Very Short Introductions


Very Short Introductions is a book series published by the Oxford University Press. The books are concise introductions to particular subjects, intended for a general audience but written by experts. Most are under 200 pages long. While authors may present personal viewpoints, the books are meant to be "balanced and complete" as well as thought provoking.
The series began in 1995, and by April 2018 there were 607 titles, published or announced. The books have been commercially successful, and have been published in more than 25 languages. Institutions can subscribe to an online service to allow their users to read the books.
Most of the books have been written specifically for the series, but around 60 were recycled from earlier OUP publications: several had been in OUP's Past Masters series, and numbers 17–24 used chapters from The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain.

List of books in the series

Boxed sets

Six boxed sets, each with a different theme, were released in 2006. Five books from the series on the given theme were included, plus the series' promotional volume A Very Short Introduction to Everything.
The body text is set in Miller in some books, and others are set in OUP Argo; the front page title is set in Lithos; the sanserif used for headings and in other places is OUP Argo.