Palgrave Macmillan

This wide-ranging study of the Pacific Islands provides a dynamic and provocative account of the peopling of the Pacific, and its broad impact on world history. Spanning nearly 50,000 years of human presence in an area which comprises one-third of our planet - Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia - the narrative follows the development of the...

This is...one of the best books of its kind on the market. It is student friendly in the best sense of the term. While in no way patronising or talking-down to its readers, it steers them thoroughly and in a helpfully structured way through the subject and anticipates the difficulties often encountered by those studying it for the first time. The...

Mastering Counselling Theory provides comprehensive coverage of all the major concepts and ideas integral to the theory of counselling from behavioural to existential to psychodynamic studies. Fully explaining complicated terms and theories, the book includes an extensive glossary, making this complex area of study easy to understand. Exploring...

Mastering Sociology, now in its fourth edition, has been fully revised to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to this popular subject. Topics covered include: the terms and concepts of sociology, the family, education, demographic issues, and the political system. This book offers invaluable guidance on preparing for exams, writing...

Mastering Practical Criticism offers students of English Literature at advanced and degree levels a clear, well-explained guide to mastering the skills of critical appreciation. It starts with ways of unlocking meaning in literary texts and proceeds through each stage of the process to the final essay response. Students are given useful and...

Concepts are the `tools` with which we think, criticise, argue, explain and analyse. Political concepts are nothing less than the building-blocks of political understanding: the political world means what our concepts tell us it means. But political concepts are notoriously slippery and subject to controversy. Indeed, political debate is often a...