Featured Monthly Releases – February 2026

This February, embrace ideas that challenge perspectives and inspire meaningful dialogue. Take a look at our featured releases for this month.

The Ecstasy of Reproduction: Postmodernity and Its Contemporaneity

This book argues that we remain firmly within postmodernity, an era defined not by creation but by reproduction, where originality has faded and hyperreality appears more authentic than reality itself. The author maintains that no alternative concept adequately replaces postmodernity and suggests that its eventual end will arrive not gradually but through implosion. Through discussions of kitsch, the end of beauty and the diminishing role of the artist, the book questions the very possibility of creation in the contemporary age. Acknowledging accusations of pessimism, the author nonetheless portrays postmodernity as a dominant and troubling force, while hinting that renewal may emerge from despair.

British Entanglement with Brazilian Slavery

This book examines Britain’s continued involvement in Brazilian slavery long after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, revealing how Britons and British enterprises retained slaveholding interests until abolition in Brazil in 1888. Drawing on extensive archival research, it documents the breadth of British investment in slavery, from plantations and mines to merchant credit and banking networks connected to the illegal slave trade. The study analyses how British slaveholders justified and concealed their practices despite Britain’s official anti-slavery stance, highlighting contradictions within foreign policy. By exploring parliamentary debates and enforcement failures surrounding the 1843 anti-slave trade law, the book exposes institutional ambivalence and reflects on the lasting legacies of this entanglement.

Chernobyl Trauma and Gothic

This monograph explores how Gothic discourse articulates collective trauma in literary and testimonial responses to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It argues that the Gothic functions as a mode of haunting, giving expression to suppressed fears and the silence surrounding Soviet non-disclosure, particularly through representations of displaced survivors and the Exclusion Zone. The book analyses how trauma and Gothic aesthetics intersect across genres, from Soviet science fiction to eyewitness testimony and international mourning literature. It also considers contemporary technological representations, such as virtual reality and computer games, demonstrating how Chernobyl continues to generate uncanny and Gothic meanings in present geopolitics.

The Miss(Ed) Opportunities of Teaching with the Department of Education

This book contends that the decline in U.S. education stems from inconsistent standards, weakened teaching conditions and ineffective federal policies introduced since the establishment of the Department of Education in 1980. It argues that decentralised governance has produced uneven educational quality, disproportionately affecting disadvantaged students and widening performance gaps. The study examines systemic challenges facing teachers, including inadequate pay, limited support and high burnout, which undermine recruitment, retention and classroom effectiveness. Ultimately, the book critiques federal overreach and proposes reforms that prioritise flexibility, local context and sustainable improvements to ensure long-term educational success.

Collaboration in Space and the Search for Peace on Earth

This book explores the largely overlooked era of space collaboration from 1970 to the present, shifting attention away from the earlier space race. It identifies the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project as a pivotal moment in fostering détente and initiating cooperative missions that culminated in the International Space Station. The study highlights how concerns about safety, environmental degradation and nuclear war reshaped engineering priorities and international relations, replacing the earlier culture of risk. Drawing on extensive archival sources from the United States and Russia, the book analyses how safety became both a technical principle and a political construct in the pursuit of peaceful cooperation in space.

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