Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me.'With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester must wear a scarlet 'A' upon her breast, the sin of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name her husband begins his search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect.

Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of two very different men, as moral codes and legal imperativ...

Did possessing and killing amount to the same thing deep within the dark recesses of the human beast? La Bete humaine (1890), is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his `most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling...

Frederick Douglass's Narrative recounts his life as a slave in Maryland and escape to freedom in 1838. An important slave autobiography, it is significant both for what it tells us about slave life and about its author. It is here reprinted with contexualizing source material and other writings by Douglass, as well as an introduction discussing its literary and historical significance.

Civil engineering produces the structures of all human settlements worldwide and is a vital discipline for many aspects modern life, underlying housing, transport, and our major areas and buildings related to work, study, and leisure. In this Very Short Introduction, David Muir Wood demonstrates the nature and importance of civil engineering not only in the history of civilization and urbanization, but its range of facets today, and its challenges for the future. Beginning with the challenge ...

This volume contains thirty-one state-of-the-art contributions from leading figures in the study of emotion today. The volume addresses all the central philosophical issues in current emotion research, including: the nature of emotion and of emotional life; the history of emotion from Plato to Sartre; emotion and practical reason; emotion and the self; emotion, value, and morality; and emotion, art and aesthetics. Anyone interested in the philosophy of emotion, and its wide-ranging implicatio...

Andrew Harrison has expertly authored this engaging text on the business environment, offering theoretical rigour, along with a truly global focus, and an understanding of the economic dimensions of the subject. The text takes a unique approach exploring the business environment at different spatial levels (global, international, national, and regional), in different dimensions (culture, ethics, internationalization, markets, technology, and risk) and in the maingeopolitical regions (Europe, ...

This third edition of Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism presents human rights in action, focusing on their effectiveness as legal tools designed to benefit human beings. By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this volume provides a multidimensional overview of human rights. After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms thebasis of their legitimacy.

In particular...

Leading the reader from the fundamental principles of inorganic chemistry, right through to cutting-edge research at the forefront of the subject, Inorganic Chemistry, Seventh Edition is the ideal course companion for the duration of a student's degree. The authors have drawn upon their extensive teaching and research experience to update this text; the seventh edition retains the much-praised clarity of style and layout from previous editions, while offering an enhanced section on 'expanding...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Law is at the heart of every society, protecting rights, imposing duties, and establishing a framework for the conduct of almost all social, political, and economic activity. Despite this, the law often seems a highly technical, perplexing mystery, with its antiquated and often impenetrable jargon, obsolete procedures, and endless stream of judgements and complex legislation. In this Very Short Introduction Raymond Wacks introduces the maj...