Offers an impassioned defense of the state of Isreal, arguing the country is the only outpost of democracy in the Middle East, and documenting the facts about the nature of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Archaeologists discovered that the Hohokam were an advanced native tribe who built elaborate irrigation systems along the Verde River, and then disappeared. Early Arizona settlers recognized the tenacity and intelligence of the Hohokam and began to reconstruct their canal system. In 1903, the Salt River Project commenced, and the first lake on the lower Verde River was formed with the completion of the Bartlett Dam in 1939. Seven years later and 12...

"Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from...

Discover the beguiling history of witchcraft, magic, and superstition through the centuries and across the world in this stunningly illustrated title. A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult charts the extraordinary narrative of one of the most interesting and often controversial subjects in the world - from ancient animal worship and shamanism, through alchemy and divination to modern Wicca and the resurgence of the occult in 21st-century literature,...

"This book takes readers deep into the Sonoran Desert, looking closely at the relationships of plants and animals with the land and people, through time and across landscapes. Beginning with its deep biotic and geologic history, the text unveils fascinating ecological adaptations to this desert. The book focuses on the Arizona Upland Subdivision but also touches upon other subdivisions of the Sonoran Desert and associated biotic communities. In clearly...

Historian Kenneth C. Davis brings his remarkable ability for making the past vital and entertaining to this in-depth study of the United States' bloodiest conflict. Not content to rehash the one-dimensional accounts that traditional history textbooks have foisted upon students, Davis reexamines with a fresh, critical eye the situations leading up to and the key events that shaped the Civil War. He begins by reaching back to the earliest days of American...

"For centuries mankind has waged war against the infections that, left untreated, would have the power to wipe out communities, or even entire populations. Yet for all our advanced scientific knowledge, only one human disease ? smallpox ? has ever been eradicated globally. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola and Zika have provided vivid examples of how difficult it is to contain an infection once it strikes, and the panic that a rapidly spreading...

"Following his prizewinning studies of the Vietnam War, renowned anthropologist Heonik Kwon presents this groundbreaking study of the Korean War's enduring legacies seen through the realm of intimate human experience. Kwon boldly reclaims kinship as a vital category in historical and political enquiry and probes the grey zone between the modern and the traditional (and between the civil and the social) in the lived reality of Korea's civil war and...

This publication presents some of the highest artistic achievements in Chinese history. Drawing on the exceptional collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Heaven and Earth in Chinese Art: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei celebrates the rich heritage of Chinese culture through the ancient Chinese concept of 'tian ren he yi' - unity or harmony between heaven, nature, and humanity. As expressed by Song dynasty scholar Zhang...

"An engaging and beautifully illustrated introduction to some of the world's most interesting and charismatic marine creatures. Dive deep into the fascinating world of cephalopods--octopuses, squid, cuttlefish, and the mysterious nautilus--to discover the astonishing diversity of this unique group of intelligent invertebrates and their many roles in the marine ecosystem. Organized by marine habitat, this book features an extraordinary range of these...