But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization.Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding.The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

    Da Bears! tells the full story of the ’85 legends—with all the contro­versy and excitement—on the field and off. It’s been 25 years since the Chicago Bears won Super Bowl XX with what Bill Parcells called “the best de­fensive team I’ve ever seen” and an offense surprisingly good for a franchise where offense was often a dirty word. Now, for the first time, an incredibly candid book takes you through all the games and behind the scenes—into the huddles, the locker rooms, the team meetings, and of course the bars—for an intimate ac­count of that unforgettable season. Here’s how a team that got booed in its regular-season opener ended up winning its first world cham­pionship in 22 years, led by the most capable, colorful, and un-PC characters ever to strap on helmets—including Jim McMahon, the hard partyer and so-called punk rocker who became a star quarterback and an antihero; William “Refrigerator” Perry, the rookie giant who turned into a full-blown national sensation; Mike Ditka, the legendarily combative head coach called “Sybil” for his mercurial moods; his nemesis, defensive coordinator, Buddy Ryan, who insulted and broke down his players, then built them back up again, military-style; Walter Payton, the hard-nosed running back and mischievous prankster; and middle linebacker Mike Singletary, known for his leadership and his jarring hits.  From the inner workings of their innovative and attacking 46 defense to the inside story of their cocky “Super Bowl Shuffle” music video (shot, amazingly, right after their one loss of the season, to Miami), all the setbacks and triumphs, ferocious hits and foibles, of this once-in-a-lifetime team are recaptured brashly and boldly—the Chicago way.

    We'll hear of the great love stories ranging from Johnny Cash and June Carter in the 1960s to Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who married in 2005. We'll get the truth of the tragedies that led to the loss of three stars all in the same month, starting the rumor of the "Opry Curse." We'll learn how after being stabbed, shot, and maimed, Trace Adkins calls his early honky-tonk years "combat country," and we'll find inspiration from DeFord Bailey, an African American harmonica player in 1927 crippled by childhood polio who rose to fame as one of the first Opry stars. Our hearts will break for Willie Nelson, who lost his only son on Christmas Day, and soar for Amy Grant and Vince Gill, who found true love. Based on over 150 firsthand interviews with the stars of The Grand Ole Opry, these are stories that tell the heart of country--the lives that are lived and inspire the songs we love.

    Soon Gen Xers will be the only cohort of Americans who remember life as it was lived before the arrival of the Internet. They are, as Hennessey dubs them, “the last adult generation,” the sole remaining link to a time when childhood was still a bit dangerous but produced adults who were naturally resilient. More than a decade into the social media revolution, the American public is waking up to the idea that the tech sector’s intentions might not be as pure as advertised. The mountains of money being made off our browsing habits and purchase histories are used to fund ever-more extravagant and utopian projects that, by their very natures, will corrode the foundations of free society, leaving us all helpless and digitally enslaved to an elite crew of ultra-sophisticated tech geniuses. But it’s not too late to turn the tide. There’s still time for Gen X to write its own future. A spirited defense of free speech, eye contact, and the virtues of patience, Zero Hour for Gen X is a cultural history of the last 35 years, an analysis of the current social and historical moment, and a generational call to arms.

    He arrived knowing that you can’t study a language without understanding the daily lives of the people who speak it: how they talk to their children, how they argue, how they gossip, how they joke. Over the course of thirty years, he returned again and again to document Tayap before it disappeared entirely, and he found himself inexorably drawn into their world, and implicated in their destiny. Kulick wanted to tell the story of Gapuners—one that went beyond the particulars and uses of their language—that took full stock of their vanishing culture. This book takes us inside the village as he came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of two hundred people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest. But A Death in the Rainforest is also an illuminating look at the impact of white society on the farthest reaches of the globe—and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village. An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, A Death in the Rainforest takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.

