A concise examination of the central role of legal decisions in shaping key social issues explores topics ranging from Native American affairs and slavery to business and home life as well as how criminal and civil offenses have been addressed in positive and negative ways. Original.

Though the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, its impact on our lives is as recent as today's news. Claims and counterclaims about the constitutionality of governmental actions are a habit of American politics. This document, which its framers designed to limit power, often has made political conflict inevitable. It also has accommodated and legitimized the political and social changes of a vibrant, powerful democratic nation. A product of history's first modern revolution, the Constitution embraced a new formula for government: it restrained power on behalf of liberty, but it also granted power to promote and protect liberty. The U.S. Constitution: A Very Short Introduction explores the major themes that have shaped American constitutional history: federalism, the balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security. Informed by the latest scholarship, this book places constitutional history within the context of American political and social history. As our nation's circumstances have changed, so has our Constitution. Today we face serious challenges to the nation's constitutional legacy. Endless wars, a sharply divided electorate, economic inequality, and immigration, along with a host of other issues, have placed demands on government and on society that test our constitutional values. Understanding how the Constitution has evolved will help us adapt its principles to the challenges of our age. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

"A book about the samurai from their origins in the eighth and ninth centuries until their demise in the mid-nineteenth century. It dispels a lot of myths about the samurai one might encounter in popular culture. It describes samurai life, work, philosophy, and warfare as it changed over time. It covers what samurai were doing when they weren't fighting. For example, samurai who engaged in commerce, formed gangs, begged, and even taught samurai etiquette and martial arts to non-samurai. The first half of the book tends to focus on warriors, some of whom were essentially aristocrats; warrior families who looked to non-warrior nobles for models of behaviour, lifestyle, and politics. It traces the early formation of a warrior regime, how it interacted with an emperor-centered noble court located permanently in Kyoto, and the political and cultural struggles within the warrior class. The second half of the book zeroes in on the details of warlord families, the struggles of "rank-and-file" samurai typically depicted in popular culture-warriors from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. It also shows how samurai history, culture, and values were consumed by non-samurai and, in so doing, contributed to an idealized warrior image that even samurai themselves tried to emulate"--

This Very Short Introduction discusses the nature of planets and gas giants, and their rings and moons. It also looks beyond Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt, at the knowledge we have about planets around other stars. With many striking photos to illustrate the details, it demonstrates the unique world of every planet.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures is dogged by scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism, and by the fear that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. Here, Simon Blackburn tackles the major moral questions surrounding birth, death, happiness, desire, and freedom, showing us how we should think about the meaning of life, and why we should mistrust the soundbite-sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates. This second edition of the Very Short Introduction on Ethics has revised and updated aspects of the original to reflect changing times and mores. It highlights the importance of an understanding of approaches to ethics and its foundations, confronted as we are with a fluid and uncertain world of eroding trust, swirling conspiracy theories, and a dismaying loss of respect in public discourse. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Anchored in the principles of free-market economics, neoliberalism emerged in the 1990s as the world's most dominant economic paradigm. It has been associated with various political leaders from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Bill Clinton, to Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and Manmohan Singh. Neoliberalism even penetrated deeply into communist China's powerful economic system. However, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the related European Sovereign Debt Crisis triggered a decade of economic volatility and insecurity that boosted the fortunes of the 1 per cent while saddling the 99 per cent with stagnant wages and precarious work. As a result of this Great Recession, neoliberalism fortunes have waned considerably. This downward trend further accelerated with the recent surge of national populism around the world that brought to power outspoken critics of neoliberalism like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, and Narendra Modi. Is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? And what are the major types of neoliberalism, and how did they evolve over the decades? Responding to these crucial questions, this Very Short introduction explores the considerable variations of neoliberalism around the world, and discusses the origins, evolution, and core ideas of neoliberalism. This new edition brings the story of neoliberalism up to date, and asks whether new versions of neoliberalism might succeed in drowning out the rising tide of national populism and its nostalgic longing for a return to territorial sovereignty and national greatness. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The French author Michel de Montaigne is widely regarded as the founder and greatest practitioner of the personal essay. A member of the minor aristocracy, he worked as a judicial investigator, served as mayor of Bordeaux, and sought to bring stability to his war-torn country during the latter half of the sixteenth century. He is best known today, however, as the author of the Essays, a vast collection of meditations on topics ranging from love and sexuality to freedom, learning, doubt, self-scrutiny, and peace of mind. One of the most original books ever to emerge from Europe, Montaigne's masterpiece has been continuously and powerfully influential among writers and philosophers from its first appearance down to the present day. His extraordinary curiosity and discernment, combined with his ability to mix thoughtful judgment with revealing anecdote, make him one of the most readable of all writers. In Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction, William M. Hamlin provides an overview of Montaigne's life, thought, and writing, situating the Essays within the arc of Montaigne's lived experience and focusing on themes of particular interest for contemporary readers. Designed for a broad audience, this introduction will appeal to first-time students of Montaigne as well as to seasoned experts and admirers. Well-informed and lucidly written, Hamlin's book offers an ideal point of entry into the life and work of the world's first and most extraordinary essayist.

Enzymes are the molecular machines that make life possible. Working as catalysts, teams of enzymes carry out the processes that power the bodies of living things, from making DNA to digesting food. This book explains what enzymes are, what they do, and how they do it, from enzymes inside our cells to those in washing powders and food production.

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 national borders. 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 concise non-partisan overview of religion's long history and its complicated role in the world today.

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.