A pro-faith attempt by a Muslim woman to present a comprehensive, female-inclusive reading of the Qur'an, the sacred Islamic text.

    It examines a distinctive stage in the development of capitalism that began in the 1980s, in order to understand where we are now and how capitalism has evolved since. The book discusses the crisis tendencies of capitalism--including the S.E. Asian banking crisis, the collapse of the Russian economy, and the 1997-1998 global financial crisis--asking whether capitalism is doomed to fail. In the end, the author ruminates on a possible alternative to capitalism, discussing socialism, communal and cooperative experiments, and alternatives proposed by environmentalists.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    The territories forming this colossus ranged from tiny islands to vast segments of the world's major continental land masses, and included Australia, South Africa, India, and Canada. This vast empire left its mark on the world in a multitude of ways, many of them permanent.In this Very Short Introduction, Ashley Jackson introduces and defines the British Empire, shedding light on a series of key questions, reviewing how it evolved into such a force, and looking at the legacy it left behind.About the Series:Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    It emphasizes throughout the point of doing philosophy, explains how different areas of philosophy are related, and explores the contexts in which philosophy was and is done.

    It doesn't just consider traditional artistic experiences such as artworks in a museum or an opera performance, but also everyday experiences such as autumn leaves in the park, or even just the light of the setting sun falling on the kitchen table. It is also about your experience when you choose the shirt you're going to wear today or when you wonder whether you should put more pepper in the soup. Aesthetics is everywhere. It is one of the most important aspects of our life.In this Very Short Introduction Bence Nanay introduces the field of aesthetics, considering both Western and non-Western aesthetic traditions, and exploring why it is sometimes misunderstood or considered to be too elitist - by artists, musicians, and even philosophers. As Nanay shows, so-called 'high art' has no more claims on aesthetics than sitcoms, tattoos, or punk rock. In fact, the scope of aesthetics extends far wider than that of art, high or low, including much of what we care about in life. It is not the job of aesthetics to tell you which artworks are good and which ones are bad. It is not the job of aesthetics to tell you what experiences are worth having. If an experience is worth having for you, it thereby becomes the subject of aesthetics. This realisation is important, because thinking about aesthetics in this inclusive way opens up new ways of understanding old questions about the social aspect of our aesthetic engagements, and the importance of aesthetic values for our own self.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.

    But in this spirited Very Short Introduction, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer.Eagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that it is only in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, New Age softheadedness, or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them, not something with which they come ready made. Eagleton probes this view of meaning as a kind of private enterprise, and concludes that it fails to holds up. He argues instead that the meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a matter of living in a certain way. It is not metaphysical but ethical. It is not something separate from life, but what makes it worth living--that is, a certain quality, depth, abundance and intensity of life.Here then is a brilliant discussion of the problem of meaning by a leading thinker, who writes with a light and often irreverent touch, but with a very serious end in mind.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    This book aims to give a clear and readable overview of his philosophical work. It analyzes both the theoretical underpinnings of Habermas's social theory, and its more concrete applications in the fields of ethics, politics, and law. Finally, it examines how Habermas's social and political theory informs his writing on real, current political and social problems. The author explores Habermas's influence on a wide variety of fields--including philosophy, political and social theory, cultural studies, sociology, and literary studies. He uses a problem-based approach to explain how Habermas's ideas can be applied to actual social and political situations. The book also includes a glossary of technical terms to further acquaint the reader with Habermas's philosophy. Unlike other writing on Habermas, this Introduction is accessibly written and explains his intellectual framework and technical vocabulary, rather than simply adopting it.

    But when people think about economics, they tend to place importance on the bigger picture - macroeconomics - including issues such as unemployment, inflation, and the competitiveness of nations.In this Very Short Introduction, Avinash Dixit argues that the microeconomy has a large impact on the economic world, arguably as much as the issues of macroeconomics.Dixit steers a clear path through the huge number of issues related to microeconomics, explaining what happens when things go well, as well as showing how they fail, why that happens, and what can be done about it. Using real-life examples from around the world, using a minimum of mathematics and including simple graphs, he provides insights into economics from psychology and sociology to explain economic behavior and rational choice.About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    To many it remains the inspiration of our commitments to the betterment of the human condition. To others, it represents the elevation of one set of European values to the world, many of whose peoples have quite different values. But what is the relationship between the historical Enlightenment and the idea of 'Enlightenment', and can these two understandings be reconciled?In this Very Short Introduction, John Robertson offers a concise historical introduction to the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement of eighteenth-century Europe. Discussing its intellectual achievements, he also explores how its supporters exploited new ways of communicating their ideas to a wider public, creating a new 'public sphere' for critical discussion of the moral, economic and political issues facing their societies.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.#443

    Edited for ease of comprehension, English-speaking readers will find this compilation both spiritually enriching and easy to understand. With 365 verses covering the whole year, this is a must for every home.An introduction to the Qur'an and its eternal message for humanity is included, giving the reader an insight into its origin, purpose, and style.Abdur Raheem Kidwai is professor of English at the Aligarh Muslim University in India and the well-known author of many works on the Qur'an and Islam.

