God and War: the Church of England and Armed Conflict in the Twentieth Century

Despite narratives of secularization, it appears that the British public persistently pay attention to clerical opinion and continually resort to popular expressions of religious faith, not least in time of war. From the throngs of men who gathered to hear the Bishop of London preach recruiting sermons during the First World War, to the attention paid to Archbishop Williams' words of conscience on Iraq, clerical rhetoric remains resonant. For the countless numbers who attended National Days of Prayer during the Second World War, and for the many who continue to find the Remembrance Day service a meaningful ritual, civil religious events provide a source of meaningful ceremony and a focus of national unity. War and religion have been linked throughout the twentieth century and this book explores these links: taking the perspective of the 'home front' rather than the battlefield. Exploring the views and accounts of Anglican clerics on the issue of warfare and international conflict across the century, the authors explore the church's stance on the causes, morality and conduct of warfare; issues of pacifism, obliteration bombing, nuclear possession and deterrence, retribution, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the spiritual opportunities presented by conflict. This book offers invaluable insights into how far the Church influenced public appraisal of war whilst illuminating the changing role of the Church across the twentieth century.

Wasta in the Jordanian Culture: a Study in the Banking Sector

Due to globalisation, the emergence and expansion of new overseas markets, extensive use of information and communication technologies in global trade and growing competition between multinational companies, international Human Resource Management (HRM) is an increasingly attractive and popular area of study. However, much of our knowledge is built on an Anglo-Saxon/ European base and there is a paucity of research that considers the transfer of modern (western) principles of HRM to developing countries, particularly in the Middle East. Arguably, Jordan is one country that may benefit from the promise of quality, equality and profitability offered by the systemic approach to managing people. Thus, this paper introduces a PhD research project, currently in its first year, that considers the transfer of western recruitment and selection frameworks into Jordanian culture.

Tropes and Trench Cakes: The Home Front in the Media and Community History

The recent WW1 'fest' has provided a multitude of different engagements with the history of this conflict by media and community groups. The relationship between these histories and academic history is not unproblematic. It provides space for a greater emphasis on the home front but there are questions to be asked about the politics and the accuracy of such history. It is up to academics to find ways of working with popular histories which ensure that troublesome knowledge of the conflict continues to be explored.