{"title":"Very Short Introduction","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"samurai-book-michael-wert-9780190685072","title":"Samurai: A Very Short Introduction","description":"The idea of the sword-wielding samurai, beholden to a strict ethical code and trained in deadly martial arts, dominates popular conceptions of the samurai. As early as the late seventeenth century, they were heavily featured in literature, art, theater, and even comedy, from the Tale of the Heike to the kabuki retellings of the 47 Ronin. This legacy remains with us today in the legendary Akira Kurosawa films, the shoguns of HBO's Westworld, and countless renditions of samurai history in anime, manga, and video games. Acknowledging these common depictions, this book gives readers access to the real samurai as they lived, fought, and served.  Much as they capture the modern imagination, the samurai commanded influence over the politics, arts, philosophy and religion of their own time, and ultimately controlled Japan from the fourteenth century until their demise in the mid-nineteenth century. On and off the battlefield, whether charging an enemy on horseback or currying favor at the imperial court, their story is one of adventures and intrigues, heroics and misdeeds, unlikely victories and devastating defeats. This book traces the samurai throughout this history, exploring their roles in watershed events such as Japan's invasions of Korea at the close of the sixteenth century and the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Coming alive in these accounts are the samurai, both famed and ordinary, who shaped Japanese history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49568581386513,"sku":"GOR013179161","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742011924753,"sku":"NGR9780190685072","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999669326097,"sku":"NIN9780190685072","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190685077.jpg?v=1751289974"},{"product_id":"global-islam-book-nile-green-9780190917234","title":"Global Islam","description":"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. Showing 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.   Historian Nile Green surveys not only the familiar venues of Islam in the Middle East and the West, but also Asia and Africa, explaining the doctrines of a wide variety of political and non-political versions of Islam across the spectrum from Salafism to Sufism. This Very Short Introduction will help readers to recognize and compare the various organizations competing to claim the authenticity and authority of representing the one true Islam.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49737297756433,"sku":"NGR9780190917234","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999711531281,"sku":"NIN9780190917234","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51893261631761,"sku":"GOR012166021","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52514937569553,"sku":"GOR011545979","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53370623787281,"sku":"CIN0190917237VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190917237.jpg?v=1776766908"},{"product_id":"japanese-literature-book-alan-tansman-9780199765256","title":"Japanese Literature","description":"With a history stretching back nearly 1,500 years, written works originating from Japan encompass a vast range of forms and genres. Since the eighth century, poetry and the non-philosophical lyric voice have occupied a central position in Japanese cultural life. The art of narrative would soon follow, blossoming in the eleventh century with one of the world's great literary masterpieces, Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. Japanese literature later developed other genres no less important than poetry and narrative, among them the diary, the free-flowing essay, drama, the picture book, and the literary treatise. While intensely attentive to its own tradition, Japanese literature has also embraced the outside world, particularly the influence of China. It is also embraced by the outside world in turn, exporting bestselling authors such as Haruki Murakami and Yukio Mishima. Beyond this, Japan boasts a powerful literary culture, made up of cultivated reading publics, both aristocratic and bourgeois, literary salons, specialized presses, authoritative judges of talent who cultivated and celebrated particular writers and styles, and a canon consisting of classics. A succinct introduction to one of the most dynamic and diverse world literatures, this Very Short Introduction traces the rich history of Japanese literature from its beginnings over a millennium ago to the present day.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49737693790481,"sku":"NGR9780199765256","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000160485649,"sku":"NIN9780199765256","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51517238149393,"sku":"GOR014312013","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51521568342289,"sku":"GOR014313787","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52890849870097,"sku":"CIN0199765251LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53216936788241,"sku":"GOR014810670","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199765251.jpg?v=1776766384"},{"product_id":"american-intellectual-history-book-jennifer-ratner-rosenhagen-9780190622435","title":"American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction","description":"Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European explorers with centuries of belief and thought in tow. From this foundation of expectation and experience, America and American thought grew in turn, enriched by the bounties of the Enlightenment, the philosophies of liberty and individuality, the tenets of religion, and the doctrines of republicanism and democracy. Crucial to this development were the thinkers who nurtured it, from Thomas Jefferson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. Du Bois to Jane Addams, and Betty Friedan to Richard Rorty. This addition to Oxford's Very Short Introductions series traces how Americans have addressed the issues and events of their time and place, whether it is the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the culture wars of today.    Spanning a variety of disciplines, from religion, philosophy, and political thought, to cultural criticism, social theory, and the arts, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen shows how ideas have been major forces in American history, driving movements such as transcendentalism, Social Darwinism, conservatism, and postmodernism. In engaging and accessible prose, this introduction to American thought considers how notions about freedom and belonging, the market and morality - and even truth - have commanded generations of Americans and been the cause of fierce debate.