Download or read book Sport written by Mike Cronin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sport is big business; international in nature and the focus of much media and cultural attention. In thisVery Short Introduction, Mike Cronin charts the history of sport, from its traditional origins in folk football and cock fighting to its position as a global phenomenon today. Looking at a variety of sports from team games such as rugby, cricket, and football to games for individuals such as golf, tennis, and skiing, he considers how these first emerged and captivated the interest of ordinary people, and how sport has been transformed within our daily lives. Exploring the relationship between sport and class, gender, commerce, identity, and ethics, Cronin considers some of the central issues in sport today, including the high pay of professional footballers and the glamour of women in sports, as well as fair play standards. Charting sport through the ages and around the world, this is a short guide to the history, development, and place of sport in contemporary global society. 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.
Download or read book Sport A Very Short Introduction written by Mike Cronin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sport is big business; international in nature and the focus of much media and cultural attention. In this Very Short Introduction, Mike Cronin charts the history of sport, from its traditional origins in folk football and cock fighting to its position as a global phenomenon today. Looking at a variety of sports from team games such as rugby, cricket, and football to games for individuals such as golf, tennis, and skiing, he considers how these first emerged and captivated the interest of ordinary people, and how sport has been transformed within our daily lives. Exploring the relationship between sport and class, gender, commerce, identity, and ethics, Cronin considers some of the central issues in sport today, including the high pay of professional footballers and the glamour of sports women, as well as fair play standards. Charting sport through the ages and around the world, this is a short guide to the history, development, and place of sport in contemporary global society. 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.
Download or read book The Body A Very Short Introduction written by Chris Shilling and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The human body is thought of conventionally as a biological entity, with its longevity, morbidity, size and even appearance determined by genetic factors immune to the influence of society or culture. Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been a rising awareness of how our bodies, and our perception of them, are influenced by the social, cultural and material contexts in which humans live. Drawing on studies of sex and gender, education, governance, the economy, and religion, Chris Shilling demonstrates how our physical being allows us to affect the material and virtual world around us, yet also enables governments to shape and direct our thoughts and actions. Revealing how social relationships, cultural images, and technological and medical advances shape our perceptions and awareness, he exposes the limitations of traditional Western traditions of thought that elevate the mind over the body as that which defines us as human. Dealing with issues ranging from cosmetic and transplant surgery, the performance of gendered identities, the commodification of bodies and body parts, and the violent consequences of competing conceptions of the body as sacred, Shilling provides a compelling account of why body matters present contemporary societies with a series of urgent and inescapable challenges. 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.
Download or read book The Ethics of Sport written by Robert L. Simon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The moral significance of sport -- Winning, cheating, and the ethics of competition -- Health, safety, and violence in competitive sport -- Enhancement, technology, and fairness in competitive sport -- Competitive sport: education or mis-education? -- Sports, equity, and society -- Concluding comment: the two sides of the force or are sports so great after all?
Download or read book Projects written by Andrew Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A project is a temporary coalition of people and resources brought together to achieve a one-off objective. Andrew Davies explains how and why the project approach is central to success in creating products and services, constructing major infrastructure, launching entrepreneurial ventures, implementing strategies, even landing a man on the moon.
Download or read book Rastafari A Very Short Introduction written by Ennis Barrington Edmonds and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rastafari has grown into an international socio-religious movement, with adherents of Rastafari found in most of the major population centres and outposts of the world. This Very Short Introduction provides a brief account of this widespread but often poorly understood movement, looking at its history, central principles, and practices.
Download or read book Metaphysics A Very Short Introduction written by Stephen Mumford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to metaphysics offers questions and answers covering such issues as properties, changes, time, personal identity, nothingness, and consciousness.
Download or read book Design A Very Short Introduction written by John Heskett and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will transform the way you think about design by showing how integral it is to our daily lives, from the spoon we use to eat our breakfast cereal to the medical equipment used to save lives. John Heskett goes beyond style and taste to look at how different cultures and individuals personalise objects.
Download or read book Contemporary Art A Very Short Introduction written by Julian Stallabrass and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Bloodied toy soldiers, gilded shopping carts, and Lego concentration camps. Contemporary art is supposed to be a realm of freedom where artists shock, break taboos, and switch between confronting viewers with works of great profundity and jaw-dropping triviality. But away from shock tactics in the gallery, there are many unanswered questions. What is contemporary about contemporary art? What effect do politics and big business have on art? And who really runs the art world?" "Previously published as Art Incorporated, this controversial and witty Very Short Introduction is an exploration of the global art scene that will change the way you see contemporary art."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Work A Very Short Introduction written by Stephen Fineman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the social and cultural factors that affect work, the ethical consequences of some types of work, and the relationship between work and the broader issues of globalization, feminism, and technology.
