A Washington Post Noteworthy BookOne of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year So Far**“[A] richly textured history . . . This story holds numerous lessons for our era.” —The New Yorker“From Joyce Chaplin’s engaging, wide-ranging pages a fresh Franklin emerges.” —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Revolutionary**“A fascinating, innovative, inventive look at a fascin...

In this first full history of around-the-world travel, Joyce E. Chaplin brilliantly tells the story of circumnavigation. Round About the Earth is a witty, erudite, and colorful account of the outrageous ambitions that have inspired men and women to circle the entire planet.For almost five hundred years, human beings have been finding ways to circle the Earth—by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving, flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodil...

With this sweeping reinterpretation of early cultural encounters between the English and American natives, Joyce E. Chaplin thoroughly alters our historical view of the origins of English presumptions of racial superiority, and of the role science and technology played in shaping these notions. By placing the history of science and medicine at the very center of the story of early English colonization, Chaplin shows how contemporary European theories of nature and science dramatically infl...

With this sweeping reinterpretation of early cultural encounters between the English and American natives, Joyce E. Chaplin thoroughly alters our historical view of the origins of English presumptions of racial superiority, and of the role science and technology played in shaping these notions. By placing the history of science and medicine at the very center of the story of early English colonization, Chaplin shows how contemporary European theories of nature and science dramatically infl...

An ambitious global history that fundamentally alters our understanding of MalthusThe New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus is a sweeping global and intellectual history that radically recasts our understanding of Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, the most famous book on population ever written or ever likely to be. Malthus's Essay is also persistently misunderstood. First published anonymously in 1798, the Essay syst...

In An Anxious Pursuit, Joyce Chaplin examines the impact of the Enlightenment ideas of progress on the lives and minds of American planters in the colonial Lower South. She focuses particularly on the influence of Scottish notions of progress, tracing the extent to which planters in South Carolina, Georgia, and British East Florida perceived themselves as a modern, improving people. She reads developments in agricultural practice as indices of planters' desire for progress, and sh...

Food and cuisine are important subjects for historians across many areas of study. Food, after all, is one of the most basic human needs and a foundational part of social and cultural histories. Such topics as famines, food supply, nutrition, and public health are addressed by historians specializing in every era and every nation.Food in Time and Place delivers an unprecedented review of the state of historical research on food, endorsed by the American Historical Associat...

A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of March"From Joyce Chaplin's engaging, wide-ranging pages a fresh Franklin emerges." —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Revolutionary"[Chaplin's] expansive claims for the Franklin stove’s importance click into place." ―Dan Piepenbring, Harper's"A fascinating, innovative, inventive look at a fascinating, innovative man and his inve...

A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of March"From Joyce Chaplin's engaging, wide-ranging pages a fresh Franklin emerges." —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Revolutionary"[Chaplin's] expansive claims for the Franklin stove’s importance click into place." ―Dan Piepenbring, Harper's"A fascinating, innovative, inventive look at a fascinating, innovative man and his inve...

For almost five hundred years, human beings have been finding ways tocircle the Earth—by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving,flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodily power. Thestory begins with the first centuries of circumnavigation, when fewsurvived the attempt: in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with fiveships and two hundred and seventy men, but only one ship and thirty-five men returned, notincluding Magellan, ...

What can homespun cloth, stuffed birds, quince jelly, and ginseng reveal about the formation of early American national identity? In this wide-ranging and bold new interpretation of American history and its Founding Fathers, Kariann Akemi Yokota shows that political independence from Britain fueled anxieties among the Americans about their cultural inferiority and continuing dependence on the mother country. Caught between their desire to emulate the mother country and an awareness that th...

One of Library Journal’s 10 Best Books of 2015Following his acclaimed Atlantic and The Men Who United the States, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this imposing force of nature.As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise,...