The Magna Carta has long been considered the foundation stone of the British Constitution, yet few people today understand either its contents or its context....

What do anaesthetists do? How does anaesthesia work? What are the risks? And how does the anaesthetist know if you are really asleep? Anaesthesia is a mysterious and sometimes threatening process. In this Very Short Introduction, Aidan O\'Donnell takes the reader on a tour through the whole of the modern anaesthetic practice....

The word \'governance\' is ubiquitous. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund make loans conditional on \'good governance\'. Climate change and avian flu appear as issues of \'global governance\'. The European Union issues a White Paper on \'Governance\'. The U.S. Forest Service calls for \'collaborative governance\'....

This Very Short Introduction employs the disciplines of history, religious studies, and anthropology as it illuminates the complexities of Aztec life....

With startling speed, Spanish conquistadors invaded hundreds of Native American kingdoms, took over the mighty empires of the Aztecs and Incas, and initiated an unprecedented redistribution of the world\'s resources and balance of power....

Rivers have played an extraordinarily important role in creating the world in which we live. They create landscapes and provide water to people, plants and animals, nourishing both town and country. The flow of rivers has enthused poets and painters, explorers and pilgrims....

In this Very Short Introduction, D. Kern Holoman considers the structure, roots, and day-to-day functioning of the modern philharmonic society....

The topic of stem cells has been very high profile in the media in recent years. There is much public interest in stem cells but also much confusion and misinformation, with some companies already offering \'stem cell products\' and bogus \'stem cell therapies\'....

You cannot hide from radioactivity. Even the book you are holding is slightly radioactive, less so if it is an e-book. Radioactivity - the breakdown of unstable atomic nuclei, releasing radiation - is a fundamental process in nature....

From ecosystems to Facebook, from the Internet to the global financial market, some of the most important and familiar natural systems and social phenomena are based on a networked structure....

Are we born with our fears or do we learn them? Why do our fears persist? What purpose does anxiety serve? How common are anxiety disorders, and which treatments are most effective? What\'s happening in our brain when we feel fear? And what are Colombian worry dolls?...

Is one person\'s terrorist another\'s freedom fighter? Is terrorism crime or war? Can there be a \'War on Terror\'?...

All living things on Earth are composed of cells. A cell is the simplest unit of a self-contained living organism, and the vast majority of life on Earth consists of single-celled microbes, mostly bacteria. These consist of a simple \'prokaryotic\' cell, with no nucleus....

The animal world is immensely diverse, and our understanding of it has been greatly enhanced by molecular biology and the study of evolution and development (\'evo-devo\')....

What is Romanticism? In this Very Short Introduction Michael Ferber answers this by considering who the romantics were and looks at what they had in common -- their ideas, beliefs, commitments, and tastes....