Bøger i Very Short Introductions serien

This book outlines the nature of contemporary marketing, considering how marketers function as an interface between customers and organisations. As globalisation creates increasing challenges to established marketing practices it shows how marketing efforts need to adapt continuously to allow an organisation to reach its intended market.

Islamic law is one of the major legal systems in the world today, yet it is often misunderstood, particularly in the West. This book provides a critical overview of the theory, scope, and practice of Islamic law, taking into account both classical and modern scholarly perspectives in examining the various facets of this key legal system.

Approached thematically to help students plot a memorable map of the issues, the ninth edition of this established text provides far-reaching, lucid coverage of the fundamentals and enriching learning features to develop critical thinking and high-level understanding.

Christopher Wixson introduces George Bernard Shaw, the greatest playwright in English after Shakespeare. Taking a chronological approach through his works, he provides an overview of Shaw's sensibility as a writer, and studies the creative evolution of core themes and styles throughout his long career.

Throughout our planet's history volcanoes have played a large role in shaping landscapes, the climate, and biological evolution. This book explains the fundamental mechanisms of volcanism, considering why volcanoes are essential for life on Earth, and how they interact with the Earth's other physical processes, and with human society.

In this new edition of the Very Short Introduction to Geopolitics, Klaus Dodds uses a wide range of real-life examples, from the past and present, to demonstrate not only the importance of the links between political power, geography, and cultural diversity, but also how our geopolitical outlook moulds our understanding of the world.

For thirty years, Linda Greenhouse chronicled the activities of the justices as the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. In this concise volume, she draws on her deep knowledge of the court's history as well as of its written and unwritten rules to show the reader how the Supreme Court really works.

This clear and concise new introduction examines all the major debates and issues using a wide range of well-known examples. Importantly, this book explains how the traditional emphasis on periods and styles originates in western art production and can obscure other approaches, as well as art from non-western cultures.

Interest in Buddhist thought has grown dramatically, and with it, the desire to understand where Buddhism stands on a range of contemporary ethical questions, which have not been traditionally addressed. This work examines issues including animal rights, the environment, abortion, and cloning, from a Buddhist perspective.

In American Military History: A Very Short Introduction, Joseph T. Glatthaar explores the relationship between America and its military from its origins in the thirteen colonies to today's ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

Religion plays a central role in human experience. Billions of people around the world practice a faith and act in accordance with it. Religion shapes how they enter the world and how they leave it - how they eat, dress, marry, and raise their children. It shapes their assumptions about who they are and who they want to be. Religion also identifies insiders and outsiders, who has power and who doesn''t. It sanctifies injustice and combats it. It draws nationalborders. It affects law, economy, and government. It destroys and restores the environment. It starts wars and ends them. Whether you notice it or not, religion plays a role in how billions conduct their lives. We are called, then, to understand this important factor in human life today.Beginning with the first signs of religion among ancient humans and concluding with a look at modern citizens and global trends, leading scholar Thomas Tweed examines this powerful and enduring force in human society. Tweed deftly documents religion as it exists around the world, addressing its role in both intensifying and alleviating contemporary political and environmental problems, from armed conflict to climate change. Religion: A Very Short Introduction offers a concisenon-partisan overview of religion''s long history and its complicated role in the world today.

This book provides a concise introduction to the history and culture of the American South. Charles Reagan Wilson explores Southern history alongside the creative achievements that have come out of the region, producing a portrait of a complex American place.

More than one hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, its hold on the American imagination has not abated. This Very Short Introduction offers a concise history of the era and serves as a necessary introduction to dramatic events that fundamentally reshaped the nation.

Invasive species have become a major environmental issue in ecosystems across the world. Julie Lockwood considers how plant and animal species are introduced to new environments; the ecological, social, and economic impacts they can have; and approaches to managing them, against the broader backdrop of environmental change.

Since the 1960s, many people around the world have challenged the idea that western perspectives are the only ones that count. This book examines the history of that challenge, outlining the ideas behind it, and showing the ways in which the histories and the cultures of the world can be rethought in new, different and productive directions.

Ovid, wittiest of ancient poets, has been an influential model for writers and artists throughout the ages. Llewelyn Morgan introduces the poet and his works, describing each of his poems in turn, setting them in their social and literary context, and considering the twist of events that led to the exile of Rome's most celebrated artist.

