This fascinating collection of essays written by renowned and emerging scholars of the early modern period explores the relationship between the extraordinary and the everyday to provide a greater understanding of and new insights into the mental and material worlds of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. By juxtaposing cases that struck early modern people as irregular or strange with things that they found perfectly usual, everyday matters such as household relationships, farting, drinking and exchanging insults are shown to reveal extraordinary aspects of early modern life, while seemingly exceptional events and beliefs – such as those involving ghosts, prophecies, and cannibalism – illuminate something of the routine experience of ordinary people.

Walk into the local health food shop or pick up today's paper and the chances are that you'll see adverts for acupuncture and herbal medicine, hypnotists and homeopaths. Some doctors and scientists mourn the lost lustre of mainstream medicine and complain about a new breed of 'irrational' consumer. But what exactly is 'alternative' medicine? Roberta Bivins shows how medical expertise has migrated from one culture to another. From acupuncture in Regency England to homeopathy in the 'Wild West', Dr Bivins unearths the roots of today's distinctions between alternative, complementary, and orthodox medicine, and shows how popular interest in medical alternatives - often of exotic origin - is a phenomenon with a long and fascinating pedigree.

Henri Lefebvre predicted that the future of art was urban. Art and the City adopts this statement as its cue, taking into account the performative and relational ‘turns’ of art in more recent times. The book portrays what may be at stake in the emerging triangulation of art, the city and the rights of citizens, concentrating particularly on their mutual contingencies. It goes on to develop approaches to writing about artworks from the point of view of the spectator’s first-hand encounter with them in urban contexts. The following extract from the final chapter seeks to reveal something of the dramaturgy of Juden Platz in Vienna, the square in which Rachel Whiteread’s installation Memorial to the 65,000 Murdered Austrian Jews is sited.

Former soldier Ken Wharton witnessed the troubles in Northern Ireland first hand.

"Bloody Belfast is a fascinating oral history giving a chilling insight into the killing grounds of Belfast's streets, based on first hand accounts from the soldiers. The reader will experience the darkened, dangerous streets of the Lower Falls, the Divis Flats and New Lodge alongside the soldiers who braved the hate-filled mobs on the newer, but no less violent streets of the 'Murph, Turf Lodge and Andersonstown." Publisher's comment on Bloody Belfast (The History Press Ltd, March 2010).

"His empathy and support lie firstly with the men who tramped the streets and countryside of Northern Ireland, but also with the good folk of the six counties who never wanted their beautiful land to be the terrorists’ battleground. It is written with passion and a detailed knowledge in particular of Belfast and explores again the life – and death – of the ordinary squaddie on the streets." Publisher's comment on Bullets, Bombs and Cups of Tea (Helion & Company, May 2009).

Cancer: A Beginner’s Guide aims to explain in clear terms such aspects of cancer as what cancer is, how therapies work and why some of us are more likely to develop it than others. It finishes by discussing cutting-edge developments and maps out the promising future strategies for its prevention, treatment, and cure. Paul Scotting gained a first in Microbiology and Virology at the University of Warwick 1980-83 and he is now Associate Professor in Genetics at the University of Nottingham. In this extract, he discusses the earliest descriptions of cancer, before the advent of modern medicine.