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The Aztecs: a Very Short Introduction by David Carrasco
Category: Children's Non Fiction | Series: Very Short Introductions Ser.
This Very Short Introduction employs the disciplines of history, religious studies, and anthropology as it illuminates the complexities of Aztec life. Readers meet a people highly skilled in sculpture, astronomy, city planning, poetry, and philosophy, who were also profoundly committed to cosmic regener ...Show more
The Beats by David Sterritt
Category: Fiction | Series: Very Short Introductions Ser.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the writers of the Beat Generation revolutionized American literature with their iconoclastic approach to language and their angry assault on the conformity and conservatism of postwar society. They and their followers took aim at the hypocrisy and taboos of their time ...Show more
The Blues : A Very Short Introduction by Elijah Wald
Category: Rock & Roll | Series: Very Short Introductions
Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It ...Show more
The Brain: A Very Short Introduction by Michael O'Shea
Category: Science | Series: Very Short Introductions
Provides an introduction to the main issues and findings in brain research. This book describes the historical developments behind our understanding of what the brain is and what it does, and explores the key questions neuroscientists face concerning the relationship between the brain and thought, memor ...Show more
The British Empire by Ashley Jackson
Category: History | Series: Very Short Introductions
From the eighteenth century until the 1950s the British Empire was the biggest political entity in the world. The territories forming this empire ranged from tiny islands to vast segments of the world's major continental land masses. The British Empire left its mark on the world in a multitude of ways, ...Show more
The Celts: a Very Short Introduction by Barry Cunliffe
Category: History | Series: Very Short Introductions
Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. Barry Cunliffe seeks to reveal this fascinating people for the first time, exploring subjects such as trade, migration, and the evolution of Celtic traditio ...Show more
The Dead Sea Scrolls by Timothy H. Lim
Category: History | Series: Very Short Introductions Ser.
Since their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have become an icon in popular culture that transcends their status as ancient Jewish manuscripts. Everyone has heard of the Scrolls, but amidst the conspiracies, the politics, and the sensational claims, it can be difficult to separate themyths from t ...Show more
The First World War by Michael Howard
Category: Military | Series: Very Short Introductions
By the time the First World War ended in 1918, eight million people had died in what had been perhaps the most apocalyptic episode the world had known. This very short introduction provides a concise and insightful history of the 'Great War', focusing on why it happened, how it was fought, and why it ha ...Show more
The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by William Doyle
Category: Popular History | Series: Very Short Introductions
Beginning with a discussion of familiar images of the French Revolution, this work leads the reader to the realization that we are living with developments of the French Revolution. It looks at how the ancient regime became ancient, as well as examines cases in which achievement failed to match ambition ...Show more
The Ghetto: a Very Short Introduction by Bryan Cheyette
Category: Non-Fiction | Series: Very Short Introductions Ser.
For three hundred years the ghetto defined Jewish culture in the late medieval and early modern period in Western Europe. In the nineteenth-century it was a free-floating concept which travelled to Eastern Europe and the United States. Eastern European ghettos, which enabled genocide, werecrudely rehabi ...Show more
The Great Depression and the New Deal by Eric Rauchway
Category: History | Series: Very Short Introductions Ser.
The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the "American Way" itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures.Rauchway first describes ...Show more
The Hellenistic Age by Peter Thonemann
Category: History | Series: Very Short Introductions Ser.
The three centuries which followed the conquests of Alexander are perhaps the most thrilling of all periods of ancient history. This was an age of cultural globalization: in the third century BC, a single language carried you from the Rhone to the Indus. A Celt from the lower Danube couldserve in the me ...Show more