Perry Boys Abroad describes a long, crazy journey from British cities and towns to the exotic corners of the world. Smugglers, drug dealers, bricklayers, agricultural migrants and regular travellers on the Magic Bus to Athens all hit the road, during the heyday of casual culture. With Manchester's changing fashion and music scene as a backdrop to the oral memories of those included in this book, Ian Hough explains how the casual revolution pioneered many modern fashions and attitudes. Authors Colin Blaney and Cass Pennant are among those who tell their own stories of how Britain's designer football hooligans colonised foreign lands and waged war on their terrace rivals abroad. Others provide vivid tales of skulduggery, mayhem and the grafting of counterfeit designer clothes. Perry Boys Abroad illustrates how much times have changed. If you think casual culture was limited to fighting at football matches, think again. Ian Hough experienced the casual revolution at firsthand, travelling for long periods and working with other British expats in a variety of circumstances and cultures. Taking in the experiences of the post-rave Brits now living permanently in Australia, Thailand, America and Mexico, Perry Boys Abroad explores their lives, their adventures and their ultimate destiny as a dying breed.

In the late 1970s, a small body of violent young trend-setters exploded out of England's north-west to bewilder, terrify, and eventually enlighten the rest of the country. Their novel hooligan style came to be known as the "casual" movement, with its wedge haircut and obsession with expensive designer clothing and training shoes, but the story of how its original perpetrators emerged from disparate beginnings has never yet been completely detailed. Ian Hough came of age at the epicentre of the explosion, in 1979 in north Manchester, where outsiders branded these unlikely-looking pretenders "Perry Boys", due to the Fred Perry polo shirts they wore with their narrow cords, "effeminate" hairstyles and Adidas Stan Smith trainers. Hough witnessed the sudden ramping up of an age-old rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool's Scallies, as the two cities' football hooligans realised each was a carbon copy of the other, and how they all in turn were embracing a form of organised violence, thievery, and thinking that was yet to see the light of day elsewhere in the UK. As the enlightened tribes of the north-west dug in for the long war, slashing each other with craft knives and engaging in battles involving thousands, the rest of Britain began to pick up the styles for themselves. He describes, in vivid and often humorous prose, how the Perry Boys waged a style-war on their lesser-evolved peers within Manchester, kick-starting a national fashion eruption whose tremors are still being felt today. The book moves confidently through the 80s underground, as the psychedelic fragments of what came to be termed the Rave scene gravitate from the council estates and football stadia of Manchester, into the nightclubs, where the jaded Perry Boys were waiting all along. Manchester's subsequent descent into rampant mayhem, in the form of gangsters, drug dealers, and music, now bathed in the strange purple glow of hallucinogenic drugs like Ecstasy, spawned the "Madchester" scene of modern urban legend. The sense of unreality and optimism which accompanied Manchester United's domestic and European successes later became inextricably dovetailed to the scene in the city, and Hough takes the reader on an intense trip through those heady times. Rounding the book off with the story of how this unlikely new style had proved contagious across the UK, and how its perpetrators proceeded to travel the globe in search of greener pastures, Hough describes the mass exodus of young people, many of whom exported the philosophy of the Perry mindset, grafting and simply travelling for its own sake, around the globe. This book is for anyone who is interested in how things began, whether it was football hooligan culture or the Rave mentality, as the world grew smaller. It is a testament to those who lead, and a mesmerising read for those who have followed.

After having foiled their nemesis Professor P. Pangborn Perry, who tried to kill them, identical twins Edgar and Allan Poe travel to New Orleans, where they will play their famous namesake in a feature filmNand try not to get killed again. Illustrations.

By the time U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's squadron of four ships sailed into Tokyo Bay on July 8, 1853, the Japanese Tokugawa government had already fended off similarly unwelcome intrusions by the French, the Russians, the Dutch, and the British. These Western imperialists had the power and the means to force Japan into the kinds of treaties that would effectively spell the end of Japan’s autonomy, maybe even its existence as an independent country. At the same moment, Japan was also grappling with a serious insurrection, the death of an emperor, and the death of a shogun—as well as with a series of natural disasters and associated famines. The Japanese response to this incredible series of catastrophes would permanently alter the balance of geopolitical power around the world. Drawing on the best recent scholarship, this short introductory volume examines the motivations and maneuvers of the major participants in the conflict and sets the "opening" of Japan in the context of broader global history. Selections from twenty-​nine primary sources provide firsthand accounts of the event from a variety of perspectives. Several illustrations are also included, along with a note on historiographic interpretation.

"An ADST-DACOR dipolmats and diplomacy book."

More than simply a vital collection development tool, this book can help librarians help young adults grow into the kind of independent readers and thinkers who will flourish at college.

Meet Edgar and Allan Poe -- twelve-year-old identical twins, the great-great-great-great-grandnephews of Edgar Allan Poe. They look and act so much alike that they're almost one mischievous, prank-playing boy in two bodies. When their beloved black cat, Roderick Usher, is kidnapped and transported to the Midwest, Edgar and Allan convince their guardians that it's time for a road trip. Along the way, mayhem and mystery ensue, as well as deeper questions: What is the boys' telepathic connection? Is Edgar Allan Poe himself reaching out to them from the Great Beyond? And why has a mad scientist been spying on the Poe family for years? With a mix of literary humor, mystery, a little quantum physics, and fun extras like fortune cookie messages, letters in code, license plate clues -- and playful illustrations thoughout -- this series opener is a perfect choice for smart, funny tweens who love the Time Warp Trio, Roald Dahl, and Lemony Snicket.