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49738836934929,"sku":"NGR9780190622435","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999604150545,"sku":"NIN9780190622435","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53351294468369,"sku":"CIN0190622431G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190622431.jpg?v=1776940550"},{"product_id":"american-judicial-system-book-charles-l-zelden-9780190644918","title":"The American Judicial System: A Very Short Introduction","description":"At some point, everyone living in the United States has some type of interaction with the American judicial system. For most, this contact is relatively minor: contesting a traffic ticket, suing or being sued in civil court, being a witness in a civil or criminal trial, or serving on a jury. Others are caught up in the criminal justice system - as defendants, as victims, as witnesses, as jurors, or as relatives of a victim or a defendant. For still others, contact comes via an important policy issue affecting their lives in the hands of judges and justices sitting in judgment in marble temples to the law. Yet whatever the level of contact, the American judicial system affects peoples' lives. What courts and judges do matters.  This book provides a very short, but complete introduction to the institutions and people, the rules and processes, that make up the American judicial system. Jargon free and aimed at a general reader, this Very Short Introduction explains the 'where,' 'when,' and 'who' of American courts. It also makes clear the 'how' and 'why' behind the law as it affects everyday people. It is, in a word, a starting place to understanding the third branch of American government at both the state and federal levels; a guide to those wishing to know the basics of the American judicial system; and a cogent synthesis of how the various elements that make up the law and legal institutions fit together.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49738898997521,"sku":"NGR9780190644918","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999661527313,"sku":"NIN9780190644918","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51909063213329,"sku":"GOR014457024","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190644915.jpg?v=1750779701"},{"product_id":"habeas-corpus-book-amanda-l-tyler-9780190918989","title":"Habeas Corpus: A Very Short Introduction","description":"Legal scholar Amanda L. Tyler discusses the history and future of habeas corpus in America and around the world.    The concept of habeas corpus--literally, to receive and hold the body--empowers courts to protect the right of prisoners to know the basis on which they are being held by the government and grant prisoners their freedom when they are held unlawfully. It is no wonder that habeas corpus has long been considered essential to freedom.     For nearly eight hundred years, the writ of habeas corpus has limited the executive in the Anglo-American legal tradition from imprisoning citizens and subjects with impunity. Writing in the eighteenth century, the widely influential English jurist and commentator William Blackstone declared the writ a \"bulwark\" of personal liberty. Across the Atlantic, in the leadup to the American Revolution, the Continental Congress declared that the habeas privilege and the right to trial by jury were among the most important rights in a free society.     This Very Short Introduction chronicles the storied writ of habeas corpus and how its common law and statutory origins spread from England throughout the British Empire and beyond, witnessing its use today around the world in nations as varied as Canada, Israel, India, and South Korea. Beginning with the English origins of the writ, the book traces its historical development both as a part of the common law and as a parliamentary creation born out of the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, a statute that so dramatically limited the executive's power to detain that Blackstone called it no less than a \"second Magna Carta.\"    The book then takes the story forward to explore how the writ has functioned in the centuries since, including its controversial suspension by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. It also analyzes the major role habeas corpus has played in such issues as the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans and the US Supreme Court's recognition during the War on Terror of the concept of a \"citizen enemy combatant.\" Looking ahead the story told in these pages reveals the immense challenges that the habeas privilege faces today and suggests that in confronting them, we would do well to remember how the habeas privilege brought even the king of England to his knees before the law.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49739022762257,"sku":"NGR9780190918989","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999707468049,"sku":"NIN9780190918989","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52109274415377,"sku":"GOR013248054","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53216937476369,"sku":"GOR014810676","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190918985.jpg?v=1776939023"},{"product_id":"henry-james-book-susan-l-mizruchi-9780190944384","title":"Henry James: A Very Short Introduction","description":"An elegant introduction to one of America's most complex and influential writers.  From his childhood in a family of leading American intellectuals through his mature life as a major American man of letters, Henry James (1843-1916) created a unique body of fiction that represents one of the greatest achievements in the nation's literary history. James's transnational life in the US and England and his extraordinary siblings (the philosopher William James and diarist Alice James) made his life as complicated as the fictions he produced. In this elegant introduction to the work of Henry James, Susan L. Mizruchi places the notoriously difficult and obscure writings in their historical and biographical context.   As James grew in confidence as a writer, his fictions evolved accordingly. These complex accounts of human experience engage with the vital issues of both James's era and our own. Among the works treated in this introduction are Washington Square, The Europeans, Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, and The Turn of the Screw. Through his novels, as well as his journalistic and critical endeavors, James explores themes related to gender relations, human sexuality, the nature of modernity, the threat of relativism, the rise of mass culture, and the role of art.  Since their creation, James's writings have been a consistent subject of both literary theory and popular culture, receiving a diverse array of theoretical treatments, from formalism, deconstruction, phenomenology, and pragmatism to Marxism, new historicism, and gender and queer theory. James's novels have been adapted into numerous films by directors including William Wyler, Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Winner, Merchant\/Ivory, and Jane Campion. The impact of Henry James cannot be overstated.