Library

Christianity: A Very Short Introduction by Linda Woodhead

Exploring the cultural and institutional dimensions of Christianity, and tracing its course over two millennia, Linda Woodhead provides a fresh, lively, and candid portrait of Christianity's past and present. Addressing topics including the competition for power between different forms of Christianity, the churches' use of power, and its struggles with modernity, this new edition includes up to date information on the growth and geographical spread of Eastern Christianity, reflecting the global nature of Christianity in our ever-shifting contemporary culture. At a time when Christianity is flourishing in the Southern hemisphere but declining in much of the West, this <I>Very Short Introduction</I> offers an important overview of the world's largest religion....

Customer Relationship Management by Graham Roberts-Phelps

Peter Drucker said 25 years ago ‘The purpose of a business is to attract and retain a customer’. It sounds simple but too many businesses have forgotten it to their cost. In his latest book, Graham Robert-Phelps shows how every customer is in some way unique and explains how to segment customers by value, pattern and buying criteria. He suggests methods of creating an effective culture of creativity in your business and explains the techniques of ‘customerised selling’ to radically increase customer retention. He shares his innovative ideas for customer service skills and goes on to explain how to generate a customer culture through the right methods of recruitment, training and promotion. Graham also explores strategies and tactics for developing relationships with your customers, including customer surveys and opportunities for going direct to customers through advances in technology and distribution. As he demonstrates, brands may be global but customised marketing requires skill in responding to customers’ attitudes and expectations, whoever and wherever they are....

Communism: A Very Short Introduction by Leslie Holmes

If now in decline since the tumultuous events of 1989, communism was without doubt the great political movement of the twentieth century--at its peak, more than a third of the world's population lived under communist rule--and it is still a powerful force in many areas of the world, most notably in the People's Republic of China. What is communism? Where did the idea come from and what attracted people to it? Is there a future for communism? This Very Short Introduction considers these questions and more in the search to explore and understand this controversial political force.Explaining the theory behind its ideology, and examining the history and mindset behind its political, economic and social structures, Leslie Holmes considers the evolution of communism from Marx's time, to its practice in the Bolshevik Revolution, to its collapse in 1989-91. Holmes highlights the inner dynamics, crises, and demise of communism as a global system, and introduces the major players in the communist world, including Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam....

The Object Primer: Agile Model-Driven Development with UML by Scott W. Ambler

Scott Ambler, award-winning author of Building Object Applications that Work, Process Patterns, and More Process Patterns, has revised his acclaimed first book, The Object Primer. Long prized in its original edition by both students and professionals as the best introduction to object-oriented technology, this book has all modeling notation rewritten in UML 2.0. All chapters have been revised to take advantage of Agile Modeling (AM), which is presented in the new chapter 2 along with other important modeling techniques. Review questions at the end of each chapter allow readers to test their newly acquired knowledge. In addition, the author takes time to reflect on the lessons learned over the past few years by discussing the proven benefits and drawbacks of the technology. This is the perfect book for any software development professional or student seeking an introduction to the concepts and terminology of object technology....

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction by Robert J. McMahon

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.The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction is a truly international history, not just of the Soviet-American struggle at its heart, but also of the waves of decolonization, revolutionary nationalism, and state formation that swept the non-Western world in the wake of World War II. McMahon places the 'Hot Wars' that cost millions of lives in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere within the larger framework of global superpower competition. He shows how the United States and the Soviet Union both became empires over the course of the Cold War, and argues that perceived security needs and fears shaped U.S. and Soviet decisions from the beginning—far more, in fact, than did their economic and territorial ambitions. He unpacks how these needs and fears were conditioned by the divergent cultures,ideologies, and historical experiences of the two principal contestants and their allies. Covering the years 1945-1990, this second edition uses recent scholarship and newly available documents to offer a fuller analysis of the Vietnam War, the changing global politics of the 1970s, and the end of the Cold War.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....

