Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America???s consumer credit boom, 1994???s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs???resulting in profound societal change.,???America began to change on a mid-September day in 1958, when the Bank of America dropped its first 60,000 credit cards on the unassuming city of Fresno, California.??? So begins Joe Nocera???s riveting account of one of the most astonishing revolutions in modern American life???what Nocera labels ???the money revolution.??? In the decades since, the middle class has gained access to credit cards, to mutual funds, to retirement accounts???and to hundreds of other financial vehicles that have allowed everyone to get ???a piece of the action.??? In this lively, engaging book, some of the great financial characters of modern times???from Charles Merrill to Charles Schwab to Peter Lynch???strut across the stage as the course of this great financial shift is charted.,In an all-new introduction, Nocera takes a look back at the consequences of the money revolution. Were members of the middle class as prepared as the innovators claimed to take control of their financial lives? Or did events like the dot-com and the housing bubbles suggest something else: that far too many of us lacked the wherewithal to make sound investment decisions?
From the renowned director of the British Museum, a kaleidoscopic history of humanity told through things we have made.,When did people first start to wear jewelry or play music? When were cows domesticated and why do we feed their milk to our children? Where were the first cities and what made them succeed? Who invented math-or came up with money?,The history of humanity is a history of invention and innovation, as we have continually created new items to use, to admire, or to leave our mark on the world. In this original and thought-provoking book, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, has selected one hundred man-made artifacts, each of which gives us an intimate glimpse of an unexpected turning point in human civilization. A History of the World in 100 Objects stretches back two million years and covers the globe. From the very first hand axe to the ubiquitous credit card, each item has a story to tell; together they relate the larger history of mankind-revealing who we are by looking at what we have made.,Handsomely designed, with more than 150 color photographs throughout the text, A History of the World in 100 Objects is a gorgeous reading book and makes a great gift for anyone interested in history.
An invaluable guide for both casual opera fans and aficionados, 100 Great Operas is perhaps the most comprehensive and enjoyable volume of opera stories ever written. ,From La Traviata to A??da, from Carmen to Don Giovanni, here are the plots of the world???s best-loved operas, told in an engaging, picturesque, and readable manner. Written by noted opera authority Henry W. Simon, this distinctive reference book contains act-by-act descriptions of 100 operatic works ranging from the historic early seventeenth century masterpieces of Monteverdi to the modern classics of Gian-Carlo Menotti.,In addition to highlighting the most important aspects of each opera, the author discusses the main characters, the famous turnings of plot, and the most significant arias. Here, too, is a wealth of anecdotes concerning literary background, past performances and stars, and production problems of the great operas.
In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited by a publishing acquaintance to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and , was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in seventeen languages across the world. Toward the end of his long life, Gombrich embarked upon a revision and, at last, an English translation. , presents his lively and involving history to English-language readers for the first time. Superbly designed and freshly illustrated, this is a book to be savored and collected. In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind’s experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity’s achievements and an acute witness to its frailties. The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.
In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.,Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man???s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.
While the physical sciences are a continuously evolving source of technology and of understanding about our world, they have become so specialized and rely on so much prerequisite knowledge that for many people today the divide between the sciences and the humanities seems even greater than it was when C. P. Snow delivered his famous 1959 lecture, “The Two Cultures.”,In A Cultural History of Physics, Hungarian scientist and educator Karoly Simonyi succeeds in bridging this chasm by describing the experimental methods and theoretical interpretations that created scientific knowledge, from ancient times to the present day, within the cultural environment in which it was formed. Unlike any other work of its kind, Simonyi’s seminal opus explores the interplay of science and the humanities to convey the wonder and excitement of scientific development throughout the ages.,These pages contain an abundance of excerpts from original resources, a wide array of clear and straightforward explanations, and an astonishing wealth of insight, revealing the historical progress of science and inviting readers into a dialogue with the great scientific minds that shaped our current understanding of physics.,Beautifully illustrated, accurate in its scientific content and broad in its historical and cultural perspective, this book will be a valuable reference for scholars and an inspiration to aspiring scientists and humanists who believe that science is an integral part of our culture.
On 3/8/1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. Its mission was “to proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas” & unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. When it returned in 10/1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political & economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings. Most records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in China’s long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America 70 years before Columbus & had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. Also concealed was how the Chinese colonized America before the Europeans & transplanted in America & other countries the principal economic crops that have fed & clothed the world.,Unveiling incontrovertible evidence of these astonishing voyages, “1421” rewrites our understanding of history. Our knowledge of world exploration as it’s been commonly accepted for centuries must now be reconceived due to this landmark work of historical investigation.
Yesterday???s World of Tomorrow.,In a narrow corridor of time between the Great Depression and the most destructive war in history, a World???s Fair was held in the city of New York. It was an event that transformed an entire generation with its vision of things to come. Millions of people came from every corner of the globe to gaze in awe at the Trylon and Perisphere, and to experience for an afternoon a thrilling yet humane utopia in which every citizen lived ???the good life??? that art, science, technology, and moral fervor had created. In 1939, David Gelernter gives us an intensely evocative picture of the World’s Fair ??? and of a fleeting era of innocent expectation when the world looked forward in wonder rather than backward with regret.
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1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER,A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking???s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin???and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending???or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends?,Told in language we all can understand, A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and ???arrows of time,??? of the big bang and a bigger God???where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected. With exciting images and profound imagination, Stephen Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.
| Recommended By | |
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| Published By |
1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER,A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking???s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin???and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending???or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends?,Told in language we all can understand, A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and ???arrows of time,??? of the big bang and a bigger God???where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected. With exciting images and profound imagination, Stephen Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.
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