World Nations

Just 70 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts. Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity.

The social cost of carbon: The most important number you've never heard of—and what it means. If you're injuring someone, you should stop—and pay for the damage you’ve caused. Why, this book asks, does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In Climate...

中华上下五千年是一套专为少年创作的简明中国通史。本有声书讲述了上至传说中的三皇五帝，下至新中国建立近五千年的中国历史。……中華上下五千年是一套專為少年創作的簡明中國通史。本有聲書講述了上至傳說中的三皇五帝，下至新中國建立近五千年的中國歷史。

Dreams tell old man Paul T'Sosi he's dying. So why is Navajo trickster Magpie trying to tell him a far more terrifying secret? Hungry for revenge, Ma'iitsoh Dine', the Navajo Wolf, is out for blood. Summoning his darkest powers, the Witch of Ganado circles tribal investigator Charlie Yazzie's young son and close friends. Some may survive the witch's evil vendetta, but others will die to settle an old score.

In Trinidad, in 1796, teenage Rosa Rendon quietly but purposefully rebels against typical female roles and behavior. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house - it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she expects to be her birthright, despite her two older siblings. But as her homeland goes from Spanish to British rule, it becomes increasingly unclear whether its free black property owners - Rosa's family among them - will be allowed to keep their assets, their land, and ultimately, their freedom.

In early 2011, the world’s attention was riveted on Cairo, where after three decades of supremacy, Hosni Mubarak was driven from power. It was a revolution as swift as it was explosive. For 18 days, anger, defiance, and resurgent national pride reigned in the streets - protestors of all ages struck back against police and state security, united toward the common goal of liberation. But the revolution was more than a spontaneous uprising. It was the end result of years of mounting tension, brought on by a state that shamelessly abused its authority, rigging elections, silencing opposition, and violently attacking its citizens.

Outsiders have long viewed Scandinavia as special, starting with the ancient Greeks and their myths of Ultima Thule, a place "where the Sun goes to rest." Today, we admire Scandinavia for its universal welfare, equality, peacefulness, and untouched nature—not to mention its interior design, crime literature, and love of all things hygge. Yet Nordic history has its hardships and dark periods, too: pandemics, war, the expansionism of the Viking Age and the eighteenth century, alliances with Nazi Germany in World War II, and a eugenics movement in the twentieth century.

As one of the first titles in Atlantic Monthly Press' "Books That Changed the World" series, America's most provocative satirist, P.J. O'Rourke, reads from Adam Smith's revolutionary The Wealth of Nations - so you don't have to. Recognized almost instantly on its publication in 1776 as the fundamental work of economics, The Wealth of Nations was also recognized as really long: the original edition totaled over 900 pages in two volumes.

Bailout Nation offers one of the clearest looks at the financial lenders, regulators, and politicians responsible for the financial crisis of 2008. Written by Barry Ritholtz, one of the most popular economic bloggers and a well-established industry pundit, this book skillfully explores how the United States evolved from a rugged independent nation to a soft Bailout Nation - where financial firms are allowed to self-regulate in good times, but are bailed out by taxpayers in bad times.

From writer and political analyst Jared Yates Sexton comes an eye-opening journey through American history that unearths and debunks the myths we've always told ourselves. Recent years have brought a reckoning in America. As rampant political corruption, stark inequality, and violent bigotry...

A moving account of how war is remembered – and by whom 'Impressive. A hundred individual histories, skillfully assembled, built into a poignant meditation on why they still matter' David Olusoga 'Brilliant' Piers Morgan Bestselling historian Tessa Dunlop travels the length and breadth of the...

Philosophy, art, democracy, language, even computers—the glories of Greek civilization have shaped our world even more profoundly than we realize. Pericles and the Parthenon may be familiar, but what of Epaminondas, the Theban general who saved the Greek world from Spartan tyranny? Alexander the Great's fame has rolled down the centuries, but the golden Hellenistic Age that followed is largely forgotten. "Byzantine" conjures decadence and deadly intrigue, yet the thousand-year empire that ruled from Constantinople and saved Europe twice from invasion was, in fact, Greek.

It is the 11th day of the school holidays, and Rebecca is bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. But events take a dramatic turn for the better (or worse) when she finds herself transported to a distant planet whose people are terrorized by jelly-like monsters called Ghosts. Rebecca resolves to sort out their problems. With the help of Grisby, a sore-footed misery boots; Kovak, an out-of-work spy; and Captain 'K', a rather puny superhero, she sets out for the Forbidden Lands in search of a solution.

What was life like for Shakespeare's first audiences? In a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, how did Elizabethan play-goers make sense of their changing world? What did the plays mean to the public when they were first performed? In this fascinating series, Neil...

When Mexico's bloodiest predator invades the reservation, it's up to Charlie Yazzie and his friends to take charge the Navajo way. Navajo can track prey, but can Charlie, Thomas, and Harley Ponyboy catch the killer before he catches them?

Resolved is Ban Ki-moon's personal account of his decade at the helm of the organization during a period of historic turmoil and promise. Meeting challenges and resistance with a belief in the UN's mission of peace, development, and human rights, he steered the United Nations through a volatile period that included the Arab Spring, nuclear pursuits in Iran and North Korea, the Ebola epidemic, and brutal new conflicts in Central Africa.

When war erupted in Ukraine, the world paused—some in solidarity, others in silence. But for one retired British police officer, the call to bear witness was too loud to ignore. Robert Marshall takes listeners on an unforgettable journey into the heart of a nation under siege. From bombed-out streets in Kyiv to quiet moments with grieving families in Lviv, this is not just a war story—it’s a story of courage, love, despair, and human connection in the face of unthinkable cruelty.

After a massive blackout traps her deep underground, Quinn begins a harrowing journey through dark tunnels and flooded ruins. With the world above silent and broken, she must push past pain and fear to survive. But what waits on the surface may be even worse.

An “eye-opening” (Kirkus Reviews) and timely exploration of how our food—from where it’s grown to how we buy it—is in the midst of a transformation, showing how this is our chance to do better, for us, for our children, and for our planet, from a global expert on consumer behavior and...

Gulliver's Travels is an adventure story (in reality, a misadventure story) involving several voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, who, because of a series of mishaps en route to recognized ports, ends up, instead, on several unknown islands living with people and animals of unusual sizes, behaviors, and philosophies, but who, after each adventure, is somehow able to return to his home in England where he recovers from these unusual experiences and then sets out again on a new voyage.