Imagination: A Very Short Introduction

Download Imagination: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019256563X
Total Pages : 167 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Imagination: A Very Short Introduction by : Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei

Download or read book Imagination: A Very Short Introduction written by Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways. Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives on imagination, the author shows how this facility, while potentially distorting, both frees us from immediate reality and enriches our sense of it, making possible our experience of a meaningful world. Long regarded by philosophers as an elusive and mysterious capacity of the human mind, imagination has been the subject of extraordinary ambivalence, described as both dangerous and divine, as merely peripheral to rationality and as essential to all thinking. Drawing on philosophy, aesthetics, literary and cognitive theory as well as the human sciences, this book engages the dramatic conceptual history of imagination together with contemporary explanations of its role in cognition to explain its importance in everyday life as well as the exquisite creativity of the arts, scientific discovery, and invention. Engaging examples from cave paintings to modern painting, performance art to pop art, physics to phenomenology, technological inventions to literary worlds, the Nazca geoglyphs to dramatic theatre, poetry, and jazz improvisation, the author illuminates with clarity and vision the philosophy of imagination and the stakes of its involvement in human thinking. 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.

Imagination

Download Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780191868436
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (684 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Imagination by : Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei

Download or read book Imagination written by Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives, this text explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing. It demonstrates how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways, making possible our experience of a meaningful world.

Imagination: a Very Short Introduction

Download Imagination: a Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198830025
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Imagination: a Very Short Introduction by : Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei

Download or read book Imagination: a Very Short Introduction written by Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-19 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives, this book explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing. It demonstrates how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways, making possible our experience of a meaningful world.

French Literature: A Very Short Introduction

Download French Literature: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191614238
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis French Literature: A Very Short Introduction by : John D. Lyons

Download or read book French Literature: A Very Short Introduction written by John D. Lyons and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-04-22 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heritage of literature in the French language is rich, varied, and extensive in time and space; appealing both to its immediate public, readers of French, and also to a global audience reached through translations and film adaptations. The first great works of this repertory were written in the twelfth century in northern France, and now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, include authors writing in many parts of the world, ranging from the Caribbean to Western Africa. French Literature: A Very Short Introduction introduces this lively literary world by focusing on texts - epics, novels, plays, poems, and screenplays - that concern protagonists whose adventures and conflicts reveal shifts in literary and social practices. From the hero of the medieval Song of Roland to the Caribbean heroines of I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem or the European expatriate in Japan in Fear and Trembling, these problematic protagonists allow us to understand what interests writers and readers across the wide world of French. 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.

Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction

Download Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019253811X
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction by : Timothy Williamson

Download or read book Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction written by Timothy Williamson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are philosophers trying to achieve? How can they succeed? Does philosophy make progress? Is it in competition with science, or doing something completely different, or neither? Timothy Williamson tackles some of the key questions surrounding philosophy in new and provocative ways, showing how philosophy begins in common sense curiosity, and develops through our capacity to dispute rationally with each other. Discussing philosophy's ability to clarify our thoughts, he explains why such clarification depends on the development of philosophical theories, and how those theories can be tested by imaginative thought experiments, and compared against each other by standards similar to those used in the natural and social sciences. He also shows how logical rigour can be understood as a way of enhancing the explanatory power of philosophical theories. Drawing on the history of philosophy to provide a track record of philosophical thinking's successes and failures, Williams overturns widely held dogmas about the distinctive nature of philosophy in comparison to the sciences, demystifies its methods, and considers the future of the discipline. From thought experiments, to deduction, to theories, this Very Short Introduction will cause you to totally rethink what philosophy is. 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. Previously published in hardback as Doing Philosophy

Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction

Download Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192512633
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction by : Elizabeth Fisher

Download or read book Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction written by Elizabeth Fisher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental law is the law concerned with environmental problems. It is a vast area of law that operates from the local to the global, involving a range of different legal and regulatory techniques. In theory, environmental protection is a no brainer. Few people would actively argue for pollution or environmental destruction. Ensuring a clean environment is ethically desirable, and also sensible from a purely self-interested perspective. Yet, in practice, environmental law is a messy and complex business fraught with conflict. Whilst environmental law is often characterized in overly simplistic terms, with a law being seen as be a magic wand that solves an environmental problem, the reality is that creating and maintaining a body of laws to address and avoid problems is not easy, and involves legislators, courts, regulators and communities. This Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the main features of environmental law, and discusses how environmental law deals with multiple interests, socio-political conflicts, and the limits of knowledge about the environment. Showing how interdependent societies across the world have developed robust and legitimate bodies of law to address environmental problems, Elizabeth Fisher discusses some of the major issues involved in environmental law's: nation statehood, power, the reframing role of law, the need to ensure real environmental improvements, and environmental justice. As Fisher explains, environmental law is, and will always be, necessary but inherently controversial. 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.

