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Proposes a new way of listening to Beethoven by understanding his music as an expression of his entire self, not just the iconic scowl Despite the ups and downs of his personal life and professional career - even in the face of deafness - Beethoven remained remarkably consistent in his most basic convictions about his art. This inner consistency, writes the music historian Mark Evan Bonds, provides the key to understanding the composer''s life and works. Beethoven approached music as he approached life, weighing whatever occupied him from a variety of perspectives: a melodic idea, a musical genre, a word or phrase, a friend, alover, a patron, money, politics, religion. His ability to unlock so many possibilities from each helps explain the emotional breadth and richness of his output as a whole, from the heaven-storming Ninth Symphony to the eccentric Eighth, and from the arcane Great Fugue to the crowd-pleasingWellington''s Victory. Beethoven''s works, Bonds argues, are a series of variations on his life. The iconic scowl so familiar from later images of the composer is but one of many attitudes he could assume and project through his music. The supposedly characteristic furrowed brow and frown, moreover, came only after his time. Discarding tired myths about the composer, Bonds proposes a new way of listening to Beethoven by hearing his music as an expression of his entire self, not just hisscowling self.

Famous throughout history for their doomed stand at Thermopylae, and immortalised by contemporary Athenian writers who viewed them as the exotic other, the Spartans, and their brutality and bravery, both fascinate and appal us. Andrew Bayliss reveals the best and the worst of this harsh society, separating myth from reality.

Adorno was a German philosopher, and social and cultural theorist whose work is seen as increasingly relevant to understanding the pathologies of contemporary society. This book considers his life and work, from the philosophical tradition he worked from to his explorations of reason and social theory, and critical assessments of modern culture.

This book gives an overview of the main kinds of employment rights and labour laws found in many countries. It evaluates some of the assumptions underpinning contemporary attitudes to such rights and laws in order to measure whether they are warranted. It also considers economic, political, and social justifications for employment rights and laws.

This Very Short Introduction explores the nature of bacteria, their origin, evolution, and relationship to the environment to demonstrate the fundamental role they play in our existence. This new edition examines the symbiotic relationship between the human body and bacteria, including their role in disease, wellness, and evolutionary development.

With a full scope of financial services, ranging from banking and capital markets to insurance and microfinance, Islamic finance has now become the most prominent form of faith-based finance in the world. This book sheds light on its core principles and practices, and considers its performance and potential compared with conventional finance.

This Very Short Introduction discusses the central events, machines, and people that feature in established accounts of the history of computing. It then recontextualises them, critically examining received perceptions and providing a fresh look at the nature and development of the modern electronic computer.

Negotiation is essential for peace and international relations, but also for economically efficient trades and bargains in business, and for problem solving skills in workplaces, families and interpersonal interactions. Menkel-Meadow illustrates different models, approaches, and styles of negotiation, which are both conceptual and behavioral.

This book traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture. It draws on examples from across our culture to explain how poststructuralism explores the relationship between human beings, the world, and the practice of making and reproducing meanings.

An exploration of the life and political essays of 20th century philosopher, Hannah Arendt. Dana Villa analyses Arendt's pathbreaking studies on totalitarianism, power, evil, and political theory.

This Very Short Introduction explores the backstory, event, and reception of the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, in light of the wider history of the Catholic Church and places it in the exciting and tumultuous context of the 1960s.

In this Very Short Introduction to the gene Jonathan Slack explores the discovery, nature, and role of genes in evolution and development. Looking at how genes are understood as a concept, the nature of genetic variation, and how their mutation can lead to disease, this is an ideal guide for anyone curious about what genes are and how they work.

Unlocking the secrets of the Universe involves the critical application of the laws of physics to the observations. This Very Short Introduction describes how we are turning observations into knowledge and how theory, in turn, is inspiring new observations.

This second edition of Borders: A Very Short Introduction challenges the perception of borders as passive lines on a map, revealing them instead to be integral forces in the economic, social, political, and environmental processes that shape our lives.

Law touches every aspect of our daily lives, and yet the main concepts, terms, and processes of the legal system remain obscure to many. This Very Short Introduction, in its third edition, provides a lucid, accessible guide to modern legal systems, considering a number of social and political events that have had an impact on the law.

Richard Earl describes the nascent evolution of mathematical analysis, its development as a subject in its own right, and its wide-ranging applications in mathematics and science, modelling reality from acoustics to fluid dynamics, from biological systems to quantum theory.

Many people would be able to agree on a list of things that fall under the umbrella of pseudoscience - astrology, phrenology, UFOlogy, creationism, and eugenics might come to mind. But defining what makes these fields "pseudo" and differentiates them from genuine science is a far more complex issue. Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation. Michael D. Gordin guides readers along a bewildering array of marginalized doctrines, focusing on some of the central debates about what science is and is not, and how such controversies have shifted over the centuries. This Very Short Introduction provides a historical tour through various theories, providing readers with the tools to think deeply about scientific controversies both past and present.

Emotions are complex mental states that resist reduction. Intimate and private, yet gaining substance and significance from their social and cultural context, their history is plural. It occupies the intersection of history of ideas, of the body, of subjectivity, and social and cultural history. This book explores its many facets.

The nineteenth-century Romantic myth of Bohemia emerged to describe the new conditions faced by artists and writers, who after the previous system of aristocratic patronage collapsed were free to move around in search of success. Yet most real-life bohemians have scant interest in commercial gain and are not so itinerant after all. Tracing these contradictions in bohemian cultures and lifestyles from the early nineteenth century to the present, David Weir explores the myth of Bohemia as it developed in various forms of expression--novels, plays, operas, films--and in key cities, including Paris, Munich, and New York. Weir concludes with a discussion of the legacy of Bohemia today as something outworn and dying, an exhausted tradition that somehow continues.

Solid, liquid, and gas are not the only states of matter. Others include liquid crystal, magnet, glass, and superconductor. New states are continually, and unexpectedly, being discovered. Condensed matter physics seeks to understand how states of matter and their distinct physical properties emerge from the atoms that compose a material.

Viruses are everywhere, and as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, cannot be ignored. From their discovery to the unravelling of their intricate structures, this Very Short Introduction provides a rounded and concise account of the nature of viruses, how they attack their hosts, and the efforts to control them.

This Very Short Introduction describes anarchism as a lived set of practices, with a rich historical legacy, and shows how anarchists have inspired and criticised some of our most cherished values, from the ideals of freedom, participatory education, federalism, and climate change, to science fiction.

It is often claimed that the French invented cinema, and although their prominence may have been supplanted by Hollywood today, the French film industry remains both prolific and highly lauded. Exploring the entire French cinematic oeuvre, Andrew teases out the distinguishing themes, to bring the defining features of French cinema to light.