This book is important to help an international audience understand the cultural peculiarities behind the Scandinavian “success story”. It is also vital that Scandinavians themselves read this book to help them understand the market reforms that are essential for a successful future.

Preaching has been central to Muslim communities throughout the centuries. The liturgical Friday sermon is a prime example, although other genres that are less commonly known also serve important functions. This book addresses the ways in which Muslims relate various forms of religious oratory to authoritative tradition in 21st-century Islamic practice, while striving to adapt to local contexts and the changing circumstances of politics, media and society. This is the first book of its kind to look at homiletics beyond a specific country focus. Taking into consideration the historical developments of Muslim preaching, it offers a collection of thoroughly contextualised case studies of oratory in Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Sweden and the USA. The analyses presented here show shared emphasis on struggles for legitimacy, efforts to speak authoritatively, as well as discursive opportunities and constraints.

This primer aims to provide a straightforward introduction to the principles, personalities and key developments in classical liberalism. It is designed for students and lay readers who may understand the general concepts of social, political and economic freedom, but who would like a systematic presentation of its essential elements.

Amidst the debates about ‘austerity’ a number of vital debates in public finance have been sidelined. Because the reductions in government spending – small though they have been so far- have been designed to reduce the government’s borrowing requirement, there has been little discussion of whether the size of the state should be reduced in order to facilitate long-run reductions in the burden of taxation. This book traces the history of the growth of the size of the state over the last 100 years whilst also making international comparisons. There is a particular focus on recent and projected future developments which shows that, though the total level of government spending has not decreased significantly in recent years, there has been a big redirection of spending from some areas to others. The authors then examine the evidence on the relationship between taxation and economic growth. As well as reviewing recent literature, they also undertake new modelling that higher taxes are detrimental for growth. In the final part of the book, the whole UK tax system is reconsidered in a proper economic framework. The UK has one of the world’s most complex tax systems and its incoherence has increased over the last five years. Sweeping reforms are proposed to the system which wold involve abolishing around 20 taxes and the development of a simple, predictable tax system based on principles that should gain wide acceptance.

This book argues that despite the many real advantages that industrial modernity has yielded—including large gains in wealth, longevity, and (possibly) happiness—it has occurred together with the appearance of a variety of serious problems. Chief among these are probable losses in subjective existential purpose and increases in psychopathology. A highly original theory of the ultimate basis of these trends is advanced, which unites prior work in psychometrics and evolutionary science. This theory builds on the social epistasis amplification model to argue that genetic and epigenetic changes in modernizing and modernized populations, stemming from shifts in selective pressures related to industrialization, have lowered human fitness and wellness.

Should people with deeply held objections to certain practices be allowed to opt out of involvement with them? Should a Christian baker who objects to homosexuality be allowed to deny service to a customer seeking a cake for a gay wedding? Should a Catholic nurse be able to refuse to contribute to the provision of abortions without losing her job? The law increasingly answers no to such questions. But David Oderberg argues that this is a mistake. He contends that in such cases, opting out should be understood as part of a right of dissociation – and that this right needs better legal protection than it now enjoys.