From the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind comes an extraordinary new book that explores the future of the human species. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges. In Homo Deus, he examines our future with his trademark blend of science, history, philosophy and every discipline in between. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century – from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. War is obsolete You are more likely to commit suicide than be killed in conflict Famine is disappearing You are... Views: 461
Danger lurks during the holidaysin these two Military K-9 Unit storiesIn Christmas Escape by Valerie Hansen, veterinary assistant Rachel Fielding and her niece spend the holidays hiding from a killer with her boss, Kyle Roarke, and a capable K-9. And in Yuletide Target by Laura Scott, someone's gunning for Senior Airman Jacey Burke and her trusty K-9. But Staff Sergeant Sean Morris will do anything to keep her safe for Christmas. Views: 461
Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience. Views: 460
When her strict Moslem uncle finds her Bible, Miriam Nadif is locked in her room to await punishment. But she escapes and runs to her former best friend, Jerry Ernst, in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, who she hasn't contacted in six years. Will the spark between them still exist? Will her troubles follow her across the ocean? Will he even want to help her?Miriam Nadif, head buyer for her family's grocery stores in Lebanon, had thought she would be the spinster aunt, content to support her father and help him build up the family business. But her father's untimely death transferred her guardianship to her uncle, a Hezbollah supporter who refuses to allow her out of his house. When they find her Bible, she is threatened with stoning and is forced to flee. She thinks immediately of her best friend from university in Canada, Jerry Ernst, whose gentle example led to her conversion to Christianity. Will the spark between them still exist? Will her troubles follow her across the ocean? Will he even want to help her?But Jerry has his own problems raising his daughter as a single dad after his wife abandoned them and starting his career as a high school teacher. If you enjoy this book please consider rating it or writing a review. Views: 459
In the four and a half centuries since Machiavelli's death, no single and unanimously accepted interpretation of his ideas has succeeded in imposing itself upon the lively debate over the meaning of his works. Yet there has never been any doubt about the fundamental importance of Machiavelli's contribution to Western political theory. The Portable Machiavelli brings together the complete texts of The Prince, Belfagor, and Castruccio Castracani, newly translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa especially for this volume. In addition, the editors include an abridged version of The Discourses; a play, The Mandrake Root, in its entirety; seven private letters; and selections from The Art of War and The History of Florence. Views: 459
Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest subject: the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government.
Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display.
Praise for The March of Folly
“A glittering narrative . . . a moral [book] on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence.” —The New York Times Book Review*
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“An admirable survey . . . I haven’t read a more relevant book in years.”—John Kenneth Galbraith, The Boston Sunday Globe
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“A superb chronicle . . . a masterly examination.” —Chicago Sun-Times *
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 457
From the bestselling author of If I Were You comes a nostalgic and endearing holiday story that reminds us that sometimes the most meaningful gifts are the ones we least expect and don't deserve.Best friends Audrey Barrett and Eve Dawson are looking forward to celebrating Christmas in postwar America, thrilled at the prospect of starting new traditions with their five-year-old sons. But when the Sears Christmas Wish Book arrives and the boys start obsessing over every toy in it, Audrey and Eve realize they must first teach them the true significance of the holiday. They begin by helping Bobby and Harry plan gifts of encouragement and service for those in their community, starting by walking an elderly neighbor's yellow Lab—since a dog topped the boys' wish list for Santa. In the charming tale that follows, Audrey and Eve are surprised to find their own hearts healing from the tragedies of war and opening to the possibility of forgiveness and new love. Views: 457
Antonia Fraser’s Perilous Question is a dazzling re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britain’s history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller.
The era, beginning with the accession of William IV, is evoked in the novels of Trollope and Thackeray, and described by the young Charles Dickens as a cub reporter. It is lit with notable characters. The reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats led by Lord Grey, members of the richest and most landed cabinet in history yet determined to bring liberty, which would whittle away their own power, to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition was headed by the Duke of Wellington, supported by the intransigent Queen Adelaide, with hereditary memories of the French Revolution. Finally, there were revolutionaries, like William Cobbett, the author of Rural Rides, the radical tailor Francis Place, and Thomas Attwood of Birmingham, the charismatic orator. The contest often grew violent. There were urban riots put down by soldiers and agricultural riots led by the mythical Captain Swing.
The underlying grievance was the fate of the many disfranchised people. They were ignored by a medieval system of electoral representation that gave, for example, no votes to those who lived in the new industrial cities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham, while allocating two parliamentary representatives to a village long since fallen into the sea and, most notoriously, Old Sarum, a green mound in a field. Lord John Russell, a Whig minister, said long afterwards that it was the only period when he genuinely felt popular revolution threatened the country. The Duke of Wellington declared intractably in November 1830 that “The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution.” So it seemed that disaster must fall on the British Parliament, or the monarchy, or both.
