The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different--and far more interesting--as revealed in this new history.

In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. For centuries, key records remained h...

The book describes what it means to say the world is complex and explores what that means for managers, policy makers and individuals. The first part of the book is about the theory and ideas of complexity. This is explained in a way that is thorough but not mathematical.

It compares differing approaches, and also provides a historical perspective, showing how such thinking has been around since the beginning of civilisation. It emphasises the difference between a complexity worldview and the...

The purpose of economic evaluation is to inform decisions intended to improve healthcare. The new edition of Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes equips the reader with the necessary tools and understanding required to undertake evaluations by providing an outline of key principles and a 'tool kit' based on the authors' own experiences of undertaking economic evaluations. Building on the strength of the previous edition, the accessible writing style ensures the text i...

This major new text on the theory and practice of public management moves away from descriptive accounts of its evolution to provide a systematic treatment of the key paradigms of public management today. It examines their competing outlooks, values, tools and assumptions and - using a wide range of examples from different areas of management around the world - their implications for practice. The text sets out three contrasting 'logics' for management - performance, professionalism and polit...

Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)Abundant, ecstatic, generous, courageous - this is the first American epic poem, a celebration of selfhood and a catalogue of nineteenth-century American life of all ages and races.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have sha...

North Africa has been a vital crossroads throughout history, serving as a connection between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Paradoxically, however, the region's historical significance has been chronically underestimated. In a book that may lead scholars to reimagine the concept of Western civilization, incorporating the role North African peoples played in shaping "the West," Phillip Naylor describes a locale whose transcultural heritage serves as a crucial hinge, politically, economically, and s...

This richly illustrated, four-colour textbook introduces the art and archaeology of ancient Greece, from the Bronze Age through to the Roman conquest. Suitable for students with no prior knowledge of ancient art, this textbook reviews the main objects and monuments of the ancient Greek world, emphasizing the context and function of these artefacts in their particular place and time. Students are led to a rich understanding of how objects were meant to be perceived, what 'messages' they transm...

This book demonstrates how authors performing the role of a public intellectual discuss ideas and opinions regarding society while using literary strategies and devices in and beyond the text. Their assumed persona thereby reads the world as a book - interpreting it and offering alternative scenarios for understanding it.

Japanese Literature: From Murasaki to Murakami provides a concise introduction to the literature of Japan that traces its origins in the seventh century and explores a literary legacy—and its cultural contexts—marked by the intersection of aristocratic elegance and warrior austerity. Coverage extends to the present day with a focus on the complex twists and turns that mark Japan’s literature in the modern period. In under one-hundred pages of narrative, Marcus’s account of Japanese litera...