This book introduces identity, one of the most iconic concepts of our time, which is used ubiquitously but rarely explained. It discusses the various uses of 'identity' separately for different fields of study - philosophy, psychology, sociology, gender studies, and linguistics. This book also compares Western concepts and theories of identity with similar concepts in other parts of the world. It explains how contemporary trends in marketization and globalization have made identity increasingly important to us in the last 50 years. This book also outlines the historical background to the concept of identity.

Identity has become one of the most widely used terms today, appearing in many different contexts. Anything and everything has an identity, and identity crises have become almost equally pervasive. Yet 'identity' is extremely versatile, meaning different things to different people and in different scientific disciplines. To many its meaning seems self-evident, since its various uses share common features, so often the term is used without a definition of what, exactly, is meant by it. This provokes the core question: What exactly is identity? In this Very Short Introduction Florian Coulmas provides a survey of the many faces of the concept of identity, and discusses its significance and varied meanings in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and psychology, as well as politics and law. Tracing our concern with identity to its deep roots in Europe's intellectual history, individualism, and the felt need to draw borderlines, Coulmas identifies the most important features used to mark off individual and collective identities, and demonstrates why they are deemed important. He concludes with a glimpse at the many ways in which literature has engaged with problems of identity throughout history. 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.

Translation is everywhere, and matters to everybody. Translation doesn't only give us foreign news, dubbed films and instructions for using the microwave: without it, there would be no world religions, and our literatures, our cultures, and our languages would be unrecognisable. In this Very Short Introduction, Matthew Reynolds gives an authoritative and thought-provoking account of the field, from ancient Akkadian to World English, from St Jerome to Google Translate. He shows how translation determines meaning, how it matters in commerce, empire, conflict and resistance, and why it is fundamental to literature and the arts. 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.

This book will transform the way you think about design by showing how integral it is to our daily lives, from the spoon we use to eat our breakfast cereal to the medical equipment used to save lives. John Heskett goes beyond style and taste to look at how different cultures and individuals personalise objects.

We live in a society which is increasingly interconnected, in which communication between individuals is mostly mediated via some electronic platform, and transactions are often carried out remotely. In such a world, traditional notions of trust and confidence in the identity of those with whom we are interacting, taken for granted in the past, can be much less reliable. Biometrics - the scientific discipline of identifying individuals by means of the measurement of unique personal attributes - provides a reliable means of establishing or confirming an individual's identity. These attributes include facial appearance, fingerprints, iris patterning, the voice, the way we write, or even the way we walk. The new technologies of biometrics have a wide range of practical applications, from securing mobile phones and laptops to establishing identity in bank transactions, travel documents, and national identity cards. This Very Short Introduction considers the capabilities of biometrics-based identity checking, from first principles to the practicalities of using different types of identification data. Michael Fairhurst looks at the basic techniques in use today, ongoing developments in system design, and emerging technologies, all aimed at improving precision in identification, and providing solutions to an increasingly wide range of practical problems. Considering how they may continue to develop in the future, Fairhurst explores the benefits and limitations of these pervasive and powerful technologies, and how they can effectively support our increasingly interconnected society. 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.

Professor Raymond Wacks is a leading international expert on privacy. For more than three decades he has published numerous books and articles on this controversial subject. Privacy is a fundamental value that is under attack from several quarters. Electronic surveillance, biometrics, CCTV, ID cards, RFID codes, online security, the monitoring of employees, the uses and misuses of DNA, - to name but a few - all raise fundamental questions about our right to privacy. This Very Short Introduction also analyzes the tension between free speech and privacy generated by intrusive journalism, photography, and gratuitous disclosures by the media of the private lives of celebrities. Professor Wacks concludes this stimulating introduction by considering the future of privacy in our society. 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.

Drawing on studies of social class, crime and deviance, education, work in bureaucracies and changes in religious and political organizations, this Very Short Introduction explores the tension between the individual's place in society and society's role in shaping the individual, and demonstrates the value of sociology for understanding the modern world. In this new edition Steve Bruce discusses the continuing arguments for social egalitarianism, considering issues such as gay marriage, women in combat roles, and the 2010 Equality Act to debunk contemporary arguments against parity. As gender divisions are increasingly questioned he looks ahead to the likely consequences of this for society. Delving into the theory of sociology, Bruce also argues that the habit of dividing sociology into apparently competing 'sects' is misleading, and shows how a new understanding of the disciplinary background of many of the most famous theorists, which shows that much social theory is actually philosophy or literary theory, will prove useful to today's sociologists. 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 modern concept of peace has broadened from the mere absence of violence to something much more sophisticated, incorporating terms such as 'peacemaking' and 'conflict resolution'. In this Very Short Introduction, Oliver Richmond explores the evolution of peace in practice and in theory, considering our modern assumptions about peace.

"Simon Glendinning explores both the difficulty and significance of the work of Derrida, arguing that his challenging ideas make a significant contribution to philosophy."--P. [2] of cover.

In 1607, Powhatan teenager Pocahontas first encountered English settlers when John Smith was brought to her village as a captive. In 1920, the ratification of the 19th Amendment gave women the constitutional right to vote. And in 2012, the U.S. Marine Corps lifted its ban on women in active combat, allowing female marines to join the sisterhood of American women who stand at the center of this country's history. Between each of these signal points runs the multi-layered experience of American women, from pre-colonization to the present. In American Women's History: A Very Short Introduction Susan Ware emphasizes the richly diverse experiences of American women as they were shaped by factors such as race, class, religion, geographical location, age, and sexual orientation. The book begins with a comprehensive look at early America, with gender at the center, making it clear that women's experiences were not always the same as men's, and looking at the colonizers as well as the colonized, along with issues of settlement, slavery, and regional variations. She shows how women's domestic and waged labor shaped the Northern economy, and how slavery affected the lives of both free and enslaved Southern women. Ware then moves through the tumultuous decades of industrialization and urbanization, describing the 19th century movements led by women (temperance, moral reform, and abolitionism), She links women's experiences to the familiar events of the Civil War, the Progressive Era, and World War I, culminating in 20th century female activism for civil rights and successive waves of feminism. Ware explores the major transformations in women's history, with attention to a wide range of themes from political activism to popular culture, the work force and the family. From Anne Bradstreet to Ida B. Wells to Eleanor Roosevelt, this Very Short Introduction recognizes women as a force in American history and, more importantly, tells women's history as American history. At the core of Ware's narrative is the recognition that gender - the changing historical and cultural constructions of roles assigned to the biological differences of the sexes - is central to understanding the history of American women's lives, and to the history of the United States. 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.