Bøker av Neil Collins

How Welsh bands and musicians soared up the music charts in the 1990s. The 1970s and '80s were a bleak time for much of Wales: the closure of steel works and coal mines led to mass unemployment while the country's culture and language were disregarded by politicians and the music industry alike. Some bands even traveled across the Severn Bridge to make sure their records arrived at the London offices sporting an English postmark. The 1990s changed everything. While Wales was already known for Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, and Male Voices Choirs, bands such as Catatonia, Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, and Super Furry Animals exploded into the charts and showed the UK population the breadth of what this small but inherently musical nation could offer. Meanwhile, the Welsh-language television channel S4C gained new prominence and a new Welsh Assembly was on the horizon. Featuring fresh analysis and new interviews, International Velvet charts music in the UK during the decade of the Cool Cymru cultural movement, showing how it inspired the still-vibrant Welsh music scene into the twenty-first century and beyond.

AFTER the heartbreak of last year's near miss, Kopites anticipated Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool taking one step further and winning their first title since 1990. But what followed was one of the most tumultuous seasons in the club's history. Luis Suárez was embroiled in the third biting incident of his career at the World Cup, and was reluctantly sold to Barcelona. His replacement was the equally controversial Mario Balotelli. And with the season at its lowest ebb, the bombshell was dropped that arguably Liverpool's greatest ever player, Steven Gerrard would be leaving. Experience all the trials and tribulations from the perspective of an obsessive LFC fan featuring articles from The Liverpool Way, Red All Over the Land and We Are Liverpool fanzines. Packed with honesty and dark humour, Red Mist is an intense examination of what exactly went wrong at Anfield this season both on the pitch and behind the scenes.

Providing both an overview of the political situation and context in China with ethnographic insights, The Politics of Everyday China aims to give both the new student of China and those who have encountered the subject before an insight that goes beyond the usual cliche and surface description. -- .

LAST summer few football fans would've given Liverpool a realistic chance of Champions League qualification, let alone a title challenge sustained to the final day. But one man believed. The 2013/14 season marked the year when Brendan Rodgers revolutionised the club by restoring the faith and reconnecting it with its fans. Throughout the entire campaign he oversaw a breathtaking brand of football spearheaded by Suárez, Sturridge, Sterling and Steven Gerrard - or "poetry in motion" as the Anfield faithful called it. Kopites asked the squad to "make us dream", and Liverpool were finally awoken from being one of the game's sleeping giants to becoming a force again. Relive all the classic moments through the eyes of a diehard supporter on the road with Rodgers' Reds. And experience fly-on-the-wall accounts of the sights, sounds, songs and smells of match-days. Crammed with in-depth analysis, humour and facts Make Us Dream is not the closing of a chapter, but the start of a compelling new one.

Provides a comprehensive introduction to China's political system, outlining the major features of the Chinese model and highlighting its claims and challenges. -- .

Irish political life has experienced great turmoil in recent years because of the scale and intricacy of political corruption being uncovered by parliamentary and quasi-judicial inquiries. There is genuine popular amazement and growing cynicism towards the seemingly never-ending wave of scandal and attendant tribunals. To understand political corruption in Ireland, this pamphlet examines the concept within a political-science analytical framework that allows both historical and international comparison. The book challenges the current explanations of political corruption, particularly those that stress a turning away from a political "golden age" in the 1960s"Understanding Political Corruption in Irish Politics" chronicles political scandals in the 1990s, looks at their causes and explains their consequences. It also suggests reform strategies that will reduce the incentives drawing politicians towards corruption and increase the likelihood and expense of being detected.