The complete story of snow, this is the first book to fully examine snow as a historical, cultural, and scientific phenomenon.From "Winter Wonderland" to "Snowmageddon," weve had a long, love-hate relationship with snow. This entertaining look at snow in all its delightful and fearsome manifestations delves into science, history, economics, and popular culture to examine snows enduring hold on the imagination. Through profiles and anecdotes, the author discusses the reactions throughout history to snowfall. Snow, beautiful and magical, was sometimes considered one of natures blessings. But then it was also a nuisance needing to be managed and moved, and worse, a terrifying, sometimes-crippling catastrophe to be battled. Blizzards and high-volume snowfall presented a serious obstacle to progress, travel, growth, and industry.Readers will learn about the making and removing of snow, the psychology of winter, and the history of snow in literature, art, and popular culture. The author also summarizes the current scientific understanding of major winter weather events and what is known about the complex interplay between the jet stream and the Gulf Stream. Despite sophisticated computer modeling, accurate forecasting is still a challenge.Finally, the book considers the impact of global warming on snowfall and the potential for causing a water crisis in the West and major losses in the winter recreation industry. Whether you look forward to months on the ski slopes or loathe the effects of winter on your daily commute, youll come away from this book with a new appreciation for this amazing and important natural phenomenon.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781633885943
|
Hardcover
A short history of life on Earth
By Gee, Henry
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place -- in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents -- a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world.
St. Martin's Press
|
9781250276650
|
Book
American Eden
By Johnson, Victoria
The untold story of Hamilton's -- and Burr's -- personal physician, whose dream to build America's first botanical garden inspired the young Republic. When Dr. David Hosack tilled the country's first botanical garden in the Manhattan soil more than two hundred years ago, he didn't just dramatically alter the New York landscape; he left a monumental legacy of advocacy for public health and wide-ranging support for the sciences. A charismatic dreamer admired by the likes of Jefferson, Madison, and Humboldt, and intimate friends with both Hamilton and Burr, the Columbia professor devoted his life to inspiring Americans to pursue medicine and botany with a rigor to rival Europe's. Though he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the founding fathers -- and even present at the fatal duel that took Hamilton's life -- Hosack and his story remain unknown. Now, in melodic prose, historian Victoria Johnson eloquently chronicles Hosack's tireless career to reveal the breadth of his impact. The result is a lush portrait of the man who gave voice to a new, deeply American understanding of the powers and perils of nature. 16 pages of color illustrations
Liveright
|
9781631494192
|
Hardcover
The Jail is Everywhere
By Norton, Jack
A VITAL COLLECTION FROM A KEY BATTLEGROUND IN THE ABOLITION STRUGGLE: THE COUNTY JAIL
Nearly every county and major city in the United States has a jail, the short-term detention center controlled by local sheriffs that funnels people into prisons and long-term incarceration. While the growing movement against incarceration and policing has called to reform or abolish prisons, jails have often gone unnoticed, or in some cases seen as a "better" alternative to prisons."
Yet jails, in recent decades, have been the fastest-growing sector of the US carceral state. Jails are widely used for immigrant detention by ICE and the U.S. Marshals and as a place to offload people that prisons can't hold. As jails grow, they transform the region around them, and whole towns and small cities see health care, mental health care, substance abuse, and employment opportunities taken over by carceral concerns.
Verso
|
9781804291313
|
Paperback
Ancient Sea Reptiles
By Naish, Darren
Dive into prehistoric waters and discover extraordinary sea monsters who reigned the ocean for 150 million years. Ancient Sea Reptiles: Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, and More examines the anatomy, behavior, diversity, lifestyle, and evolutionary rise of creatures who conquered the seas for 150 million years during the Mesozoic era. Expert paleontologist Darren Naish puts these fearsome and mighty creatures under the microscope and transports readers to wild and primeval waters. In this gorgeously illustrated book, amazing creatures leap off the page, including: . Mosasaurs, known as "T-Rexes of the deep"Cretaceous sea snakesLong-necked plesiosaursCrocodile-like thalattosuchians, the earliest sea turtlesAncient Sea Reptiles features fossil photography and artistic reconstructions of ancient creatures, from evolutionary anomalies to apex predators who survived extinction events, with chapters that include: .
