Listeners of this book will gain a clear understanding of what makes the Japanese, and their society, tick.

"Correlation does not imply causation". This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, sparked by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed causality - the study of cause and effect - on a firm scientific basis.

Since the early Egyptians, human beings have formalized the business of learning, setting up a designated environment of some form to pass knowledge and learning on to groups of students. In this second edition of his Very Short Introduction, Gary Thomas explores how and why education has evolved as it has, examining the ways in which it has responded over the centuries to various influences in politics, philosophy, and the social sciences.

One of the leading philosophical movements of the 20th century, existentialism has had more impact on literature and the arts than any other school of thought. Focusing on the leading figures of existentialism, including Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Camus, Thomas Flynn offers a concise account of existentialism, explaining the key themes of individuality, free will, and personal responsibility, which marked the movement as a way of life, not just a way of thinking.

In this new edition, Steve Bruce discusses the continuing arguments for social egalitarianism, considering issues such as gay marriage, women in combat roles, and the 2010 Equality Act to debunk contemporary arguments against parity. As gender divisions are increasingly questioned, he looks ahead to the likely consequences of this for society.

Today, it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. Indeed, human rights law continues to gain increasing attention internationally, and must move quickly in order to keep up with a social world that changes so rapidly. This Very Short Introduction title, in its second edition, brings the issue of human rights up to date, considering the current controversies surrounding the movement.

親とその子どもの貧困が深刻化し、貧困の連鎖が懸念されている。「今でも一億総中流の平等な社会だと思い込んでいる人が多いが、日本は階級社会だ」社会学者の橋本健二・早稲田大学教授はそう断言する。新しい下層階

新自由主義の浸透によって格差や貧困，環境破壊が拡大し，人間の生きる場が崩されている．あらゆる決定を市場と為政者に委ねてよいのか．

この一冊でニュースの読み方が変わる！正々堂々と生きる「価値基準」を持つことができる！社会学者・宮台真司が、旬のニュースや事件にフォーカスし、この社会の〝問題の本質〟を解き明かした名著が新書版で誕生。

二〇二〇年一〇月一日、時の首相・菅義偉は、日本学術会議から新会員として推薦を受けた一〇五名のうち六名の任命を拒否した。この民主主義や法から学問のあり方にまで禍根を残した事件から一年半。

International security is never out of the headlines. War and peace, military strategy, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and revisionist states remain central to the discussion, but concerns such as climate change, migration, poverty, health, and international terrorism have complicated the field. So what really matters: the traditional prioritization of state security or the security needs of individuals, humanity, and the biosphere?

２０１７年に成立した民法の一部改正が、２０２０年４月から施行された。１８９６（明治２９）年に制定され１２０年間にわたり専門家の解釈や判例の蓄積により補われてきた。法律の条文を見てもわかりづら

This new edition explores the ethical reasoning we can use to approach medical ethics, introducing the most important "tools" of ethical reasoning, and discussing how argument, thought experiments, and intuition can be combined in the consideration of medical ethics. Considering its practical application, Tony Hope and Michael Dunn explore how medical ethics supports health professionals through the growing use of ethics expertise in clinical settings.

In Politics: A Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Minogue begins with a discussion of issues arising from a historical account of politics and goes on to offer chapters dealing with the Ancient Greeks and the idea of citizenship; Roman law; medieval Christianity and individualism; freedom since Machiavelli and Hobbes; the challenge of ideologies; democracy, oligarchy, and bureaucracy; power and order in modern society; and politics in the West.

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.

前著『新しい労働社会』から12年。同書が提示した「ジョブ型」という概念は広く使われるに至ったが、今や似ても似つかぬジョブ型論がはびこっている。ジョブ型とは何であるかを基礎の基礎から解説した上で、

Schopenhauer is considered to be the most accessible of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will-a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature.

No political concept is more used, and misused, than that of democracy. Nearly every regime today claims to be democratic, but not all "democracies" allow free politics, and free politics existed long before democratic franchises. This book is a short account of the history of the doctrine and practice of democracy, from ancient Greece and Rome through the American, French, and Russian revolutions, and of the usages and practices associated with it in the modern world.

古代から中世へ，一大転換期を舞台にした思想劇－キリスト教の基礎を据え，正統と異端を産み落とした教義論争史にわけいる．

This Very Short Introduction audiobook celebrates the centrality of ecology in our lives. Jaboury Ghazoul explores how ecology has evolved rapidly from natural history to become a predictive science that explains how the natural world works and which guides environmental policy and management decisions.

With his well known idiosyncrasies and aphoristic style, Friedrich Nietzsche is always bracing and provocative, and temptingly easy to dip into. Michael Tanner's introduction to the philosopher's life and work examines the numerous ambiguities inherent in his writings and explodes many of the misconceptions that have grown in the hundred years since Nietzsche wrote "do not, above all, confound me with what I am not!"

身体性に結び付けられた「女らしさ」ゆえにケアを担わされてきた女性たちは、自身の経験を語る言葉を奪われ、言葉を発したとしても傾聴に値しないお喋りとして扱われてきた。

Psychology is part of everyone's experience: It influences the way we think about everything from education and intelligence, to relationships and emotions, advertising and criminality. People readily behave as amateur psychologists, offering explanations for what people think, feel, and do. But what exactly are psychologists trying to do? What scientific grounding do they have for their approach? This Very Short Introduction explores some of psychology's leading ideas and their practical relevance.

Just as Masters and Johnson were pioneers in the study of human sexuality, so Dr. John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage. As a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and the founder and director of the Seattle Marital and Family Institute, he has studied the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over the course of many years. His findings, and his heavily attended workshops, have already turned around thousands of faltering marriages.

The tradition of ancient philosophy is a long, rich, and varied one, in which a constant note is that of discussion and argument. This book introduces listeners to some ancient debates to engage with the ancient developments of some themes. Getting away from the presentation of ancient philosophy as a succession of Great Thinkers, the book gives listeners a sense of the freshness and liveliness of ancient philosophy and of its wide variety of themes and styles.