Upon its first publication in 2001 as the inaugural volume in The New Press People's History series, edited by the late Howard Zinn, Ray Raphael's magisterial A People's History of the American Revolution was hailed by Fresh Air as "relentlessly aggressive and unsentimental." With impeccable skill, Raphael presented a wide array of fascinating scholarship within a single volume, employing a bottom-up approach that has served as a revelation to thousands...

"Resettling Your Brain in the Age of Cheap Pleasures"-- Provided by publisher.

"Science has a battle for hearts and minds on its hands….How good it feels to have Lisa Randall's unusual blend of top flight science, clarity, and charm on our side." -Richard Dawkins "Dazzling ideas….Read this book today to understand the science of tomorrow." -Steven Pinker The bestselling author of Warped Passages, one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World," and one of Esquire's "75 Most Influential People of the...

"In a refreshing perspective on water that transcends zero-sum thinking, the author of the groundbreaking Cows Save the Planet, shares stories from around the globe, offering real-world solutions to today's water crisis, "--NoveList.

This vivid history of the Civil War era reveals how unexpected bonds of union forged among diverse peoples in the Ohio-Kentucky borderlands furthered emancipation through a period of spiraling chaos between 1830 and 1865. Moving beyond familiar arguments about Lincoln's deft politics or regional commercial ties, Bridget Ford recovers the potent religious, racial, and political attachments holding the country together at one of its most likely breaking...

The bestselling author of The End of Nature issues an impassioned call to arms for an economy that creates community and ennobles our lives In this powerful and provocative manifesto, Bill McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes, "more" is no longer synonymous with "better"-indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. McKibben puts...

Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes are possible, yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. Rees argues that the future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. -- adapted from publisher info...

When seeking to understand animals, context is key. Humans have a habit of viewing the animal kingdom through the prism of our own narrow existence. Zoologist and documentary filmmaker Lucy Cooke is fascinated by the myths people create about animals to fill in the gaps in our understanding, and how much they reveal about the mechanics of discovery and the people doing the discovering. In this book she has gathered together the biggest misconceptions...

In this eye-opening study, Sidney W. Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven sugar's origins are as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy,...