Exploring the role of socialism over the last two hundred years, Michael Newman explains its major theories, and the key challenges facing it today. Drawing on case studies such as Bolivia and Cuba, he considers recent attempts to put socialism into practice, and argues that it remains ultimately relevant in today's world.

City planning is a practice and a profession. It is also a set of goals andΓÇösometimes utopianΓÇöaspirations. Formal thought about the shaping of cities as physical spaces and social environments calls on the same range of disciplines and approaches that we use for understanding cities themselves, from art and literature through the social and natural sciences. Surrounding the core profession of city planning, also known as urban or town planning, are related fieldsof architecture, landscape design, engineering, geography, political science and policy, sociology, and social work. In addition, the legions of community and environmental activists influence debates and controversies within the field. This Very Short Introduction is organized around eight key aspects of city planning: street layout; congestion and decentralization; the response to suburbanization; the conservation and regeneration of older districts; cities as natural systems; cities and regions; social class and ethnicity; and disasters and resilience. The underlying assumption throughout is that decisions that we make today about cities and metropolitan regions are best understood as the continuation of past efforts tosolve fundamental problems that have shifted and evolved over multiple generations. At its best, city planning utilizes technical tools to achieve goals set by community action and political debate. Carl Abbott''s addition to Oxford''s long-running Very Short Introduction series is a brief butconcentrated look at past decisions about the management of urban growth and their effects on the creation of the twenty-first century city.

'Ghetto' is an extraordinarily complex word that encompasses Jewish history, black experiences in northern America, and our contemporary sense of cities and countries segregated by race and class. Exploring the various identities and uses of ghettos, Bryan Cheyette shows how different instances of ghettoization interrelate across time and space.

Emile Zola occupies a distinctive place in the great tradition of French realist fiction. Brian Nelson introduces this quintessential novelist of modernity, and explores his fascination with change, and the way he opened the novel up to new areas of representation: the realities of working-class life, class relations, and sexuality and the body.

This book covers French philosophy from its origins in the sixteenth century up to the present, analysing it within its social, political, and cultural context. Throughout, the book explores the dilemma sustained by the markedly national conception of French philosophy, and its history of speaking out on matters of universal concern.

Anthony Pereira introduces the country and idea of Brazil, from its depiction in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, to Brazil's colonial past, and the country's transformation from a poor agricultural outpost to an integral part of the 21st century global order. Throughout he considers the economic, political, and social challenges the country faces.

Tom McLeish delves into the growing field of soft matter - the study of materials such as polymers, colloids, liquid crystals, and foams. Looking beneath their appearance to their inner structure, he discusses their shared physical properties, the principle of Brownian Motion that underlies all soft matter, and the applications of these materials.

Contemporary art has never been so popular - but the art world is changing. Julian Stallabrass explores new movements in contemporary art, from the rise of super-rich private collectors, and increasing globalisation which has expanded a formerly Western-centric focus, to the advent of the artist as a 'brand'.

In this brief and readable account, the cinema's formative decades come vividly to life. Covering the full span of the silent era and touching on films and filmmakers from every corner of the globe, Silent Film offers a unique window into the origins of the modern movie industry.

Restall and Solari explore Maya identity, politics, culture, and indigenous views of the universe from ancient times to the present. With the Maya historically subdivided and misunderstood in so many ways, the pursuit of what made them "the Maya" is all the more important.

This VSI explains how business came to assume massive power and cultural centrality in America. It explores the variety of business enterprise in the United States and analyzes its presence in the country's economy, its evolution over time, and its meaning in society. This VSI pursues its three central themes - the evolution, scale, and culture of American business - in a chronological framework stretching from the American Revolution to today.

British Cinema: A Very Short Introduction explores the history of cinema in Britain, and considers what has made its films and techniques distinctive, especially in the context of British relations with America. Ranging across the 20th century, Barr's account looks at key British films and filmmakers within this context.

The nature of the virtues has a long tradition of thought, from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas. This book considers the virtues in various cultural, religious, and philosophical contexts. Examining the key virtues, and some of the vices, it explores the cultivation of the virtues as an alternative way of moral thinking.

Number theory is the branch of mathematics primarily concerned with the counting numbers, especially primes. It dates back to the ancient Greeks, but today it has great practical importance in cryptography, from credit card security to national defence. This book introduces the main areas of number theory, and some of its most interesting problems.