Environmental Law

Download Environmental Law PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198794185
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Environmental Law by : Elizabeth Fisher

Download or read book Environmental Law written by Elizabeth Fisher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although environmental laws are rarely able to provide the simple solutions that people want from them, they are essential for the future of our planet. This book explores how legal responses are shaped in response to the problems facing the environment today, and the socio-political conflicts facing environmental legislation."--Publisher's description.

Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction

Download Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019956891X
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (995 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction by : Michael Ferber

Download or read book Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction written by Michael Ferber and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only short introduction to Romanticism that incorporates not only the English but the Continental movements, and not only literature but music, art, religion, and philosophy.-publisher description.

Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction

Download Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192805851
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (928 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction by : Susan Blackmore

Download or read book Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction written by Susan Blackmore and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively introduction that combines the perspectives of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience - written by the top name in the field, Susan Blackmore.

Democracy: A Very Short Introduction

Download Democracy: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191577650
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Democracy: A Very Short Introduction by : Bernard Crick

Download or read book Democracy: A Very Short Introduction written by Bernard Crick and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-10-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. It argues that democracy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for good government, and that ideas of the rule of law, and of human rights, should in some situations limit democratic claims. 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.

Goethe: A Very Short Introduction

Download Goethe: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191003441
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Goethe: A Very Short Introduction by : Ritchie Robertson

Download or read book Goethe: A Very Short Introduction written by Ritchie Robertson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1878 the Victorian critic Matthew Arnold wrote: 'Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man.' In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyses some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion and tragedy. Dispelling the misconception of Goethe as a sedate Victorian sage, Robertson shows how much of his art was rooted in turbulent personal conflicts, and draws on recent research to present a complete portrait of the scientific work and political activity which accompanied Goethe's writings. 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.

Identity: A Very Short Introduction

Download Identity: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192563602
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Identity: A Very Short Introduction by : Florian Coulmas

Download or read book Identity: A Very Short Introduction written by Florian Coulmas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identity has become one of the most widely used terms today, appearing in many different contexts. Anything and everything has an identity, and identity crises have become almost equally pervasive. Yet 'identity' is extremely versatile, meaning different things to different people and in different scientific disciplines. To many its meaning seems self-evident, since its various uses share common features, so often the term is used without a definition of what, exactly, is meant by it. This provokes the core question: What exactly is identity? In this Very Short Introduction Florian Coulmas provides a survey of the many faces of the concept of identity, and discusses its significance and varied meanings in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and psychology, as well as politics and law. Tracing our concern with identity to its deep roots in Europe's intellectual history, individualism, and the felt need to draw borderlines, Coulmas identifies the most important features used to mark off individual and collective identities, and demonstrates why they are deemed important. He concludes with a glimpse at the many ways in which literature has engaged with problems of identity throughout history. 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.

American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction

Download American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190622466
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction by : Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Download or read book American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction written by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Crucial to this development were the thinkers who nurtured it, from Thomas Jefferson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. Du Bois to Jane Addams, and Betty Friedan to Richard Rorty. This addition to Oxford's Very Short Introductions series traces how Americans have addressed the issues and events of their time and place, whether it is the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the culture wars of today. Spanning a variety of disciplines, from religion, philosophy, and political thought, to cultural criticism, social theory, and the arts, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen shows how ideas have been major forces in American history, driving movements such as transcendentalism, Social Darwinism, conservatism, and postmodernism. In engaging and accessible prose, this 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.

The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction

Download The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192537997
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction by : Bryan Cheyette

Download or read book The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction written by Bryan Cheyette and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For three hundred years the ghetto defined Jewish culture in the late medieval and early modern period in Western Europe. In the nineteenth-century it was a free-floating concept which travelled to Eastern Europe and the United States. Eastern European ", which enabled genocide, were crudely rehabilitated by the Nazis during World War Two as if they were part of a benign medieval tradition. In the United States, the word ghetto was routinely applied to endemic black ghettoization which has lasted from 1920 until the present. Outside of America " has been universalized as the incarnation of class difference, or colonialism, or apartheid, and has been applied to segregated cities and countries throughout the world. In this Very Short Introduction Bryan Cheyette unpicks the extraordinarily complex layers of contrasting meanings that have accrued over five hundred years to ghettos, considering their different settings across the globe. He considers core questions of why and when urban, racial, and colonial ghettos have appeared, and who they contain. Exploring their various identities, he shows how different ghettos interrelate, or are contrasted, across time and space, or even in the same place. 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.

