and critical studies.

The study of groups — 'group dynamics' — is a vibrant academic field, overlapping diverse disciplines. It is also highly relevant to language education because the success of classroom learning is very much dependent on how students relate to each other, what the classroom climate is like, what roles the teacher and the learners play and, more generally, how well students can co-operate and communicate with each other. This innovative book addresses these issues and offers practical advice on how to manage language learner groups in a way that they develop into cohesive and productive teams.

Distance learning presents language teachers and learners with a new set of challenges, opportunities and practical realities. This book presents a comprehensive overview of important issues within the field and explores the ways in which all participants are adapting their practices in response to the new learning environment.

Asserting that regional patterns of security are increasingly important in international politics, this study presents a detailed account of relations between global powers. It emphasizes their relationship with the regional security complexes which make up the contemporary international system. The book analyzes Africa, the Balkans, Eastern and Western Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, North America and South Asia, tracing the history of each region through the present.

From its mythical foundation in 753 BC to its sack in the fifth century AD, the city of Rome had an impact on the world that it would be hard to overestimate. At its height the empire which it built up stretched from northern Britain to the deserts of Arabia. In this new history an international team of historians, archaeologists and classicists presents a vision of the world's most famous imperial power based on the most up-to-date research and discoveries. Chapters and box-features present gripping accounts of Roman history and literature and deal with themes ranging from medicine to warfare. They are supported by a rich set of illustrations of sites, monuments and works of art from across the Empire. Read together, these build up a fascinating picture of a civilization permeated by its imperial role, and of the colossal costs as well as the gains of empire.

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models have begun to dominate the field of macroeconomic theory and policy-making. These models describe the evolution of macroeconomic activity as a recursive sequence of outcomes based upon the optimal decision rules of rational households, firms and policy-makers. Whilst posing a micro-founded dynamic optimisation problem for agents under uncertainty, such models have been shown to be both analytically tractable and sufficiently rich for meaningful policy analysis in a wide class of macroeconomic problems, for example, monetary and fiscal policy, economic cycles and growth and capital flows. This volume collects specially commissioned papers from leading researchers, which pull together some of the key recent results in diverse areas. This book will promote research using optimising models and inform researchers, post-graduate students and economists in policy-oriented organisations of some of the key findings and policy implications.

In the last few decades exchange rate economics has seen a number of developments, with substantial contributions to both the theory and empirics of exchange rate determination. Important developments in econometrics and the increasingly large availability of high-quality data have also been responsible for stimulating the large amount of empirical work on exchange rates in this period. Nonetheless, while our understanding of exchange rates has significantly improved, a number of challenges and open questions remain in the exchange rate debate, enhanced by events including the launch of the Euro and the large number of recent currency crises. This volume provides a selective coverage of the literature on exchange rates, focusing on developments from within the last fifteen years. Clear explanations of theories are offered, alongside an appraisal of the literature and suggestions for further research and analysis.

This book is a rigorous, yet nonmathematical analysis of key macroeconomic issues faced by emerging economies. The first part develops an analytical framework that can be used as a workhorse model to study short-run macroeconomic issues of stabilization and adjustment in such economies, comparable to the IS-LM framework widely used in intermediate-level macroeconomics textbooks for industrial countries. The rest of the book considers fiscal issues, financial sector issues, and issues concerning exchange rate regimes and policies. In the fiscal area, the focus is on the formulation of intertemporal policies, i.e. fiscal sustainability, seigniorage, and the roles of central bank independence and privatization of public enterprises in achieving fiscal credibility. The analysis of the financial sector examines its role in promoting welfare and growth. Finally, the book explores recent developments in the theory of appropriate exchange rate regimes and management, and provides an overview of recent currency crises in emerging markets.

In the last fifty years Irish poets have produced some of the most exciting poetry in contemporary literature, writing about love and sexuality, violence and history, country and city. This book provides a unique introduction to major figures such as Seamus Heaney, and also introduces the reader to significant precursors like Louis MacNeice or Patrick Kavanagh, and vital contemporaries and successors: among others, Thomas Kinsella, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill and Paul Muldoon. Readers will find discussions of Irish poetry from the traditional to the modernist, written in Irish as well as English, from both North and South. This Companion provides cultural and historical background to contemporary Irish poetry in the contexts of modern Ireland but also in the broad currents of modern world literature. It includes a chronology and guide to further reading and will prove invaluable to students and teachers alike.

