Fiction - Diverse Reads

The phrase "silk road" evokes vivid scenes of merchants leading camel caravans across vast stretches to trade exotic goods in glittering Oriental...

With flair and originality, Christopher Tyerman presents a clear and lively discussion of the Crusades, bringing together issues of colonialism, ...

China today is never out of the news: from international finance to human rights controversies, global coverage of its rising international prese...

The idea of the sword-wielding samurai, beholden to a strict ethical code and trained in deadly martial arts, dominates popular conceptions of th...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring A pathbreaking analysis of the relationship between Mandela the myth, and Mandela the histori...

A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that Asian Americans are the best-educated, highest-income, and best-assimilated racial group i...

With a history stretching back nearly 1,500 years, written works originating from Japan encompass a vast range of forms and genres. Since the eight...

The eleven countries of Southeast Asia are diverse in every way, from the ethnicities and religions of their residents to their political systems...

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Mongols carved out the largest land-based empire in world history, stretching from Korea to Russi...

Perhaps nowhere else has literature been as conscious a collective endeavor as in China, and China's survival over three thousand years may owe m...

India is widely recognized as a new global powerhouse. It has become one of the world's emerging powers, rivaling China in terms of global influe...

The Maya forged one of the greatest societies in the history of the ancient Americas -- and in all of human history. Long before contact with Europ...

The Mexican Revolution defined the sociopolitical experience of those living in Mexico in the twentieth century. Its subsequent legacy has provok...

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

This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the multiple versions of Islam propagated across geographical, political, and cultural boundar...

What is Pakistan? The name refers to a seventy-year-old post-colonial product of the bloodiest partition of territory and population that accompani...

Iran has rarely been out of the headlines. Yet media interest and extensive coverage has tended to hinder rather than help our understanding of I...

The ancient Near East is known as the "cradle of civilization"—and for good reason. Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia were home to an extraordinar...

What are African religions? African Religions: A Very Short Introduction answers this question by examining primarily indigenous religious traditio...

An updated, penetrating, and balanced analysis of one of the most contentious issues in America today, offering a historically informed portrait ...

When Europeans first arrived in North America, between five and eight million indigenous people were already living there. But how did they come ...

Since the first African American denomination was established in Philadelphia in 1818, churches have gone beyond their role as spiritual guides in ...

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural awakening among African Americans between the two world wars. It was the cultural phase of the "New Negro" ...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring The ancient Egyptians are an enduring source of fascination -- mummies and pyramids, curses ...