Download or read book Women s Sports written by Jaime Schultz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although girls and women account for approximately 40 percent of all athletes in the United States, they receive only 4 percent of the total sport media coverage. SportsCenter, ESPN's flagship program, dedicates less than 2 percent of its airtime to women. Local news networks devote less than 5 percent of their programming to women's sports. Excluding Sports Illustrated's annual "Swimsuit Issue," women appear on just 4.9 percent of the magazine's covers. Media is a powerful indication of the culture surrounding sport in the United States. Why are women underrepresented in sports media? Sports Illustrated journalist Andy Benoit infamously remarked that women's sports "are not worth watching." Although he later apologized, Benoit's comment points to more general lack of awareness. Consider, for example, the confusion surrounding Title IX, the U.S. Law that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal financial assistance. Is Title IX to blame when administrators drop men's athletic programs? Is it lack of interest or lack of opportunity that causes girls and women to participate in sport at lower rates than boys and men? In Women's Sports: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Jaime Schultz tackles these questions, along with many others, to upend the misunderstandings that plague women's sports. Using historical, contemporary, scholarly, and popular sources, Schultz traces the progress and pitfalls of women's involvement in sport. In the signature question-and-answer format of the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, this short and accessible book clarifies misconceptions that dog women's athletics and offers much needed context and history to illuminate the struggles and inequalities sportswomen continue to face. By exploring issues such as gender, sexuality, sex segregation, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, media coverage, and the sport-health connection, Schultz shows why women's sports are not just worth watching, but worth playing, supporting, and fighting for.
Download or read book Being Good written by Simon Blackburn and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-03-14 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not only in our dark hours that scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism dog ethics. Whether it is a matter of giving to charity, or sticking to duty, or insisting on our rights, we can be confused, or be paralysed by the fear that our principles are groundless. Many are afraid that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. Simon Blackburn, author of the best-selling Think, structures this short introduction around these and other threats to ethics. Confronting seven different objections to our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures, he charts a course through the philosophical quicksands that often engulf us. Then, turning to problems of life and death, he shows how we should think about the meaning of life, and how we should mistrust the sound-bite sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates. Finally he offers a critical tour of the ways the philosophical tradition has tried to provide foundations for ethics, from Plato and Aristotle through to contemporary debates.
Download or read book History A Very Short Introduction written by John Arnold and published by Oxford Paperbacks. This book was released on 2000-02-24 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting with an examination of how historians work, this "Very Short Introduction" aims to explore history in a general, pithy, and accessible manner, rather than to delve into specific periods.
Download or read book Reading A Very Short Introduction written by Belinda Jack and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today many people take reading for granted, but we remain some way off from attaining literacy for the global human population. And whilst we think we know what reading is, it remains in many ways a mysterious process, or set of processes. The effects of reading are myriad: it can be informative, distracting, moving, erotically arousing, politically motivating, spiritual, and much, much more. At different times and in different places reading means different things. In this Very Short Introduction Belinda Jack explores the fascinating history of literacy, and the opportunities reading opens. For much of human history reading was the preserve of the elite, and most reading meant being read to. Innovations in printing, paper-making, and transport, combined with the rise of public education from the late eighteenth century on, brought a dramatic rise in literacy in many parts of the world. Established links between a nation's levels of literacy and its economy led to the promotion of reading for political ends. But, equally, reading has been associated with subversive ideas, leading to censorship through multiple channels: denying access to education, controlling publishing, destroying libraries, and even the burning of authors and their works. Indeed, the works of Voltaire were so often burned that an enterprising Parisian publisher produced a fire-proof edition, decorated with a phoenix. But, as Jack demonstrates, reading is a collaborative act between an author and a reader, and one which can never be wholly controlled. Telling the story of reading, from the ancient world to digital reading and restrictions today, Belinda Jack explores why it is such an important aspect of our society. 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.
Download or read book Magna Carta A Very Short Introduction written by Nicholas Vincent and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-06-28 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Magna Carta has long been considered the foundation stone of the British Constitution, yet few people today understand either its contents or its context. This Very Short Introduction introduces the document to a modern audience, explaining its origins in the troubled reign of King John, and tracing the significance of the role that it played thereafter as a totemic symbol of the subject's right to protection against the raw and absolute authority of the sovereign. Drawing upon the great advances that have been made in the past two decades in our understanding of thirteenth-century English history, Nicholas Vincent demonstrates why the Magna Carta continues to be of enormous popular interest. 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.
Download or read book Korea written by Michael J. Seth and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Korea, long in the shadows of its neighbours China and Japan, is now the object of considerable interest. This book focuses on answering several historical questions: what does it mean to be Korean? How did this nation evolve into today's sharply contrasting societies? And how does Korea fit into the larger narrative of world history?
Download or read book The Short Story a Very Short Introduction written by Andrew Kahn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-08 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on examples from across the globe and throughout history, Andrew Kahn explores the key characteristics of the short story. He shows how its rise was intertwined with international print culture, and discusses the essential techniques within this thriving literary genre, as well as the ways in which it is constantly innovated, even today.
