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.

The Cold War dominated international life from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But how did the conflict begin? Why did it move from its initial origins in Postwar Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? And why, after lasting so long, did the war end so suddenly and unexpectedly? Robert McMahon considers these questions and more, as well as looking at the legacy of the Cold War and its impact on international relations today.

Karl von Clausewitz is considered by many to have been one of the greatest writers on war. His study On War was described by the American strategic thinker Bernard Brodie as "not simply the greatest, but the only great book about war". It is hard to disagree. Even though he wrote his only major work at a time when the range of firearms was 50 yards, much of what he had to say remains relevant today. Michael Howard explains Clausewitz's ideas in terms both of his experiences as a professional soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, and of the intellectual background of his time. 

In his 1992 best-selling book The End of History and the Last Man, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that the dominance of liberal democracy marked the end of humanity's political and ideological development. Thirty years later, with populism on the rise and the number of liberal democracies decreasing worldwide, Fukuyama revisits his classic thesis. A series of in-depth interviews between Fukuyama and editor Mathilde Fasting, After the End of History offers a wide-ranging analysis of liberal democracy today.

The Napoleonic Wars saw fighting on an unprecedented scale in Europe and the Americas. It took the wealth of the British Empire, combined with the might of the continental armies, almost two decades to bring down one of the world's greatest military leaders and the empire that he had created. Napoleon's ultimate defeat was to determine the history of Europe for almost 100 years. From the frozen wastelands of Russia, through the brutal fighting in the Peninsula to the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterloo, this book tells the story of the dramatic rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire.

太宰治(本名 津島修治）は、小学校では学校始まって以来の秀才と称されるほど成績優秀で、特に作文に優れ、腕白でいたずらっ子でもありました。茶目っ気があり、中学校では友人を笑

While intensely attentive to its own tradition, Japanese literature has also embraced the outside world, particularly the influence of China. Beyond this, Japan boasts a powerful literary culture, made up of cultivated reading publics, both aristocratic and bourgeois, literary salons, specialized presses, authoritative judges of talent who cultivated and celebrated particular writers and styles, and a canon consisting of classics. This Very Short Introduction traces the rich history of Japanese literature from its beginnings over a millennium ago to the present day.

樋口一葉作品の中でも最も奥行きのある小説。主人公お力の人物造型と内面描写の深さは、一葉自身の内面が表出されたものであり、社会的には救われない人間の心の闇をえぐりだす。

戦後80年――改めて問い直す大東亜戦争の大義◎日本侵略の先兵だったキリスト教宣教師◎豊臣秀吉は「日本人奴隷」解放の父◎人種差別撤廃を訴えた日本、拒絶した欧米◎昭和天皇が指摘された日米開戦の本当の理由

森鴎外（本名林太郎）は、官人に対する医療や医薬全般、医師の養成などを司る典医の家に生まれました。幼い頃から「論語」や「孟子」などの漢学書、オランダ語を学び、実年齢で習得するよりも早い段階です

International relations affects everyone's lives: their security, economic well-being, rights and freedoms, and the environment they share. Recently we have seen the transformation from a world of empires to today's world of sovereign states, which are enmeshed in a complex array of international institutions, all exercising degrees of political authority. The new global organization of political authority has far-reaching consequences. This audiobook untangles this complex world, providing an accessible framework for understanding the contours of global political change. 

The laws of thermodynamics drive everything that happens in the universe. From the sudden expansion of a cloud of gas to the cooling of hot metal - everything is moved or restrained by four simple laws. This powerful and compact introduction explains what these four laws are and how they work, using accessible language and virtually no mathematics.

In this Very Short Introduction, Gerhard L. Weinberg provides an introduction to the origins, course, and impact of the war on those who fought and the ordinary citizens who lived through it. Starting by looking at the inter-war years and the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he examines how the war progressed by examining a number of key events, including the war in the West in 1940, Barbarossa, the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, the expansion of Japan's war with China, developments on the home front, and the Allied victory from 1944-45.

『カラマーゾフの兄弟』は、1879年に文芸雑誌『ロシア報知』に連載が開始され、翌1880年に単行本として出版された。

非業の死を遂げた京都学派を代表する哲学者、三木清の最も有名な著作。

初出は「文學界」［1938（昭和13）年～1941（昭和16）年］。

死について、幸福について、懐疑について、習慣について、虚栄について、名誉心について、怒りについて、孤独について、嫉妬について等、三木の思想のエッセンスが込められた作品。その哲学的テーマにも関わらず、分り易い文体の魅力が時代を超えた愛読者たちを生み出している。

戦争、内戦、テロ……。なぜ今、中東地域で惨禍が繰り返されるのか？ その理由を、パレスチナやイスラエルの歴史、数次にわたる中東での戦争から、詳細にわかりやすく解説。

歴代中国王朝が鋳造した数千億枚に上る銅銭．世界史上極めてユニークなこの小額通貨は，やがて海を越え，日本を含む中世東アジアの政治・経済・社会に大きなインパクトをもたらした．銅銭はなぜ，各国政府の保証なしに商取引の回路を成り立たせてきたのか．

Noted Japan expert Professor Mark J. Ravina of the University of Texas at Austin covers the politics, economics, and culture of the island nation since World War II - a conflict that saw the end of Japan’s dream of regional conquest, which Professor Ravina calls Empire 1.0. The country’s postwar leaders radically changed course, renouncing a strong military to pursue Empire 2.0 - Japan as an economic colossus.

World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural.

Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life and offer solutions to them, too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: the Midwest USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions.

般若心経はわずか300文字足らずの仏教経典で、大乗仏教のコアとなる思想「空（くう）」について記されています。

「般若心経講義」は、仏教の教えをわかりやすく説明し、日々の生活やビジネスでの悩みを解決のヒントになる叡智がつまった作品です。

だれもがぶつかる「真理」や「迷い」について、仏教の教えを朗読で聴いてみませんか。

This Very Short Introduction takes listeners into the inferno of a racing pyroclastic current, and the heart of a moving lava flow, as understood through the latest scientific research. Exploring how volcanologists forensically decipher how volcanoes work, Michael Branney and Jan Zalasiewicz explain what we do (and don't) understand about the fundamental mechanisms of volcanism, and consider how volcanoes interact with other physical processes on the Earth, with life, and with human society. 

From the contours of coastlines to the outlines of clouds, and the branching of trees, fractal shapes can be found everywhere in nature. In this Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Falconer explains the basic concepts of fractal geometry, which produced a revolution in our mathematical understanding of patterns in the 20th century, and explores the wide range of applications in science, and in aspects of economics. 

Few Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. This Very Short Introduction audiobook introduces the listener to these issues and more, providing an insider's view of how the system actually works while shining a light on some of its flaws.

Not long ago, the Solar System was the only example of a planetary system - a star and the bodies orbiting it - that we knew. Now, we know thousands of planetary systems, and have even been able to observe planetary systems at the moment of their birth.