Maybe your teacher took the controversial stand that the Civil War was all about states’ rights… or maybe you learned all about the horrors slavery, but never quite figured out why things didn’t get better after the war ended. If you didn’t go to school in the United States, things are even more confusing. When the media is full of references to the Confederate flag, the legacy of slavery, and poverty in the American South, you might have a vague sense that things are bad because of the Civil War… but why? Why does a war that happened over a hundred and fifty years ago still cast a shadow over the United States? This book will tell you why. It will lead you, step-by-step, through the causes of the Civil War, and the effects. But unlike your high school history teacher, it won’t put you to sleep with long-winded biographies and lists of dates. The names you’ll learn are the big players, the ones with big personalities, who made big differences. In just a few minutes a day, you can read bite-sized stories from the Civil War – quick, easy explanations to guide you through the main points, with just enough scary, surprising, or just plain strange facts to keep you coming back for more. Each chapter ends with a bonus helping of trivia and some quick questions to test your knowledge. By the time you’re finished, you’ll know all the facts your history teacher never taught you – from who said slavery was a “positive good” (and why they thought that), to who dressed up in women’s clothing to escape from Union soldiers.

    

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    English is a glorious mess of a language, cobbled together from a wide variety of sources and syntaxes, and changing over time with popular usage. Many of the words and usages we embrace as standard and correct today were at first considered slang, impolite, or just plain wrong. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the book chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases. This is a book that will settle arguments among word lovers—and it’s sure to start a few, too.

    The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing." – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (from Amazon)

     This book is perfect for history lovers. Author James Weber did the research and compiled this huge list of events that changed the course of history forever. Some of them include: - The first civilization in Mesopotamia in 3,000 B.C. - The Norman Invasion of England in 1066 - The invention of the printing press by Johannes Guttenberg around 1450 - The French Revolution in 1789 - The first motorized airplane flight in 1903 - The Moonlanding in 1969 and many many more The book includes pictures and explanations to every event, making this the perfect resource for students and anyone wanting to broaden their knowledge in histoy. Download your copy now! Tags: history, world history, history books, history of the world, human history, world history textbook, history books for kids, earth history, geographic history, earth history kindle, human history, history books for kids age 9 12, history of the world part 1, a little history of the world, history books for kids age 7-9, history books for young readers, history books for children, history books for kindle,

    Ranging through history, literature, folklore, linguistics, and sociology, this is a breezy, straightforward primer of surprising breadth.

     Free BONUS Inside! For more than one thousand years, the Maya people dominated areas of Central America and modern-day Mexico and made important advances in architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Then, after the Spanish occupation in the sixteenth century, Maya culture and thinking were deliberately suppressed. Only in the twentieth century did scientists appreciate just how advanced these people had been and how important they were in the history of Mesoamerica. The excavation and investigation of several large Maya cities in the second half of the twentieth century completely changed how we view these people. We now know that the Maya were capable of building vary large stone structures that were precisely aligned with astronomical features, though we do not know how this was done. We are still learning about Maya cities—as recently as 2018, the use of new technology uncovered more than 60,000 previously undiscovered Maya ruins in the jungles of Guatemala. Many scholars now believe that the Maya were one of the most important of all the ancient Mesoamerican cultures. There are still many mysteries about the Maya. At one point in their history, several major Maya cities were abandoned and left to the encroaching jungle while their people relocated to more inhospitable areas in the Yucatán. There are many theories, but no one is entirely certain why this happened. We also don’t know why the Maya made important advances in the fields of mathematics and medicine and yet failed to develop, for example, the wheel or metalworking. What we do know is that these people created a sophisticated culture which they recorded via one of the first complex writing systems. Unlike other contemporary Mesoamerican peoples, the Maya survived the Spanish occupation, and Maya language, religion, and culture continue to survive today in parts of Central America and Mexico. This is the story of the mysterious and frequently misunderstood Maya civilization. Discover a plethora of topics such as Origins Maya Religion and Medicine The Classic Period Weapons and Warfare The Spanish Conquest Maya Writing And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on the Maya Civilization, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

    But where did English come from? And how has it evolved into the language used today? In Do You Speak English? Simon Horobin investigates the evolution of the English language, examining how the language continues to adapt even today, as English continues to find new speakers and new uses. Engaging with contemporary concerns about correctness, Horobin considers whether such changes are improvements, or evidence of slipping standards. What is the future for the English Language? Will Standard English continue to hold sway, or are we witnessing its replacement by newlyemerging Englishes?

