<div>For centuries, English-language writers have borrowed words and phrases from other languages in their fictional works. Words in Collision explores this tradition of language-mixing and its consequences. Returning to Shakespeare's Henry V, Michael Ross asks why writers employ "foreign" phrases in their English-language texts, why this practice continues, and what it means. He finds that the insertion of "foreign elements," rather than random or arbitrary, occurs in literary works that display a self-conscious preoccupation with language in general as a dynamic determinant of social relations. Discussing nineteenth-century works by Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë, and Henry James, the book demonstrates how multilingualism connects with themes of cosmopolitanism, estrangement, and resistance to social convention. In the second half of the book, the multilingual practices of canonical Anglo-American literature are compared with postcolonial texts by Caribbean, Nigerian, and Indian authors, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Arundhati Roy, whose choice of language is fraught with complex moral and artistic implications. Ross's readings reveal both crucial departures and surprising underlying continuities in linguistic traditions often thought to be deeply divided in time, space, and politics. The first extended treatment of language-mixing in English texts, Words in Collision is critical to understanding past practices and future prospects for multilingualism in fiction.</div>

Words in Collision: Multilingualism in English-Language Fiction

Literature & Fiction

Ross, Michael L.

History & Criticism

McGill-Queen's University Press

In this book, Michael L. Ross explores the breakdown of the institutions that govern natural resource exports in developing states. Using case studies of timber booms in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, he shows that these institutions often break down when states receive positive trade shocks--unanticipated windfalls. Drawing on the theory of rent-seeking, he suggests that these institutions succumb to a problem he calls "rent-seizing"--the predatory behavior of politicians who seek to supply rent to others, and who purposefully dismantle institutions that restrain them.

Timber Booms and Institutional Breakdown in Southeast Asia (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Business & Money

Economics

Cambridge University Press

The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations

Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth--and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing.
 Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the world; today, they are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats--and twice as likely to descend into civil war--than countries without oil.
 The Oil Curse shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse.
 This landmark book explains why good geology often leads to bad governance, and how this can be changed.

Reference

Princeton University Press

Designing Fictions: Literature Confronts Advertising

Advertising, long a controlling force in industrial society, has provoked an important body of imaginative work by English language writers. Michael Ross's Designing Fictions is the first study to investigate this symbiotic relationship on a broad scale. In view of the appreciable overlap between literary and promotional writing, Ross asks whether imaginative fiction has the latitude to critique advertising as an industry and as a literary form, and finds that intended critiques, time and again, turn out to be shot through with ambivalence. The texts considered include a wide range of books by British, American, and Canadian authors, from H.G. Wells?s pioneering fictional treatment of mass marketing in Tono-Bungay (1909) to Joshua Ferris?s depiction of a faltering Chicago agency in Then We Came to the End (2007). Along the way, among other examples, Ross discusses George Orwell?s seriocomic study of the stand-off between poetry and advertising in his 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Margaret Atwood?s probing of the impact of promotion on perception in The Edible Woman (1969). The final chapter of the book considers the popular television series Mad Men, where the tension between artistic and commercial pressures is especially acute. Written in a straightforward style for a wide audience of readers, Designing Fictions argues that the impact of advertising is universal and discussions of its significance should not be restricted to a narrow group of specialists.

Advertising, long a controlling force in industrial society, has provoked an important body of imaginative work by English language writers. Michael Ross's Designing Fictions is the first study to investigate this symbiotic relationship on a broad scale. In view of the appreciable overlap between literary and promotional writing, Ross asks whether imaginative fiction has the latitude to critique advertising as an industry and as a literary form, and finds that intended critiques, time and again, turn out to be shot through with ambivalence. The texts considered include a wide range of books by British, American, and Canadian authors, from H.G. Wells?s pioneering fictional treatment of mass marketing in Tono-Bungay (1909) to Joshua Ferris?s depiction of a faltering Chicago agency in Then We Came to the End (2007). Along the way, among other examples, Ross discusses George Orwell?s seriocomic study of the stand-off between poetry and advertising in his 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Margaret Atwood?s probing of the impact of promotion on perception in The Edible Woman (1969). The final chapter of the book considers the popular television series Mad Men, where the tension between artistic and commercial pressures is especially acute. Written in a straightforward style for a wide audience of readers, Designing Fictions argues that the impact of advertising is universal and discussions of its significance should not be restricted to a narrow group of specialists.

Marketing & Sales

Where do you go when home is no longer an option? The guns of the Civil War have ceased firing, and the shots are but an echo... yet the war rages on, deep inside Will Crump's soul. His "soldier's heart" is searching for peace, and in that quest Will joins the westward movement, setting his path on a collision course with adventure, loss, and love. The Westward Expansion floods the sacred, untouched lands with immigrants, bringing conflict to the Shoshone, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Amidst the chaos Will finds safety in the shadow of the US Army, but the army brings battle-hardened troops into Red Cloud's War, pulling Will into a tornado of conflict. Broken treaties and promises leave both sides searching for answers. Will's search leads him to a battle for survival, and there he finds a love that could change him forever. Dove, a young Shoshone woman, is a survivor of the Bear Creek Massacre. After being kidnapped and escaping from the Cheyenne, she joins Will's search, seeking where she belongs. Dove longs for more than the restricted role placed on women in her tribe. If she can learn to trust a white man, he just might help her find home... and hope. Together, Will and Dove must search for understanding, and reach Across the Great Divide.

The Search: The Search (Across the Great Divide)

United States

Historicalnovelsrus

Beneath a Midwinter Moon

Cay, Edie

Brazil, Ana

Beggs, Anne M.

D'Harlingue, Rebecca

Posner, Jonathan

Writers, Paper Lantern

Christie, Mari Anne

Lee, C.V.

Pritchett, Kathryn

Genre Fiction

Paper Lantern Writers

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ross, Michael L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ross, Michael L.