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Showing 1 - 8 of 8 items
Professor of modern history examines Scotland's politics, laws, society, religious institutions, schools and universities, culture, and relationship with the world,…
including the factors that have distinguished it from England both before and after Union. 2008
Cambridge University professor of music proposes a framework for thinking about all kinds of music--world, folk, classical, jazz, rock, and…
pop--by examining the personal, social, commercial, and cultural values music embodies. Challenges the reader to learn to understand music in historical context and question received musicological thought. 1998
Professor of sociology asserts the value of his discipline for understanding the modern world. Draws on studies of social class,…
crime and deviance, work in bureaucracies, and changes in religious and political organizations. Explores the tension between the individual's role in society and society's role in shaping the individual. 1999
Noted lexicographer provides a wide-ranging survey of this subset of standard English. Green ponders the obscure origins of the word…
"slang" itself, classifies themes and objects to which most slang adverts, and presents a history of slang's many dictionaries. Offers examples, from Shakespeare and Dickens to the digital revolution. 2016
Psychology professor describes the discipline that studies language in its social and cultural contexts--how words and sentences are influenced by…
our social environment. Discusses the importance of accents and dialects, the significance of names, the relationship between language and gender, the language of poverty, and the intertwining of language and religion. 2013
Professor of early modern history explores the origins and history of witchcraft, from prehistory to present day paganism and popular…
media, asking why it still features so heavily in our culture. Considers the classic period (1500-1900) of witchcraft trials and witch-hunting, including the infamous Salem panic of 1692. 2010
Professor of organization studies draws on psychology, sociology, management, and social history for this multidisciplinary account of work--as a concept…
and as practical experience. Examines the cultural and social factors that influence the way we work, the ethics of certain types of work, and factors affecting work's future. 2012
Russia is rarely out of the news. Yet Russian politics can be difficult to understand. It is powerfully shaped by…
large, impersonal forces such as geography, and Russia's place in the international political and economic system. At the same time, Russia's formal political institutions, such as the Constitution and electoral procedures, are relatively weak and manipulable compared to those of stable, established democracies. Under these circumstances, powerful leaders represent a source of potential dynamism and change. This Very Short Introduction provides a guide to understanding Russian Politics that goes beyond the headlines, offering a vivid account of the key forces driving Russian politics. It places Russia in a global context while explaining its internal political development. Several major themes run through the book, including the primacy of the state over society, the role of the so-called "West," which has represented a source of inspiration, of threat, and of competition for generations of Russians, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet collapse brought about dramatic change across multiple spheres, from the nature of the political and economic system to the country's borders and who counted as a citizen. To this day, Russia is still working its way through the consequences of these transformations