The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel presents the development of the modern Spanish novel from 1600 to the present. Drawing on the combined legacies of Don Quijote and the traditions of the picaresque novel, these essays focus on the question of invention and experiment, on what constitutes the singular features of evolving fictional forms. It examines how the novel articulates the relationships between history and fiction, high and popular culture, art and ideology, and gender and society. Contributors highlight the role played by historical events and cultural contexts in the elaboration of the Spanish novel, which often takes a self-conscious stance toward literary tradition. Topics covered include the regional novel, women writers, and film and literature. This companionable survey, which includes a chronology and guide to further reading, conveys a vivid sense of the innovative techniques of the Spanish novel and of the debates surrounding it.

This unique volume offers an odyssey through the ideas of the Stoics in three particular ways: first, through the historical trajectory of the school itself and its influence; second, through the recovery of the history of Stoic thought; third, through the ongoing confrontation with Stoicism, showing how it refines philosophical traditions, challenges the imagination, and ultimately defines the kind of life one chooses to lead. A distinguished roster of specialists have written an authoritative guide to the entire philosophical tradition. The first two chapters chart the history of the school in the ancient world, and are followed by chapters on the core themes of the Stoic system: epistemology, logic, natural philosophy, theology, determinism, and metaphysics. There are two chapters on what might be thought of as the heart and soul of the Stoics system: ethics.

The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry is designed to give readers a brief but thorough introduction to the various movements, schools, and groups of American poets in the twentieth century. It will help readers to understand and analyze modern and contemporary poems. The first part of the book deals with the transition from the nineteenth-century lyric to the modernist poem, focussing on the work of major modernists such as Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and W. C. Williams. In the second half of the book, the focus is on groups such as the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, the New Critics, the Confessionals, and the Beats. In each chapter, discussions of the most important poems are placed in the larger context of literary, cultural, and social history.

This second edition of the Companion offers students up-to-date factual and interpretative material about the principal theatres, playwrights and plays of the most important period of English drama, from 1580-1642. Three wide-ranging chapters on theatres, dramaturgy and the social, cultural and political conditions of the drama are followed by chapters describing and illustrating various theatrical genres: private and occasional drama, political plays, heroic plays, burlesque, comedy, tragedy, with a final essay on the drama produced during the reign of Charles I. All the essays have been revised and their references updated. An expanded biographical and bibliographical section details the work of the dramatists discussed in the book and the best sources for further study. A chronological table provides a full listing of new plays performed from 1497-1642, with a parallel list of major political and theatrical events.

This book is part of a series of textbooks created for the new Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) mathematics syllabus. The authors have worked with CIE to assure that the content matches the syllabus and is pitched at a suitable level. Mechanics 2 corresponds to syllabus unit M2. The syllabus content is arranged in chapters to provide a viable teaching course. Each chapter starts with a list of learning objectives. Mathematical concepts, terminology and notation are explained clearly and carefully. Key results and procedures appear in boxes for easy reference. Stimulating worked examples take a step-by-step approach to problem solving. There are plenty of exercises throughout, as well as revision exercises and practice exam papers — all written by experienced examiners.

This book is part of a series of textbooks created for the new Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) mathematics syllabus. The authors have worked with CIE to assure that the content matches the syllabus and is pitched at a suitable level. Statistics 2 corresponds to syllabus unit S2. The syllabus content is arranged in chapters to provide a viable teaching course. Each chapter starts with a list of learning objectives. Mathematical concepts, terminology and notation are explained clearly and carefully. Key results and procedures appear in boxes for easy reference. Stimulating worked examples take a step-by-step approach to problem solving. There are plenty of exercises throughout, as well as revision exercises and practice exam papers — all written by experienced examiners.

Continuity and Innovation: Revising the Cambridge Proficiency in English Examination 1913-2002. This volume documents in some detail the most recent revision of the Certificate in Proficiency in English (CPE) which took place from 1991 to 2002. CPE is the oldest of the Cambridge suite of English as Foreign Language (EFL) examinations and was originally introduced in 1913. Since that time it has been regularly revised and updated to bring it into line with current thinking in language teaching, Applied Linguistics and language testing theory and practice. Authors: Cyril Weir, Nick Saville, Mick Ashton, Beth Weighill, Nick Barratt, Rod Boroughs, Angela French.