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Books in Arts and humanities

Elsevier's Arts and Humanities titles encompass a rich spectrum of scholarship that explores human culture, history, philosophy, and creative expression. These works offer deep insights into language, literature, visual arts, and critical theory, supporting the academic community in understanding diverse perspectives and cultural legacies. Designed for scholars, educators, and students, this collection bridges classic studies with contemporary issues, fostering a deeper appreciation and knowledge of the human experience.

  • Natural Hazards and Public Choice

    The State and Local Politics of Hazard Mitigation
    • 1st Edition
    • September 3, 2013
    • Peter H. Rossi + 2 more
    • Peter H. Rossi
    • English
    Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Politics of Hazard Mitigation presents a research project that emerged from a concern for estimating the balance of support versus opposition to prospective social policies that aim to reduce the risks of damage or injuries from major natural hazard events via the regulation of land use and establishment of building and occupancy standards in high-risk areas. The volume begins with an overview of the research project and the main findings. Separate chapters describe the study design; assess the views of politically influential people regarding the seriousness of natural hazards; measure the support for federal disaster policies; and consider public opinion on hazards-mitigation issues in California. Subsequent chapters cover the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP); patterns of activity, influence, and power among key positions and groups in local communities with respect to issues involving disasters; and hazard mitigation activities at the state level.

  • Museums and Art Galleries

    A Design and Development Guide
    • 1st Edition
    • August 30, 2013
    • Geoff Matthews
    • Fred Lawson
    • English

  • Offices

    A Briefing and Design Guide
    • 1st Edition
    • August 30, 2013
    • Stephen Bailey
    • Fred Lawson
    • English

  • Differences in Visual Perception

    The Individual Eye
    • 1st Edition
    • December 2, 2012
    • Jules Davidoff
    • English
    Differences in Visual Perception: The Individual Eye examines the differences in visual perception that can occur in various circumstances when observers perceive the “same” event. More specifically, the book considers the distinction between “what happens when a person looks at the world directly and when he sits with his eyes closed and thinks.” This book is organized into five chapters and begins with an overview of differences in perception that are in operation for only a short time, emphasizing the distinction between short and long-term effects and at what point “short” becomes “long.” The reader is then introduced to the development of perception, touching on topics such as the nature-nurture issue, visual acuity and visual discrimination, color-vision, space perception, and attentional processes. The ambiguity of the stimulus is also discussed, along with the perceptual theory known as “transactionalism,” how the visual world is interpreted, and the nature of the input to the visual system. The theme that runs throughout this work is the fact that the same external input does not necessarily bring about in all of us the same perception. This book will prove useful to students as well as established researchers interested in visual perception and cognition.

  • Supporting Research Writing

    Roles and Challenges in Multilingual Settings
    • 1st Edition
    • November 6, 2012
    • Valerie Matarese
    • English
    Supporting Research Writing explores the range of services designed to facilitate academic writing and publication in English by non-native English-speaking (NNES) authors. It analyses the realities of offering services such as education, translation, editing and writing, and then considers the challenges and benefits that result when these boundaries are consciously blurred. It thus provides an opportunity for readers to reflect on their professional roles and the services that will best serve their clients’ needs. A recurring theme is, therefore, the interaction between language professional and client-author. The book offers insights into the opportunities and challenges presented by considering ourselves first and foremost as writing support professionals, differing in our primary approach (through teaching, translating, editing, writing, or a combination of those) but with a common goal. This view has major consequences for the training of professionals who support English-language publication by NNES academics and scientists. Supporting Research Writing will therefore be a stimulus to professional development for those who support English-language publication in real-life contexts and an important resource for those entering the profession.

  • The Psychology of Music

    • 3rd Edition
    • October 29, 2012
    • Diana Deutsch
    • English
    The Psychology of Music serves as an introduction to an interdisciplinary field in psychology, which focuses on the interpretation of music through mental function. This interpretation leads to the characterization of music through perceiving, remembering, creating, performing, and responding to music. In particular, the book provides an overview of the perception of musical tones by discussing different sound characteristics, like loudness, pitch and timbre, together with interaction between these attributes. It also discusses the effect of computer resources on the psychological study of music through computational modeling. In this way, models of pitch perception, grouping and voice separation, and harmonic analysis were developed. The book further discusses musical development in social and emotional contexts, and it presents ways that music training can enhance the singing ability of an individual. The book can be used as a reference source for perceptual and cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and musicians. It can also serve as a textbook for advanced courses in the psychological study of music.

  • Origins of Human Innovation and Creativity

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 16
    • July 25, 2012
    • Scott A. Elias
    • English
    Innovation and creativity are two of the key characteristics that distinguish cultural transmission from biological transmission. This book explores a number of questions concerning the nature and timing of the origins of human creativity. What were the driving factors in the development of new technologies? What caused the stasis in stone tool technological innovation in the Early Pleistocene? Were there specific regions and episodes of enhanced technological development, or did it occur at a steady pace where ancestral humans lived? The authors are archaeologists who address these questions, armed with data from ancient artefacts such as shell beads used as jewelry, primitive musical instruments, and sophisticated techniques required to fashion certain kinds of stone into tools. Providing ‘state of art’ discussions that step back from the usual archaeological publications that focus mainly on individual site discoveries, this book presents the full picture on how and why creativity in Middle to Late Pleistocene archeology/anthropol... evolved.

  • Comparative Osteology

    A Laboratory and Field Guide of Common North American Animals
    • 1st Edition
    • August 12, 2011
    • Bradley Adams + 1 more
    • English
    In the forensic context it is quite common for nonhuman bones to be confused with human remains and end up in the medical examiner or coroner system. It is also quite common for skeletal remains (both human and nonhuman) to be discovered in archaeological contexts. While the difference between human and nonhuman bones is often very striking, it can also be quite subtle. Fragmentation only compounds the problem. The ability to differentiate between human and nonhuman bones is dependent on the training of the analyst and the available reference and/or comparative material. Comparative Osteology is a photographic atlas of common North American animal bones designed for use as a laboratory and field guide by the forensic scientist or archaeologist. The intent of the guide is not to be inclusive of all animals, but rather to present some of the most common species which also have the highest likelihood of being potentially confused with human remains.

  • Philosophy of Complex Systems

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 10
    • May 4, 2011
    • English
    The domain of nonlinear dynamical systems and its mathematical underpinnings has been developing exponentially for a century, the last 35 years seeing an outpouring of new ideas and applications and a concomitant confluence with ideas of complex systems and their applications from irreversible thermodynamics. A few examples are in meteorology, ecological dynamics, and social and economic dynamics. These new ideas have profound implications for our understanding and practice in domains involving complexity, predictability and determinism, equilibrium, control, planning, individuality, responsibility and so on.Our intention is to draw together in this volume, we believe for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the manifold philosophically interesting impacts of recent developments in understanding nonlinear systems and the unique aspects of their complexity. The book will focus specifically on the philosophical concepts, principles, judgments and problems distinctly raised by work in the domain of complex nonlinear dynamical systems, especially in recent years.

  • The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 14
    • November 12, 2010
    • Nick Ashton + 2 more
    • English
    The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project (AHOB) funded by the Leverhulme Trust began in 2001 and brought together researchers from a range of disciplines with the aim of investigating the record of human presence in Britain from the earliest occupation until the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago. Study of changes in climate, landscape and biota over the last million years provides the environmental backdrop to understanding human presence and absence together with the development of new technologies. This book brings together the multidisciplinary work of the project. The chapters present the results of new fieldwork and research on old sites from museum collections using an array of new analytical techniques.

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