The Vengeance of Rome: The Fourth Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet (4)

Born in Ukraine on the first day of the century, a Jewish antisemite, Pyat careered through three decades like a runaway train. Bisexual, cocaine-loving engineer/inventor/spy, he enthusiastically embraces Fascism. But his extraordinary luck leaves him after he witnesses Hitler's massacre of R"hm and the SA. At last he is swallowed up in a Dachau concentration camp. Thirty years later, having survived the Spanish Civil War, he is living in Portobello Road and telling his tale to a writer called Moorcock.

Tony Eaude argues that the foundations of a robust but flexible identity are formed in early childhood and that children live within many intersecting and sometimes conflicting cultures. He considers three meanings of culture, associated with (often implicit) values and beliefs; the arts; and spaces for growth. In exploring how young children's identities, as constructed and constantly changing narratives, are shaped, he discusses controversial, intersecting factors related to power in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, religion, class, physical ability and age. Eaude explores how young children learn, often tacitly, highlighting reciprocity, example, habituation and children's agency and voice. He emphasises the importance of a sense of belonging, created through trusting relationships, and inclusive environments, with adults drawing on and extending children's cultural capital and 'funds of knowledge.' Eaude shows how a holistic education requires a breadth of opportunities across and beyond the school curriculum, and highlights how play, the humanities and the arts enable children to explore how it is to be human, and to become more humane, broadening horizons and helping challenge preconceptions and stereotypes. This radical, inclusive and culturally sensitive vision, for an international audience, challenges many current assumptions about identity, culture, childhood and education.

Byzantium Endures, the first volume of Michael Moorcock's legendary Pyat Quartet, appeared in 1981. The Laughter of Carthage (1984) and Jerusalem Commands (1992) followed. Now the quartet is complete. Pyat keeps his appointment with the age's worst nightmare. Born in Ukraine on the first day of the century, a Jewish antisemite, Pyat careered through three decades like a runaway train. Bisexual, cocaine-loving engineer/inventor/spy, he enthusiastically embraces Fascism. Hero-worshipping Mussolini, he enters the dictator's circle, enjoys a close friendship with Mussolini's wife and is sent by the Duce on a secret mission to Munich, becoming intimate with Ernst Röhm, the homosexual stormtrooper leader. His crucial role in the Nazi Party's struggle for power has him performing perverted sex acts with "Alf," as the Führer's friends call him. Pyat's extraordinary luck leaves him after he witnesses Hitler's massacre of Röhm and the SA. At last he is swallowed up in Dachau concentration camp. Thirty years later, having survived the Spanish Civil War, he is living in Portobello Road and telling his tale to a writer called Moorcock. This authoritative edition presents this work for the first time in the United States, along with a new introduction by Alan Wall. A charming but unredeemable everyman continues on a path paved with decadence and destruction. Michael Moorcock's most infamous antihero continues his epic and hilariously distasteful escapades in this fantastic fourth installment of the Pyat quartet. Picking up where Jerusalem Commands left off, bisexual, cocaine-loving, Jewish anti-Semite Pyat enthusiastically embraces Fascism and manages to insinuate himself into Mussolini's inner circle. Sent by the fascist dictator on a secret mission to Munich, he becomes embroiled in Nazi Party intrigue and ultimately finds himself in the Dachau concentration camp. Thirty years later, having incredibly survived both Dachau and the Spanish Civil War, Pyat's tale winds down as he recounts his adventures to a writer named Moorcock. From Pyat's friendships with murderous dictators to his perverted sex acts with Nazi storm troopers, this book serves up a deliciously iconoclastic feast for fans of speculative fiction.--Provided by the publisher