''Very Short Introductions'' (''VSI'') is a

book series A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their publ ...

published by the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

(OUP). The books are concise introductions to particular subjects, intended for a general audience but written by experts. Most are under 200-pages long. While authors may present personal viewpoints, the books are meant to be "balanced and complete" as well as thought provoking. The series began in 1995, and by March 2023 there were 730 titles, published or announced. The books have been commercially successful, and have been published in more than 25 languages. Institutions can subscribe to an online service to allow their users to read the books. Most of the books have been written specifically for the series, but around 60 were recycled from earlier OUP publications: several had been in OUP's ''

Past Masters ''Past Masters'' is a two-disc compilation album set by the English rock band the Beatles. It was originally released as two separate volumes on 7 March 1988, as part of the first issue of the band's catalogue on compact disc. The album contai ...

'' series, and numbers 17–24 used chapters from ''The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain'' (1984). Each book of the series is numbered on its spine. These numbers broadly, but not exactly, correspond with the publication dates. Two books have been removed from the series: #60, "Shakespeare" by

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and feminist, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she ...

was replaced by "William Shakespeare" by

Stanley Wells Sir Stanley William Wells, (born 21 May 1930) is an English Shakespearean scholar, writer, professor and editor who has been honorary president of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, professor emeritus at Birmingham University, and author of many ...

; and #116, "Anarchism" by

Colin Ward Colin Ward (14 August 1924 – 11 February 2010)

was replaced by "Anarchism" by Alex Prichard.

Reception

Writing in the ''New Yorker'' in 2017,

Kathryn Schulz Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at ''The New Yorker''. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest. In ...

praised the diversity of topics covered but noted significant gaps in coverage, including an absence of women and people of colour in its 54 biographies and "a British bias in the choice of subjects". Schulz also described the quality of the books as variable, favourably comparing the books written about ''Teeth'', ''Deserts'' and ''Robotics'' against those written on ''Mountains'', ''Home'' and ''Archaeology''. In the ''Fortnightly Review'', Michelene Wandor said that the series "successfully bridged the gap between academic and trade publishing" and reviewed six volumes.

List of books in the series

See List of Very Short Introductions books.

Boxed sets

Six boxed sets, each with a different theme, were released in 2006. Five books from the series on the given theme were included, plus the series' promotional volume ''A Very Short Introduction to Everything''. * The Ballot Box **

Politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

(008) **

Capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

(108) **

Democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

(075) **

Socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

(126) **

Fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

(077) * The Brain Box **

Evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

(100) **

Consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

(121) **

Intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

(039) **

Cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

(051) ** Quantum Theory (069) * The Thought Box **

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

(049) **

Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

(028) **

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

(034) **

Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manife ...

(062) ** Kierkegaard (058) * The Basics Box **

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

(055) **

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

(066) **

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

(016) **

(008) **

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

(006) * The Boom Box **

Ancient Warfare Ancient warfare is war that was conducted from the beginning of recorded history to the end of the ancient period. The difference between prehistoric and ancient warfare is more organization oriented than technology oriented. The development of ...

(117) **

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

(087) **

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

(140) ** French Revolution (054) **

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

(123) * The Picture Box **

Art History Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

(102) **

Renaissance Art Renaissance art (1350 – 1620) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurr ...

(129) **

Modern Art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

(120) **

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

(072) **

Design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

(136)

References

External links

Oxford Academic - Very Short Introductions

Oxford University Press - Very Short Introductions
{{Authority control British non-fiction books Oxford University Press books Publications established in 2000 Series of non-fiction books

Reception

List of books in the series

Boxed sets

See also

References

External links