Lucidly written and generously illustrated in color, this volume of scientific history by award-winning inventor James Dyson details the greatest achievements of the human imagination since early hominids invented stone tools about 250,000 years ago. Through thousands of years and vital inventions more--the canoe, the wheel, ink and papyrus, language, maps, currency, law--the primitive hunter-gatherer of the Stone Age would evolve into the literate citizen of ancient Rome at the time of Christ, as the opening chapter of this fascinating chronicle shows. Succeeding chapters follow human technological advances up to the seventeenth century and then in the age of industrial power, the age of electricity, the atomic age, and the postwar world of the microchip and the genome.
Carroll & Graf Publishers; First edition. edition
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9780786709038
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Hardcover
Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition
By Riffenburgh, Beau
On New Year's Day 1908, Ernest Shackleton, a little-known adventurer determined to find fame and fortune by becoming the first man to reach the South Pole, took his tiny ship, Nimrod, south to the mysterious regions of the Antarctic. In the coming year, Shackleton would record the greatest achievements of his career and engage in his most daring adventures, returning home a hero. Lacking funds and plagued by hunger, cruel weather, and unpredictable terrain, Shackleton and his party accomplished some of the most remarkable feats in the history of exploration. Not only were they the first to climb the active volcano of Mount Erebus, but they trudged hundreds of miles across uncharted wastelands to be the first ever to plant the Union Jack at the South Pole. Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition is the definitive account of the British Antarctic Expedition. Using extensive research and firsthand accounts-some previously unpublished-Riffenburgh has written a vivid and gripping adventure while providing fascinating insight into the age of British exploration and empire.
Publisher: n/a
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9781582344881
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Hardcover
A People's History of the Civil War
By Williams, David
"A startling contrast to the other literature on the Civil War." - Howard ZinnMoving beyond presidents and generals, A People's History of the Civil War tells a new and powerful story of America's most destructive conflict. In the first book to view the Civil War through the eyes of common people, historian David Williams presents long-overlooked perspectives and forgotten voices, offering a comprehensive account of the war to general readers.The Civil War's most decisive battles, Williams argues, took place not only on the fields of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Vicksburg, but also on the streets of New York, in prison camps, in the West, and on the starving home front. Laboring people, urban and rural, fought for economic justice. Women struggled for rights, opportunities, and their family's survival.
The New press
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9781595580184
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Book
Rescue at Los Baños
By Henderson, Bruce
From the bestselling author of Hero Found comes the incredible true story of one of the greatest military rescues of all time, the 1945 World War II prison camp raid at Los Baños in the Philippines—a tale of daring, courage, and heroism that joins the ranks of Ghost Soldiers, Unbroken, and The Boys of Pointe du Hoc.In February 1945, as the U.S. victory in the Pacific drew nearer, the Japanese army grew desperate, and its soldiers guarding U.S. and Allied POWs more sadistic. Starved, shot and beaten, many of the 2,146 prisoners of the Los Baños prison camp in the Philippines—most of them American men, women and children—would not survive much longer unless rescued soon.Deeply concerned about the half-starved and ill-treated prisoners, General Douglas MacArthur assigned to the 11th Airborne Division a dangerous rescue mission deep behind enemy lines that became a deadly race against the clock.
William Morrow Paperbacks
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9780062325075
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Paperback
American Metropolis
By Lankevich, George J.
Magnet for the ambitious, lodestone for talented and oppressed alike, Mecca for businessmen and immigrants, New York City has presided for over 350 years as the critical center of American life. From its origins as a primitive Dutch outpost to the sprawling urban complex it is today, the defining characteristic of New York has been continuous, dramatic, and rapid change. Historian George J. Lankevich's volume concentrates on political and economic affairs, illustrating how New York has always combined principle and pragmatism in its role as pace-setter in business communications, education, urban policy, and cultural life. American Metropolis is loosely divided into three historical epochs, each spanning roughly one of the last three centuries.
NYU Press
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9780814751497
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Paperback
Kristallnacht
By Gilbert, Martin
On November 7, 1938, a young Jew, enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany, walked into the German embassy in Paris and fired five shots at a junior diplomat. Three days later the diplomat was dead, and Germany was in the grips of skillfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of November 10, Nazi storm troopers and Hitler Youth rampaged through Jewish neighborhoods across Germany, leaving behind them a horrifying trail of terror and destruction. More than a thousand synagogues and many thousands of Jewish shops were destroyed, while thirty thousand Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. This was the moment when deliberately inflamed hatreds ignited nationwide destruction.With rare insight and acumen, Martin Gilbert, one of the leading historians of our time, examines Kristallnacht -- the Night of Broken Glass -- and describes how the rest of the world reacted in its wake.