Topological Algebras by V. K. Balachandran

This book consists of nine chapters. Chapter 1 is devoted to algebraic preliminaries. Chapter 2 deals with some of the basic definitions and results concerning topological groups, topological linear spaces and topological algebras. Chapter 3 considered some generalizations of the norm. Chapter 4 is concerned with a generalization of the notion of convexity called p-convexity. In Chapter 5 some differential and integral analysis involving vector valued functions is developed. Chapter 6 is concerned with spectral analysis and applications. The Gelfand representation theory is the subject-matter of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 deals with commutative topological algebras. Finally in Chapter 9 an exposition of the norm uniqueness theorems of Gelfand and Johnson (extended to p-Banach algebras) is given....

Complexity: A Very Short Introduction by John H. Holland

The importance of complexity is well-captured by Hawking's comment: "Complexity is the science of the 21st century". From the movement of flocks of birds to the Internet, environmental sustainability, and market regulation, the study and understanding of complex non-linear systems has become highly influential over the last 30 years.In this Very Short Introduction, one of the leading figures in the field, John Holland, introduces the key elements and conceptual framework of complexity. From complex physical systems such as fluid flow and the difficulties of predicting weather, to complex adaptive systems such as the highly diverse and interdependent ecosystems of rainforests, he combines simple, well-known examples -- Adam Smith's pin factory, Darwin's comet orchid, and Simon's 'watchmaker' -- with an account of the approaches, involving agents and urn models, taken by complexity theory. 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....

The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture by Linda Null

Updated and revised with the latest data in the field, The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture, Third Edition is a comprehensive resource that addresses all of the necessary organization and architecture topics, yet is appropriate for the one-term course. This best-selling text correlates to the 2008 ACM-IEEE Computer Science Curriculum update and exposes readers to the inner workings of a modern digital computer through an integrated presentation of fundamental concepts and principles. The authors present real-world examples and focus on practical applications, thus encouraging students to develop a "big picture" understanding of how essential organization and architecture concepts are applied in the world of computing....

Cosciousness: A Very Short Introduction by Susan Blackmore

Consciousness, "the last great mystery for science," remains a hot topic. How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? Exciting new developments in brain science are continuing the debates on these issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories, whilst also outlining the amazing pace of discoveries in neuroscience. Covering areas such as the construction of self in the brain, mechanisms of attention, the neural correlates of consciousness, and the physiology of altered states of consciousness, Susan Blackmore highlights our latest findings. 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....

The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth , Donald John Fuller

Countless readers have spoken about the profound personal influence of Knuth’s work. Scientists have marveled at the beauty and elegance of his analysis, while ordinary programmers have successfully applied his “cookbook” solutions to their day-to-day problems. All have admired Knuth for the breadth, clarity, accuracy, and good humor found in his books.I can’t begin to tell you how many pleasurable hours of study and recreation they have afforded me! I have poured over them in cars, restaurants, at work, at home… and even at a Little League game when my son wasn’t in the line-up.—Charles Long Primarily written as a reference, some people have nevertheless found it possible and interesting to read each volume from beginning to end. A programmer in China even compared the experience to reading a poem.If you think you’re a really good programmer… read [Knuth’s] Art of Computer Programming… You should definitely send me a résumé if you can read the whole thing.—Bill Gates Whatever your background, if you need to do any serious computer programming, you will find your own good reason to make each volume in this series a readily accessible part of your scholarly or professional library.It’s always a pleasure when a problem is hard enough that you have to get the Knuths off the shelf. I find that merely opening one has a very useful terrorizing effect on computers.—Jonathan Laventhol In describing the new fourth volume, one reviewer listed the qualities that distinguish all of Knuth’s work.[In sum:] detailed coverage of the basics, illustrated with well-chosen examples; occasional forays into more esoteric topics and problems at the frontiers of research; impeccable writing peppered with occasional bits of humor; extensive collections of exercises, all with solutions or helpful hints; a careful attention to history; implementations of many of the algorithms in his classic step-by-step form.— Frank RuskeyThese four books comprise what easily could be the most important set of information on any serious programmer’s bookshelf....