Böcker i Very Short Introductions-serien

Daniel K. Gardner explores the major philosophical ideas of the Confucian tradition, showing the profound social and political impact it had and continues to have in China.

Human beings naturally desire knowledge. But what is knowledge? Is it the same as having an opinion? Highlighting the major developments in the theory of knowledge from Ancient Greece to the present day, Jennifer Nagel uses a number of simple everyday examples to explore the key themes and current debates of epistemology.

American Political History: A Very Short Introduction captures the richness of American political history, focusing primarily on national politics. The book explores the nature of the two-party system, key turning points in American political history and explains representative presidential and congressional elections. It also highlights the struggles to expand the electorate, critical social protest and third-party movements.

Do we love someone for their virtue, their beauty, or their moral or other qualities? Are love's characteristic desires altruistic or selfish? Are there duties of love? What do the sciences tell us about love? In this Very Short Introduction, Ronald de Sousa explores the different kinds of love, from affections to romantic love.

In this Very Short Introduction, Barry Stephenson approaches ritual from theoretical and historical perspectives, detailing the efforts to understand the nature and function of ritual, and developing a narrative of ritual's place in social and cultural life.

The Indian cinema sells 2.9 billion movie tickets annually, the largest in the world. Yet, as an economic entity, the Indian movie industry remains small, with an annual revenue that is 5% of Hollywood's. This volume throws light on the history of Indian cinema and the circumstances that saw the birth of one of the world's great countercultures.

Can we ever truly influence, predict, and direct our own futures? Are there multiple futures or only one awaiting us? Jennifer Gidley explains our innate fascination with the unknown future, and considers the role of the human consciousness in embracing multiple future possibilities, and creating a world of our choices.

This Very Short Introduction discloses a history of Zionism from the origins of modern Jewish nationalism in the 1870's to the present.

Branding is possibly the most powerful commercial and cultural force on the planet. Robert Jones discusses the vast variety of brands, and why we still fall for them even as we are becoming more brand-aware. Looking at the philosophy and story behind brands, he considers how they work their magic, and what the future for brands might be.

From sound waves to gravitational waves, and from waves of light to crashing rollers on the ocean, Mike Goldsmith explores the fundamental features shared by all waves in the natural world, and considers the range of phenomena resulting from wave motion, including reflection, diffraction, and polarization in light, and beats and echoes in sound.

Robin Attfield introduces environmental ethics, exploring the values involved in issues such as pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Considering the different groups involved in environmental ethics, and the attitudes of the world's religions to environmental stewardship, he calls for action from us all to manage our environment ethically.

Nazi concentration camps are by no means the only examples of these 'extreme institutions'; Dan Stone sets out the fuller story, from the Boer War to Bosnia. He shows how different regimes have used concentration camps at times of crisis to control populations that appeared threatening, and examines their role in consciousness and identity.

Reading can inform, inspire, emancipate, and motivate us. Down the centuries, it has brought huge educational and social benefits. It can also unleash subversion, and its spread has been accompanied by censorship and control. Belinda Jack explores the global development and impact of reading - from ancient texts to digital texts today.

The Iliad and the Odyssey are the cornerstones of Western literature, inspiring artists, writers, philosophers, musicians, playwrights, and film-makers throughout history. Barbara Graziosi introduces Homer's key works and discusses the main literary, historical, and archaeological issues at the heart of Homeric studies.

This book explores the nature of scepticism, asking when it is legitimate, for example as the driver of new ideas, and when it is problematic. It also tackles how scepticism is related to contemporary social and political phenomena, such as fake news, and examines a radical form of scepticism which maintains that knowledge is impossible.

Connected by their veneration of the One God proclaimed by Abraham, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share much beyond their origins in the ancient Israel of the Old Testament. This Very Short Introduction explores the intertwined histories of these monotheistic religions, from the emergence of Christianity and Islam to the violence of the Crusades and the cultural exchanges of al-Andalus.

Without the Sun, our planet - and life on it - would not exist. As our nearest star, the Sun is also important for astronomers and still presents many puzzles. Philip Judge explains what we know about the Sun's structure and evolution, solar phenomena, and the impact of solar activity on the Earth.

