Alien Eraser Reveals the Secrets of Evolution

Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with psychedelic plants? Darwin's Pharmacy weaves the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and the study of rhetoric together with the science and litera

Broadly defined as the grey area between strategy and tactics, operational art spans the theory and practice of planning and conducting campaigns and major operations aimed at accomplishing strategic

Is there a 'Western way of war' which pursues battles of annihilation and single-minded military victory? Is warfare on a path to ever greater destructive force? This magisterial account answers these questions by tracing the history of Western thinking about strategy - the employment of military force as a political instrument - from antiquity to the present day. Assessing sources from Vegetius to contemporary America, and with a particular focus on strategy since the Napoleonic Wars, Beatrice Heuser explores the evolution of strategic thought, the social institutions, norms and patterns of behaviour within which it operates, the policies that guide it and the cultures that influence it. Ranging across technology and warfare, total warfare and small wars as well as land, sea, air and nuclear warfare, she demonstrates that warfare and strategic thinking have fluctuated wildly in their aims, intensity, limitations and excesses over the past two millennia.

The Evolution of Modern States, first published in 2010, is a significant contribution to the literatures on political economy, globalization, historical institutionalism, and social science methodology. The book begins with a simple question: why do rich capitalist democracies respond so differently to the common pressures they face in the early twenty-first century? Drawing on insights from evolutionary theory, Sven Steinmo challenges the common equilibrium view of politics and economics and argues that modern political economies are best understood as complex adaptive systems. The book examines the political, social, and economic history of three different nations - Sweden, Japan, and the United States - and explains how and why these countries have evolved along such different trajectories over the past century. Bringing together social and economic history, institutionalism, and evolutionary theory, Steinmo thus provides a comprehensive explanation for differing responses to globa

A significant factor for many people deciding where to live is the quality of the local school district, with superior schools creating a price premium for housing. The result is a “race to the top,”

How is it that we came to be here? The search for answers to that question has preoccupied humans for millennia. Scientists have sought clues in the genes of living things, in the physical environment

William D'Arcy McNickle was born in 1904 in Montana to a father of Scottish-Irish heritage and a French-Canadian Cree mother. His mixed-blood heritage and his parents' rocky marriage and subsequent di

Should the U.S. reinstate the draft? With this inside look at the Pentagon and the White House, the author reviews the American military's transformation over the past thirty years into the world's fi

In The Heavens Declare, author and astrologer Alice O. Howell proclaims, “We are not confronting the end of the world, but the end of the Age of Pisces!” Integrating two major disciplines

According to Donald Dulchinos, the real action on the Internet isn't in the realm of commerce. It is, plain and simple, in the realm of religion. But not exactly that oldtime religion. This book is ab

Who were the first Americans? What is their relationship to living native peoples in the Americas? What do their remains tell us of the current concepts of racial variation, and short-term evolutionary change and adaptation. The recent discoveries in the Americas of the 9000-12000 year old skeletons such as 'Kennewick Man' in Washington State, 'Luzia' in Brazil and 'Prince of Wales Island Man' in Alaska have begun to challenge our understanding of who first entered the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age. New archaeological and geological research is beginning to change the hypothesis of land bridge crossings and the extinction of ancient animals. The First Americans explores these questions by using racial classifications and microevolutionary techniques to better understand who colonized the Americas and how. It will be required reading for all those interested in anthropology, and the history and archaeology of the earliest Americans.

With unparalleled wit, clarity, and intelligence, Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most renowned evolutionary biologists, has introduced countless readers to the wonders of science in works such as

Since the Second World War, rapid developments in the economy, family structure, technology, employment, and lifestyle have transformed the home. Avi Friedman and David Krawitz guide the reader throug

Thomas McNamara, in Evolution, Culture, and Consciousness, presents the first comprehensive theory of human perception and consciousness based on the generally accepted principles of evolutionary psyc

Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for o

A classic American success story with a twistLike J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie, Marshall Field was one of the overlords of triumphant capitalism in the Gilded Age of the late

Claims that American law has undergone major changes that correspond to four periods of American history: precapitalist, capitalist, state capitalist, and global capitalist

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza draws upon his lifelong work in archaeology, anthropology, genetics, molecular biology, and linguistics, to address the basic questions of human origins and diversity. Coaut

From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to current films like The Terminator about menacing androids, writers have expressed concern about computers and biogenetic creations taking over or altering human lif

The Hellenistic Age, the three extraordinary centuries from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to Octavian's final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, has offered a rich and varie

This book is a unique compendium and synthesis of the cumulative knowledge of more than 100 years of discovery and study of North American tertiary mammals. The potentially most valuable contribution of this book is the detailed information of the distribution in time and space of each species at fossil localities, recorded in a uniform scheme, so that each chapter provides the same level of information. Thirty six chapters are devoted to a particular family or order, written by leading North American authorities, including discussion of anatomical features, systematics, and paleobiology. Three introductory chapters summarize information on the geological time scale, Tertiary vegetation, and Pleistocene events, and four summary chapters integrate systematic and biogeographic information for higher taxa. This book will serve as a unique data base for continuing studies in faunal diversification and change, and for questions such as how changing biogeography and climates influenced the e

From classic poetry to pop lyrics, from Charles Dickens to Dolly Parton, even from Jesus to James Bond, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase?such as ?O Captain! My Captain!” or ?To be

Astonishing, studio-quality photographs of beautiful objects and specimens bring every corner of the planet, from core to atmosphere, to the printed pageElegant design combined with beautiful images to explore and explain Earth's natural riches. This is an informative, visually arresting introduction to planet Earth. The core of the book features large, detailed photographs of single objects, many of them small enough to be held in the hand, that each speak volumes about an aspect of Earth's environments and how they work.For example, bubbles of ancient air trapped inside an Antarctic ice core reveal how Earth's climate has changed over time. A piece of pumice thrown several miles into the air by a volcano helps to explain what happens when tectonic plates collide. The book is structured around an imaginary journey that takes the reader from the inner core to Earth's surface (including both land and oceans) and up to the top of the atmosphere.Taking in environments such as grasslands,