Catalog Search Results
Author
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
"A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution-from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social inequality-and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told,...
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English
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Description
The author of Armchair Nation and On Roads examines shyness in a"sparkling cultural history rang[ing]from Jane Austen to Silicon Valley" (The Guardian).
Shyness is a pervasive human trait: even most extroverts know what it is like to stand tongue-tied at the fringe of an unfamiliar group or flush with embarrassment at being the unwelcome center of attention. And yet the cultural history of shyness has remained...
Shyness is a pervasive human trait: even most extroverts know what it is like to stand tongue-tied at the fringe of an unfamiliar group or flush with embarrassment at being the unwelcome center of attention. And yet the cultural history of shyness has remained...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
From a distinctive, inimitable voice, a wickedly funny and fascinating romp through the strange and often contradictory history of Western parenting
Why do we read our kids fairy tales about homicidal stepparents? How did helicopter parenting develop if it used to be perfectly socially acceptable to abandon your children? Why do we encourage our babies to crawl if crawling won't help them learn to walk?
These are just some of the questions that...
Author
Language
English
Description
While Daniel Holland's memoir details his involvement in the draft resistance movement of the 1960s, the impetus to share his story now comes from the dangerous new president and congress that have taken control of the United States Government. There is no telling how quickly they will plunge our nation into war. People who are of age to fight in the wars of today were not yet born when the lessons of Vietnam were being learned, so this book may serve...
Author
Language
English
Description
The rich history of British nursing comes to life in this lighthearted volume exploring the traditions and experiences of nurses across the 20th century.
Nursing in the United Kingdom has been steeped in tradition since the Nurses Registration Act of 1919. Many of the customs and methods practiced today have been passed down through the generations. Rituals & Myths of Nursing collects amusing and poignant reminiscences...
Nursing in the United Kingdom has been steeped in tradition since the Nurses Registration Act of 1919. Many of the customs and methods practiced today have been passed down through the generations. Rituals & Myths of Nursing collects amusing and poignant reminiscences...
Author
Language
English
Description
Did you know that Winston Churchill narrowly avoided assassination in the Second World War? Or that Prince Albert helped Britain avoid war with the United States in the nineteenth century from his deathbed? In this riveting read, James Moore and Paul Nero reveal fifty of history's most dramatic narrow escapes. From wars that were averted to invasions, revolutions and apocalyptic scenarios that we avoided by the skin of our teeth, History's Narrowest...
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Language
English
Description
Did you know that Beethoven made every cup of coffee with exactly 60 beans? Or that Shirley Temple always had precisely 56 curls in her hair? Or that the young Frank Sinatra practiced underwater swimming as a way of developing his ability to hold long breaths?
In I Didn't Get Where I Am, Charlie Croker brings his proven blend of gripping trivia and incisive humour to the question of how famous high achievers reached those heights. We'll see Chopin...
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English
Formats
Description
2019 James Beard Award Nominee An enlightening narrative history-an entertaining fusion of Tom Wolfe and Michael Pollan-that traces the colorful origins of once unconventional foods and the diverse fringe movements, charismatic gurus, and counterculture elements that brought them to the mainstream and created a distinctly American cuisine. Food writer Jonathan Kauffman journeys back more than half a century-to the 1960s and 1970s-to tell the story...
Author
Language
English
Description
In our own time, the world of work has changed enormously and some of the once familiar names and terms have fallen into disuse only to be understood with the help of a dictionary. For instance, who now know what buddle boys, claquers, dobbers, hokey pokey men, rogue spotters and sperviters are? Colin Waters' excellent dictionary explains the function of nearly 4,000 old trades, titles and occupations, and contains over 70 illustrations. It is a comprehensive...
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English
Description
"The pub has been at the heart of English life for centuries, evolving from elegant coaching houses and humble alehouses through Victorian backstreet beerhouses and 'fine, flaring' gin palaces to the drinking establishments of the twenty-first century. In this new and revised edition, historian Paul Jennings takes us on a fascinating journey over three centuries of pub life. Set within the wider context of social change, Jennings delves into the lives...
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English
Formats
Description
An explanation of how Wicca, the religion of witchcraft, came into existence. A detailed discussion of witchcraft's origins begins with accounts from ancient civilizations, then progresses forward to describe present-day manifestations of the art. This history includes: Witchcraft in Judea during the reign of King Solomon ... Medea and Circe, legendary witches of ancient Greece ... The place of witchcraft among barbarian tribes in ancient northern...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Are we doomed? Is an almighty power or an earth-shattering meteor waiting for us just around the corner?In this thought-provoking book, Professor Adam Roberts explores our many different cultural visions of the end of the world - likely and unlikely, mundane and bizarre - and what they say about how we see ourselves and our societies. What is it is that we are really afraid of? An uncaring universe; an uncontrollable environment; the human capacity...
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Series
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English
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Do you remember collecting shrapnel and listening to Children's Hour? Carrying gas masks or sharing your school with evacuees from the city? The 1940s was a time of great challenge for everyone who lived through it. From the hardships and fear of a World War, with Britain's towns and cities were being bombed on an almost nightly basis, to the trauma of being parted from one's parents and sent away to the country to live with complete strangers. For...
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English
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What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture...
Author
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
"Taking readers on a rollicking ride through history, a master storyteller and reporter, whose legend began in journalism, presents a paradigm-shifting argument that speech, not evolution, is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements,"--NoveList.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals...
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