The stunning collection of short fiction that established Nathaniel Hawthorne as one of the most powerful and provocative artists in nineteenth-century America   Dr. Heidegger invites four friends to witness an experiment. As the impoverished merchant Mr. Medbourne, the gout-ridden sinner Colonel Killigrew, the ruined politician Mr. Gascoigne, and the aged widow Wycherly watch, Heidegger places an old rose in a vase filled with water drawn from the...

Covering ten centuries and crisscrossing Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, this popular history sheds new light on the European Middle Ages, revealing a time of beauty and communion that flourished alongside dark brutality.

The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America's history. This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. Pekka Hamalainen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's...

Nebraska's Cowboy Line existed for nearly 125 years and covered more than 400 miles as it made its way across the northern portion of the state. The construction of the rail line, which started in 1869, was the impetus for the establishment of many towns, and even the relocation of some, along the route. The line was employed to transport miners to the Black Hills during the gold rush of the late 1800s, it carried thousands of Irish and German

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Is civilization teetering on the edge of a cliff? Or are we just climbing higher than ever? Most people who read the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better...

David Balfour has never had an adventure. He has never spent a night camping in the Scottish Highlands. He has never sailed the high seas. He has never fought in a battle. In fact David Balfour has never even left home. All he knows is a quiet country life. All this changes after the death of his parents. He suddenly learns that he, David Balfour, is a man of wealth and standing, and that he is not destined for a simple life after all. All he needs...

Presents a history of science, focusing on its influence in the transition from humanity's primitive beginnings up to the modern day, with profiles of famous scientists responsible for some of the world's greatest scientific discoveries. --Publisher's description. "Leonard Mlodinow takes us on a passionate and inspiring tour through the exciting history of human progress and the key events in the development of science. In the process, he presents...

"A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties -- the Jazz Age -- has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland...

The Apollo missions marked the first time human beings left Earth's orbit and visited another world. Launius surveys a wide range of viewpoints and narratives, both positive and negative, surrounding the program. These include the argument that Apollo epitomizes American technological-- and political-- progress; technological and scientific advances garnered from the program; critiques from both sides of the political spectrum about the program's...