Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

    She wrote of three day blizzards, forty ton trains stuck in the snow, houses buried in snowdrifts and a town that nearly starved.Was Laura's story just fiction, or was that one winter stranger than fiction? Was that winter really that bad, or was it just a typical old time winter stretched a bit to make a good tale?Author Dan L. White examines the reality of the long, hard winter. White uses contemporary newspaper articles, autobiographies and historical accounts of those who lived through that time to weave a fascinating story of the incredible winter of 1880-81.

    Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it. In the 1930s, with the country gripped by the Great Depression and millions of Americans struggling to get by, FDR created the Federal Writers' Project under the New Deal as a make-work program for artists and authors. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. The project, called "America Eats," was abandoned in the early 1940s because of the World War and never completed. The Food of a Younger Land unearths this forgotten literary and historical treasure and brings it to exuberant life. Mark Kurlansky's brilliant book captures these remarkable stories, and combined with authentic recipes, anecdotes, photos, and his own musings and analysis, evokes a bygone era when Americans had never heard of fast food and the grocery superstore was a thing of the future. Kurlansky serves as a guide to this hearty and poignant look at the country's roots. From New York automats to Georgia Coca-Cola parties, from Arkansas possum-eating clubs to Puget Sound salmon feasts, from Choctaw funerals to South Carolina barbecues, the WPA writers found Americans in their regional niches and eating an enormous diversity of meals. From Mississippi chittlins to Indiana persimmon puddings, Maine lobsters, and Montana beavertails, they recorded the curiosities, commonalities, and communities of American food.

    Not since Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature has a book of such import been presented to readers. Peacock’s intelligence defies measure. His is a beautiful, feral heart, always robust, relentless with its love and desire for the human race to survive, and be sculpted by the coming hard times: to learn a magnificent humility, even so late in the game. Doug Peacock’s mind is a marvel—there could be no more generous act than the writing of this book. It is a crowning achievement in a long career sent in service of beauty and the dignity of life."—Rick Bass, author of Why I Came West and The Lives of RocksOur climate is changing fast. The future is uncertain, probably fiery, and likely terrifying. Yet shifting weather patterns have threatened humans before, right here in North America, when people first colonized this continent. About 15,000 years ago, the weather began to warm, melting the huge glaciers of the Late Pleistocene. In this brand new landscape, humans managed to adapt to unfamiliar habitats and dangerous creatures in the midst of a wildly fluctuating climate. What was it like to live with huge pack-hunting lions, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and gigantic short-faced bears, to hunt now extinct horses, camels, and mammoth? Are there lessons for modern people lingering along this ancient trail?The shifting weather patterns of today—what we call "global warming"—will far exceed anything our ancestors previously faced. Doug Peacock's latest narrative explores the full circle of climate change, from the death of the megafauna to the depletion of the ozone, in a deeply personal story that takes readers from Peacock's participation in an archeological dig for early Clovis remains in Livingston, MT, near his home, to the death of the local whitebark pine trees in the same region, as a result of changes in the migration pattern of pine beetles with the warming seasons.Writer and adventurer Doug Peacock has spent the past fifty years wandering the earth's wildest places, studying grizzly bears and advocating for the preservation of wilderness. He is the author of Grizzly Years; Baja; and Walking It Off and co-author of The Essential Grizzly. Peacock was named a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2011 Lannan Fellow.In Oakland, California on March 24, 2015 a fire destroyed the AK Press warehouse along with several other businesses. Please consider visiting the AK Press website to learn more about the fundraiser to help them and their neighbors.

    Each included adventure has been selected to show the extent to which Muir courted and faced danger, i.e. lived "wildly, " throughout his life. From the famous avalanche ride off the rim of Yosemite Valley to his night spent riding out a windstorm at the top of a tree to death-defying falls on Alaskan glaciers, the renowned outdoorsman's exploits are related in passages that are by turns exhilarating, unnerving, dizzying and outrageous.