     The order of the Knights Templar was founded by Hugh de Payens, a French nobleman from the Champagne region, along with eight of his companions, in Jerusalem around 1119. They originally consisted of a group of knights who protected Christian pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land against attack from brigands and Saracen pirates, after the crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. The order's full name was the "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon". They were given quarters next to the temple and adopted their distinctive uniform – white tunics with an eight-pointed blood-red cross. In 1129 they took monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and pledged themselves ready to die for their faith. They were gradually transformed into a chivalric order of warrior-monks who fought with distinction in the Crusades. Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history

    He was a celebrity during the height of America’s Gilded Age. In this book, you will read about his friendship with Mark Twain, his furious competition with his former employer Thomas Edison, his uneasy relationship with billionaire J.P. Morgan, and his rivalry with Albert Einstein. During his lifetime, Tesla revolutionized the field of electrical engineering with his most famous invention: the induction motor. But that wasn’t all he contributed to the world of technology. His coils, turbines, robotic boats, and mysterious “death ray” continue to beguile the imagination and inspire the inventors of the 21st century. But who was Tesla really? This book will take you from his early childhood in Croatia, where he experienced strange optical visions and “luminous phenomenon” that gave him near super-human powers of memory and visualization, to the “War of the Currents”, Thomas Edison’s bizarre campaign to ruin Tesla’s reputation. From trying to fight the Spanish American War with robots, to electrifying the skies of the Colorado desert, and to starting an earthquake in the middle of New York city, learn how Nikola Tesla shaped the world we live in today.

    To those who didn’t know, the biscuit factory that towered over Carlisle might look like just another slice of the industrial North, a noisy and chaotic place with workers trooping in and out at all hours. For the biscuit girls it was a place where they worked hard, but also where they gossiped, got into scrapes and made lifelong friends. Outside the factory walls there might be difficult husbands or demanding kids, and sometimes even heartbreak and tragedy, but they knew there would always be an escape from their troubles at Carr's. Some, like Barbara, only applied because she needed the extra cash, until things got a bit easier at home. Her supervisor cross examined her about who would be looking after the kids while she was at work, but let her have the job. Like many of the women who joined up ‘temporary’ Barbara went on to stay at Carrs for 32 years.Beginning in the 1940s, these heartwarming and vividly-remembered stories have all been told by the women themselves to Hunter Davies.

     The ship was called “magnificent”, consuming as much as one hundred forty tons of coal every day even if it just stands still on the dock, and standing seven stories tall from dock to bridge. She was considered by engineers and shipbuilders as one of the finest examples of man’s ingenuity and creativity. In addition, out of all the ships that were converted for use in the war, the Lusitania was the only one that was exempted and continued on as a cruise ship. However, its job of carrying passengers across the Atlantic Ocean was not the thing that made her famous today. Read more.... Download your copy today! for a limited time discount of only $2.99! Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. © 2015 All Rights Reserved by Unlimited Press Works, LLC

    This volume delivers an eye-popping backstage peek into the lusty private lives and cutthroat careers of Hollywood’s most memorable bad girls over the decades. The iconoclastic Hollywood Divas presented are: Jean Arthur, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Theda Bara, Drew Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Basinger, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Brett Butler, Mariah Carey, Cher, Joan Collins, Joan Crawford, Dorothy Dandridge, Bette Davis, Dolores Del Rio, Marlene Dietrich, Shannen Doherty, Patty Duke, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Kay Francis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Paulette Goddard, Melanie Griffith, Jean Harlow, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Sonja Henie, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, Whitney Houston, Betty Hutton, Janet Jackson, Grace Kelly, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, Jennifer Lopez, Jeanette MacDonald, Madonna, Jayne Mansfield, Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe, Maria Montez, Demi Moore, Mae Murray, Vera Ralston, Joan Rivers, Julia Roberts, Roseanne, Diane Ross, Meg Ryan, Norma Shearer, Cybill Shepherd, Britney Spears, Sharon Stone, Barbra Streisand, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Lupe Velez, Mae West, Shelley Winters, Natalie Wood, and Loretta Young.A must-have volume for every pop-culture fanatic, Hollywood Divas promises to tantalize you with juicy tidbits and saucy scandals that earned each of these devilish darlings the title of diva.

