Book picks similar to
A Record of Cambodia: The Land and Its People by Zhou Daguan
history
cambodia
non-fiction
nonfiction
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics & Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory
David Ray Griffin - 2007
Although this movement was long ignored by the US government and the mainstream media, recent polls have shown that the rejection of the official theory has become a mainstream political phenomenon. No longer ignoring the 9/11 truth movement, the government and the corporately controlled media have released a flurry of stories and reports aimed at debunking it. In the present book, David Ray Griffin shows that these attempts can themselves be easily debunked. Besides demonstrating the pitiful failure of Debunking 9/11 Myths (published by Popular Mechanics and endorsed by Senator John McCain), Griffin riddles recent reports and stories put out by the US Department of State, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the New York Times, and others. He responds to criticisms of these efforts and shows that the charge that is regularly leveled against critics of the official theory--that they employ irrational and unscientific methods to defend conclusions based on faith--actually applies more to those who defend the official theory.
By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri
Charles M. Larson - 1992
A survey of the controversy surrounding Mormon founder Joseph Smith's claim that he translated the Book of Abraham from an ancient Egyptian papyrus.
Late-Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage?
Stephen M. Camarata - 2014
And no delay causes more parental anxiety than late talking, which is associated in many parents' minds with such serious conditions as autism and severe intellectual disability. In fact, as children's speech expert Stephen Camarata points out in this enlightening book, children are late in beginning to talk for a wide variety of reasons. For some children, late talking may be a symptom of other, more serious, problems; for many others, however, it may simply be a stage with no long-term complications.Camarata describes in accessible language what science knows about the characteristics and causes of late talking. He explains that late talking is only one of a constellation of autism symptoms. Although all autistic children are late talkers, not all late-talking children are autistic.Camarata draws on more than twenty-five years of professional experience diagnosing and treating late talkers--and on his personal experience of being a late talker himself and having a late-talking son. He provides information that will help parents navigate the maze of doctors, speech therapists, early childhood services, and special education; and he describes the effect that late talking may have on children's post-talking learning styles.
Millennium: From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed Over a Thousand Years
Ian Mortimer - 2016
It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life and bursting with ideas, that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change.We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders — and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer — to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict with each other on an epic scale. Here is a story of godly scientists, fearless adventurers, cold-hearted entrepreneurs, and strong-minded women — a story of discovery, invention, revolution, and cataclysmic shifts in perspective.Millennium is a journey into the past like no other. Our understanding of human development will never be the same again, and the lessons we learn along the way are profound ones for us all.
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
Nicholas Wade - 2006
In his groundbreaking Before the Dawn, Wade reveals humanity's origins as never before--a journey made possible only recently by genetic science, whose incredible findings have answered such questions as: What was the first human language like? How large were the first societies, and how warlike were they? When did our ancestors first leave Africa, and by what route did they leave? By eloquently solving these and numerous other mysteries, Wade offers nothing less than a uniquely complete retelling of a story that began 500 centuries ago.
After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC
Steven Mithen - 2003
After the Ice is the story of this momentous period--one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods--and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself.Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After the Ice takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler--John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of Prehistoric Times. With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life--from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations.Part history, part science, part time travel, After the Ice offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world.
The Teardrop Island
Cherry Briggs - 2013
The unmarried, and childless Briggs is the object of mirth and pity of the Sinhalese,she journeys around the Teardrop Island, inadvisably for her, but entertainingly for us on public transport. With the civil war recently ended and the effects of the devastating tsunami as ever present context Briggs entertains and educates. Her hapless inability to select decent guides or drivers results in her taking us vicariously to places we would never reach otherwise.Not to be read if your offspring are contemplating a gap year in Ceylon.
