Expand Your Knowledge of the World

"In this richly narrated and authoritative work--combining environmental and societal history--Giulio Boccaletti begins with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. He describes how these societies were made possible by sea level changes from the last glacial melt. He examines how this sedentary farming led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, resulted in an explosion in population and the specialization of labor. We see how irrigation structure led to social structure--inventions like the calendar sprung from agricultural necessity; how, in Ancient Greece, communal ownership of wells laid the groundwork for democracy; how the Greek and Roman experience dealing with water security was the seed for tax systems. And he makes clear how the modern world as we know it began with a legal structure for the development of water infrastructure. In its scope and clarity, Water: A Biography provides a fascinating framework through which we can more fully understand society's relationship to, and fundamental reliance on, the most elemental substance on our planet"-- Provided by publisher.

"An unprecedented portrait of the hidden patterns in human society--visualized through the world of data"-- Provided by publisher.

"A stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking lens on the global refugee crisis, from a man who faced the very worst of humanity and survived to advocate for refugees everywhere One night when Mondiant Dogon, a Bagogwe Tutsi born in Congo, was very young, his father's lifelong friend, a Hutu man, came to their home with a machete in his hand and warned the family they were to be killed within hours. Dogon's family fled into the bush, where they began a long and dangerous journey into Rwanda. Since that day when he was just three years old, Dogon has called himself a forever refugee. He and his family made their way to the first of several UN tent cities in which they would spend the next quarter century. But their search for a safe haven had only just begun. Hideous violence stalked them in the camps, where death loomed constantly. Even though Rwanda famously has a refugee for a president in Paul Kagame, refugees in that country face enormous prejudice and acute want. For most of his life, Dogon only had enough to eat three days a week. Food appeared on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. For a time he fled back to Congo in search of the better life that had been lost, but there he was imprisoned and then found work as a child soldier. Against all odds, and through grit and good fortune, he managed to be one of the few Congolese Tutsis to receive an education in Rwanda. Eventually, Dogon came to the US and became an advocate for his people. He is the self-described global ambassador for the Bagogwe Tutsi, who has also lent his voice to the plight of forever refugees everywhere. As Dogon once wrote in a poem, "those we throw away are diamonds." Dogon is a singular human who carries the weight of his people and champions the cause of 65 million refugees around the world. In THOSE WE THROW AWAY ARE DIAMONDS, written with New Yorker contributor Jenna Krajeski, he shares his incredible and moving story of survival to bring home the global refugee crisis"-- Provided by publisher.

"Outdoor educator and field researcher Sara Dykman made history when she became the first person to bicycle along­side monarch butterflies on their storied annual migration--a round-trip adventure that included three countries and more than 10,000 miles. Equally remarkable, she did it solo, on a bike cobbled together from used parts. Her panniers were recycled buckets. In Bicycling with Butterflies, Dykman recounts her incredible journey and the dramatic ups and downs of the nearly nine-month odyssey. We're beside her as she navigates unmapped roads in foreign countries, checks roadside milkweed for monarch eggs, and shares her passion with eager schoolchildren, skeptical bar patrons, and unimpressed border officials. We also meet some of the ardent monarch stewards who supported her efforts, from citizen scientists and researchers to farmers and high-rise city dwellers. With both humor and humility, Dykman offers a compelling story, confirming the urgency of saving the threatened monarch migration--and the other threatened systems of nature that affect the survival of us all."-- Provided by publisher.

"Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change." His interest in climate change is a natural outgrowth of the efforts by his foundation to reduce poverty and disease. Climate change, according to Gates, will have the biggest impact on the people who have done the least to cause it. As a technologist, he has seen firsthand how innovation can change the world. By investing in research, inventing new technologies, and by deploying them quickly at large scale, Gates believes climate change can be addressed in meaningful ways. According to Gates, "to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to get to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases. This problem is urgent, and the debate is complex, but I believe we can come together to invent new carbon-zero technologies, deploy the ones we have, and ultimately avoid a climate catastrophe""-- Provided by publisher.