HarperCollins
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9780060570835
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Print book
Everyday Life of the North American Indians
By White, Jon Ewbank Manchip
First printing of Indian Head Book edition.
Hippocrene Books
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9780880291781
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Hardcover
In Europe
By Mak, Geert
Geert Mak spent the year of 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, Saint Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium. The result is mesmerizing: Mak’s rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes In Europe a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adrinana Warno in Poland, with her job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau. But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe’s wellsprings of memory, where history is written into the landscape.
Pantheon; First Edition first Printing edition
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9780375424953
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Hardcover
Death in the City of Light
By King, David
The gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. But while trying to solve the many mysteries of the case, Massu would unravel a plot of unspeakable deviousness. The main suspect, Dr. Marcel Petiot, was a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma. He was the "People's Doctor," known for his many acts of kindness and generosity, not least in providing free medical care for the poor.
Broadway Books
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9780307452900
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Paperback
The Fellowship
By Gribbin, John
Seventeenth-century England was racked by civil war, plague and fire; a world ruled by superstition and ignorance. But another tumultuous event was also taking place: the revolution in science. A series of meetings of 'natural philosophers' in Oxford and London saw the beginning of a new method of thinking based on proof and experiment. And at the heart of this Renaissance were the founding fathers of modern western science: The Royal Society. John Gribbin's gripping, colorful account of this unparalleled time of discovery explores the birth of the Society and brings its prime movers to life, including: William Gilbert, the first man to test a theory by scientific methods; Francis Bacon, the extravagant, hedonistic philosopher who created the ideal image of the scientist; William Harvey, who carried out gruesome experiments on the circulation of blood; Christopher Wren, then more famous as astronomer than architect; Robert Mory, a spy for Cardinal Richelieu; the hot-tempered Robert Hooke, who transformed the Royal Society's fortunes yet whose work was written out of history; and his ambitious rival Isaac Newton, who finally established the model of a universe that follows precise mechanical laws, not the whims of gods.
Overlook Hardcover
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9781585678310
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Hardcover
The Mayflower
By Heaton, Vernon
A portrait of America's Pilgrim Fathers chronicles the roots of their decision to come to the New World, their experiences crossing the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower, and their adventures creating a settlement in New Plymouth
A History of Great Inventions
By Dyson, James
Lucidly written and generously illustrated in color, this volume of scientific history by award-winning inventor James Dyson details the greatest achievements of the human imagination since early hominids invented stone tools about 250,000 years ago. Through thousands of years and vital inventions more--the canoe, the wheel, ink and papyrus, language, maps, currency, law--the primitive hunter-gatherer of the Stone Age would evolve into the literate citizen of ancient Rome at the time of Christ, as the opening chapter of this fascinating chronicle shows. Succeeding chapters follow human technological advances up to the seventeenth century and then in the age of industrial power, the age of electricity, the atomic age, and the postwar world of the microchip and the genome.
Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition
By Riffenburgh, Beau
On New Year's Day 1908, Ernest Shackleton, a little-known adventurer determined to find fame and fortune by becoming the first man to reach the South Pole, took his tiny ship, Nimrod, south to the mysterious regions of the Antarctic. In the coming year, Shackleton would record the greatest achievements of his career and engage in his most daring adventures, returning home a hero. Lacking funds and plagued by hunger, cruel weather, and unpredictable terrain, Shackleton and his party accomplished some of the most remarkable feats in the history of exploration. Not only were they the first to climb the active volcano of Mount Erebus, but they trudged hundreds of miles across uncharted wastelands to be the first ever to plant the Union Jack at the South Pole. Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition is the definitive account of the British Antarctic Expedition. Using extensive research and firsthand accounts-some previously unpublished-Riffenburgh has written a vivid and gripping adventure while providing fascinating insight into the age of British exploration and empire.
A People's History of the Civil War
By Williams, David
"A startling contrast to the other literature on the Civil War." - Howard ZinnMoving beyond presidents and generals, A People's History of the Civil War tells a new and powerful story of America's most destructive conflict. In the first book to view the Civil War through the eyes of common people, historian David Williams presents long-overlooked perspectives and forgotten voices, offering a comprehensive account of the war to general readers.The Civil War's most decisive battles, Williams argues, took place not only on the fields of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Vicksburg, but also on the streets of New York, in prison camps, in the West, and on the starving home front. Laboring people, urban and rural, fought for economic justice. Women struggled for rights, opportunities, and their family's survival.
