Brit Think Ameri Think

Perfect for tourists, business travelers, Anglophiles, and Yankophiles, this book is an irreverent and indispensable guide to understanding the great cultural ocean that divides Britain and America.

They've been our closest ally for more than a century. They've brought us Shakespeare, the Beatles, Monty Python, Winston Churchill, and the Jaguar E-Type. But what do we really think of our former colonial masters? Are they a proper, literate people with quirky humor and stout beer, or a snobbish breed of has-beens with a faded empire, bad teeth, and the Spice Girls? And what, for that matter, do the British truly think of Americans? Do they see us as the benevolent, can-do, masters of destiny we imagine ourselves to be? Or are we, in their eyes, arrogant and materialistic war mongers out to rule the world? These are the questions that acclaimed illustrator Paul Davis set out to answer as he traveled across the United States and the UK armed with pencil, notebook, and his razor-sharp powers of observation. Us and Them, an endlessly humorous book with two fronts, is the result. On one side, you'll find his devilish caricatures of Britons, each responding to the question posed in the title. Flip it over and you'll find Americans giving their takes on the Brits. A master satirist with a firm grasp on the inanity of the human condition, Davis will have you laughing out loud and returning time and again to sample the intelligence and humor of his observations.

This book is a cultural-historical (rather than purely linguistic) introduction to American English. The first part consists of a general account of variation in American English. It offers concise but comprehensive coverage of such topics as the history of American English; regional, social and ethnic variation; variation in style (including slang); and British and American differences. The second part of the book puts forward an account of how American English has developed into a dominant variety of the English language. It focuses on the ways in which intellectual traditions such as puritanism and republicanism, in shaping the American world view, have also contributed to the distinctiveness of American English.

This book examines the intellectual and institutional transformations of four British think tanks in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. In the context of a crisis of expert authority, González Hernando demonstrates how these organisations modified their mode of public engagement to be seen as authoritative as possible by an ever more mistrustful public. British Think Tanks After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis connects sociological thinking on knowledge with research on policy change and the economic debate, through careful analysis of interviews, public accounts, and the ‘products’ of think tanks themselves. González Hernando argues that demands for knowledge and advice that arose after the crisis energised the work of all four think tanks while also exposing internal tensions, affecting their sources of funding, transforming their institutional structure, and shaping how they engage with their audiences. It will appeal to students and scholars of sociology of knowledge, political sociology, policy studies, economic history, communication, political economy, organisational sociology, and British politics