For Beginners

Marshall McLuhan was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of the 20th century. He was so far ahead of his time that he predicted the future and offered a critique of human behavior in a media saturated world that is perhaps more valuable in today's Internet age than it was in his own time.McLuhan pioneered the study of Media, unified Art and Science, and warned us about the perils of a

Carl Gustav Jung merged Eastern mysticism with Western psychology, brought scientific respectability to religion, laid the foundation for 'the New Age,' and is second only to Freud in influence and importance in the world of psychoanalysis. Many consider him a genius, but many others disagree.Scholar and clinical psychologist Jon Platania, PhD, presents Jung as a somewhat opportunistic and dissoci

THE HISTORY OF OPERA FOR BEGINNERS is an illuminating book that starts with the radical assumption that opera is simply music, rather than the highbrow, inaccessible art form that many assume it to be. Not fluent in German or Italian? No worries—author Ron David explains the differences between Italian and German Opera and why you don't have to study a new language to enjoy it.THE HISTORY OF OPERA

Do you appreciate your forty-hour, five-day workweek? Appreciate having a safe working environment? Unions made this all possible in one way or another. Unions bring value to all sectors of a society. As the champion of people power versus corporate power, unions help to spread the benefits of production throughout a society. Regardless of the state of the economy, there is the timeless struggle o

Paul Robeson, despite being one of the greatest Renaissance figures in American history, still remains in relative anonymity. An exceptional scholar, lawyer, athlete, stage and screen actor, linguist, singer, and civil rights and political activist, he performed brilliantly in every professional enterprise he undertook. Few humans have achieved his levels of excellence in one field, much less seve

There is no greater symbol of the American presidency than Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln himself, his personality, the sources of his dedication and his idealism, remain very much a mystery. The sudden rise to world stature of a hard-travelling lawyer from the frontier, with no prominent family or social connections to back him, was a wonder of the age.Well over a thousand books about Lincoln have been

Would there be a Western civilization without the Greek myths?  Would we be able to define our civilization and ourselves without some reference to the grand, violent, and venal doings of those denizens of Mount Olympus? GREEK MYTHOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS presents the pantheon – that immortal collection of rogues and heroes, misfits and tyrants - and the stories about these deities and their dealings w

Philosopher, psychoanalyst, politician, propagandist, prophet...although difficult to categorize, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) is one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century and one of our most powerful writers on race and revolution. The book opens with a biography, following Fanon from his birthplace of Martinique through combat in World War II and education in France, to his heroic in

A large swath of literature on the civil rights movement exists in the United States. Much of that literature focuses on the dramatic events of the African American resistance to Jim Crow and oppression from the mid 1950s through the early 1970s. Frequently, this material is scholarly and, at best, only marginally accessible to the general public. Moreover, many of the books on the modern civil

Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!“Arise children of the Fatherland, the day of glory has arrived!” These opening lines to La Marseillaise, France's famously stirring and evocative national anthem, capture perfectly the passion, fear and frenetic energy of Republicanism's sanguinary birth on French soil. Through the violence of the Revolutions the reign of the Bourbon monar

Music history is nearly as old as human civilisation itself and while it has permeated the arts and popular culture for centuries, it still has a mystifying aura surrounding it. But fear not - it's not as complicated as it seems and anyone can learn the origins and history of Western classical music. In addition to learning how better to understand (and enjoy!) classical music, THE HISTORY OF CLAS

Charles Bukowski, novelist, short-story writer, poet, journalist and cult figure of the dissident and rebellious, was born in Germany in 1920 and died in the USA in 1994. During his life he was hailed as "laureate of American lowlife" by Time Magazine and literary critic, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker, wrote: "the secret of Bukowski's appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promi

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX FOR BEGINNERS is a graphic narrative project that attempts to distill the fundamental components of what scholars, activists and artists have identified as the Mass Incarceration movement in the United States. As far back as the early 1990s, activist critics of the US prison system, marked its emergence as a “complex” in a manner comparable to how President Eisenhower mar

A concise, accessible introduction to the great linguist who shaped the study of language for the 20th century, SAUSSURE FOR BEGINNERS puts the challenging ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) into clear and illuminating terms, focusing on the unifying principles of his teachings and showing how his thoughts on linguistics migrated to anthropology.Ferdinand de Saussure's work is so powerful

A crowd of onlookers gawked from the pavement as four young black men dressed in black leather jackets and berets leapt from a Volkswagen, each of them wielding shotguns with bandoliers strapped across their bodies. The young men surrounded two white police officers who had accosted a black man and had him spread-eagled against a building.The young men did not say a word as the police officers wat

Year after year science continually proves that global climate change is real. But what does it all really mean and what can or should we do about it?CLIMATE CHANGE FOR BEGINNERS is a clear, fluid narrative by a leading scientist and lecturer who takes a scrupulously balanced approach in explaining the history of global climate monitoring and change and the whos, hows, whats, whens, wheres and why

Before you read any further, take a few moments to note all of the devices that are powered by electricity within a 10-foot radius of your body. The number will astonish you. Imagine how this number grows exponentially as you broaden the circle beyond the room, throughout the building, around the block and out across the world. It is hard to imagine that one man - Nikola Tesla - was responsible fo

Music theory is the study of the fundamental elements of music and how it is written. MUSIC THEORY FOR BEGINNERS was developed for anyone interested in learning to read and write music, a task that can be quite daunting for novices. This book, however, will allay any fears and set you on the path to learning what all those dots, lines and symbols actually mean. It provides the necessary scholarly

If you haven't read Toni Morrison, TONI MORRISON FOR BEGINNERS will introduce you to her novels - plot descriptions, subtexts, reviews and Morrison's comments on her work. However, if you have read - or attempted to read - Toni Morrison, you may need this book even more. Many people consider Morrison's novels difficult to read. Most of her readers have at least one book on their shelves that they

MORMONISM FOR BEGINNERS is a balanced, richly engaging introduction to the history, tenets, practices, traditions and, yes, debates and controversies of this uniquely American Protestant movement. Designed for the uninitiated or younger members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), this book presents the history of the movement from Joseph Smith to the 21st century along with t