    Word columns in daily newspapers and numerous books attempt to satisfy their curiosity. Word histories are usually digested like pills: the user is interested in getting well, not in the chemistry of the prescribed medication.Those who send letters to the Editor also want a straight answer without bothering about how editors come by their knowledge. Therefore, they fail to realize that etymologies are seldom definitive and that the science of etymology is intensely interesting. Perhaps if someone explained to themthat, compared to the drama of words, Hamlet is a light farce, they might develop a more informed attitude toward philological research and become students of historical linguistics rather than gullible consumers of journalists' pap.--Anatoly LibermanWord Origins is the only guide to the science and process of etymology for the layperson. This funny, charming, and conversational book not only tells the known origins of hundreds of words, but also shows how their origins were determined. Liberman, an internationally acclaimed etymologist, takesthe reader by the hand and explains the many ways that English words can be made, and the many ways in which etymologists try to unearth the origins of words.Part history, part how-to, and completely entertaining, Word Origins invites readers behind the scenes to watch an etymologist at work.

    The components of language are explained in easy-to-understand terms and the progression of the language from Germanic to Old, Middle, and Modern English is fully illustrated—including such revolutionary language upheavals as those brought about by the Norman Conquest and the Great Vowel Shift. One of the most interesting aspects of the English language lies in its variants, such as the “soda” vs. “pop” debate and the place of African-American English in modern culture. These and other dialectual curiosities are looked at in detail and placed in the context of today’s world. Finally, Professor Drout examines the future not only of the English language, but of all the world’s languages.

    Deft praise encourages others to feel as we do, share our enthusiasms. It rewards deserving objects of admiration. It persuades people to take certain actions. It sells things. Sadly, in this "age of awesome," our words and phrases of acclaim are exhausted, all but impotent. Even so, we find ourselves defaulting to such habitual choices as good, great, and terrific, or substitute the weary synonyms that tuble our of a thesaurus -- superb, marvelous, outstanding, and the like. The piling on of intensifers such as the now-silly "super," only makes matters worse and negative modifiers render our common parlance nearly tragic. Until now. Arthur Plotnik, the wunderkind of word-wonks is, without mincing, proffering a well knit wellspring of worthy and wondrous words to rescue our worn-down usage. Plotnik is both hella AND hecka up to the task of rescuing the English language and offers readers the chance to never be at a loss for words!

    It charts the rise of some languages and the fall of others, explaining why some survive and others die. It shows how languages change their sounds and meanings, and how the history of languages is closely linked to the history of peoples.Writing in a lively, readable style, distinguished Swedish scholar Tore Janson makes no assumptions about previous knowledge. He takes the reader on a voyage of exploration through the changing patterns of the world's languages, from ancient China to ancient Egypt, imperial Rome to imperial Britain, Sappho's Lesbos to contemporary Africa. He discovers the links between the histories of societies and their languages; he shows how language evolved from primitive calls; he considers the question of whether one language can be more advanced than another. The author describes the history of writing and the impact of changing technology. He ends by assessing the prospects for English world domination and predicting the languages of the distant future.Five historical maps illustrate this fascinating history of our defining characteristic and most valuable asset.

    Arthur Evans discovered what he believed was the palace of King Minos, with its notorious labyrinth, home of the Minotaur. As a result, Evans became obsessed with one of the epic intellectual stories of the modern era: the search for the meaning of Linear B, the mysterious script found on clay tablets in the ruined palace.Evans died without achieving his objective, and it was left to the enigmatic Michael Ventris to crack the code in 1952. This is the first book to tell not just the story of Linear B but also that of the young man who deciphered it. Based on hundreds of unpublished letters, interviews with survivors, and other primary sources, Andrew Robinson’s riveting account takes the reader through the life of this intriguing and contradictory man. Stage by stage, we see how Ventris finally achieved the breakthrough that revealed Linear B as the earliest comprehensible European writing system.