The question was: Could a rotten system reform itself in time? On June 7, 1832, the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill, it did. These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, and set the stage for its growth as the world’s most successful industrial power; admired, among other things, for its traditions of good governance—a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life. Views: 456
This is a tale of the sea, of two men and their wives on a sailboat, moving toward the heart of a great storm. It is an adventure story that carries four travelers on the yawl Harmony from Edgartown to Menemsha to Block Island and thence out into a huge, dark cone of uncertainty. In the modulating airs of the voyage four personalities emerge to work changes on each other. The two marriages seem to react to the barometer. As the drama of the storm gathers and breaks, themes are sounded of escape and confrontatoin, of illusion, of the "secret place" that every boat and every person harbors, of a meticulousness, a prudent attention to the details of life, which can blind a man to the whole of reality, and also of endurance, of instinctively courageous seamanship, and of strength that the strong may not know they possess even as they exert it. The skipper, a young doctor, follows his obsession to the terrible goal to which it must lead him at the moment wehn the calm eye of the... Views: 456
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe little-known true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II, from the bestselling author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island"Brava to Lynne Olson for a biography that should challenge any outdated assumptions about who deserves to be called a hero."—The Washington Post In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country's conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her group's name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah's Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases.... Views: 455
Rising in the mountains of the Tibetan border, the Yangtze River, the symbolic heart of China pierces 3,900 miles of rugged country before debouching into the oily swells of the East China Sea. Connecting China's heartland cities with the volatile coastal giant, Shanghai, it has also historically connected China to the outside world through its nearly one thousand miles of navigable waters. To travel those waters is to travel back in history, to sense the soul of China, and Simon Winchester takes us along with him as he encounters the essence of China--its history and politics, its geography and climate as well as engage in its culture, and its people in remote and almost inaccessible places. This is travel writing at its best: lively, informative, and thoroughly enchanting. Views: 454
***For a limited time, you can get THREE THRILLERS - FREE - click here to find out more > ow.ly/t6L4R (just copy and paste the bold text into your browser)***Inchoate:A humorous tale about the first Board Meeting in History and its single Agenda Item.Henry's Car:In this hilarious sci-fi story, a Time Traveler from the 16th Century develops a taste and talent for for stock-car racing.Now includes an Urdu translation of Inchoate.InchoateSet in prehistoric North America, this tells the story of how a delinquent time traveler calls the first Board Meeting in History and inadvertently incurs the wrath of all his bosses. He is put on trial but is he all he seems?Henry's CarIn this hilarious sci-fi story, a Royal Time Traveler from the 16th Century develops a taste and talent for for stock-car racing.Ordo Lupus and the Temple GateWhy is a notorious religious cult of assassins keeping him alive?His teenage daughter is viciously murdered in Lyon by a long-forgotten biblical monster. A former WWII MI6 agent, our hero is suspected of her murder by the police and his divorcing wife.With supernatural powers of foresight he goes on the run to clear his name. He has only one friend - a historian and member of the modern Knights Hospitaller but with his help he embarks on a white-knuckle ride to salvation.In Paris a witch servant of the mysterious Catholic assassin sect Concilium Putus Visum seduces him during his quest for the secret weapon of the Cathars. If he can solve a puzzling set of clues to find the weapon, he might kill the monster and save his marriage.But why do the assassins and the monster seem to be protecting him?Lovers of Dan Brown's evocative mix of mystery and history will love this Occult Thriller - a dark and powerful tale.Too Bright the SunA man afraid of his own soul!Seeking revenge for the death of a friend ten long years ago, Major Jake Nanden has pursued his own personal demons with an almost religious fervour through life and through battle.He is a soldier so highly decorated that his fame reaches far beyond the desolate moon Io where he is stationed. His victories in the Jupiter Wars are hollow though, for he is a man scared of his own soul.His life seems to be a trap from which he cannot escape. His is the Replicant Company, and replicants are despised by all.Likened to a cross between Blade Runner and Paths of Glory, you simply must read this beautifully constructed, intensely dark and powerful Science Fiction tale-with-a-twist if you love Phillip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov.Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate - from the author:I had been pursuing a theological interest in the Cathars; first though reading a number of books by Henry Lincoln and later an interest in Monségur and the Rennes-le-Château, near where the lost treasure of the Cathars is said to be hidden. The Cathars were an ancient sect who came to prominence and were ruthlessly persecuted by the Catholics in the 1300s, mainly in and around the Languedoc Region of France. They believed that the Christian god was really Rex Mundi, or 'God of Earth.'The second theme I wanted to get into my novel was the gothic. The themes of blood, death, eroticism, sex and transcendence are all things that I desire in a good novel. My influences were Kate Bush, The Mission, Lord Byron, John Keats (The Eve of St. Agnes is a particularly favourite poem of mine) and to some extent Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Sex and death are the themes that everyone seems attracted to.A year before I started this work, I read both Dan Brown and Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. These books were certainly an influence on me. Like him I have been fascinated for many years by the rumour or myth that Mary went to France and that Jesus had a descendant. Like him and many others, I speculate that the Cathars did in fact smuggle a great treasure out of Monségur castle, under the noses of the Royalist besiegers. I couldn't resist a climax to my novel that took place in one of the world's greatest Gothic masterpieces. But you will have to read the novel to find out where ...Grab your copy today! Views: 454