Rescue at Los Baños
By Henderson, Bruce
From the bestselling author of Hero Found comes the incredible true story of one of the greatest military rescues of all time, the 1945 World War II prison camp raid at Los Baños in the Philippines—a tale of daring, courage, and heroism that joins the ranks of Ghost Soldiers, Unbroken, and The Boys of Pointe du Hoc.In February 1945, as the U.S. victory in the Pacific drew nearer, the Japanese army grew desperate, and its soldiers guarding U.S. and Allied POWs more sadistic. Starved, shot and beaten, many of the 2,146 prisoners of the Los Baños prison camp in the Philippines—most of them American men, women and children—would not survive much longer unless rescued soon.Deeply concerned about the half-starved and ill-treated prisoners, General Douglas MacArthur assigned to the 11th Airborne Division a dangerous rescue mission deep behind enemy lines that became a deadly race against the clock.
American Metropolis
By Lankevich, George J.
Magnet for the ambitious, lodestone for talented and oppressed alike, Mecca for businessmen and immigrants, New York City has presided for over 350 years as the critical center of American life. From its origins as a primitive Dutch outpost to the sprawling urban complex it is today, the defining characteristic of New York has been continuous, dramatic, and rapid change. Historian George J. Lankevich's volume concentrates on political and economic affairs, illustrating how New York has always combined principle and pragmatism in its role as pace-setter in business communications, education, urban policy, and cultural life. American Metropolis is loosely divided into three historical epochs, each spanning roughly one of the last three centuries.
Kristallnacht
By Gilbert, Martin
On November 7, 1938, a young Jew, enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany, walked into the German embassy in Paris and fired five shots at a junior diplomat. Three days later the diplomat was dead, and Germany was in the grips of skillfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of November 10, Nazi storm troopers and Hitler Youth rampaged through Jewish neighborhoods across Germany, leaving behind them a horrifying trail of terror and destruction. More than a thousand synagogues and many thousands of Jewish shops were destroyed, while thirty thousand Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. This was the moment when deliberately inflamed hatreds ignited nationwide destruction.With rare insight and acumen, Martin Gilbert, one of the leading historians of our time, examines Kristallnacht -- the Night of Broken Glass -- and describes how the rest of the world reacted in its wake.
Everyday Life of the North American Indians
By White, Jon Ewbank Manchip
First printing of Indian Head Book edition.
In Europe
By Mak, Geert
Geert Mak spent the year of 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, Saint Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium. The result is mesmerizing: Mak’s rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes In Europe a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adrinana Warno in Poland, with her job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau. But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe’s wellsprings of memory, where history is written into the landscape.
Death in the City of Light
By King, David
The gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. But while trying to solve the many mysteries of the case, Massu would unravel a plot of unspeakable deviousness. The main suspect, Dr. Marcel Petiot, was a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma. He was the "People's Doctor," known for his many acts of kindness and generosity, not least in providing free medical care for the poor.
The Fellowship
By Gribbin, John
Seventeenth-century England was racked by civil war, plague and fire; a world ruled by superstition and ignorance. But another tumultuous event was also taking place: the revolution in science. A series of meetings of 'natural philosophers' in Oxford and London saw the beginning of a new method of thinking based on proof and experiment. And at the heart of this Renaissance were the founding fathers of modern western science: The Royal Society. John Gribbin's gripping, colorful account of this unparalleled time of discovery explores the birth of the Society and brings its prime movers to life, including: William Gilbert, the first man to test a theory by scientific methods; Francis Bacon, the extravagant, hedonistic philosopher who created the ideal image of the scientist; William Harvey, who carried out gruesome experiments on the circulation of blood; Christopher Wren, then more famous as astronomer than architect; Robert Mory, a spy for Cardinal Richelieu; the hot-tempered Robert Hooke, who transformed the Royal Society's fortunes yet whose work was written out of history; and his ambitious rival Isaac Newton, who finally established the model of a universe that follows precise mechanical laws, not the whims of gods.
The Mayflower
By Heaton, Vernon
A portrait of America's Pilgrim Fathers chronicles the roots of their decision to come to the New World, their experiences crossing the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower, and their adventures creating a settlement in New Plymouth