Magic: A Very Short Introduction

Download Magic: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191623881
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Magic: A Very Short Introduction by : Owen Davies

Download or read book Magic: A Very Short Introduction written by Owen Davies and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Defining 'magic' is a maddening task. Over the last century numerous philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and theologians have attempted to pin down its essential meaning, sometimes analysing it in such complex and abstruse depth that it all but loses its sense altogether. For this reason, many people often shy away from providing a detailed definition, assuming it is generally understood as the human control of supernatural forces. 'Magic' continues to pervade the popular imagination and idiom. People feel comfortable with its contemporary multiple meanings, unaware of the controversy, conflict, and debate its definition has caused over two and a half millennia. In common usage today 'magic' is uttered in reference to the supernatural, superstition, illusion, trickery, religious miracles, fantasies, and as a simple superlative. The literary confection known as 'magical realism' has considerable appeal and many modern scientists have ironically incorporated the word into their vocabulary, with their 'magic acid', 'magic bullets' and 'magic angles'. Since the so-called European Enlightenment magic has often been seen as a marker of primitivism, of a benighted earlier stage of human development. Yet across the modern globalized world hundreds of millions continue to resort to magic - and also to fear it. Magic provides explanations and remedies for those living in extreme poverty and without access to alternatives. In the industrial West, with its state welfare systems, religious fundamentalists decry the continued moral threat posed by magic. Under the guise of neo-Paganism, its practice has become a religion in itself. Magic continues to be a truly global issue. This Very Short Introduction does not attempt to provide a concluding definition of magic: it is beyond simple definition. Instead it explores the many ways in which magic, as an idea and a practice, has been understood and employed over the millennia. 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.

Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction

Download Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191087289
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction by : Christopher J. Berry

Download or read book Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction written by Christopher J. Berry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1776 Adam Smith (1723-90) wrote The Wealth of Nations , a book so foundational it has led to him being called the 'father of economics'. Today he is associated with the promotion of self-interest, a defence of greed and a criticism of any governmental 'interference' in market transactions which, if left to the 'invisible hand', will produce prosperity and liberty. Yet if Smith is actually read these associations are more a caricature than a faithful portrait. In this Very Short Introduction, Christopher Berry offers a balanced and nuanced view of this seminal thinker, embedding his fierce defence of free trade, competition, and assault on special interests in contemporary European history, politics, and philosophy. As Berry explores, Smith was far more than an economist. His book The Theory of Moral Sentiment, offered a complex account of ethics in the context of human social behaviour. His scope as a professor at the University of Glasgow, a major centre of the Scottish Enlightenment, was extensive. Beyond courses in philosophy and jurisprudence he also gave classes covering history, literature, and language. In addition to his two major works he also wrote a pioneering study of the history of astronomy as an illustration of the motivations that drive humans to seek answers to questions. He produced, again derived from his Glasgow classroom, an analysis of the development of grammar and language. As Christopher Berry shows, Adam Smith was no narrow thinker, but rather one who produced not only one of the greatest books in the history of social science, but also a wide-ranging body of work that remains significant 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.

Newton: A Very Short Introduction

Download Newton: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191579025
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Newton: A Very Short Introduction by : Rob Iliffe

Download or read book Newton: A Very Short Introduction written by Rob Iliffe and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-01-25 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Very Short Introduction uses Newton's own unpublished writings to provide fascinating insight into the man who kept the Royal Society under his thumb, was Head of the Mint, and whose contributions to our understanding of the heavens and the earth are considered by many to be unparalleled. The author begins with the legends surrounding Newton before next exploring the forces that shaped his life, introducing, along the way, many of the key thinkers and politicians of the time. Although Newton's science was largely revered (his reputation reached near-immortal status with the publication of the Principia), theologically, his beliefs were very controversial. He was a fanatical Protestant, and claimed that tribes like the Goths, Vandals, and Huns had tried to save the planet from the corruption of the Catholics. He was also convinced that he was specially chosen by God to protect the original, pure form of Christianity, and viewed any criticisms directed at him as a form of persecution. Resisting the urge to show how Newton's views on alchemy, mathematics, physics, and religion complemented one another, the author instead emphasises that these were the very different obsessions of an extremely complex man whose beliefs at the time dominated England's political, religious, and intellectual landscape. 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.