Showing results for "Fire World" in World

From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth, the Renaissance.

The most highly regarded and affordable history of Latin America for our times. Born in Blood and Fire, Fourth Edition has been extensively revised to heighten emphasis on current cultural analyses of Latin American society and facilitate meaningful connections between the Encounter and the present.

World War II engulfed the world in a desperation for human survival. In just 6 years it became the largest and deadliest conflict mankind has known, dramatically changing the landscape of the world’s future. In World on Fire Nik Schweitzer, Historian and Researcher of the Second World War, brings the most pivotal moments and individuals to conversation to spark conversation and revelations about the connection to our modern world.

It's hard to imagine this story as being part of our past, but in 1942, an 11-year-old Australian boy, Richard Manson, and his parents either side of him were shot by the Japanese for suspected spying in Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. Acclaimed Fourth Estate author and award-winning science journalist Ian Townsend has uncovered a fascinating story of World War Two, little known to most Australians.

The opening of the pioneering Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830 marked the beginning of the railway network's vital role in changing the face of Britain. Fire & Steam celebrates the vision of the ambitious Victorian pioneers who developed this revolutionary transport system and the navvies who cut through the land to enable a country-wide railway to emerge.

T. R. Fehrenbach brilliantly delineates the contrasts and conflicts between the many Mexicos, unraveling the history while weaving a fascinating tapestry of beauty and brutality: the Amerindians, who wrought from the vulnerable land a great indigenous Meso-American civilization by the first millennium BC; the successive reigns of Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Mexic masters, who ruled through an admirably efficient bureaucracy and the power of the priests, propitiating the capricious gods with human sacrifices; the Spanish conquistadors, and much more.

A fascinating account of the world’s most famous disease - polio - told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard-of disease began paralyzing so many children. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors?

How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners 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 that goes back into deep time.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is perhaps the most well known collection of reminiscences. He maintained it, in secrecy, from 1660, the year of the Restoration, until 1669 when fear of blindness prevented his daily labours. Though it covers less than a decade, it offers a lively and detailed insight into a period and a personality, for he noted events in both public and private life. Famous passages include descriptions of The Plague and the Great Fire of London.

Am 8. Juni 1783 brach der isländische Vulkan Laki aus. An diesem Tag öffnete sich eine Spalte mit 130 Kratern, Grundwasser traf auf das aufsteigende Basaltmagma, riesige Explosionen waren die Folge. Jon Steingrimson, Pfarrer aus Sída in Südostisland, war Augenzeuge eines der größten Vulkanausbrüche der Geschichte. Er protokollierte in seinem 1784 erschienenen Text die Ereignisse, als deren Folge etwa ein Fünftel der isländischen Bevölkerung starb. Die meisten Menschen verhungerten, weil die Landwirtschaft brachlag, andere hatten sich mit dem Fleisch von verseuchten Tieren vergiftet. Einzigartig erscheint die Verbindung von wissenschaftlicher Faszination, mitfühlender Beobachtung der gesellschaftlichen Folgen und Steingrimsons Sicherheit, dass alles, was geschieht, höherer Wille sei.