Smithsonian Books
|
9781588347275
|
Hardcover
Climate Change and the Health of Nations
By Mcmichael, A J
When we think "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to its vicissitudes. Tony McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal guide to this phenomenon, and in his magisterial Climate Change and the Health of Nations, he presents a sweeping and authoritative analysis of how human societies have been shaped by climate events. Some have theorized that natural environment determines the fate of communities. McMichael does not go that far, but he emphasizes that it does have vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. After providing an overview of the dynamics of global warming and the greenhouse effect, McMichael takes us on a tour of the entirety of human history, through the lens of climate change. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved to adapt to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too evolved in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. McMichael dubs this mankind's 'Faustian bargain,' because the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable; in order for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the 'Goldilocks phenomenon.' Now, with global warming, the bill is coming due-not that it was ever far out of mind. Climate-related upheavals are a common thread running through history, and they inevitably lead to conflict and destruction. McMichael correlates them to the four horsemen of the apocalypse: famine, pestilence, war, and conquest. Indeed, they have precipitated food shortages, the spread of infectious diseases, and even civilizational collapse. We can see this in familiar historical events-the barbarian invasions of Rome, the Black Death in medieval Europe, the Irish potato famine, maybe even the Ten Plagues-that had their roots in natural climate change. Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the terrifying future of climate change is already here? The story of mankind's survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, in fact could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also a clarion call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.
Oxford University Press
|
9780190262952
|
Print book
Bicycling with Butterflies
By Dykman, Sara
Outdoor educator and field researcher Sara Dykman decided to do something no one had ever done before - pedal along with monarch butterflies over the entire length of their 10,201-mile migratory journey. She did it alone, on a hand-built bicycle, through three countries. In Bicycling with Butterflies, Dykman recounts her incredible journey and the adventurous ups and downs of her ride - follow her along through a Midwestern thunderstorm, a field of zombie corn, and multiple trips across the border. Along the way, we meet a cast of characters that includes devoted citizen scientists, skeptical bar patrons, farmers, and fellow bicyclists. Dykman weaves a tale full of humility and grace, all while sharing the science that underlies the urgency of saving the monarchs and why we all should care.
Timber Press
|
9781643260457
|
Hardcover
The Health of Nations
By Bartlett, Karen
"Anyone interested in public health and its interface with politics will find both hope and frustration here. A fascinating look at epidemiology and the challenges that public health workers face." -- Library JournalWhat would a world without disease look like? With the victory against smallpox behind us, polio, malaria and measles each provide their own set of roadblocks as we fight for a world free of epidemic diseases. This might seem a utopian pipe-dream, but that brand new world is a lot closer than you might think.Writing with the pace of a thriller, Karen Bartlett give us a rare inside look at how both global organizations and local campaigns operate on the frontlines in the war against contagious disease. She reveals why politics will prove to be the final enemy in the fight for global health and how victory in this battle will have profound consequences for the balance of world power and will embolden scientists to make other, even more momentous breakthroughs. Thought-provoking and full of reasons to be hopeful for the future, The Health of Nations is essential reading on one of the greatest challenges we face in the 21st century.
Oneworld Publications
|
9781786070685
|
Hardcover
Nightmare Fuel
By Nesseth, Nina
Nightmare Fuel by Nina Nesseth is a pop-science look at fear, how and why horror films get under our skin, and why we keep coming back for more.Do you like scary movies?Have you ever wondered why?Nina Nesseth knows what scares you. She also knows why.In Nightmare Fuel, Nesseth explores the strange and often unexpected science of fear through the lenses of psychology and physiology. How do horror films get under our skin? What about them keeps us up at night, even days later? And why do we keep coming back for more?Horror films promise an experience: fear. From monsters that hide in plain sight to tension-building scores, every aspect of a horror film is crafted to make your skin crawl. But how exactly do filmmakers pull this off? The truth is, there's more to it than just loud noises and creepy images.
Tor Nightfire
|
9781250765215
|
Hardcover
Those Were the Days
By Cullen, Jim
Between 1971 and 1979, All in the Family was more than just a wildly popular television sitcom that routinely drew 50 million viewers weekly. It was also a touchstone of American life, so much so that the living room chairs of the two main characters have spent the last 40 years on display at the Smithsonian. How did a show this controversial and boundary-breaking manage to become so widely beloved?Those Were the Days is the first full-length study of this remarkable television program. Created by Norman Lear and produced by Bud Yorkin, All in the Family dared to address such taboo topics as rape, abortion, menopause, homosexuality, and racial prejudice in a way that no other sitcom had before. Through a close analysis of the sitcom's four main characters - boorish bigot Archie Bunker, his devoted wife Edith, their feminist daughter Gloria, and her outspoken liberal husband Mike - Jim Cullen demonstrates how All in the Family was able to bridge the generation gap and appeal to a broad spectrum of American viewers in an age when a network broadcast model of television created a shared national culture.
