Shorts
Our Shorts are between 30-50,000 words and are available as e-books and in print with a shorter production schedule.
We publish the following type of Shorts under both Bristol University Press and Policy Press:
Research: books providing the latest cutting-edge or topical research findings (longer than an article but shorter than a monograph) publishing in hardback for an international market with a lower priced eBook which allows for individual purchase;
Policy Press also publish the following Shorts:
Policy and practice: as part of our commitment to impact and engaging with a wider audience, we also publish ‘policy and practice’ Shorts where there is support with dissemination through Open Access, organisational links, course buy-in or other direct routes to the policy and practice audience.
Written by experts in their fields, these formats provide high quality, peer reviewed content quickly and are available for both personal purchase and for libraries and institutions through the usual channels.
If you are interested in writing a short trade book, please either contact the relevant editor for your subject area or our general non-fiction editor.
Download a Shorts proposal form, including detailed guidelines, here.
Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory
Classification, Ranking and the Sorting of the Past
Social media platforms hold vast amounts of data about our lives. Content from the past is increasingly being presented in the form of ‘memories’. Critically exploring this new form of memory making, this unique book asks how social media are beginning to change the way we remember.
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Religion and Marriage Law
The Need for Reform
Successive governments have made progressive, but ad hoc reforms to marriage law in Britain. This book provides the first accessible guide to how contemporary marriage law interacts with religion. It reveals the need for the consolidation, modernisation and reform of marriage law and sets out proposals for transformation.
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Crowdfunding and the Democratization of Finance
A unique collaboration between an academic and a practitioner, this book tells the story of money from ancient Athens to the Bitcoin revolution to explain how crowdfunding is the way for people to reclaim the power of their money in pursuit of a fairer and greener society.
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms
Why do top-down reforms to public services so often over-promise and under-deliver? Using five concepts from psychology, economics and organisational sociology and diverse examples of successes and failures, Thomas Elston addresses this pressing question of good governance.
- ForthcomingHardback
- Currently not availableEPUB
Making Health Public
A Manifesto for a New Social Contract
With a public health crisis gripping the UK, this book examines the organisational and political barriers to an effective public health system and determines that a new social contract is needed, in which health policy is truly public.
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Teacher Professionalism in the Global South
A Decolonial Perspective
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Digital Technologies, Smart Cities and the Environment
In the Ruins of Broken Promises
Examining the environmental impacts of digitalisation in smart cities, this book asks how we can reconcile the adoption of smart technologies into sustainable projects.
It traces the material and environmental costs of daily realities for smart cities and asks how promises are broken when cities become ‘smart.’
- ForthcomingHardback
- Currently not availableEPUB
A Leader-Centered Theory of Foreign Policy Change
US Foreign Policy towards Cuba under Obama
This innovative account challenges traditional views in International Relations by theorising the influence of individual leaders on foreign policy change. It examines how and why leaders shape policy, showcasing Obama's Cuba pivot as a prime example.
- ForthcomingHardback
- Currently not availableEPUB
Expertise in Crisis
The Ideological Contours of Public Scientific Controversies
As the crisis of expertise continues to be a global issue, this book shows that it is not a ‘scientific’ controversy, but an ideological dispute with believers on both sides. If the advocates of consensus science acknowledge the uncertainties of even the best science, it is possible to open a pathway towards communication between world views.
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Contesting County Lines
Case Studies in Drug Crime and Deviant Entrepreneurship
Combining a compulsive read with rigorous academic analysis, this book tells the real-life stories of drug dealers involved in county lines networks. This myth-busting, accessible book offers a new way of thinking about drug crime prevention, intervention and enforcement.
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
Paradoxes of PrEP for HIV Prevention
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a drug taken by HIV-negative people that reduces the risk of getting HIV. Comparing two case studies in Denmark and Zimbabwe, this book demonstrates six paradoxes that users often encounter in navigating their PrEP journey.
- ForthcomingPaperback
- ForthcomingHardback
- Currently not availableEPUB
Social Innovation and Social Policy
Theory, Policy and Practice
- AvailableHardback
- AvailableEPUB
- AvailableKindle