From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny.

In this book, Catherine Bell off...

The first two editions of Concise Chemical Thermodynamics proved to be a very popular introduction to a subject many undergraduate students perceive to be difficult due to the underlying mathematics. With its concise explanations and clear examples, the text has for the past 40 years clarified for countless students one of the most complicated branches of science. Following in the tradition of its predecessors, this Third Edition continues to offer a practical, example-based exploration of a ...

The Silk Road was the current name for a complex of ancient trade routes linking East Asia with Central Asia, South Asia, and the Mediterranean world. This network of exchange emerged along the borders between agricultural China and the steppe nomads during the Han Dynasty (206BCE-220CE), in consequence of the inter-dependence and the conflicts of these two distinctive societies. In their quest for horses, fragrances, and spices, gems, glassware, and other exotics from the lands to their west...

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was w...

This book aims to explain the basics of graph theory that are needed at an introductory level for students in computer or information sciences. To motivate students and to show that even these basic notions can be extremely useful, the book also aims to provide an introduction to the modern field of network science.Mathematics is often unnecessarily difficult for students, at times even intimidating. For this reason, explicit attention is paid in the first chapters to mathematical notations a...

This book offers an introduction to the archaeology of the Islamic world. It traces the history of the discipline from its earliest manifestations through to the present and evaluates the contribution made by archaeology to the understanding of key aspects of Islamic culture. The author argues that it is essential for the results of archaeological research to be more fully integrated into the wider historical study of the Islamic world.

Organising the book into broad themes allows a focus on ...

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Cambridge English for Nursing Pre-intermediate (CEF level A2) is designed to improve the communication skills and specialist English language knowledge of healthcare professionals, enabling them to work more confidently and effectively. With an emphasis on listening and speaking, the course covers the core areas of nursing with authentic tasks and activities based on everyday scenarios, making the course relevant and motivating. The Student's Book contains an Audio CD and the course is backed...

This new English edition of Export Management is more accessible and transparent, using the export strategy as its structuring principle. The book focuses on the integration of all aspects of the export business and the implementation of export strategies in the daily business practice.

This text is an introduction to the future of mass media and mass communications - cross-media communications. Cross-media is explained through the presentation and analysis of contemporary examples and project-based tutorials in cross-media development. The text introduces fundamental terms and concepts, and provides a solid overview of cross-media communications, one that builds from a general introduction to a specific examination of media and genres to a discussion of the concepts involve...