Snow
By Wood, Anthony R.
The complete story of snow, this is the first book to fully examine snow as a historical, cultural, and scientific phenomenon.From "Winter Wonderland" to "Snowmageddon," weve had a long, love-hate relationship with snow. This entertaining look at snow in all its delightful and fearsome manifestations delves into science, history, economics, and popular culture to examine snows enduring hold on the imagination. Through profiles and anecdotes, the author discusses the reactions throughout history to snowfall. Snow, beautiful and magical, was sometimes considered one of natures blessings. But then it was also a nuisance needing to be managed and moved, and worse, a terrifying, sometimes-crippling catastrophe to be battled. Blizzards and high-volume snowfall presented a serious obstacle to progress, travel, growth, and industry.Readers will learn about the making and removing of snow, the psychology of winter, and the history of snow in literature, art, and popular culture. The author also summarizes the current scientific understanding of major winter weather events and what is known about the complex interplay between the jet stream and the Gulf Stream. Despite sophisticated computer modeling, accurate forecasting is still a challenge.Finally, the book considers the impact of global warming on snowfall and the potential for causing a water crisis in the West and major losses in the winter recreation industry. Whether you look forward to months on the ski slopes or loathe the effects of winter on your daily commute, youll come away from this book with a new appreciation for this amazing and important natural phenomenon.
A short history of life on Earth
By Gee, Henry
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place -- in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents -- a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world.
American Eden
By Johnson, Victoria
The untold story of Hamilton's -- and Burr's -- personal physician, whose dream to build America's first botanical garden inspired the young Republic. When Dr. David Hosack tilled the country's first botanical garden in the Manhattan soil more than two hundred years ago, he didn't just dramatically alter the New York landscape; he left a monumental legacy of advocacy for public health and wide-ranging support for the sciences. A charismatic dreamer admired by the likes of Jefferson, Madison, and Humboldt, and intimate friends with both Hamilton and Burr, the Columbia professor devoted his life to inspiring Americans to pursue medicine and botany with a rigor to rival Europe's. Though he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the founding fathers -- and even present at the fatal duel that took Hamilton's life -- Hosack and his story remain unknown. Now, in melodic prose, historian Victoria Johnson eloquently chronicles Hosack's tireless career to reveal the breadth of his impact. The result is a lush portrait of the man who gave voice to a new, deeply American understanding of the powers and perils of nature. 16 pages of color illustrations
The Jail is Everywhere
By Norton, Jack
A VITAL COLLECTION FROM A KEY BATTLEGROUND IN THE ABOLITION STRUGGLE: THE COUNTY JAIL Nearly every county and major city in the United States has a jail, the short-term detention center controlled by local sheriffs that funnels people into prisons and long-term incarceration. While the growing movement against incarceration and policing has called to reform or abolish prisons, jails have often gone unnoticed, or in some cases seen as a "better" alternative to prisons." Yet jails, in recent decades, have been the fastest-growing sector of the US carceral state. Jails are widely used for immigrant detention by ICE and the U.S. Marshals and as a place to offload people that prisons can't hold. As jails grow, they transform the region around them, and whole towns and small cities see health care, mental health care, substance abuse, and employment opportunities taken over by carceral concerns.
Ancient Sea Reptiles
By Naish, Darren
Dive into prehistoric waters and discover extraordinary sea monsters who reigned the ocean for 150 million years. Ancient Sea Reptiles: Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, and More examines the anatomy, behavior, diversity, lifestyle, and evolutionary rise of creatures who conquered the seas for 150 million years during the Mesozoic era. Expert paleontologist Darren Naish puts these fearsome and mighty creatures under the microscope and transports readers to wild and primeval waters. In this gorgeously illustrated book, amazing creatures leap off the page, including: . Mosasaurs, known as "T-Rexes of the deep"Cretaceous sea snakesLong-necked plesiosaursCrocodile-like thalattosuchians, the earliest sea turtlesAncient Sea Reptiles features fossil photography and artistic reconstructions of ancient creatures, from evolutionary anomalies to apex predators who survived extinction events, with chapters that include: .
