Books in the Very Short Introduction series

The French author Michel de Montaigne is widely regarded as the founder and greatest practitioner of the personal essay. His extraordinary curiosity and discernment, combined with his ability to mix thoughtful judgment with revealing anecdote, make him one of the most readable of all writers. In 1580 and then again in 1588 he published his Essays, a vast collection of meditations on topics ranging from love and sexuality to freedom, learning, doubt,self-scrutiny, and peace of mind. One of the most original books ever to emerge from Europe, Montaigne's masterpiece has been enormously influential among writers and philosophers from its first appearance down to the present day. In Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction, William M. Hamlin introduces readers to thelife, thought, and published work of this unforgettable figure from Renaissance Europe.

This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the multiple versions of Islam propagated across geographical, political, and cultural boundaries during the era of modern globalization. Showing how Islam was transformed through these globalizing transfers, it traces the origins, expansion and increasing diversification of Global Islam - from individual activists to organizations and then states - over the past 150 years.

From his childhood in a family of leading American intellectuals through his mature life as a major American man of letters, Henry James created a unique body of fiction that represents one of the greatest achievements in the nation's literary history. In this introduction to the work of Henry James, Susan L. Mizruchi places his notoriously difficult and obscure writings in their historical and biographical context. Among the works treated are Washington Square, The Europeans, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, and The Turn of the Screw. These complex accounts of human experience engage with the vital issues of both James's era and our own - gender relations, sexuality, the nature of modernity, the threat of relativism, the role of art. A consistent subject of both literary theory and popular culture, Henry James has had an impact that cannot be overstated.

Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European explorers with centuries of belief and thought in tow. From this foundation of expectation and experience, America and American thought grew in turn, enriched by the bounties of the Enlightenment, the philosophies of liberty and individuality, the tenets of religion, and the doctrines of republicanism and democracy. In engaging and accessible prose, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen's introduction to American thought considers how notions about freedom and belonging, the market and morality-and even truth-have commanded generations of Americans and been the cause of fierce debate.

A leading critic explains what makes American poetryΓÇöa vast genre covering diverse styles, techniques, and formΓÇödistinctive. In this short and engaging volume, David Caplan proposes a new theory of American poetry. With lively writing and illuminating examples, Caplan argues that two characteristics mark the vast, contentious literature. On the one hand, several of America''s major poets and critics claim that America needs a poetry equal to the country''s distinctiveness. They advocate for novelty and for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign. On the other hand, American poetry welcomes techniques,styles, and traditions that originate from far beyond its borders. The force of these two competing characteristics, American poetry''s emphasis on its uniqueness and its transnationalism, drives both individual accomplishment and the broader field. These two characteristic features energize Americanpoetry, quickening its development into a great national literature that continues to inspire poets in the contemporary moment.American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction moves through history and honors the poets'' artistry by paying close attention to the verse forms, meters, and styles they employ. Examples range from Anne Bradstreet, writing a century before the United States was founded, to the poets of the Black Lives Matter movement. Individual chapters consider how other major figures such as T.S. Eliot, Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, W.H. Auden, and Langston Hughes emphasize conventionor idiosyncrasy, and turn to American English as an important artistic resource. This concise examination of American poetry enriches our understanding of both the literature''s distinctive achievement and the place of its most important writers within it.

The idea of the sword-wielding samurai, beholden to a strict ethical code and trained in deadly martial arts, dominates popular conceptions of the samurai. As early as the late seventeenth century, they were heavily featured in literature, art, theater, and even comedy, from the Tale of the Heike to the kabuki retellings of the 47 Ronin. This legacy remains with us today in the legendary Akira Kurosawa films, the shoguns of HBO''s Westworld, andcountless renditions of samurai history in anime, manga, and video games. Acknowledging these common depictions, this book gives readers access to the real samurai as they lived, fought, and served.Much as they capture the modern imagination, the samurai commanded influence over the politics, arts, philosophy and religion of their own time, and ultimately controlled Japan from the fourteenth century until their demise in the mid-nineteenth century. On and off the battlefield, whether charging an enemy on horseback or currying favor at the imperial court, their story is one of adventures and intrigues, heroics and misdeeds, unlikely victories and devastating defeats. This book traces thesamurai throughout this history, exploring their roles in watershed events such as Japan''s invasions of Korea at the close of the sixteenth century and the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Coming alive in these accounts are the samurai, both famed and ordinary, who shaped Japanese history.