There were many great cities in the ancient Near East that influenced the course of history. Babylon and Jerusalem are two of the better known, but Nineveh, Damascus, Ur, Uruk, Memphis, Thebes, and Sidon were just a few of the great cities where science and literature were created, theologies proposed, and empires born. There are numerous reasons why these cities became prominent, many of which were related to the fortuitous circumstances of environment and politics, but for every one of t...

Outbreaks of disease, much like wars, inevitably produce a series of public figures who serve as emblematic heroes or villains of the era and event, and in the case of Mary Mallon, now known around the world as “Typhoid Mary,” only a few deaths and a relatively small group of infections actually occurred before she was arrested. That her small but deadly outbreak incited such a firestorm among New York’s health agencies was certainly driven by the fact that the “ghetto disease” had suddenl...

Francis Key Howard recounts in this book his life as a political prisoner of the United States. He points out that he was held captive at the same location where his grandfather was inspired to write the national anthem about the "land of the free," which makes a very stunning contrast. The sufferings that were imposed on him by the Union forces had the effect of solidifying his determination to resist unjust governmental dictates.

Red Sensua's knife came up dripping—and the two adventurers knew that chaos and bloody revolution had been unleashed in that shadowy kingdom of the fourth dimension.

Writer John Howard Griffin decided to perform an experiment fifty years ago. In order to learn firsthand how one race could withstand the second class citizenship imposed on it by another, he dyed his white skin dark, left his family, and traveled to the South to live as a black man. What began as scientific research ended up changing his life in every way imaginable.This is an eyewitness account of discrimination and segregation that is terrifying and degrading, and its publicatio...

This authoritative guide directs consumers and users of test scores on when and how to provide subscores and how to make informed decisions based on them. The book is designed to be accessible to practitioners and score users with varying levels of technical expertise, from executives of testing organizations and students who take tests to graduate students in educational measurement, psychometricians, and test developers. The theoretical background required to evaluate subscores and impro...

Exploration of the early American West, beginning with Lewis and Clark’s transcontinental trek at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson, was not accomplished by standing armies, the era’s new steam train technology, or by way of land grabs. These came later, but not until pathways known only to a few of the land’s indigenous people were discovered, carved out, and charted in an area stretching from the eastern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and the present-day borders of Mexico a...

The plague, for all its horrors, became a known quantity that moved through a predictable progression, so by the 15th century, citizens learned to go on with their lives resigned to the fact that these curses seemed inescapable. However, in the mid-15th century, a new “febrile” disease of an entirely unknown cause struck again in Britain in a series of erratically paced and lethal outbreaks between 1485 and 1551. Confined almost entirely to England, the new and unfamiliar wave of illness p...

Leap into Litoria's Wetland Word!Litoria isn't just any frog - she's a rare Growling Grass Frog, who shares a home with turtles, fish, and other wetland friends.But when rubbish piles up and machines move in, her home is in danger - and she needs our help!Join Litoria on a fun, rhyming adventure and discover how even small actions can make a big difference.A delightful and engaging story that inspires children to care for and protect the e...

Now in its third edition, Hiking the Big South Fork is packed with up-to-date information on the trails of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area in Tennessee and Kentucky. The book combines numerous details about the natural history of the area with fascinating tidbits of folklore and legend to provide an interpretive guide to the trails. The authors have walked, measured, and rated every hiking trail, and, for this edition, they include information about trails in the adjo...

American history told from the bottom up by Howard Zinn himself—and the perfect all-ages introduction to his eye-opening viewpoint, published on Zinn's hundredth birthdayTruth Has a Power of Its Own is an engrossing collection of conversations with the late Howard Zinn and "an eloquently hopeful introduction for those who haven't yet encountered Zinn's work" ( Booklist). Here is an unvarnished, yet ultimately optimistic, tour of American history—told by someone wh...

Winston Churchill claimed the 'U-boat peril' was the only thing that frightened him during World War II.The U-boat was developed from a small coastal vessel into a state-of-the-art killer, stalking the high seas picking off merchant convoys, until the introduction of the destroyer escort, and the development of dedicated anti-submarine tactics provided a means of defence and attack against the U-boats.Gordon Williamson describes the design and development o...