New Releases by Jonathan Morris

Discusses the moral and ethical debates engendered by new advances in biotechnology.

Hagiographies or idealized biographies which recount the lives of saints, bodhisattvas and other charismatic figures have been the meeting place for myth and experience. In medieval Europe, the ''lives of saints'' were read during liturgical celebrations and the texts themselves were treated as sacred objects. In Japan, it was believed that those who read the biographies of lofty monks would acquire merit. Since hagiographies were written or compiled by ''believers'', the line between fantasy and reality was often obscured. This study of the bodhisattva Gyoki - regarded as the monk who started the largest social welfare movement in Japan - illustrates how Japanese Buddhist hagiographers chose to regard a single monk''s charitable activities as a miraculous achievement that shaped the course of Japanese history.

There is a gala opening for a new exhibition at the Tate Modern - "The Tomorrow Windows." The concept behind the exhibition is simple - anyone can look through a Tomorrow Window and see into the future. Of course, the future is malleable, and so the future you see will change as you formulate your plans. You can the see the outcome of every potential decision, and then decide on the optimum course of action. According to the press pack, the Tomorrow Windows will bring about world peace and save humanity from every possible disaster. So, of course, someone decides to blow it up. There''s always one, isn''t there? As the Doctor investigates and unravels the conspiracy, he begins a Gulliver''s Travels-esque quest, visiting bizarre worlds and encountering many peculiar and surreal life forms...

This article documents and analyses the organization of work and human resources management in ten manufacturing plants in Malaysia and three plants in Japan. Each of the plants carries out specific tasks within an emergent international division of labour surrounding two Japanese multinational producers of consumer electronics goods. Plant roles reflect their positions in commodity chains driven by the multinationals, varying in relation to product-to-product and component-to-component divisions of labour, and in relation to the location of product and process innovations. How work is organized and how workers are managed are explained by the location of each plant within this division of labour, and by the characteristics and situation of labour, the one commodity which talks back, within the local environment.

This paper outlines the economic reform process being undertaken in China and the subsequent partial closure and radical down-sizing of the state-owned enterprise sector. Redundancies arising out the restructuring process have eroded the state-worker contract of the iron rice-bowl. This has resulted in growing and sometimes violent labour unrest. The planned workforce projections until the end of the year 2000 suggest that the numbers of redundancies has increased, adding to China''s ''surplus labour'' problem. A critical issue is thus whether the Chinese government, together with state-enterprise management, can contain potential future labour and civil unrest using its present methods.

Christmas Eve in the year 3060, and the planet Puxatornee is home to a prosperous human colony. A space craft has arrived in orbit carrying the Slithergees, a race of obsequious alien slugs. Their home world has been destroyed and they are humbly requesting permission to settle on the first moon. And if they don''t get permission, then they are humbly threatening to declare all-out war. The future hangs in the balance. The decision rests with Bailey, the colony'' s president - but she has other things on her mind. Christmas Eve in the year 3090, and the planet Puxatornee has changed beyond all recognition. The Doctor and Mel arrive, on a completely unrelated mission to defeat a race of terrible monsters, and soon discover that something rather confusing has been happening to history.

From the mid-1880s a shopkeeper movement developed in Milan, centred around a shopkeeper newspaper, a federation of shopkeeper trade associations, and a shopkeeper bank. In 1904 shopkeeper representatives initiated a sequence of events that led to the fall of the first radical-socialist administration within the city. The author explains these events with reference to the business of shopkeeping itself. He analyses the trades, techniques, tax structure and topography of the Milanese retail sector, and traces the history of the contest between shops and cooperatives and the shopkeeper''s changing relationship with his employees and with his clientele. The final chapter confronts the crucial question of why the Milanese shopkeepers were to be found on the political right in the years leading up to the Fascist takeover. This is the first book to deal with any aspect of the Italian petite bourgeoisie.

An Eighth Doctor novel with Fitz and Anji. The Doctor, Fitz and Anji are forced to land in inhospitable terrain as something disables the Tardis. Reconnaissance proves it to be a planet in revolt, with colonists trying to break free from the harsh clutches of the Plutocratic Empire. The principal weapon in this war: time itself. Soldiers continually find themselves in Time Storms: without protective clothing, they are aged to death in seconds. The Tardis crew are picked up by empire personnel, and discover the empire''s hope for victory: a primitive time-travel capsule. It is undergoing tests at the moment, but the men who return from these missions return horribly changed. They''re picking up a terrible infection: anachrophobia; losing their time-orientation; travelling backwards and forwards within their own lifetimes; losing their minds. The Doctor is desperate to halt the spread of the disease, but his efforts are constantly frustrated. The plague reveals that there''s a lot more about the motives of all involved than anybody had imagined...

Italy: A Short History is a concise but comprehensive account of Italian history from the Ice Age to the present day. It is intended for both students of Italian history and culture and the general reader, whether tourist, business-person or traveller, with an interest in Italian affairs. Harry Hearder places the main political developments in Italian history in their economic and social context, and shows how these related to the great moments of artistic and cultural endeavour. Amongst key events, he analyses the growth and decline of the Roman Empire, the remarkable cultural achievements of the Renaissance, Italian unification and the contradictions of the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini. Jonathan Morris brings the work up to the present day with an authoritative but colourful history of the corruption scandals that brought down the post-war Italian political system in the 1990s and the new political forces that have emerged in its place.

The prehistoric Earth is dying. Thunderclouds roll across the skies, cloaking the land in darkness. The seas crash and boil as the rain turns to acid. The remnants of the Silurian race place themselves in suspended animation, deep below the surface. One day they will awaken and reclaim their world. The TARDIS has landed on the Galapagos Islands, a desolate outcrop of rocks shrouded in mist and fear. In the settlement of Baquerizo Moreno, there are rumours that prisoners have been mysteriously disappearing from the gaolhouse. A fisherman has been driven insane by something he saw in the caves. And the Doctor and Evelyn are not the only new arrivals; there is also a young natural philosophe by the name of Charles Darwin. This story takes place between "The Trial of a Time Lord" and "Time and the Rani."

Wales has one of the highest concentrations of Japanese manufacturing investment in Europe, with the recent arrival of a Toyota engine plant at Deeside and a Sony television plant at Pencoed. It provides a case study for examining the economic and social impact of this new investment, which is often perceived as being very different from existing foreign investment. This study evaluates this case study, looking at the attraction of Japanese capital to Wales, its impact on the Welsh economy, upon employment, management practice, industrial relations, the community, and upon the Japanese themselves. Finally, the book also considers the future prospects for Japanese investment in Wales, and the likely effects.

This study analyses the shift in the relationship between large and smaller firms from confrontation and conflict, to cooperation and mutual assistance. It charts the pace of the adaption of Japanese style buyer-supplier relations in North American and Western European organizations.