Wherever you are in the world and whatever you’re interested in, our ‘Books of the month’ features a broad sample of different recent releases authored by University of Liverpool staff. From architecture to business, photography to tourism, there’s something for everyone.
The University of Liverpool Library has curated a reading list for Book of the Month which is available and searchable for University of Liverpool staff and students. The newest titles are added at the top of the list for visibility, and further information can be found in the notes area.
If you are a member of UoL staff and would like your new or recent (2023, 2024 & 2025) publication to be featured, please email the details to the Research Communications Team at rescomms@liverpool.ac.uk.
This edition is a special feature highlighting the upcoming Book Launch Event: A triple launch celebration by University of Liverpool Heritage Institute on Monday, 1 December from 1pm to 4pm. In person at Victoria Gallery & Museum – Leggate Theatre, University of Liverpool.
Envisioning the Indian City
Authors: Supriya Chaudhuri, Nandini Das, Iain Jackson and Ian Magedera
Published: 2025
This book offers a set of new, ground-breaking studies of Indian cities as sites of physical, cultural and historical encounter. It places three colonial cities – Goa, Calcutta/Kolkata and Pondicherry/Puducherry – side by side with the postcolonial city of Chandigarh, created by the independent Indian state, to examine the specificities of cross-cultural exchanges, physical settings, urban flows, social imaginaries and built spaces, as developed over time and experienced by a variety of urban actors. If the city is, as Henri Lefebvre described it, a space of ‘encounter, assembly, simultaneity,’ colonial cities demonstrated the encounter of European imperialism and capitalism with the non-European populations and cultures they sought to subjugate.
Iain Jackson is Professor of Architecture and Research Director at the Liverpool School of Architecture.
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Architecture, Empire, and Trade
The United Africa Company
Authors: Iain Jackson, Ewan Harrison, Michele Tenzon, Rixt Woudstra, Claire Tunstall
Published: 2025
This open access book tells a new and untold history of the architecture of West Africa in the colonial era, as revealed for the first time through the archives of the United Africa Company (UAC).
From the imperial Royal Niger Company’s charter in the 1890s through to its suave African department stores of the 1960s, the UAC – a British company firmly embedded in the economies of colonialism, extraction, and exploitation – became the largest commercial firm in West Africa, involved in almost every commercial enterprise and sector, and responsible for procuring architecture, infrastructure, and city real-estate across a vast region.
Based on unprecedented access to the UAC archives, this book pieces together a new architectural history of West Africa from the high colonial period through to independence. It reproduces an extraordinary array of newly-uncovered material – from photographs of streetscapes, buildings, and West African everyday life to civic reports and city plans – and presents these alongside critical and theoretical discussions to reveal an alternative account of the architecture of the region which stands in contrast to more conventional state-focused histories. The book explores technological, aesthetic, and political shifts through an architectural lens, and brings to the fore an awareness of the violence and appropriation which underlie each architectural episode, showing how the UAC, as a case-study, presents a unique opportunity to investigate how architecture manifests power, culture, and identity in colonial and post-colonial contexts.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Liverpool.
Iain Jackson is Professor of Architecture and Research Director at the Liverpool School of Architecture.
Michele Tenzon is a research associate at University of Liverpool, UK.
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Tracing Intangible Cultural Migrant Heritage in the UK
Author: Ataa Alsalloum
Published: 2025
This book explores the role of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) among migrant communities in the UK. It examines how diverse cultural practices, from life celebrations to death commemorations, have travelled with communities, evolved in new settings, and taken root in the UK. Through case studies from different community groups, spanning oral traditions, performing arts, social customs, and craftsmanship, this book illustrates how ICH becomes a vital part of everyday life, identity, and belonging within the UK’s multicultural mosaic.
In a landscape often dominated by narratives of immigration pressures and societal division, this book shifts the focus and reclaims the narrative, illuminating the cultural knowledge, creativity, and practices that migrants bring. It highlights the significant yet frequently undervalued contributions of migrant ICH to the UK’s evolving socio-cultural fabric. This timely work emerges amidst crucial debates surrounding UK heritage policy, including the recent ratification of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the growing movement to establish national ICH inventories, offering a critical and much-needed perspective.
This powerful, interdisciplinary collection brings together the voices of scholars, artists, and heritage professionals, many of whom are migrants themselves. Through a combination of personal experience and academic insight, contributors explore how ICH is safeguarded, lived, and transformed in the UK. From South Asian Bhangra to Syrian herbal remedies, Polish parenting traditions to Irish storytelling, this book captures a wide spectrum of cultural expressions that span continents and communities. It brings visibility to both formally recognised forms of ICH and the everyday rituals that rarely make headlines but profoundly shape identity and belonging.
By foregrounding these voices and experiences, this book aims to inspire the development of inclusive ICH inventories and to champion the recognition of migrant heritage not as peripheral, but as central to the UK’s shared cultural landscape.
Whether you are a researcher, policymaker, community organiser, or simply someone curious about the human stories behind migration, this book invites you to view cultural heritage not as something fixed, but as something living, shared, and sustained across generations and borders.
Ataa Alsalloum is Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Heritage at Liverpool School of Architecture.