EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book provides new insights into the challenges facing older people in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws upon novel qualitative longitudinal research which recorded the experiences of a diverse group of people aged 50+ in Greater Manchester over a 12-month period during the pandemic. The book analyses their lived experiences and those of organisations working to support them, shedding light on the isolating effects of social distancing. Focusing on interviews with 21 organisations, as well as 102 people from four ethnic/identity groups, the authors argue that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities in the UK, disproportionately affecting low-income neighbourhoods and minority ethnic communities. The book outlines recommendations in relation to developing a ‘community-centred approach’ in responding to future variants of COVID-19, as well as making suggestions for how to create post-pandemic neighbourhoods.

Here is the antidote to the left's sinister push to use a worldwide crisis to infuse our lives with the values of collasal statism and dystopian self-hatred, all accelerated by the duplicitous manipulation of the recent pandemic. From the nationally best-selling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change. Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better. This is the vision of the Great Reset, according to globalist leaders. While proponents of the Great Reset push slogans like “Build Back Better,” “The Fourth Industrial Revolution,” and “A New Normal,” the Reset is nothing short of a rebranded Soviet system, threatening to strip away property rights, restrict freedom of movement and association, and radically reshape our diets and way of life. In The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown, bestselling author and ClimateDepot.com publisher, Marc Morano, unveils the origins of the Great Reset, who is behind it, how it is being implemented, and how COVID-19 and the alleged “climate emergency” accelerated its imposition on the United States. Packed with telling statistics and damning quotes, The Great Reset is the essential handbook for the public, the media, and activists on how to critically analyze and expose the tyrannical policies silently strangling our liberties today.

In this century, the world will conduct an extraordinary experiment in government. In 2050, forty percent of the planet's population will live in just four places: India, China, the European Union, and the United States. These are superstates – polities that are distinguished from normal countries by expansiveness, population, diversity, and complexity. How should superstates be governed? What must their leaders do to hold these immense polities together in the face of extraordinary strains and shocks? Alasdair Roberts looks to history for answers. Superstates, he contends, wrestle with the same problems of leadership, control, and purpose that plagued empires for centuries. But they also bear heavier burdens than empires – including the obligation to improve life for ordinary people and respect human rights. One axiom of history was that empires always died. Size and complexity led to fragility, and imperial rulers improvised constantly to put off the day of reckoning. Leaders of superstates are doing the same today, pursuing radically different strategies for governing at scale that have profound implications for democracy and human rights. History shows that there are ways to govern these sprawling and diverse polities well. But this requires a different way of thinking about the art and methods of statecraft.

Homes in Crisis Capitalism explores the core social reproduction role that individual households fulfil in our societies, and the class and racial effects of this on gender inequality and discrimination. Women now make up nearly half of the paid workforce globally, yet prevailing neoliberal social policy continues to rule out adequate state provision of child- and elder-care, choosing instead to rely on marketized services to fill the gap. It is mainly women who carry out this little valued care work, either in a non-paid or paid capacity, and gender inequality is entrenched across society. Official gender parity policies, often expressed in terms of equality of opportunity, have done little to ease the double burden of domestic and care work for the vast majority of women. Competitive labour markets discriminate against those expected to be the primary caregivers of children, the sick and disabled and older people. In addition, the presence across many societies of an acute housing crisis and soaring inflation have put added pressures on home life. A social reproduction crisis has developed, and it is working class women and women of colour who are paying the price. Holborow analyses homes in crisis capitalism through a Marxist lens of capitalist social reproduction. This book charts the interwoven social and political effects and outcomes of work and care provided in the home, and makes the case for a radical break with capitalism to give social reproduction the material resources and social recognition it deserves.

The COVID-19 virus outbreak has rocked the world and it is widely accepted that there can be no return to the pre-pandemic society of 2019. However, many suggestions for the future of society and the planet are aimed at national governments, international bodies and society in general. Drawing on a decade of research by an internationally renowned expert, this book focuses on how cities and communities can lead the way in developing recovery strategies that promote social, economic and environmental justice. It offers new thinking tools for civic leaders and activists as well as practical suggestions on how we can co-create a more inclusive post COVID-19 future for us all.

Sounds of the Pandemic offers one of the first critical analyses of the changes in sonic environments, artistic practice, and listening behaviour caused by the Coronavirus outbreak. This multifaceted collection provides a detailed picture of a wide array of phenomena related to sound and music, including soundscapes, music production, music performance, and mediatisation processes in the context of COVID-19. It represents a first step to understanding how the pandemic and its by-products affected sound domains in terms of experiences and practices, representations, collective imaginaries, and socio-political manipulations. This book is essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners working in the realms of music production and performance, musicology and ethnomusicology, sound studies, and media and cultural studies.