Art history encompasses the study of the history and development of painting, sculpture, and the other visual arts. In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Dana Arnold presents an introduction to the issues, debates, and artifacts that make up art history. Beginning with a consideration of what art history is, she explains what makes the subject distinctive from other fields of study and also explores the emergence of social histories of art (such as feminist art history and queer art history). 

Contemporary art has never been so popular - but the art world is changing. In a landscape of increasing globalization, there is growing interest in questions over the nature of contemporary art today and the identity of who is controlling its future. In the midst of this, contemporary art continues to be a realm of freedom where artists shock, break taboos, flout generally received ideas, and switch between confronting viewers with works of great emotional profundity and jaw-dropping triviality. 

This Introduction audiobook explores emerging geological research and explains how new advances in the understanding of plate tectonics, seismology, and satellite imagery have enabled us to begin to see the Earth as it actually is: dynamic and ever-changing. 

In the fifth edition of his best-selling Very Short Introduction work, Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing.  

Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language. But what is grammar? In fact, it's the integral basis of how we speak and write. As such, a refined awareness of grammar opens a world of possibilities for both your pleasure in the English language and your skill in using it, in both speech and the written word.

昭和を代表する禅僧・山田無文老師が、本文262文字に集約された仏教の真髄『般若心経』を分かりやすい言葉で解き明かした『般若心経』(山田無文著/禅文化研究所刊)を、プロのナレーターが朗読いたしました。お釈迦様の時代の話から、ご本人の体験談に至るまで、様々な話を例に出しつつ山田無文老師が語った言葉を読み起こします。また、大本山妙心寺塔頭 慧照院住職/妙心寺派法式梵唄講師 吹田良忠(ふきた・りょうちゅう)和尚に読経頂いた般若心経の読経も収録いたしました。般若心経の理解を深める事にとどまらず、幅広く仏教について学べる上に、歴史上の名僧のエピソード等も興味深く聴いて頂けるオーディオブックです。 ※本商品は『般若心経』(禅文化研究所刊 山田無文著ISBN:978-4-88182-188-6 1,682円(税込))をオーディオ化したものです。(C)Mumon YAMADA

"If you want to know what anthropology is, look at what anthropologists do," write the authors of Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction. This engaging overview of the field combines an accessible account of some of the discipline's guiding principles and methodology with abundant examples and illustrations of anthropologists at work.

The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, while revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the 18th century to the very latest fossil finds.

・・ときは平安。 背よりながく髪をのばし、絹織物を何重にもかさねて身に纏い、ろくに風呂にも入らず、重みのせいか陽に当たらず運動も足りない生活のせいかよろよろといざり動く女は、こちらを見て言い切る。 「春は、やっぱり暁方よね！」 ——だって空がなんともいえなくイイ！から！！ かわいいもの、しょんぼりしてしまうもの、わたしの好きな花、あこがれの上司、今日あったおもしろいこと。 千年を越えてはいても清少納言がかいているのはむずかしいことではありません。現代語訳もいいけれど、彼女の筆致「そのもの」をあじわっていただければと思います。おしゃべりするように聞いてください。