Policy Press

General non-fiction

We publish serious non-fiction social commentary and debate for a wide audience. These high quality books are written by academics, professionals and other experts in an accessible way bringing key issues of social, political and cultural significance to a wide readership. These books have an impact: advancing knowledge, raising awareness and encouraging social change.

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Showing 85-96 of 124 items.

The Forgotten City

Rethinking Digital Living for Our People and the Planet

Phil Allmendinger takes a critical approach to the role of ‘smart’ in future cities and the relationship with city development. Considering how technology can support active citizenship, he challenges the commercial drivers of big tech and warns that these, not developments for ‘social good’, may dominate.

Policy Press

Justice in a Time of Austerity

Stories From a System in Crisis

Dan Newman and Jon Robins combine investigative journalism and academic scholarship to examine how the lives of people suffering problems with benefits, debt, family, housing and immigration are made harder by cuts to the civil justice system.

Bristol Uni Press

This Separated Isle

Invisible Britain

Edited by Paul Sng

This Separated Isle explores how concepts of ‘Britishness’ reveal an inclusive range of understandings about our national character. Featuring a diverse range of photographic portraits and narrative stories from across the UK, this landmark book examines the relationship between identity and nationhood, revealing the ties that bind us together.

Policy Press

The Education Debate

This extensively updated fourth edition by the key author in the field will maintain its place as the most important text on education policy and makes essential reading for all students and anyone interested in education policy more generally.

Policy Press

Woke Capitalism

How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy

This book delves into the corporate takeover of public morality, or ‘woke capitalism’. Discussing the political causes that it has adopted, and the social causes that it has not, it argues that this extension of capitalism has negative implications for democracy’s future.

Bristol Uni Press

Urgent Business

Five Myths Business Needs to Overcome to Save Itself and the Planet

Combining academic insight and inspiring real-world examples this book offers a new business model which argues that all companies should become responsible businesses, transforming the sustainability agenda into a more holistic and systemic approach.

Bristol Uni Press

The Cruel Optimism of Racial Justice

Looking at examples across anti-racist movements and developments in nationhood/nationalism, institutional racism, migration, white supremacy and the disparities of COVID-19, Nasar Meer argues for the need to move on from perpetual crisis in racial justice to a turning point that might change deep-seated systems of racism.

Policy Press

The Rules of Democracy

Democracy is the most effective way to give us control over the decisions that impact on our lives, but it must evolve. This book lays out a roadmap for a more accountable democracy, locally, nationally and internationally that will give us greater influence over the decisions that impact our communities.

Policy Press

The Unlikely Candidate

What Losing an Election Taught Me about How to Change Politics

The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping our politics, economy and society, providing a chance to reset and redesign politics. Ali Milani brings a unique perspective to the key political issues we're facing and inspires a new generation of political leaders from the disenfranchised, disillusioned and marginalised in society.

Policy Press

Escaping Dystopia

Rebuilding a Public Domain

Overcoming crises and forging alternatives is the most pressing issue of our times. In this book, Stephen McBride explores the multiple crises defining neoliberalism, identifying the linkages between them, and argues for radical solutions to revive our increasingly dystopian political and economic world.

Bristol Uni Press

The Authoritarian Century

China's Rise and the Demise of the Liberal International Order

Chris Ogden argues that, as the world capitulates to China’s preferred authoritarian order, other world powers are moving to this as a dominant global phenomenon, which will transform global institutions, human rights and political systems.

Bristol Uni Press

The Death of the Left

Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again

Winlow and Hall argue that the only way to resurrect leftist politics is to begin from the beginning again. They identify the root causes of its maladies, describe how new cultural obsessions displaced core unifying principles, and outline how a new reincarnation of the left can win in the 21st century.

Policy Press