    He does so, not with abstract opinions but with apt and colourful examples taken from the past and the present: Sam Steele’s gold rush censorship of the Turkish Whirlwind Danseuse; Ontario’s grudging acceptance of beer in three Toronto ballparks; New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade; Lorne Greene’s rueful return to Toronto; William Van Horne’s tirade against winter carnivals; the role of Kentucky in the War of 1812; W.A.C. Bennett’s surprising takeover of the B.C. Electric Company on the day of its president’s funeral. All these apparently disconnected incidents are woven into a carefully thought-out dissection of the national character, a distillation of more than thirty years of Berton research.

    Sarah Parcak welcomes you to the exciting new world of space archaeology, a growing field that is sparking extraordinary discoveries from ancient civilizations across the globe. In Archaeology from Space, Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification of spy photography, to a new map of the mythical Egyptian city of Tanis, she shares her field’s biggest discoveries, revealing why space archaeology is not only exciting, but urgently essential to the preservation of the world’s ancient treasures.Parcak has worked in twelve countries and four continents, using multispectral and high-resolution satellite imagery to identify thousands of previously unknown settlements, roads, fortresses, palaces, tombs, and even potential pyramids. From there, her stories take us back in time and across borders, into the day-to-day lives of ancient humans whose traits and genes we share. And she shows us that if we heed the lessons of the past, we can shape a vibrant future. Includes Illustrations

    Thompson’s Las Vegas, with the Good Doctor as tour guide. A Lord of the Rings-like adventure in the city’s underground flood channels. A seven-day stay at a seedy motel on East Fremont Street.The stories in My Week at the Blue Angel aren’t about Steve Wynn, Cirque du Soleil, or how to play poker and they aren’t set in Caesars Palace, XS Nightclub, or a 2,000-seat showroom. They’re about prostitutes, ex-cons, and the homeless and they’re set under Caesars Palace and in trailer parks and weekly motels.In this creative-nonfiction collection, Matthew O’Brien—author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas—and veteran photographer Bill Hughes show a side of the city rarely seen. A side beyond the neon lights, themed facades, and motel-room doors. A side beyond the barbwire fences, “No Trespassing” signs, and midnight shadows.A side of Las Vegas many locals and visitors are curious about, but few ever explore.

    Twenty years on, Hancock returns with the sequel to his seminal work filled with completely new, scientific and archaeological evidence, which has only recently come to light...Near the end of the last Ice Age 12,800 years ago, a giant comet that had entered the solar system from deep space thousands of years earlier, broke into multiple fragments. Some of these struck the Earth causing a global cataclysm on a scale unseen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. At least eight of the fragments hit the North American ice cap, while further fragments hit the northern European ice cap. The impacts, from comet fragments a mile wide approaching at more than 60,000 miles an hour, generated huge amounts of heat which instantly liquidized millions of square kilometers of ice, destabilizing the Earth's crust and causing the global Deluge that is remembered in myths all around the world. A second series of impacts, equally devastating, causing further cataclysmic flooding, occurred 11,600 years ago, the exact date that Plato gives for the destruction and submergence of Atlantis.The evidence revealed in this book shows beyond reasonable doubt that an advanced civilization that flourished during the Ice Age was destroyed in the global cataclysms between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago. But there were survivors - known to later cultures by names such as 'the Sages', 'the Magicians', 'the Shining Ones', and 'the Mystery Teachers of Heaven'. They travelled the world in their great ships doing all in their power to keep the spark of civilization burning. They settled at key locations - Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, Baalbek in the Lebanon, Giza in Egypt, ancient Sumer, Mexico, Peru and across the Pacific where a huge pyramid has recently been discovered in Indonesia. Everywhere they went these 'Magicians of the Gods' brought with them the memory of a time when mankind had fallen out of harmony with the universe and paid a heavy price. A memory and a warning to the future...For the comet that wrought such destruction between 12,800 and 11,600 years may not be done with us yet. Astronomers believe that a 20-mile wide 'dark' fragment of the original giant comet remains hidden within its debris stream and threatens the Earth. An astronomical message encoded at Gobekli Tepe, and in the Sphinx and the pyramids of Egypt,warns that the 'Great Return' will occur in our time...

