Astronomy is perhaps the oldest science. The ancients saw cosmic meanings in the stars, and they organized their lives around lunar and solar cycles (i.e. the month and year). They also observed th...
Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of...
Organizations working to restore the environment and foster social justice collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This movement with no name, leader, or location is a creative expression of people's needs worldwide.
Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu...
Subtitled True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors, this is the ultimate book of ordeals, with remarkable stories of castaways and other survivors from the 1500s to the present. Included are a...
Science is a way of knowing that's characterized by the rules of logic and the methods of experiment. But the conflict between logic and experiment has created a long-standing tension in scientific...
In 1905, Albert Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity, followed by the General Theory of Relativity in 1916. He firmly established (1) the idea that all judgement about motion is a ma...
It was the summer of 1940, and World War II had been raging for nearly a year. Buoyed by his successes on the Continent, Hitler was now planning an invasion of England to seal Europe's...
The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa -- the name has since become a by-word for a cataclysmic disaster -- was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly...
By the end of World War I, Britain had promised control of Palestine to both Arabs and Jews. Each of these peoples claimed a longstanding right to the same piece of land, and violence was inevitabl...
Among the greatest natural historians was Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who influenced Goethe, Darwin, and America's leading naturalists. Humboldt's Cosmos, published in five volumes from 184...
For most of history, the beginning of the universe has been understood through the many myths offered in various cultures. But in the modern age, scientific cosmology has emerged to offer new expla...
Winchester, hit by a sudden need to discover exactly what was left of the British Empire, set out across the globe to visit the distant islands that are all that remains of what made Britain great...
In this audio book based on his number one bestselling book, Dawkins presents a closely argued and intellectually exhilarating case for his radical Darwinian view of life on Earth and the place of...
Recent events have made it clear that the Soviet Union is not a monolith; it's a collection of nationalities, many with serious objections to union. The demise of communism holds great promise and ...
Smallpox was a terrifying human scourge. It covered the skin with hideous, painful boils, killed a third of its victims, and left survivors disfigured for life. This riveting book tells the story o...
Although Lawrence of Arabia died in 1935, the story of his life has captured the imagination of succeeding generations.
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a monumental work in which he...
Helen Colijn recounts her wartime experiences in a Japanese prison camp for women and children in Southeast Asia and how these prisoners of war used music to respond to their dire circumstances. Th...
Charles Coffin’s The Story of Liberty, originally published in 1879, is not America’s story alone. It belongs to all those who are enjoying freedom and liberty in any part of the world. As we look at that which preceded our nation’s history and led to its founding, we will begin to have an idea...
When ABC News' Good Morning America asked its viewers to write essays describing true-life experiences, the network never imagined receiving more than twenty thousand pages of inspiring stories....
The valiant efforts of the Greek warriors against huge onrushing Persian army at the narrow pass at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. changed the way future generations would think about combat, courage, and death. Cartledge shows how the repercussions of this history-altering moment affect our culture...
Here are more than 60 eyewitness accounts from Ancient Greece to Hiroshima. There are many notable events, from the Black Death, and Great Fire of London, to the American Civil War.