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The abolitionist movement launched the global human rights struggle in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, redefining the meaning of equality throughout the Atlantic world. In the twenty-first century, it remains a touchstone of democratic activism—a timeless example of mobilizing against injustice. Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction highlights the key people, institutions, themes, and events that shaped the antislavery struggle across the Atlantic world. Highlighting the activist exertions of abolitionists from the Caribbean and Great Britain to the United States and Iberian society, this short text shows that abolitionism was a potent social movement that ended the most profitable institution of the early modern era: racial slavery.Less

If you read the ‘business pages’ of a newspaper or if you listen to the financial news on the television or radio, you will often hear terms such as ‘liability’, ‘balance sheet’ or ‘earnings’. Accounting: A Very Short Introduction provides a guide to understanding and using accounting information. It examines the key concepts and the main types of accounting work, from bookkeeping and financial reporting to auditing and management accounting. It traces the development of accounting over the centuries; examines the building blocks of financial reports, such as assets and liabilities; and looks at how accounting differs between countries and the importance of international standards.Less

In 1776, Adam Smith (1723–90) wrote The Wealth of Nations, the foundational book that led to him being called the ‘father of economics’. However, Adam Smith was far more than an economist. Adam Smith is introduced through an overview of his writings and moral philosophy. Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction offers a balanced and nuanced view of this seminal thinker, embedding his fierce defence of free trade, competition, and assault on special interests in contemporary European history, politics, and philosophy. It outlines Smith’s central ideas and how his intellectual and social environment influenced his thinking. It also discusses Smith’s influence on subsequent generations, and the ways in which he has been interpreted.Less

Adolescence is a turbulent period to live through. Marking the transition from the world of childhood to adult life, the adolescent faces many challenges and opportunities, including puberty, cognitive changes, forming their own identity, relating to often conflicting demands from parents and peers, and negotiating first romantic relationships. Adolescence: A Very Short Introduction provides a guide to the classical research that has informed our knowledge on adolescence, as well as the results of modern research into the contemporary adolescent experience. It also examines a number of aspects of adolescence, including the cultural and historical context, the biological changes to the adolescent brain, and the controversies that adolescence brings.Less

Advertising: A Very Short Introduction dispels the myths surrounding the advertising industry. Advertising is a diverse entity, and campaigns work (or fail to work) in a plethora of ways. How does the advertising industry work? What part do all the key players (the advertisers, the media, and the agencies) play? Where does the public sit in the world of advertising? This VSI examines how advertisers determine whether they have been successful, how they know if the money they have spent has been wasted, and what the benefits of advertising are and what the future may hold for the industry.Less

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste. It doesn’t just consider traditional artistic experiences such as artworks in a museum or an opera performance, but also everyday experiences. Aesthetics: A Very Short Introduction considers both Western and non-Western aesthetic traditions, and explores why it is sometimes misunderstood or considered to be too elitist—by artists, musicians, and even philosophers. The scope of aesthetics extends far wider than that of art, high or low, including much of what we care about in life. If an experience is worth having for you, it thereby becomes the subject of aesthetics.Less

African American Religion: A Very Short Introduction explores the history and circumstances of African American religion through three examples: conjure, African American Christianity, and African American Islam. It argues that the phrase “African American religion” is meaningful only insofar as it describes how through religion, African Americans have responded to oppressive conditions. This bold claim frames the interpretation of the historical record of diverse religious experiences in the African American community. The common tendency to racialize African American religious experiences as an inherent proclivity towards religiousness is rejected and instead the focus is on how religious communities and experiences have developed in the African American community and the context in which these developments took place.Less

African History: A Very Short Introduction looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented by examining the unity and diversity of African cultures, slavery, religion, colonial conquest, the diaspora, and the importance of history in understanding contemporary Africa. Africa has been known as ‘the cradle of mankind’, and its recoverable history stretches back to the Pharaohs. But the idea of study of ‘African history’ itself is new. Why is it still contested and controversial? Who invented the idea of ‘Africa’? How is African history pieced together, given such a lack of documentary evidence? How did Africa interact with the world 1,000 years ago?Less

African Politics: A Very Short Introduction explores how politics is practised on the African continent, providing an overview of the different states and their systems. It considers the nature of the state in sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors that account for Africa’s underdevelopment, it also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveiling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, this VSI discusses how external factors—both inherited and contemporary—act upon the continent.Less

African Religions: A Very Short Introduction offers a wide-ranging look at the myriad indigenous religious traditions on the African continent, drawing on archeological research, historical evidence, ethnographic studies, and archival materials. African religious belief-exploring myths, gods and local deities, ancestor worship, rites of passage, festivals, and divination are considered and the role these religions play in everyday African life, from birthing and death, marriage and family dynamics, to diet, dress and grooming, health care, and even governance, is discussed. Christianity and Islam has spread throughout Africa, but the more extreme fundamentalist sects—which decry traditional religion as paganism—have driven a near total collapse of indigenous practice.Less