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Martin Heidegger, considered by some to be the greatest charlatan ever to claim the title of "philosopher", by some as an apologist for Nazism, and by others as an acknowledged leader in continental philosophy, is probably the most divisive thinker of the 20th century. In the second edition of this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Michael Inwood focuses on Heidegger's most important work, Being and Time, to explore its major themes of existence in the world, inauthenticity, guilt, destiny, truth, and the nature of time.

This Very Short Introduction looks at Pakistan as one of the two nation-states of the Indian subcontinent that emerged in 1947. Pippa Virdee reaches into the ancient past to demonstrate the influence of trajectories of human settlement and civilization on Pakistan's contemporary political arena, and shows how the longer continuities between the land and its peoples are as important as the short-term changes in the political landscape. She considers Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, everyday life, popular culture, languages and literature.

Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose—and, if at all possible, cure—the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leading representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukács and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas) as well as many of its seminal texts and empirical investigations.

We make choices all the time - about how to spend our money, about how to spend our time, about what to do with our lives. And we are also constantly judging the decisions other people make as rational or irrational. But what kind of criteria are we applying when we say that a choice is rational? What guides our own choices, especially in cases where we don't have complete information about the outcomes? What strategies should be applied in making decisions which affect a lot of people, as in the case of government policy?

Biogeography is the study of geographic variation in all characteristics of life - ranging from genetic, morphological, and behavioral variation among regional populations of a species, to geographic trends in diversity of entire communities across our planet's surface. From the ancient hunters and gatherers to the earliest naturalists, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, and scientists today, the search for patterns in life has provided insights that proved invaluable for understanding the natural world.

Unique among books that examine the bible as literature, this brilliantly compact introduction offers an intriguing double-edged look at this universal text - a religiously informed literary analysis. The book first explores the major sections of the New Testament - the gospels, Paul's letters, and Revelation - as individual literary documents. Keefer shows how, in such familiar stories as the parable of the Good Samaritan, a literary analysis can uncover an unexpected complexity to what seems a simple, straightforward tale.

Michael Carrithers guides us through the complex and sometimes conflicting information that Buddhist texts give about the life and teaching of the Buddha. He discusses the social and political background of India in the Buddha's time, and traces the development of his thought. He also assesses the rapid and widespread assimilation of Buddhism and its contemporary relevance. Well-paced and informative, this introduction will enlighten not only those who study Buddhism and comparative religion but anyone intrigued by the remarkable philosophy of one of the greatest religious thinkers.

Rivers have acted as cradles for civilization and agents of disaster; a river may be a barrier or a highway, it can support trade and sediment, culture and conflict. This Very Short Introduction is a celebration of rivers in all their diversity. Geographer Nick Middleton covers a wide and eclectic range of river-based themes, from physical geography to mythology, to industrial history and literary criticism.

Superstition: A Very Short Introduction explores the nature and history of superstition from antiquity to the present. For two millennia, superstition was a label derisively applied to foreign religions and unacceptable religious practices, and its primary purpose was used to separate groups and assert religious and social authority. After the Enlightenment, the superstition label was still used to define groups, but the new dividing line was between reason and unreason. Today, superstitious belief and behavior remain widespread, and highly educated people are not immune.

At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults.

A great deal of the world's history is the history of empires. Indeed it could be said that all history is colonial history, if one takes a broad enough definition and goes far enough back. Stephen Howe interprets the meaning of the idea of "empire" through the ages, disentangling the multiple uses and abuses of the labels "empire" and "colonialism," etc., and examines the aftermath of imperialism on the contemporary world.

In 1816, when eighteen-year old Mary Godwin began writing Frankenstein, the idea that a woman could dream up such a tale was as far-fetched as raising a being from the dead. But Mary wasn't just any woman. The daughter of two notorious radicals, Mary had become an outcast from English society when she was only sixteen. A lifelong advocate for the rights of women, she refused to be governed by social conventions, running away with a married man, having children out of wedlock, and authoring books, stories, and essays that broke literary conventions.

The process by which nations escape poverty and achieve economic and social progress has been the subject of extensive examination for hundreds of years. The notion of development itself has evolved from an original preoccupation with incomes and economic growth to a much broader understanding of development. In this Very Short Introduction, Ian Goldin considers the contributions that education, health, gender, equity, and other dimensions of human well-being make to development.

Dialectical Materialism: The Force Behind History and Change Introduction How do we make sense of the forces shaping society? What lies behind the clash of ideas, cultures, and economies? In Dialectical Materialism, Maurizio Bisogno takes readers on a journey through dialectical thought—a revolutionary way to understand the world as a dynamic process driven by conflict and transformation. This book brings Marxist philosophy to life, presenting complex concepts with clarity. Bisogno explores the tensions that fuel progress, the power struggle between opposites, the material basis of ...

Black holes are a constant source of fascination to many due to their mysterious nature. This Very Short Introduction audiobook addresses a variety of questions, including what a black hole actually is, how they are characterized and discovered, and what would happen if you came too close to one.

This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the multiple versions of Islam propagated across geographical, political, and cultural boundaries during the era of modern globalization. Describing how Islam was transformed through these globalizing transfers, it traces the origins, expansion, and increasing diversification of global Islam - from individual activists to organizations and then states - over the past 150 years.

Early Americans were suspicious of centralized authority and executive power. Casting away the yoke of England and its king, the founding fathers shared in this distrust as they set out to pen the Constitution. Weighing a need for consolidated leadership with a demand for states' rights, they established a large federal republic with limited dominion over the states. This Very Short Introduction audiobook provides a concise overview of federalism, from its origins and evolution to the key events and constitutional decisions that have defined its framework.

Beloved by children and adults worldwide, the writings of C. S. Lewis have a broad and enduring appeal. Although he is best known for the iconic Chronicles of Narnia series, C. S. Lewis was actually a man of many literary parts.

The 20th century saw a remarkable upsurge of research on drugs, with major advances in the treatment of bacterial and viral infections, heart disease, stomach ulcers, cancer, and metal illnesses. These, along with the introduction of the oral contraceptive, have altered all of our lives. There has also been an increase in the recreational use and abuse of drugs in the Western world. This Very Short Introduction, in its second edition, gives a nontechnical account of how drugs work in the body.

This Very Short Introduction, written with both humor and flair, begins with a sampling of music as human activity and then goes on to consider the slippery phenomenon of how music has become an object of thought. Covering not only Western and classical music, Cook touches on all types from rock to Indonesian music and beyond. Incorporating musical forms from every continent, Music will be enjoyable for beginner and expert alike.