This history of mankind's battles against infectious diseases looks at how epidemics shaped empires and economies and how medical revolutions freed us from these cycles until new threats caused by changes in global trade and climate.

"Heather C. McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. As she dug into subject after subject, from the financial crisis to declining wages to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common problem at the bottom of them all: racism--but not just in the obvious ways that hurt people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It's the common denominator in our most vexing public problems, even beyond our economy. It is at the core of the dysfunction of our democracy and even the spiritual and moral crises that grip us. Racism is a toxin in the American body and it weakens us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? To find the way, McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Mississippi to Maine, tallying up what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm--the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she collects the stories of white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams and their shot at a better job to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country--from parks and pools to functioning schools--have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world's advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. It's why we fail to prevent environmental and public health crises that require collective action. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee also finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: gains that come when people come together across race, to the benefit of all involved"-- Provided by publisher.

Journalist Josh Mitchell explores the history of student loans and the current economic and social impact of student debt on the American economy.

"Nadia Owusu grew up all over the world--from Rome and London to Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. When her mother abandoned her when she was two years old, the rejection caused Nadia to be confused about her identity. Even after her father died when she was thirteen and she was raised by her stepmother, she was unable to come to terms with who she was since she still felt motherless and alone. When Nadia went to university in America when she was eighteen she still felt as if she had so many competing personas that she couldn't keep track of them all without cracking under the pressure of trying to hold herself together. A powerful coming-of-age story that explores timely and universal themes of identity, Aftershocks follows Nadia's life as she hauls herself out of the wreckage and begins to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one she writes into existence"-- Provided by publisher.

A painstakingly researched account details the tragic and triumphant story of the Eagles, a high school football team from Cody, Wyoming's World War II Japanese-American incarceration camp.

"Join "America's funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post) Mary Roach on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A grizzly bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? As New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Roach tags along with animal attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller-blasters. She travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter's Square in the early hours before the Pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. Along the way, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature's lawbreakers. Combining little- known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and mugging macaques, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat"-- Provided by publisher.

"An important, hopeful book that looks at the urgent problem of childhood malnutrition worldwide and the revolutionary progress being made to end it. From the much-admired writer of luminous prose and humane heart, winner of the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing. A healthy Earth requires healthy children. Yet nearly one fourth of the world's children--one in four--are stunted physically and mentally due to a lack of food or nutrients. These children do not die but endure a lifetime of diminished potential. In the past thirty years, writes Sharman Russell in Within Our Grasp, we have seen a revolution in how we treat these sick children, and how, with a new understanding of the human body and approach to nutrition, along with new ways to reach out to hungry mothers and babies, we have gone from unwittingly killing the severely malnourished child to bringing him/her back to health through a "miracle" ready-to-eat therapeutic food. Intertwined with stories of scientists and nutrition experts on the front lines of finding a means of putting an end to malnutrition for good, Russell writes of her travels to Malawi, one of the poorest and least-developed countries in the world (80% of Malawians are farmers subsisting on less than an acre, coping with erratic weather patterns due to global warming, with 50% living below the poverty line and 42% of children being affected by lack of food or nutrients), the site of pathbreaking, cutting-edge research into childhood malnutrition. As she writes of her personal exploration of new friendships and insights in a country known as "the warm heart of Africa," Russell describes the programs that are working best to reduce childhood stunting and explores how feeding and malnutrition of our children are connected to climate change; how vitamins and minerals are preventing these harmful effects; why the empowerment of women is the most effective single factor in eliminating childhood malnutrition; and what the costs are of ending childhood malnutrition"-- Provided by publisher.

"A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door is about the right-wing agenda to dismantle public education, assessing the myriads of ways our education system is being eroded with privatization measures that exacerbate inequality"-- Provided by publisher.

Honoring to the medical professionals around the country who've risked their lives to fight the virus, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author provides essential information--and fascinating historical parallels--examining the medical, economic, political, and social ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic.