Compelling and accessible, this Very Short Introduction challenges the perception of borders as passive lines on a map, revealing them instead to be integral forces in the economic, social, political, and environmental processes that shape our...
This Very Short Introduction offers a clear, accessible, and concise account of the apocryphal gospels--exploring their origins, their discovery, and discussing how the various texts have been interpreted both within and outside the Church. Looking...
International migration is an issue of intense public and political concern. How closely linked are migrants with terrorist organizations? What factors lie behind the dramatic increase in the number of woman migrating? This Very Short Introduction...
We are all classicists--we come into touch with the classics on a daily basis: in our culture, politics, medicine, architecture, language, and literature. What are the true roots of these influences, however, and how do our interpretations of these...
Few Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. Participation in...
From the eighteenth century until the 1950s, the British Empire was the largest and most far-flung political entity in the world, holding sway at one time over one fifth of the world's population. The territories forming this colossus ranged from...
The Druids have been known and discussed for at least 2400 years, first by Greek writers and later by the Romans, who came in contact with them in Gaul and Britain. According to these sources, they were a learned caste who officiated in religious...
This clear and concise new introduction examines all the major debates and issues in the field of art history, using a wide range of well-known examples. Dana Arnold also examines the many different ways of writing about art, and the changing...
The processes in a single living cell are akin to that of a city teeming with molecular inhabitants that move, communicate, cooperate, and compete. This book explores the role of the molecule in and around us, and how this molecular dynamism is...
Perhaps nowhere else has literature been as conscious a collective endeavor as in China, and China's survival over three thousand years may owe more to its literary traditions than to its political history. This Very Short Introduction tells the...