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In this Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Morgan provides a wide-ranging and thematic introduction to modern Australia; examining the main features of its history, geography, and culture and drawing attention to the distinctive features of Australian life and its indigenous population and culture.
In this Very Short Introduction Kenneth Morgan provides a wide-ranging and thematic introduction to modern Australia. He examines the main features of its history, geography, and culture since the beginning of the white settlement in New South Wales in 1788. Drawing attention to the distinctive features of Australian life he places contemporary developments in a historical perspective, highlighting the importance of Australia's indigenous culture and making connections between Australia and the wider word. Balancing the successful growth of Australian institutions and democratic traditions, he considers the struggles that occurred in the making of modern Australia. 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.
In a startling reinterpretation of the evidence, Stillman Drake advances the hypothesis that Galileo's trial and condemnation by the Inquisition was caused not by his defiance of the Church, but by the hostility of contemporary philosophers. Galileo's own beautifully lucid arguments are used to show how his scientific method was utterly divorced from the Aristotelian approach to physics in that it was based on a search not for causes but for laws. Galileo's method was of overwhelming significance for the development of modern physics, and led to a final parting of the ways between science and philosophy. 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.
Existentialism was one of the leading philosophical movements of the twentieth century. Focusing on its seven leading figures, Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty and Camus, this Very Short Introduction provides a clear account of the key themes of the movement which emphasized individuality, free will, and personal responsibility in the modern world. Drawing in the movement's varied relationships with the arts, humanism, and politics, this book clarifies the philosophy and original meaning of 'existentialism' - which has tended to be obscured by misappropriation. Placing it in its historical context, Thomas Flynn also highlights how existentialism is still relevant to us today. 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.
Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: very good, FH JOANNEUM Kapfenberg (-), 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Australia with its six states and its two territories is the remotest of the settled continents. The name Australia comes from the Latin expression "Terra Australis Incognita", which simply means "Southern land". It was originally part of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland. Australia emerged as a separate continent about 100 million years ago, when Antarctica broke away and drifted southwards. Australia is still a moving island. The first Europeans in Australia were almost certainly the Portuguese. The first confirmed visit was undertaken by the Dutch in 1616. In the following years Great Britain sent their convicts to Australia. In total, Britain transported 130.000 convicts to Australia also for the most trivial crimes. There were about 300.000 Aborigines in Australia when the Europeans arrived. Today about 200.00 Aborigines live in Australia. The major cities of Australia are Sydney, which is the largest city, Canberra, which is the capital of Australia and Melbourne. The Australians are very friendly, outgoing and informal people. It′s easy to come into contact with them and you won′t have problems to finding a way to handle them in business deals. Australia is a federal parliamentary democracy, an independent self-governing state and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The constitution is based on the British parliamentary traditions; the head of the state is the British sovereign. Australia is very rich in natural resources and also has a large industry. Today, agriculture accounts for only 3 percent of the GDP, the gross domestic product. The most important economy factor is the service sector, first of all the financial service sector which accounted in the 1990s for more than 60 percent of the Australian gross domestic product. But also, tourism has increased during
Utilitarianism may well be the most influential secular ethical theory in the world today. It is also one of the most controversial. It clashes, or is widely thought to clash, with many conventional moral views, and with human rights when they are seen as inviolable. Would it, for example, be right to torture a suspected terrorist in order to prevent an attack that could kill and injure a large number of innocent people? In this Very Short Introduction Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek provide an authoritative account of the nature of utilitarianism, from its nineteenth-century origins, to its justification and its varieties. Considering how utilitarians can respond to objections that are often regarded as devastating, they explore the utilitarian answer to the question of whether torture can ever be justified. They also discuss what it is that utilitarians should seek to maximize, paying special attention to the classical utilitarian view that only pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value. Singer and de Lazari-Radek conclude by analysing the continuing importance of utilitarianism in the world, indicating how it is a force for new thinking on contemporary moral challenges like global poverty, the treatment of animals, climate change, reducing the risk of human extinction, end-of-life decisions for terminally-ill patients, and the shift towards assessing the success of government policies in terms of their impact on happiness. 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.
Michael Allen Fox considers the complex meaning of home. He discusses what dwelling is, and the variety of dwellings people live in. He also looks at the politics of home, homelessness, refugeeism, and migration; the importance of place to our psyche; and the future of the concept of home.
"Is terrorism crime or war? Can there be a 'war against terrorism'? In this fully updated edition, Charles Townshend unravels the questions at the heart of the problem of terrorism - its causes, methods, effects, and limitations - suggesting that it must be understood as a political strategy whose threat can be rationally grasped and answered"--Publisher's description.
Simon Critchley's Very Short Introduction shows that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition. He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida, and introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomenology by explaining their place in the Continental tradition. 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.
