From the depths of Death Valley, Daniel Arnold set out to reach Mount Whitney in a way no road or trail could take him. Anything manmade or designed to make travel easy was out. With a backpack full of empty two–liter bottles, and the remotest corners of desert before him, he began his toughest test yet of physical and mental endurance.Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley, the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere. Mount Whitney rises 14,505 fee...

“A splendid chronicle of early climbing in the Sierra Nevada.” —Royal RobbinsIt’s 1873. Gore–Tex shells and aluminum climbing gear are a century away, but the high mountains still call to those with a spirit of adventure. Imagine the stone in your hands and thousands of feet of open air below you, with only a wool jacket to weather a storm and no rope to catch a fall.Daniel Arnold did more than imagine—he spent three years retracing the steps of his climbin...

Nature study seeks above all things to develop the earliest rudiments of the scientific discover. L. C. Miall This book contains a collection of short essays on numerous nature and natural history subjects. While they were collected together as suitable starting points for nature lessons for school children by Louis Compton Miall, Professor of Biology at the University of Leeds in 1905, these essays are fascinating listening today for nature enthusiasts of all ages.

At present, there are roughly a billion motor vehicles in the world. Within twenty years, the number will double to 2 billion, largely a consequence of China's and India's explosive growth. Given that greenhouse gases are already creating havoc with our climate and that violent conflict in oil-rich nations is on the rise, does this mean that matters will only get worse? Or are there hopeful signs that effective, realistic solutions can be found? In Two Billion Cars, transportatio...

It's 1643 and England stands divided: King against Parliament, town against country, brother against brother.For Captain Stryker, scarred veteran of the brutal wars in the low countries, the rights and wrongs of the Royalist cause mean little. Stryker's loyalty is to his band of soldiers — and to Queen Henrietta's beautiful but deadly agent Lisette Gaillard, who has gone into hiding with a man who holds the key to the king's victory.In the bloody aftermath ...

These two newly translated lectures showcase Foucault's late reflections on Kant and the Enlightenment.On May 27, 1978, Michel Foucault gave a lecture to the French Society of Philosophy where he redefined his entire philosophical project in light of Immanuel Kant's 1784 text "What Is Enlightenment?" Foucault strikingly characterizes critique as the political and moral attitude consisting in the "art of not being governed like this," one that performs the function ...

Today there are over a billion vehicles in the world, and within twenty years, the number will double, largely a consequence of China's and India's explosive growth. Given that greenhouse gases are already creating havoc with our climate and that violent conflict in unstable oil-rich nations is on the rise, will matters only get worse? Or are there hopeful signs that effective, realistic solutions can be found? Blending a concise history of cars and their impact on the world, leading trans...

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers of a most excellent standard. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, as you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you perhaps would rather not visit on your own. Many of these titles are on our audiobook version which can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.

The esteemed French philosopher Pierre Hadot’s final work, now available in English.With a foreword by Arnold I. Davidson and Daniele Lorenzini.In his final book, renowned philosopher Pierre Hadot explores Goethe’s relationship with ancient spiritual exercises—transformative acts of intellect, imagination, or will. Goethe sought both an intense experience of the present moment as well as a kind of cosmic consciousness, both of which are rooted in ancient phi...

The revised and updated third edition of The Making of Urban America includes seven new articles and a richly detailed historiographical essay that discusses the vast urban history literature added to the canon since the publication of the second edition. The authors’ extensively revised introductions and the fifteen reprinted articles trace urban development from the preindustrial city to the twentieth-century city. With emphasis on the social, economic, political, commercial, and cultura...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are sudden...

In this powerful debut story collection, veteran travel write and climber Daniel Arnold brings to life the men and women—complete with their scars and dark corners—whose lives are defined by the mountains they climb. The characters who populate Snowblind are obsessed with the jagged beauty and driven by the physical ricks of dangerous summits. Their climbs end not on heights, but in the psychological aftermath, when their compulsions crash back into reality.Deep in Alaska,...