To mark the event, National Geographic magazine commissioned seven articles that explore the fascinating issues—including demographics, food security, climate change, fertility trends, managing biodiversity—surrounding this topic, which are collected for the first time in this special ebook.   Envi­ronment editor Robert Kunzig starts by sketching out a natural history of population. The issues associated with population growth seem endless: poverty, food and water supply, world health, climate change, deforestation, fertility rates, and more. In additional chapters Elizabeth Kolbert explores a new era—the “Anthropocene,” or the age of man—defined by our massive impact on the planet, which will endure long after our cities have crumbled; and takes us to the Mediterranean, where she delves into issues associated with increasing ocean acidification. In Bangladesh, Don Belt explores how the people of this crowded region can teach us about adapting to rising sea levels. In “Food Ark” we travel deep within the earth and around the globe to explore the seed banks that are preserving the variety of food species we may need to increase food production on an increasingly crowded planet. In Brazil, Cynthia Gournay explores the phenomenon of “Machisma” and shows how a mix of female empowerment and steamy soap operas helped bring down Brazil’s fertility rate and stoke its vibrant economy. Additionally we explore threats to biodiversity, and the return of cities—which may be the solution to many of our population woes. Join National Geographic on this incredible journey to explore our rapidly growing planet.

    As Frederick Douglass wrote: "When John Brown stretched forth his arm ... the clash of arms was at hand." DuBois's biography brings Brown stirringly to life and is a neglected classic.

    Now the Golden State’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, this is the story of a place at once quintessentially American and utterly unique.Arguing that America’s most populous state has always been blessed with both spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity, Starr unfolds a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph. For generations, California’s native peoples basked in the abundance of a climate and topography eminently suited to human habitation. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, there were scores of autonomous tribes were thriving in the region. Though conquest was rapid, nearly two centuries passed before Spain exerted control over upper California through the chain of missions that stand to this day.The discovery of gold in January 1848 changed everything. With population increasing exponentially as get-rich-quick dreamers converged from all over the world, California reinvented itself overnight. Starr deftly traces the successive waves of innovation and calamity that have broken over the state since then–the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons and the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the heroic irrigation and transportation projects that have altered the face of the region; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace.Kevin Starr has devoted his career to the history of his beloved state, but he has never lost his sense of wonder over California’s sheer abundance and peerless variety. This one-volume distillation of a lifetime’s work gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state.From the Hardcover edition.

    They wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels.The book starts in the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the giddy race for land and empire. It moves to the old manufacturing centers and coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay. It follows the steady downward spiral of American labor into the nation's produce fields and ends in Zuccotti Park where a new generation revolts against a corporate state that has handed to the young an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

    Treasury. And Alva Vanderbilt squandered tens of thousands on one evening to crack the closed social circle of the Mrs. Astor. And when Jay Gould, of Black Friday fame, sent his card to one of the Rothschilds, it was returned with the comment, "Europe is not for sale." It was this climate of mid- and late-nineteenth-century excess that fostered the most rapid period of growth in the history of the United States, replacing the unyielding Puritanism of Cotton Mather with the flexible creed of Henry Ward Beecher. National Book Award nominee Milton Rugoff gives his uniquely revealing view of the Gilded Age in this collective biography of Americans from 1850 to 1890. Writing on the political spoilsmen, money kings, parvenus, forty-niners, lords of the press, sexual transgressors, and women's rights leaders, Rugoff focuses on thirty-six men and women from almost every walk of life. His exponents include U.S. Grant, John Charles Frémont, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horatio Alger, free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull, first female surgeon Bethenia Owens-Adair, Brigham Young's rebellious nineteenth wife Anna Eliza Young, Boston Brahmin Charles Eliot Norton, Gold Rush pioneer Sarah Royce, black visionary Sojourner Truth, and to critique American society, Walt Whitman. In examining the Gilded Age, Milton Rugoff offers fresh glimpses into the lives of the celebrities of the era, as well as some lesser-known Americans, while at the same time revealing the roots of problems that still plague us today.

    Now, he's a man on a mission, the founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, crisscrossing the country in a grassroots campaign to change the way we look at energy in this country. While pundits proffer false new promises of green energy independence, or flatly deny the existence of a problem, Hofmeister offers an insider's view of what's behind the energy companies' posturing, and how politicians use energy misinformation, disinformation, and lack of information to get and stay elected. He tackles the energy controversy head-on, without regard for political correctness. He also provides a new framework for solving difficult problems, identifying solutions that will lead to a future of comfortable lifestyles, affordable and clean energy, environmental protection, and sustained economic competitiveness.

    In this narrative, readers experience The Great Hurricane of 1938, the most financially destructive storm on record.

    There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos, Texans of Mexican origin who fought alongside the Anglo rebels, scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows us how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late 19th and early 20th century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness.In the last forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.

    "Should be the number one source volume for everyone who embraces the philosophy of conservation".--Roger Tory Peterson. Illustrations throughout.