By the time the First World War ended in 1918, eight million people had died in what had been perhaps the most apocalyptic episode the world had known. This Very Short Introduction provides a concise and insightful history of the 'Great War', focusing on why it happened, how it was fought, and why it had the consequences it did.It examines the state of Europe in 1914 and the outbreak of war; th…
Machine learning and data analytics are powering a wave of groundbreaking technologies. Is your company ready? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you understand how these technologies work together, how to adopt them, and why your strategy can't ignore them. In this book, you'll learn how: data science, driven by …
Here is the extraordinary story of the unfolding of life on Earth, told by Michael J. Benton, a world-renowned authority on biodiversity. Ranging over four billion years, Benton weaves together the latest findings on fossils, earth history, evolutionary biology, and many other fields to highlight the great leaps that enabled life to evolve from microbe to human--big breakthroughs that made whol…
What is socialism? Does it have a future, or has it become an outdated ideology in the 21st century? This Very Short Introduction considers the major theories in socialism, and explores its historical evolution from the French Revolution to the present day. Michael Newman argues that socialism has always been a diverse doctrine, while nevertheless containing a central core of interconnected …
This book investigates the ways in which the social purposes of adult education are (re)interpreted over time, and between the global south and global north. It brings together thirty-seven authors from fourteen countries with extensive experience as academics and/or practitioners in the field. The book is inspired by the work and life of Lalage Bown, a leading proponent of post-colonial and in…
From the wilds of Kruger National Park, to cosmopolitan Cape Town, to the lush western cape winelands, to the stunning beaches along the Garden Route, this guide leads you straight to the greatest attractions this fascinating and varied country has to offer. Get insider tips on everything from the best shopping, restaurants, and hotels, to outdoor activities such as whale-watching, surfing, and…
It is impossible to talk about human cognition without talking about concepts—there simplyisno human cognition without concepts. Concepts form an abstractionof reality that is central to the functioning of the human mind. Conceptual knowledge(of e.g., APPLE, LOVE and BEFORE) is crucial for us to categorize, understand,and reason about the world. Only equipped with concepts and words for them …
A large large, hand-painted map greets visitors to the rubber-tree nursery just outside Vieng Phoukha, a rural district capital in northwest-ern Laos. Taking up much of the second-story wall of the nursery’s main building, its title is long and formal: “Land-use map of the 3,000-hectare rubber planting promotion project, Vieng Phoukha District, of Bolisat Ltd., Yunnan Province, People’s…
One of the most notable features of any survey of the history of energy regimes in the Americas over the past century is the “pendulum effect.” Anecdotal though the observation may be, it is clear that despite the broad and incremental transformational changes that have occurred in the global energy landscape over time, individual countries have un…
Besides being a matter of academic interest, the study of earthquake-inducedhydrologic changes also has important implications for water resources, hydro-carbon exploration and engineered systems. For example, groundwater level changesfollowing earthquakes can affect water supplies (Chen and Wang2009). The aban-donment of Crete during the Late Minoan period has been attributed by some to adeple…