Birth History

A young reader edition of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist about one of history's most ruthless and shocking crimes, the Reign of Terror against the Osage people. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma...

How does the Jesus of the New Testament compare to the Jesus we think we know so well? Join bestselling author Philip Yancey as he conducts an enlightening biblical and historical investigation into the real Jesus. From the manger in Bethlehem to the cross in Jerusalem, Philip Yancey presents a...

Born moves around over time and large geographical, social, and cultural distances, but returns continually to a series of themes: the experience of pregnancy, the act of childbirth, and latterly, the fight for reproductive autonomy. Whatever their ultimate outcomes, pregnancy and the act of childbirth are at once an individual and communal event. No two births are the same, yet the history of childbirth informs us about so much more than this intimate moment in the lives of a woman and her offspring.

In the tradition of Three Women and Hidden Valley Road, international reporter and radio producer Abigail Leonard's page-turning work blends reporting, research and history as it follows four women—Anna from Finland, Tsukasa from Japan, Sarah from the U.S., and Chelsea from Kenya—through the...

On November 20, 1979, worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian hostage crisis was entering its third week. The same morning, the first of a new Muslim century, hundreds of gunmen stunned the world by seizing Islam's holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Armed with rifles that they had smuggled inside coffins, these men came from more than a dozen countries, launching the first operation of global jihad in modern times.

“The most important book in the lead up to this election.” —Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC “As Dias and Lerer write, the fight against legal abortion is tied inextricably to the fight for America’s soul.” —New York magazine “A tour de force. However you read books, hardcover, ebook...

A thrilling new biography of Dwight Eisenhower set in the months leading up to D-Day, when he grew from a well-liked general into one of the singular figures of American history. ""This is hands-down the most deeply researched, sensitive, intimate, and nuanced portrait of Eisenhower."" —DAVID...

The National Hockey League saw the birth of a new dynasty in 1980. The New York Islanders had been an expansion franchise in 1972 in the New York City suburbs of Long Island. For years they played in the long shadow of the big-city New York Rangers and were considered the league’s laughingstock during their first season. Miraculously, eight years later, they were champions.

“In December 1776, a small boat delivered an old man to France.” So begins a dazzling narrative account of Benjamin Franklin’s French mission, the most exacting–and momentous–eight years of his life. When Franklin embarked, the colonies were without money, munitions, gunpowder or...

In these two lectures about Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510) and the meaning behind two of his best-loved paintings, Angela introduces you to the esoteric worldview which flourished in the early centuries CE in cultural centres such as Alexandria in Egypt, and was reborn in Renaissance Europe.

When Communist Party leaders adopted the one-child policy in 1980, they hoped curbing birthrates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China closes the book on the policy after more than three decades, it faces a population grown too old and too male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong has spent years documenting the policy's repercussions on every sector of Chinese society.

The four spies at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence in the balance during the War of Independence, our spies went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a kiosk....

The concept of international trade was born in the ancient Mediterranean, which provided the perfect set of circumstances needed to produce an intricate trading system, whose influence can still be seen in present-day economic practices. The ancient Mediterranean was home to a diverse range of cultures and landscapes, encompassing deserts, forests, islands, and fertile plains.

Experience the raw, unflinching drama of America's most pivotal moments, from the brutal formation of its colonies to the explosive battles of the Civil War. Dive into the lives of people who shaped history: resilient pioneers conquering untamed prairies, enslaved individuals fighting for freedom, daring immigrants chasing the American Dream, and fearless gunslingers redefining law and order in the Wild West.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL The extraordinary life of forgotten World War II hero Evans Carlson, commander of America’s first special forces, secret confidant of FDR, and one of the most controversial officers in the history of the Marine Corps, who dedicated...

A fascinating chronicle of the lives of twenty economists who played major roles in the evolution of global economic thought. What was Adam Smith really talking about when he mentioned the "invisible hand"? Did Karl Marx really predict the end of capitalism? Did Thomas Malthus (from whose name...

Late in AD 937, four armies met in a place called Brunanburh. On one side stood the shield-wall of the expanding kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons. On the other side stood a remarkable alliance of rival kings - at least two from across the sea – who’d come together to destroy them once and for all. The stakes were no less than the survival of the dream that would become England. The armies were massive. The violence, when it began, was enough to shock a violent age.

It is an era that redefined history. As the 1790s began, a fragile America teetered on the brink of oblivion, Russia towered as a vast imperial power, and France plunged into revolution. But in contrast to the way conventional histories tell it, none of these remarkable events occurred in...

Starting from the two iconic dates of 753 BC (according to legend, the founding of Rome) and 476 AD (the deposition of the last Western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus), the history of the Roman Empire spans more than 1200 years. This was not only a long period of time, but also an eventful one - after all, the inhabitants of the city on the Tiber River conquered an empire that, at its greatest expansion in 116 AD, encompassed most of Europe as well as parts of North Africa and Asia Minor.

While many volumes devoted to the punk and hardcore scenes in America grace bookstore shelves, Canada’s contributions to the genre remain largely unacknowledged. For the first time, the birth of Canadian punk - a transformative cultural force that spread across the country at the end of the 1970s - is captured between the pages of this important resource. Delving deeper than standard band biographies, this book articulates how the advent of punk reshaped the culture of cities across Canada, speeding along the creation of alternative means of cultural production, consumption, and distribution.