Marx / Democracy / Postcolonialism / Poststructuralism

The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly.
 
In Marx: A Very Short Introdution, Peter Singer identifies the central vision that unifies Marx's thought, enabling us to grasp Marx's views as a whole. He sees him as a philosopher primarily concerned with human freedom, rather than as an economist or a social scientist. In plain English, he explains alienation, historical materialism, the economic theory of Capital, and Marx's ideas of communism, and concludes with an assessment of Marx's legacy.
 
Postcolonialism explores the political, social, and cultural effects of decolonization, continuing the anti-colonial deconstruction of western dominance. Robert J. C. Young examines the key strategies that postcolonial thought has developed to engage with the impact of sometimes centuries of western political and cultural domination. Situating the discussion in a wide cultural and geographical context, he draws on examples such as the status of indigenous peoples, of those dispossessed from their land, Algerian rai music, and global social and ecological movements.
 
Poststructuralism challenges traditional ways of thinking about human beings and our relation to the world. Catherine Belsey traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture. Language, meaning, and culture are all reappraised, and with them assumptions about what it's possible for us to know. At once sceptical towards inherited authority and positive about future possibilities, poststructuralism asks above all that we reflect on its findings.
 
Democracy is a short account of the history of the doctrine and practice of democracy, from ancient Greece and Rome through the American, French, and Russian revolutions, and of the usages and practices associated with it in the modern world. It argues that democracy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for good government, and that ideas of the rule of law, and of human rights, should in some situations limit democratic claims.