Catalog Search Results
61) Arguably: essays
Author
Language
English
Description
Essayist Christopher Hitchens ruminates on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men, the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard, the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell, the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad, the enduring relevance of Karl Marx, and how politics justifies itself by culture--and how the latter prompts the former.
Author
Language
English
Description
Muchnick's Concussion Inc. blog exposed the decades-long cover-up of scientific research into sports concussions and the ongoing denial to radically reform football in North America. This compilation from Muchnick's no-holds-barred investigative website reveals the complete head injury story as it developed, from the doctor who played fast and loose with the facts about the efficacy of the state-mandated concussion management system for high school...
Author
Language
English
Description
A sparkling anecdotal account with the pace of an epic, about the men and women who created turning points in history. Rebecca Fraser's dramatic portrayal of the scientists, statesmen, explorers, soldiers, traders, and artists who forged Britain's national institutions is the perfect introduction to British history.
Just as much as kings and queens, battles and empire, Britain's great themes have been the liberty of the individual, the rule of law,...
Author
Language
English
Description
"A black professor takes on the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this compelling appeal to true justice, he demolishes the identity politics that makes a travesty of Martin Luther King's dream. Martin Luther King's dream of a colorblind society is dead. Powerful political, educational, and corporate forces are making race the defining feature of American life, and nobody dares to stop them. Naively confident in the "marketplace of ideas,"...
Author
Language
English
Description
Part family story and part urban history, this work is a landmark investigation of segregation and urban decay in Chicago, and in cities across the nation. The "promised land" for thousands of Southern blacks, postwar Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the North, the site of the nation's worst ghettos and the target of Martin Luther King Jr.'s first campaign beyond the South. In this book, the author identifies the true causes of the...
Author
Language
English
Description
"From Tim Wu, author of the award-winning The Master Switch and who coined the phrase "net neutrality"--a revelatory look at the rise of "attention harvesting," and its transformative effect on our society and our selves. Attention merchant: an industrial-scale harvester of human attention. A firm whose business model is the mass capture of attention for resale to advertisers. In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising...
Author
Language
English
Description
A new look which fundamentally overturns our understanding of this famously "out of touch" queen. Who was the real Marie-Antoinette? She was mistrusted and reviled in her own time, and today she is portrayed as a lightweight incapable of understanding the events that engulfed her. In this new account, John Hardman redresses the balance and sheds fresh light on Marie-Antoinette's story. Hardman shows how Marie-Antoinette played a significant but misunderstood...
Author
Language
English
Description
"The story of the decades-long fight to bring justice to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, culminating in Senator Doug Jones' prosecution of the last living bombers. On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. The blast killed four young girls and injured twenty-two others. The FBI suspected four particularly radical Ku Klux Klan members. Yet due to reluctant witnesses, a lack of physical...
Author
Publisher
Random House
Pub. Date
c2012
Language
English
Description
Drawing on the full panoply of medieval sources, Guy sheds new light on the relationship between Saint Thomas à Becket and England's greatest medieval king, Henry II, separating truth from centuries of mythmaking, and casting doubt on the long-held assumption that the headstrong rivals were once close friends. He also provides the fullest accounting yet for Becket's seemingly radical transformation from worldly bureaucrat to devout man of God.
Author
Language
English
Description
"Adam Nicolson crafts a geography of the ancient world and a brilliant exploration of our connections to the past"--
Before the Greeks, the idea of the world was dominated by god-kings and their priests. Twenty-five hundred years ago, in a succession of small eastern Mediterranean harbor cities, a few heroic men and women decided to cast off mental subservience and apply their own thinking minds to the conundrums of life. These great innovators shaped...
Author
Publisher
Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Language
English
Description
"An historically unprecedented disconnect between humanity and the heavens has opened. Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it. For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are--our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have...
Author
Series
Underworld U.S.A. trilogy volume 3
Language
English
Description
Summer, 1968. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are dead. The assassination conspiracies have begun to unravel. A dirty-tricks squad is getting ready to deploy at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Black militants are warring in southside L.A. The Feds are concocting draconian countermeasures. And fate has placed three men at the vortex of history. A stand-alone sequel to The Cold Six Thousand.
Author
Language
English
Description
On November 23, 1968, near the end of a turbulent and memorable year, there was a football game that would also prove turbulent and memorable: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. Both teams entered undefeated and, technically at least, came out undefeated. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players on the field, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. And to many, the reasons had as much to do with one side's miraculous comeback...
Author
Language
English
Description
In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam--a sect many white Americans deemed a hate cult--saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation's message. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the...
Author
Language
English
Description
"The French Revolution has fascinated, perplexed and inspired for more than two centuries. It was a seismic event that radically transformed France and sent shock waves across the world. In this provocative new history, Peter McPhee draws on a lifetime's study of eighteenth-century France and Europe to create an entirely fresh account of the world's first great modern revolution: its origins, drama, complexity and significance. Was the Revolution...
79) Empty shells
Author
Series
Publisher
DC Comics
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"Simon Spurrier and Bilquis Evely continue the stories of the characters from the award-winning The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman as Lord Daniel is introduced to the cold taste of heartbreak. And as expected, it's not pretty. Even the Lord of Dreams is powerless against the storm of lost love. As with his predecessor Morpheus, Lord Daniel will find love in the last place anyone could have hoped for...the realm of the mortals. And as with all romantic...
Author
Language
English
Description
"What is money anyway, and where and why did it originate? According to Jacob Goldstein, this made-up thing has evolved over centuries and takes different forms based on technological advances, the needs of society, and often the crazy ideas of outliers on the fringes. Told through witty, historical anecdotes, Goldstein demystifies this ever-evolving tool from the invention of the first coins in Mesopotamia, to how China invented paper money centuries...
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