Routledge Handbooks

The counterpoint is that the applicability of research to daily life normally tapers off with its specificity. Generally speaking, it already makes a difference if we grasp the basics. Furthermore, given the right resources, the effort to get from zero up to basic competency in a topic is actually fairly miniscule, compared with the effort needed to become an expert.

In the spirit of that last point, I wanted to share how sensational I find that there exist well-researched* and approachable introductory resources on very general and specific topics. That a single resource can collate and present decades, sometimes centuries of research in a way that is mind-boggling. I'm currently going through the Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Taiwan, but the praise is limited neither to that book, nor only to Routledge, though I endorse their books out of personal satisfaction.

*Of course, I'm taking this as a prior — I have to hoist my ability to critique research in that field by the bootstraps!

On that note, see also Very Short Introductions from Oxford University Press

https://academic.oup.com/very-short-introductions/search-res...