    Esposito is one of America's leading authorities on Islam. Now, in this brilliant portrait of Islam today-- and tomorrow-- he draws on a lifetime of thought and research to provide an accurate, richly nuanced, and revelatory account of the fastest growing religion in the world.Here Esposito explores the major questions and issues that face Islam in the 21st century and that will deeply affect global politics: Is Islam compatible with modern notions of democracy, rule of law, gender equality, and human rights? How representative and widespread is Islamic fundamentalism and the threat of global terrorism? Can Muslim minority communities be loyal citizens in America and Europe? In the midst of these questions Esposito places an important emphasis on the issue of Islamophobia, the threat it poses, and its vast impact on politics and society in the US and Europe. He also turns the mirror on the US and Europe and paints a revealing portrait of how we appear to Muslims.Recent decades have brought extraordinary changes in the Muslim world, and in addressing these issues, Esposito paints a complex picture of Islam in all its diversity--a picture of urgent importance as we face the challenges of the coming century.

    Echevarria II presents a fascinating account of the "art of the general." Drawing on historical examples, from Hannibal's war against Rome to Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz, from the Allies' campaign to overwhelm Hitler's fortress to the terror attacks of September 11, Echevarria vividly describes the major types of military strategy and their advantages and disadvantages.Clear and engaging, this book shows that military strategy is essential for understanding major events of the past and becomes even more critical today, in a world increasingly threatened by weapons of mass destruction, terrorist attacks, and new dimensions of conflict such as cyberwar and space.

    But how can it be defined? In this highly readable introduction the mysteries of this most elusive of concepts are unraveled, casting a critical light upon the way we live now, from the politicizing of museumculture to the cult of the politically correct. The key postmodernist ideas are explored and challenged, as they figure in the theory, philosophy, politics, ethics and artwork of the period, and it is shown how they have interacted within a postmodernist culture.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundredsof key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    Now, in The American Presidency, presidential authority Charles O. Jones provides invaluable background to the current controversy, in a compact, reliable guide to the office of the chief executive.This marvelously concise survey is packed with information about the presidency, some of it quite surprising. We learn, for example, that the Founders adopted the word president over governor and other alternatives because it suggested a light hand, as in one who presides, rather than rules. Indeed, the Constitutional Convention first agreed to a weak chief executive elected by congress for one seven-year term, later calling for independent election and separation of powers. Jones sheds much light on how assertive leaders, such as Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, and FDR enhanced the power of the presidency, and illuminating how such factors as philosophy (Reagan's anti-Communist conservatism), the legacy of previous presidencies (Jimmy Carter following Watergate), relations with Congress, and the impact of outside events have all influenced presidential authority. He also explores the rise of federal power and the dramatic expansion of federal agencies, showing how the president takes a direct hand in this vast bureaucracy, and he examines the political process of selecting presidents, from the days of deadlocked conventions to the rise of the primary after World War II.In 200 years, he writes, the presidency had changed from that of a person--Washington followed by Adams, then Jefferson--to a presidential enterprise with a cast of thousands. Jones explains how this remarkable expansion has occurred and where it may lead in the future.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    From randomized clinical trials in medical research, to statistical models of risk in banking and hedge fund industries, to the statistical tools used to probe vast astronomical databases, the field of statistics has become centrally important to how we understand our world. But the discipline underlying all these is not the dull statistics of the popular imagination. Long gone are the days of manual arithmetic manipulation. Nowadays statistics is a dynamic discipline, revolutionized by the computer, which uses advanced software tools to probe numerical data, seeking structures, patterns, and relationships. This Very Short Introduction sets the study of statistics in context, describing its history and giving examples of its impact, summarizes methods of gathering and evaluating data, and explains the role played by the science of chance, of probability, in statistical methods. The book also explores deep philosophical issues of induction--how we use statistics to discern the true nature of reality from the limited observations we necessarily must make.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.