    He was eager to begin his first practice, but it turned out to be more than he bargained for. In just two years, in September, 1918, the entire village was sickened in rapid succession in the flu pandemic that killed quickly and indiscriminately throughout the world. It was wartime, and Nixon was unable to find help., This story is an up close and personal account of what it was like to be sick with the HINI type virus in 1918. It is a tale of a dedicated doctor whose selflessness, compassion and courage helped the villagers survive in the pandemic that killed more people in a year than the Black Death killed in a century...

    But linguist Daniel Everett argues that, like other tools, language was invented by humans and can be reinvented or lost. He shows how the evolution of different language forms—that is, different grammar—reflects how language is influenced by human societies and experiences, and how it expresses their great variety.  For example, the Amazonian Pirahã put words together in ways that violate our long-held under-standing of how language works, and Pirahã grammar expresses complex ideas very differently than English grammar does. Drawing on the Wari’ language of Brazil, Everett explains that speakers of all languages, in constructing their stories, omit things that all members of the culture understand. In addition, Everett discusses how some cultures can get by without words for numbers or counting, without verbs for “to say” or “to give,” illustrating how the very nature of what’s important in a language is culturally determined. Combining anthropology, primatology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and his own pioneering—and adventurous—research with the Amazonian Pirahã, and using insights from many different languages and cultures, Everett gives us an unprecedented elucidation of this society-defined nature of language. In doing so, he also gives us a new understanding of how we think and who we are.

    In Righting the Mother Tongue, the author of A Left-Hand Turn Around the World brings us the tangled story of English Spelling, from Olde English to email. Utterly captivating, deliciously edifying, and extremely witty, Righting the Mother Tongue is a treat for the language lover—a book that belongs in every personal library, right next to Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, and the works of Bill Bryson and Simon Winchester.

    No human being who stood on her decks that fateful night was alive to commemorate the event on its 100th anniversary. Their stories are with us, however, and the lessons remain. From the moment the world learned the Titanic had sunk, we wanted to know, who had survived? Those answers didn’t come until the evening of Thursday, April 18, 1912―when the Cunard liner Carpathia finally reached New York with the 706 survivors who had been recovered from Titanic’s lifeboats. Harold Bride, “Titanic’s surviving wireless operator,” relayed the story of the ship’s band. “The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first while still we were working wireless when there was a ragtime tune for us. The last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my lifebelt on, it was still on deck playing ‘Autumn.’ How they ever did it I cannot imagine.” There were stories of heroism―such as that of Edith Evans, who was waiting to board collapsible Lifeboat D, the last boat to leave Titanic, when she turned to Caroline Brown and said, “You go first. You have children waiting at home.” The sacrifice cost Evans her life, but as Mrs. Brown said later, “It was a heroic sacrifice, and as long as I live I shall hold her memory dear as my preserver, who preferred to die so that I might live.” There was mystery. There was bravery. There was suspense. There was cowardice. Most men who survived found themselves trying to explain how they survived when women and children had died. But mostly, there was loss. On her return to New York after picking up Titanic’s survivors, Carpathia had become known as a ship of widows. Rene Harris, who lost her husband, Broadway producer Henry Harris, in the disaster, later spoke of her loss when she said, “It was not a night to remember. It was a night to forget.” Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished letters, memoirs, and diaries as well as interviews with survivors and family members, veteran author and writer Alan Rockwell brings to life the colorful voices and the harrowing experiences of many of those who lived to tell their story. More than 100 years after the RMS Titanic met its fatal end, the story of the tragic wreck continues to fascinate people worldwide. Though many survivors and their family members disappeared into obscurity or were hesitant to talk about what they went through, others were willing to share their experiences during the wreck and in its aftermath. This book recounts many of these first-hand accounts in graphic, compelling detail.