Today it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. An appeal to human rights in the face of injustice can be a heartfelt & morally justified demand for some while for others it remains merely an empty slogan. Taking an international perspective & focusing on highly topical issues such as torture arbitrary detention privacy health & discrimination this Very Short Introduction will help readers to understand for themselves the controversies & complexities behind this vitally relevant issue. Looking at the philosophical justification for rights the historical origins of human rights & how they are formed in law Andrew Clapham explains what our human rights actually are what they might be & where the human rights movement is heading. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts analysis perspective new ideas & enthusiasm to make interesting & challenging topics highly readable. ...

At a time when the West seems ever more eager to call on military aggression as a means of securing international peace Nicholson Bakers provocative narrative exploring the political misjudgements & personal biases that gave birth to the terrifying consequences of the Second World War could not be more pertinent. With original & controversial insights brought about by meticulous research Human Smoke re-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war challenging some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about & how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us for instance not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill & England that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly & that before leading the United States against Nazi Germany a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard. Conversely Human Smoke also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming bloodshed & the courage to oppose the tide of history as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean. Praised by critics & readers alike for his gifted writing & exquisitely observant eye Baker offers a combination of sweeping narrative history & a series of finely delineated vignettes of the individuals & moments that shaped history. ...

It is 1998 the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president & in a small New England town an ageing classics professor Coleman Silk is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie but the real ruth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife his four children his colleagues & his friends including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silks secret & sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent upright man esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life & to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unravelled. & to understand also how Silks astonishing private history is in the words of the Wall Street Journal magnificently interwoven with the larger public history of modern America. ...

The Human Story" is a guide to mans ancestors from the earliest hominids such as Sahelanthropus dating back 6-7 million years through to our own species Homo sapiens. Over the past twenty years there has been an explosion of species names in the story of human evolution due both to new discoveries & to a growing understanding of the diversity that existed in the past. Drawing on this new information as well as his own considerable expertise & practical experience Charles Lockwood explains in clear easy-to-follow language what each of the key species represents & how it contributes to our knowledge of human evolution. He describes the main sites the individual fossils the people & stories involved in the key discoveries & the basic facts about each species
- what it looked like how & when it lived & what it ate as well as explaining how we know all this. There are drawings photographs & maps & charts throughout to illustrate & enhance the text & help demystify the fascinating cast of characters who hold the secret to mans origins."
...

As young boys both Jacques Rebiere & Thomas Midwinter become fascinated with trying to understand the human mind. As psychiatrists their quest takes them from the squalor of the Victorian lunatic asylum to the crowded lecture halls of the renowned Professor Charcot in Paris; from the heights of the Sierra Madre in California to the plains of unexplored Africa. As the concerns of the old century fade & the First World War divides Europe the two mens volatile relationship develops & changes but is always tempered by one exceptional woman; Thomass sister Sonia. Moving & challenging in equal measure Human Traces explores the question of what kind of beings men & women really are. ...

Why should we believe in God without any evidence? How can there be meaning in life when death is final? With historical adherents including such thinkers as Einstein Freud Philip Pullman & Frank Zappa Humanism"s central quest is to make sense of such questions explaining the ethical & metaphysical by appealing to shared human values rationality & tolerance. Essential reading for atheists agnostics ignostics freethinkers rationalists skeptics & believers too this Beginners Guide will explain all aspects of the Humanist philosophy whilst providing an alternative & valuable conception of life without religion." ...

The most comprehensive up-to-date & readable introduction to the field of human evolution. The ninth edition of Humankind Emerging tells the story of how when & why the human lineage developed from ape-grade ancestors. In Part I Chapters 1 & 2 present a short history of the rise of evolutionary theory & the science of genetics followed by a description of the various mechanisms that produce evolutionary change. In Part II Chapters 3-5put humans in their proper context among the primates first discussing those aspects of modern primate behavior that help to interpret human prehistory & then describing the fossil evidence for the early stages of primate evolution. In Part III Chapters 6 & 7 describe the australopiths-members of the subtribe Australopithecina & the first representatives of humans zoological tribe Hominini. Part IV consists of nine chapters that detail the anatomical cognitive & behavioral evolution of the genus Homo & its various premodern & modern species. Here the second hominin subdivision-the subtribe Hominina-is described & interpreted. The book ends with Part V in which Chapter 17 discusses modern human diversity the question of biological races of humans & the challenges facing humanity in the future. The current edition provides an absolutely up-to-date survey of the hominin fossil species including descriptions of the oldest members of the tribe-Sahelanthropus Orrorin & Ardipithecus kadabba (Chapters 6 & 7)-as well as the recently discovered dwarfed species from Indonesia Homo floresiensis (expanded post-script in Chapter 15). Updates of the taxonomic scheme for the human lineage bring the text into agreement with current paleoanthropological usage. Australopiths are assigned to the subtribe Australopithecina species of the genus Homo are placed in the subtribe Hominina & the two subtribes are combined to form the tribe Hominini. Great apes & hominins now are combined in the family Hominidae. The newest edition also expands the fossil & behavioral descriptions of Homo heidelbergensis & identifies this species as the first hominin type to show the hunting lifestyle." Speculations about societal changes that may have accompanied the beginning of the hunting way of life (Chapter 12) are updated. The latest studies of the neural regions & connections responsible for human speech & language (Chapter 13) are described as well. In-text citations for all source materials are provides as well as a full bibliography-features that allow for in-depth study. Over 30% of the references are from 2000 or later." ...

It's hardest to belong when you're closest to home... One wet Friday evening Professor Andrew Martin of Cambridge University solves the world's greatest mathematical riddle. Then he disappears. When he is found walking naked along the motorway Professor Martin seems different. Besides the lack of clothes he now finds normal life pointless. His loving wife & teenage son seem repulsive to him. In fact he hates everyone on the planet. Everyone that is except Newton. & he's a dog. Can a bit of Debussy & Emily Dickinson keep him from murder? Can the species which invented cheap white wine & peanut butter sandwiches be all that bad? & what is the warm feeling he gets when he looks into his wife's eyes? ...

It's hardest to belong when you're closest to home... One wet Friday evening Professor Andrew Martin of Cambridge University solves the world's greatest mathematical riddle. Then he disappears. When he is found walking naked along the motorway Professor Martin seems different. Besides the lack of clothes he now finds normal life pointless. His loving wife & teenage son seem repulsive to him. In fact he hates everyone on the planet. Everyone that is except Newton. & he's a dog. Can a bit of Debussy & Emily Dickinson keep him from murder? Can the species which invented cheap white wine & peanut butter sandwiches be all that bad? & what is the warm feeling he gets when he looks into his wife's eyes? ...

This is the story of Humbert a working horse Mister Firkin his master & the Lord Mayor of London. Mister Firkin was a scrap-iron dealer & he would travel the streets of London with Humbert shouting ' Any scrap any old iron for sale?' The Brewery horses are terrible snobs & show off about how important they are because they are used in the Lord Mayor's Show. But when disaster strikes it's Humbert who rushes to rescue & escorts the Mayor to Mansion House. ...