Climate Change and the Health of Nations
By Mcmichael, A J
When we think "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to its vicissitudes. Tony McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal guide to this phenomenon, and in his magisterial Climate Change and the Health of Nations, he presents a sweeping and authoritative analysis of how human societies have been shaped by climate events. Some have theorized that natural environment determines the fate of communities. McMichael does not go that far, but he emphasizes that it does have vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. After providing an overview of the dynamics of global warming and the greenhouse effect, McMichael takes us on a tour of the entirety of human history, through the lens of climate change. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved to adapt to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too evolved in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. McMichael dubs this mankind's 'Faustian bargain,' because the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable; in order for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the 'Goldilocks phenomenon.' Now, with global warming, the bill is coming due-not that it was ever far out of mind. Climate-related upheavals are a common thread running through history, and they inevitably lead to conflict and destruction. McMichael correlates them to the four horsemen of the apocalypse: famine, pestilence, war, and conquest. Indeed, they have precipitated food shortages, the spread of infectious diseases, and even civilizational collapse. We can see this in familiar historical events-the barbarian invasions of Rome, the Black Death in medieval Europe, the Irish potato famine, maybe even the Ten Plagues-that had their roots in natural climate change. Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the terrifying future of climate change is already here? The story of mankind's survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, in fact could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also a clarion call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.
Bicycling with Butterflies
By Dykman, Sara
Outdoor educator and field researcher Sara Dykman decided to do something no one had ever done before - pedal along with monarch butterflies over the entire length of their 10,201-mile migratory journey. She did it alone, on a hand-built bicycle, through three countries. In Bicycling with Butterflies, Dykman recounts her incredible journey and the adventurous ups and downs of her ride - follow her along through a Midwestern thunderstorm, a field of zombie corn, and multiple trips across the border. Along the way, we meet a cast of characters that includes devoted citizen scientists, skeptical bar patrons, farmers, and fellow bicyclists. Dykman weaves a tale full of humility and grace, all while sharing the science that underlies the urgency of saving the monarchs and why we all should care.
The Health of Nations
By Bartlett, Karen
"Anyone interested in public health and its interface with politics will find both hope and frustration here. A fascinating look at epidemiology and the challenges that public health workers face." -- Library JournalWhat would a world without disease look like? With the victory against smallpox behind us, polio, malaria and measles each provide their own set of roadblocks as we fight for a world free of epidemic diseases. This might seem a utopian pipe-dream, but that brand new world is a lot closer than you might think.Writing with the pace of a thriller, Karen Bartlett give us a rare inside look at how both global organizations and local campaigns operate on the frontlines in the war against contagious disease. She reveals why politics will prove to be the final enemy in the fight for global health and how victory in this battle will have profound consequences for the balance of world power and will embolden scientists to make other, even more momentous breakthroughs. Thought-provoking and full of reasons to be hopeful for the future, The Health of Nations is essential reading on one of the greatest challenges we face in the 21st century.
Nightmare Fuel
By Nesseth, Nina
Nightmare Fuel by Nina Nesseth is a pop-science look at fear, how and why horror films get under our skin, and why we keep coming back for more.Do you like scary movies?Have you ever wondered why?Nina Nesseth knows what scares you. She also knows why.In Nightmare Fuel, Nesseth explores the strange and often unexpected science of fear through the lenses of psychology and physiology. How do horror films get under our skin? What about them keeps us up at night, even days later? And why do we keep coming back for more?Horror films promise an experience: fear. From monsters that hide in plain sight to tension-building scores, every aspect of a horror film is crafted to make your skin crawl. But how exactly do filmmakers pull this off? The truth is, there's more to it than just loud noises and creepy images.
Those Were the Days
By Cullen, Jim
Between 1971 and 1979, All in the Family was more than just a wildly popular television sitcom that routinely drew 50 million viewers weekly. It was also a touchstone of American life, so much so that the living room chairs of the two main characters have spent the last 40 years on display at the Smithsonian. How did a show this controversial and boundary-breaking manage to become so widely beloved?Those Were the Days is the first full-length study of this remarkable television program. Created by Norman Lear and produced by Bud Yorkin, All in the Family dared to address such taboo topics as rape, abortion, menopause, homosexuality, and racial prejudice in a way that no other sitcom had before. Through a close analysis of the sitcom's four main characters - boorish bigot Archie Bunker, his devoted wife Edith, their feminist daughter Gloria, and her outspoken liberal husband Mike - Jim Cullen demonstrates how All in the Family was able to bridge the generation gap and appeal to a broad spectrum of American viewers in an age when a network broadcast model of television created a shared national culture.