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740457476369,"sku":"NGR9780190944384","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999690330385,"sku":"NIN9780190944384","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52102703022353,"sku":"CIN0190944382G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53146968654097,"sku":"GOR014775383","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190944382.jpg?v=1750939918"},{"product_id":"polygamy-book-sarah-m-s-pearsall-9780197533178","title":"Polygamy: A Very Short Introduction","description":"Marriage has not always meant just one man and one woman. For much of human history, over much of the globe, the most common alternative was polygamy: marriage involving more than one spouse. Polygamy, or plural marriage, has long been an accepted form of union in human societies, involving people living on every continent. However, polygamy has come to symbolize a problematic, even “barbaric,” form of marriage that is often labeled as “backwards,” less modern and progressive, embodying the oppression of women by men.  In Polygamy: A Very Short Introduction, Sarah M. S. Pearsall explores what plural marriages reveal about the inner workings of marriage and describes the controversies surrounding it. The book emphasizes the diversity of historical polygamist societies, from the Shi'ite Muslims and Wendat men who practiced short-term marriages to the Mixteca, Maori, Inca, Algonquin, and Marta indigenous people of North America and the Pacific Islands, as well as medieval Irish kings, rulers of the Kingdom of Buganda in east Africa, and residents of the Ottoman Empire. Pearsall also explains the Old Testament origins of polygamy in the book of Genesis, making note of vocal Protestant defenders of the practice such as Martin Luther and John Milton, and the divides within Christianity that led to Joseph Smith's establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) and the Mormons' fight throughout the 19th-century under his successor Brigham Young's leadership to freely practice plural marriage.  Polygamy: A Very Short Introduction looks at how polygamous domestic and sexual relationships have influenced larger dynamics of power, gender, rank, race, and religion in societies all over the world, while also attempting to untangle the paradox of female constraint and liberty for women who advocated for polygamy, arguing that plural marriage offered security and stability rather than restraint for women. In balancing an explanation of the many complexities and misunderstandings of plural marriage, the book reveals how polygamy continues to have an influence on society today.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742246379793,"sku":"NGR9780197533178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999836180753,"sku":"NIN9780197533178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52995616473361,"sku":"CIN0197533175LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53147021443345,"sku":"GOR012472699","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0197533175.jpg?v=1751195712"},{"product_id":"evangelicalism-book-john-g-stackhouse-jr-9780190079680","title":"Evangelicalism: A Very Short Introduction","description":"Evangelicalism has rapidly become one of the most significant religious movements in the modern world.  An umbrella term that encompasses many Protestant denominations that share core tenets of Christianity, evangelicalism is foremost defined by its disciples' consideration of the Bible as the ultimate moral and historical authority, the desire to evangelize or spread the faith, and the value of religious conversion known as being “born again.”  As the Evangelical movement has grown rapidly, so has its influence on the political stage. Evangelicals affect elections up and down the Americas and across Africa, provoke governments throughout Asia, fill up some of the largest church buildings, and possess the largest congregations of any religion in the world. Yet evangelicals are wildly diverse- from Canadian Baptists to Nigerian Anglicans, from South Sea Methodists to Korean Presbyterians, and from house churches in Beijing to megachurches in Saõ Paulo.  This Very Short Introduction tells the evangelical story from the preacher-led revivals of the eighteenth century, through the frontier camp meetings of the nineteenth, to the mass urban rallies of the twentieth, and the global megachurches of the twenty-first. More than just a sketch of where evangelicals have come from, this volume aims to clearly examine the heart of evangelical phenomenon. Is there such a (single) thing as evangelicalism? What is its basic character? Where are the evangelicals going? And what in the world do they want?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742273347857,"sku":"NGR9780190079680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999591239953,"sku":"NIN9780190079680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51415535649041,"sku":"CIN0190079681G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53032964391185,"sku":"GOR013246945","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190079681.jpg?v=1751355773"},{"product_id":"american-poetry-book-david-caplan-9780190640194","title":"American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction","description":"A leading critic explains what makes American poetry--a vast genre covering diverse styles, techniques, and form--distinctive.   In this short and engaging volume, David Caplan proposes a new theory of American poetry. With lively writing and illuminating examples, Caplan argues that two characteristics mark the vast, contentious literature. On the one hand, several of America's major poets and critics claim that America needs a poetry equal to the country's distinctiveness. They advocate for novelty and for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign. On the other hand, American poetry welcomes techniques, styles, and traditions that originate from far beyond its borders. The force of these two competing characteristics, American poetry's emphasis on its uniqueness and its transnationalism, drives both individual accomplishment and the broader field. These two characteristic features energize American poetry, quickening its development into a great national literature that continues to inspire poets in the contemporary moment.  American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction moves through history and honors the poets' artistry by paying close attention to the verse forms, meters, and styles they employ. Examples range from Anne Bradstreet, writing a century before the United States was founded, to the poets of the Black Lives Matter movement. Individual chapters consider how other major figures such as T.S. Eliot, Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, W.H. Auden, and Langston Hughes emphasize convention or idiosyncrasy, and turn to American English as an important artistic resource. This concise examination of American poetry enriches our understanding of both the literature's distinctive achievement and the place of its most important writers within it.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49755414921489,"sku":"NGR9780190640194","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999639376145,"sku":"NIN9780190640194","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51330356773137,"sku":"CIN0190640197G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190640197.jpg?v=1750972446"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/very-short-introduction.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}