Ritual: A Very Short Introduction, Paperback - Barry Stephenson

Ritual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in t...

New in the }VSI{ series, this examines the origins of the Druids and the evidence for their beliefs and practices. Also considers the cult revivals...

Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding....

Negotiation is essential for peace and international relations, but also for economically efficient trades and bargains in business, and for proble...

Elizabeth Bishop has been described as the 'best-loved' poet in English of the second half of the twentieth century. This book explores the publish...

James Joyce was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. This book explores his novels and short stories, and analyses the lit...

Publisher: Oxford University Press IncAuthor(s): Sarah M. S. (Professor of History, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University) PearsallIllustr...

This book gives an overview of the main kinds of employment rights and labour laws found in many countries. It evaluates some of the assumptions un...

Famous for her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley was also infamous in her own time for breaking social and literary conventions, and taking a politi...

Pippa Virdee considers the history of Pakistan, created as a new nation state in 1947, placing it in the context of the region's four-thousand-year...

DescriptionA pop-culture presentation of the Integral Approach from visionary genius Ken Wilber, designed as an easy introduction to his work. What...

Rocks, more than anything else, underpin our lives. They make up the solid structure of the Earth and of other rocky planets, and are present at th...

Arbitration is a legal dispute resolution mechanism, alternative to courts. This book explains what arbitration is, how it works, what parties who ...

In this Very Short Introduction Bernard O'Donoghue explores the many different forms of writing which have been called 'poetry', from the Greeks to...

Drawing on the latest scientific research, from anthropology and psychology to neuroscience and artificial intelligence, Evans takes the reader on ...

John Maynard Keynes was one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century. His ideas have had a central influence on many of areas of...

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an English cleric whose ideas on population and political economy have had a profound influence on modern eco...

In this Very Short Introduction, Christopher Hall shows how material science combines physics, chemistry, and biology with engineering to understan...

Written by one of the world's leading experts in the field, this book offers a clear account of the contributions to philosophy made by one of Brit...

Drawing on examples from across the globe and throughout history, Andrew Kahn explores the key characteristics of the short story. He shows how its...

For many decades, we were only familiar with our own system of planets, the Solar System, orbiting our Sun. Now we know that it is just one among a...

The Arctic is a complex space. This book considers the competing elements surrounding the region, from geopolitical claims on its rich resources to...

Publisher: Oxford University Press IncAuthor(s): David (Charles M. Weis Professor of English, Charles M. Weis Professor of English, Ohio Wesleyan U...

This book explores the extraordinarily diverse and beautiful world of insects, from tiny wasps to giant beetles. It analyses insect evolution, and ...

This book provides a fresh modern introduction to geometry, an ancient branch of mathematics with important applications. It takes readers from Euc...

Adrian Wilkinson reviews the historical development of human resource management, showing how the changes in political, legal, and macroeconomic sp...

Nicholas Cook explores the nature of music, how we think about it, its social and cultural dimensions, and its history. He discusses the many music...

A lively discussion of the history and significance of children's literature. Providing examples from across history and types, this introduces the...

The history of decadent culture runs from ancient Rome to nineteenth-century Paris, Victorian London, fin de si cle Vienna, Weimar Berlin, and beyo...

From deciding the best day for a picnic, to the devastating effects of hurricanes and typhoons, the weather impacts our lives on a daily basis. Alt...

Tells the story of crime fiction, discussing what features define the genre and how it has developed, and poses questions about crime fiction's sta...

In its heyday in the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm. Since then the global financial crash of 2008 and...

Corruption is one of the biggest global issues, ahead of extreme poverty, unemployment, the rising cost of food and energy, climate change, and ter...

New in the popular Very Short Introduction series, this is aimed at the general reader and students of classical studies. It looks into how myths c...

A concise, lucid, yet broad overview of classical literature, including a range of examples of original Greek and Latin texts.

What is capitalism? Is capitalism the same everywhere? Is there an alternative? The word "capitalism" is one that is heard and used frequently, but...

Journalism entered the twenty-first century caught in a paradox. The world had more journalism, across a wider range of media, than at any time sin...

Discusses why literature matters, how narrative works, and what is distinctly English about English literature. Bate looks at the three major kinds...

Agriculture, one of the oldest human occupations, is practised all over the world, using techniques ranging from the profoundly traditional to the ...

Here Partha Dasgupta, an internationally recognized authority in economics, presents readers with a solid introduction to its basic concepts, inclu...

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was one of the few men in history to fight simultaneously on moral, religious, political, social, economic, ...

Leading management scholar, John Hendry provides a lively introduction to the nature and practice of management. Tracing its development over the l...

DescriptionAutobiography is one of the most popular of written forms. From Casanova to Benjamin Franklin to the Kardashians, individuals throughout...

Covering Geoffrey Chaucer's life and work, David Wallace considers the influence and enduring appeal of his body of writing, explores the wide rang...

This Very Short Introduction provides a concise overview of federalism, from its origins and evolution to the key events and constitutional decisio...

The image of a job captures our imagination from an early age, usually prompted by the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'. Work --...

You cannot hide from radioactivity. Even the book you are holding is slightly radioactive, but there are more serious risks. Radioactivity - the br...