Evolution History

Everyone has heard the story of DNA as the story of Watson, Crick, and Rosalind Franklin, but knowing the structure of DNA was only part of a greater struggle to understand life's secrets. Life's Greatest Secret is the story of the discovery and cracking of the genetic code, the thing that ultimately enables a spiraling molecule to give rise to the life that exists all around us. This great scientific breakthrough has had far-reaching consequences for how we understand ourselves and our place in the natural world.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR AND PASTE MAGAZINE An intimate account of life in a West African fishing village, tugged by currents ancient and modern, and dependent on an ocean that is being radically transformed. The sea is broken, fishermen say. The sea is...

Church, Interrupted: Havoc & Hope: The Tender Revolt of Pope Francis is a revealing portrait of Pope Francis's hopeful yet controversial efforts to recreate the Catholic Church to become, once again, a welcoming place of empathy, love, and inclusiveness. Bestselling author, Vanity Fair...

Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology's sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

"Delightfully original, brilliantly conceived, witty, and poignant.” —Brenda Wineapple Berlin is more than a city; it's a survivor, an enigma, and a mirror to the world, a unique place whose recent past holds essential lessons for us today. IIn 1929, Berlin stood at a precipice—alive with...

"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality.In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes.

Horses of The Aga khan Dynasty is an exploration of the history, tradition, and legacy of the Aga Khan family. Mapping their history from Aga Khan I to the current Aga Khan IV and his eldest child, Princess Zahra, we discover not only insights about equestrian sports, horse breeding, and rearing, but learn why a family has been able to consistently produce excellent horses. This book is not simply about horse racing and its tradition, but it is a look into how thorough understanding has both revolutionized and evolved a simple sport into a careful study.

‘You shouldn't be with a Chinese girl…that should be my girl,’ a man in Singapore allegedly said this to a Chinese-Indian couple as he spat towards them. In a world brimming with such prejudice and cultural tensions, a remarkable phenomenon emerges: nearly one in five marriages in the USA...

Brilliant offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history - from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. Jane Brox plumbs the class implications of light - who had it, who didn't - through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. Brillant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and - only a few years before it becomes illegal to sell most incandescent light bulbs in the United States - timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light.

The unbelievably riveting adventure of an unlikely young explorer who emerged from the jungles of Africa with evidence of a mysterious, still mythical beast—the gorilla—only to stumble straight into the center of the biggest debate of the day: Darwin's theory of evolution In 1856 Paul Du...

Al principio, el Homo sapiens era solo una de las especies humanas del mundo. Tras siglos de coexistencia, fue el único superviviente. ¿Cómo ocurrió? Este fascinante libro sobre el Homo sapiens desvela los secretos de nuestra especie y lo que nos hizo humanos. Desde sus humildes comienzos en los albores de la prehistoria, el Homo sapiens se elevó hasta convertirse en una de las especies más resistentes del mundo.

Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in 12 Maps, this is the revelatory history of the four cardinal directions that have oriented and defined our place on the globe for millennia. North, south, east, and west: almost all societies use these four cardinal...

In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.

The convention and business events industry is a powerful economic engine, creating millions of jobs, billions in tax revenues, and hundreds of billions in business sales. Written by two industry veterans, this book tells the untold story of how an "invisible" industry grew into a trillion-dollar global powerhouse fueling business success across America.

Botox, bulimia, breast implants: Eve Ensler, author of the international sensation The Vagina Monologues, is back, this time to rock our view of what it means to have a “good body.” “In the 1950s,” Eve writes, girls were “pretty, perky. They had a blond Clairol wave in their hair. They...

The bigger picture of the ongoing financial crisis has now started to evolve. Easy Money captures this big picture. The history of money and the financial system as it has evolved over the centuries stand at the heart of this endeavor. It explores the idea that the evolution of money over centuries has led to an easy money policy being followed by governments and central banks across the world, which in turn has fueled humongous Ponzi schemes, which have now started to unravel, bringing the whole world on the brink of a financial disaster.

From Rocks to Robots: The Evolution of Western Surgery takes listeners on a fascinating journey through the gripping, often gruesome, but always remarkable history of surgery—from ancient Greek healers performing primitive operations with bronze instruments, through the battlefield heroics of Renaissance surgeons, to the sterile precision of robotic surgery today.

A one-eyed old man, with a gray cloak and a wide-brimmed hat leaning on a staff. A wanderer who appears when least expected, bringing triumph or doom. The god of prophecy, poetry and fate. A shape changer. A sorcerer. The god Odin cuts a dramatic figure in Norse mythology and is still a part of the popular imagination. He is the inspiration for figures like J.R.R. Tolkien's Gandalf the Grey, and he still appears in modern literature as varied as Marvel Comics and Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods.

An unforgettable account of the mass suicide of the followers of the Rev. Jim Jones in the jungles of Guyana—an overlooked masterpiece of modern reportage. First published in 1980, Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy is Shiva Naipaul’s deeply unsettling investigation into the forces that...