Copies in Seconds
David Owen - 2004
David Owen's fascinating narrative tells the story of the machine nobody thought we needed but now we can't live without.Chester Carlson grew up in unspeakable poverty, worked his way through junior college and the California Institute of Technology, and made his discovery in solitude in the depths of the Great Depression. He offered his big idea to two dozen major corporations -- among them IBM, RCA, and General Electric -- all of which turned him down. So persistent was this failure of capitalist vision that by the time the Xerox 914 was manufactured by an obscure photographic-supply company in Rochester, New York, Carlson's original patent had expired. Xerography was so unusual and nonintuitive that it conceivably could have been overlooked entirely. Scientists who visited the drafty warehouses where the first machines were built sometimes doubted that Carlson's invention was even theoretically feasible.Drawing on interviews, Xerox company archives, and the private papers of the Carlson family, David Owen has woven together a fascinating and instructive story about persistence, courage, and technological innovation -- a story that has never before been fully told.
4th of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land
Daniel Wolff - 2005
But behind this archetypal small-town landscape lies a complicated past.Starting with the town's founding as a religious promised land, music journalist and poet Daniel Wolff plots a course through 130 years of entwined social and musical history, touching on John Philip Sousa, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, and Frankie Lymon on the way to the town Bruce was born to run from. Out of the details of local history-the boardwalk in the Gilded Age; the celebrities who passed through, from Stephen Crane to Martin Luther King; sensational murder trials; the birth of Mob control; and a devastating mid-century "race riot"-emerges a universal story of one small town's fortunes. Told with grace and full of fascinating detail, Daniel Wolff's tour across thirteen decades of the Fourth of July in Asbury Park captures all the allure and heartbreak of the American dream reduced to blight and decay, with gentrification as the one hope for a return to its glory days.
This Ain't No Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980–1995
James Lough - 2013
This oral history of the famed hotel peers behind the iconic façade and delves into the mayhem, madness, and brilliance that stemmed from the hotel in the 1980s and 1990s. Providing a window into the late Bohemia of New York during that time, countless interviews and firsthand accounts adorn this social history of one of the most celebrated and culturally significant landmarks in New York City.
My Father's Island: A Galapagos Quest (Pelican Press)
Johanna Angermeyer - 1990
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.
The Odd Brain: Mysteries of Our Weird and Wonderful Brains Explained
Stephen Juan - 1999
Juan is that rarest of rarities, a scholar with a sense of humor. He fearlessly tours the brain's mysterious corridors, discussing such wide-ranging topics as phobias, compulsive water drinking, serial killers, the secrets of hypnotism, and the man who thought he was a cat. You will find this book absolutely engrossing.Do kleptomaniacs have a legitimate excuse to steal? Can excessive TV watching physically "shape" a child's growing brain?These answers and scores more fill Dr. Stephen Juan's fascinating and endlessly entertaining book The Odd Brain. Following up his popular first book, The Odd Body, Dr. Juan takes us on an animated tour of the enigmatic organ that sits on top of them all.Equal parts scholarly professor--he teaches at the University of Sydney--cultural detective, and theater of oddities tour guide, Dr. Juan explores bizarre brain disorders and the normal-but-still-weird brain phenomena that we all occasionally experience (like deja vu). Through it all, Dr. Juan pulls off the nifty trick of making the clinical both clear and entertaining.Each chapter is packed with real-life anecdotes and case studies. These include the Criminal Brain, the Savant Brain, the Shy Brain, the Suicidal Brain, the Thrill-Seeking Brain, the Obsessive-Compulsive Brain, and more than 20 others.For anyone who's ever witnessed unusual behavior and thought, "Now, what would make a person do that?" The Odd Brain is sure to have an answer.
Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
Giles Milton - 1999
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, Run's harvest of nutmeg turned it into the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a fierce and bloody battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company and a small band of ragtag British adventurers led by the intrepid Nathaniel Courthope. The outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular deals in history: Britain ceded Run to Holland, but in return was given another small island, Manhattan. A brilliant adventure story of unthinkable hardship and savagery, the navigation of uncharted waters, and the exploitation of new worlds, Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a remarkable chapter in the history of the colonial powers.
The 100-Yard War: Inside the 100-Year-Old Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry
Greg Emmanuel - 2004
It transcends the years, the standings, and all other distractions. And thanks to the countless remarkable football games between Michigan and Ohio State--and hundreds of thousands of devoted alumni and followers--the rivalry is now an enormous cultural event.