    Like her father, she came to love the Galapagos and to dream of having a life there. Her experience was filled with the perils and incomparable pleasures of living on the Galapagos.

     On the Camino: advice and information about what to expect on the Camino. Terrain, waymarkings, accommodation, food and drink, money matters, keeping in touch (telephone, internet, etc.), health – with advice on staying healthy and accessing the Spanish health service, Camino administration, etiquette and safety – staying safe and planning for any eventuality. The Caminos: information about the other Caminos, a list of books about the Caminos and pilgrim statistics, with the most popular starting points, nationalities, routes and busiest months. History: the History section aims to give you an understanding of the historical background to the Camino and the role it played in the foundation of modern Spain and Europe. It contains a history of Spain, and a history of the Camino from its beginnings to its revival, in the late 20th century. There’s also an account of life on the Camino in the middle-ages, the people who walked then, and the hardships and hazards they faced. Society, Culture & Environment: a brief outline of the fascinating mosaic that is modern Spain, its politics, cultures and peoples. The natural environment of northern Spain and the impact of the Camino on it. A description of the architectural styles and periods you’ll see along the Camino. Communicating: advice on making yourself understood and understanding others, with a Menu Guide and the most useful Spanish words and phrases for Camino life, plus a few phrases in Basque and Galician. Glossary: a concise reference for many Camino-related persons and things. This new edition, published in September 2013, has been extensively changed, updated and expanded based on feedback and criticisms received from readers over the past two years, and the author's experiences of walking various Caminos during that time. Most of the changes and additions are in the areas: - Packing, what to bring: with the different packing options listed in detail, and the pros and cons of different items explained. - A typical Camino day is described, from waking at the crack of dawn, to bedding down at nightfall. - There's detailed information about how Pilgrim Hostels work, and what it's like to stay in one. - Health: blisters, bedbugs, heatstroke, and other Camino hazards, are described with advice on avoiding them and dealing with them. Thanks to everybody for their feedback and their help with this new edition. ¡Buen Camino!

    His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination with exploring underground worlds, from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to sacred caves, catacombs, tombs, bunkers, and ancient underground cities in more than twenty countries around the world. Underground is both a personal exploration of Hunt’s obsession and a panoramic study of how we are all connected to the underground, how caves and other dark hollows have frightened and enchanted us through the ages.In a narrative spanning continents and epochs, Hunt follows a cast of subterraneaphiles who have dedicated themselves to investigating underground worlds. He tracks the origins of life with a team of NASA microbiologists a mile beneath the Black Hills, camps out for three days with urban explorers in the catacombs and sewers of Paris, descends with an Aboriginal family into a 35,000-year-old mine in the Australian outback, and glimpses a sacred sculpture molded by Paleolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees.Each adventure is woven with findings in mythology and anthropology, natural history and neuroscience, literature and philosophy. In elegant and graceful prose, Hunt cures us of our “surface chauvinism,” opening our eyes to the planet’s hidden dimension. He reveals how the subterranean landscape gave shape to our most basic beliefs and guided how we think about ourselves as humans. At bottom, Underground is a meditation on the allure of darkness, the power of mystery, and our eternal desire to connect with what we cannot see.

    A mere month later, facing quickly diminishing supplies and a fierce native population, White sailed back to England in desperation. He persuaded the wealthy Sir Walter Raleigh, the expedition's sponsor, to rescue the imperiled colonists, but by the time White returned with aid the colonists of Roanoke were nowhere to be found. He never saw his friends or family again.In this gripping account based on new archival material, colonial historian James Horn tells for the first time the complete story of what happened to the Roanoke colonists and their descendants. A compellingly original examination of one of the great unsolved mysteries of American history, A Kingdom Strange will be essential reading for anyone interested in our national origins.

    Whether you are a cross-cultural worker or simply live in a cross-cultural neighborhood, you'll find this book to be a valuable resource for understanding and relating to others from a different climate.

    With stories of the Four Directions and the Universal Circle, these once-secret teachings offer us wisdom on circle gatherings, natural herbs and healing, and ways to reduce stress in our daily lives.