Americans have always been a hard-drinking people, but from 1920 to 1933 the country went dry. After decades of pressure from rural Protestants such as the hatchet-wielding Carry A. Nation and organizations such as the Women''s Christian Temperance Union and Anti-Saloon League, the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Bolstered by the Volstead Act, this amendment made Prohibition law: alcohol could no longer be produced, imported, transported,or sold. This bizarre episode is often humorously recalled, frequently satirized, and usually condemned. The more interesting questions, however, are how and why Prohibition came about, how Prohibition worked (and failed to work), and how Prohibition gave way to strict governmental regulation ofalcohol. This book answers these questions, presenting a brief and elegant overview of the Prohibition era and its legacy.During the 1920s alcohol prices rose, quality declined, and consumption dropped. The black market thrived, filling the pockets of mobsters and bootleggers. Since beer was too bulky to hide and largely disappeared, drinkers sipped cocktails made with moonshine or poor-grade imported liquor. The all-male saloon gave way to the speakeasy, where together men and women drank, smoked, and danced to jazz.After the onset of the Great Depression, support for Prohibition collapsed because of the rise in gangster violence and the need for revenue at local, state, and federal levels. As public opinion turned, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to repeal Prohibition in 1932. The legalization of beer came in April 1933, followed by the Twenty-first Amendment''s repeal of the Eighteenth that December. State alcohol control boards soon adopted strong regulations, and their legacies continue to influenceAmerican drinking habits. Soon after, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). The alcohol problem had shifted from being a moral issue during the century to a social, cultural, and political one during the campaign for Prohibition, and finally, to a therapeutic one involvingindividuals. As drinking returned to pre-Prohibition levels, a Neo-Prohibition emerged, led by groups such as Mothers against Drunk Driving, and ultimately resulted in a higher legal drinking age and other legislative measures. With his unparalleled expertise regarding American drinking patterns, W. J. Rorabaugh provides an accessible synthesis of one of the most important topics in US history, a topic that remains relevant today amidst rising concerns over binge-drinking and alcohol culture on college campuses.

Refugees are one of the great contemporary challenges the world is confronting, and the international community struggles to provide adequate responses to refugee needs. Gil Loescher explores the causes and consequences of the contemporary refugee crisis for both sending and receiving states, for global order, and for refugees themselves.

All living things are composed of cells, which have fundamentally the same chemistry. Biochemistry is the study of reactions within these cells, and the molecules that are created, manipulated, and destroyed as a result of them. This book discusses the key concepts of biochemistry, as well as the recent discoveries and innovations in the field.

This book explores the field of human physiology, considering the interplay of physiological mechanisms and principles and how they come together to result in human life being sustained. It also discusses how physiological experiments are undertaken, and covers the medical applications of new discoveries.

For thousands of years humanity has engaged in creative expression. This book explores the history, theory, and practice of creativity from a psychological perspective. It considers the nature and development of creativity, analyzing why we produce creative work, and the ways in which we can understand creative work in its cultural context.

Fear is one of the most primal emotions, and one of the hardest to reason with and dispel. So why do we scare ourselves? Delving into the darkest corners of horror literature, films, and plays, Darryl Jones explores its monsters and its psychological chills, discussing why horror stories disturb us, and how they reflect society's taboos.

The Arctic is a complex space. This book considers the competing elements surrounding the region, from geopolitical claims on its rich resources to environmental concerns over the effects of climate change and shrinking sea ice. It examines the impact of ongoing cultural, physical, and economic changes, and considers the future of the Arctic.

How, when, and why did the Cold War begin? Why did it last so long? What impact did it have on the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, and the Third World? Finally, what difference did it make to the broader history of the second half of the twentieth century? This clear and stimulating interpretive overview of the Cold War will both invite debate and encourage deeper investigation.

In the new edition of Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction (previously titled Global Warming), Mark Maslin explores all of the key debates. Examining the most recent scientific research, he looks what climate change is, its impact on our planet, and why it's such a complex problem to solve.

The story of Jewish literature is a kaleidoscopic one, multilingual and transnational in character, spanning the globe as well as the centuries. In this broad, thought-provoking introduction to Jewish literature from 1492 to the present, cultural historian Ilan Stavans focuses on its multilingual and transnational nature. Stavans presents a wide range of traditions within Jewish literature and the variety of writers who made those traditions possible. Represented are writers as dissimilar as Luis de Carvajal the Younger, Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Isaac Babel, Anzia Yezierska, Elias Canetti, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Irving Howe, ClariceLispector, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth, Grace Paley, Amos Oz, Moacyr Scliar, and David Grossman. The story of Jewish literature spans the globe as well as the centuries, from the marrano poets and memorialists of medieval Spain, to the sprawling Yiddish writing in Ashkenaz (the "Pale of Settlement'' in Eastern Europe), to the probing narratives of Jewish immigrants to the United States and other parts of the New World. It also examines the accounts of horror during the Holocaust, the work of Israeli authors since the creation of the Jewish State in 1948, and the "ingathering" of Jewishworks in Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, and South Africa at the end of the twentieth century. This kaleidoscopic introduction to Jewish literature presents its subject matter as constantly changing and adapting.

In this Very Short Introduction, Paul Slack explores the historical impact of plague over the centuries. Looking at the ways in which it has been interpreted, and the powerful images it has left behind in art and literature, he considers how it was fought and controlled, and the impact it had on our modern notions of public health.

Explores the promise and limitations of competitive market dynamics, looking at the threats to competition-cartels, agreements, monopolies, and mergers-and the laws in place across the US and European Union to safeguard the process of competition.

Diplomatic history is the critical study of the management of relations between nation-states. Based on significant historical case studies - the American Revolution, the origins of the Great War and its aftermath, Versailles, the Iraq War, and diplomacy in the age of globalization - this book locates the universal role of diplomatic negotiation.