Author: Natasha D. Trethewey File Type: epub 19th Poet Laureate of the United States A powerful, beautifully crafted book.--The Washington Post Ripe with the perfidies and paradoxes of thralldom both personal and public, it is utterly elegant.--Elle Charting the intersections of public and personal history,Thrallexplores the historical, cultural, and social forces that determine the roles to which a mixed-race daughter and her white father are consigned. In a brilliant series of poems about the taxonomies of mixed unions, Natasha Trethewey creates a fluent and vivid backdrop to her own familial predicament. While tropes about captivity, bondage, knowledge, and enthrallment permeate the collection, Trethewey unflinchingly examines our shared past by reflecting on her history of small estrangements and by confronting the complexities of race and the deeply ingrained and unexamined notions of racial difference in America. Natasha TretheweysThrallis simply the finest work of her already distinguished career . . . Rarely has any poetic intersection of cultural and personal histories felt more inevitable, more painful, or profound. --David St. John, author ofThe Face A Novella in Verse A voice that not only expands the position of [poetry], but helps us better understand ourselves. Her poems tell stories of loss and reckoning, both personal and historical. --Dr. James Billington, Librarian of Congress

Author: Richard Rhodes File Type: epub Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over timewood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond. People have lived and died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Ultimately, the history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself. Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford. In Energy, Rhodes highlights the successes and failures that led to each breakthrough in energy production from animal and waterpower to the steam engine, from internal-combustion to the electric motor. He addresses how we learned from such challenges, mastered their transitions, and capitalized on their opportunities. Rhodes also looks at the current energy landscape, with a focus on how wind energy is competing for dominance with cast supplies of coal and natural gas. He also addresses the specter of global warming, and a population hurtling towards ten billion by 2100. Human beings have confronted the problem of how to draw life from raw material since the beginning of time. Each invention, each discovery, each adaptation brought further challenges, and through such transformations, we arrived at where we are today. In Rhodess singular style, Energy details how this knowledge of our history can inform our way tomorrow.**ReviewA magesterial history...a tour de force of popular science, which is no surprise from this author.Kirkus, Starred Review Rhodes doesnt minimize the downsides of advances, both human and environmental, yet, on the whole, this is a beautifully written, often inspiring saga of ingenuity and progress, ideal for general readers. Immensely engaging, trusted, and best-selling, Rhodes will attract the usual avid interest as he brings facts, context, and clarity to a key, often contentious subject.BOOKLIST, Starred Review Once again, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Richard Rhodes takes on entangled issues around the use of science and technology and makes complicated matters more approachable. Rhodess study will appeal to many, not just technophiles. As always, he is an exceptionally engaging writer.Library Journal, Starred Review In this meticulously researched work, Rhodes brings his fascination with engineers, scientists and inventors along as he presents an often underappreciated history four centuries through the evolution of energy and how we use it.The New York Times Book Review RivetingMr. Rhodes has scored another masterpiece.The Wall Street Journal Energyis both a work of history and a passionately written moral tale...Rhodess hope that a critical look at past energy technologies will benefit those of the future is heartening.Science Magazine Rhodes delivers brilliantly on the inner workings of steam engines and reactors, and his lively narrative takes readers on thrilling side trips... His fascinating tale will delight technology wonks and particularly appeal to inventors and discoverers.Publishers Weekly Energy is an excellent book that manages to be both entertaining and informative, and its likely to appeal to both science fans and those of us who only passed physics by the skin of our teeth. Its also a powerful look at the importance of science.NPR.ORG Richard Rhodes dazzling Energy A Human History tells a compulsively readable tale of human need, curiosity, ingenuity and arrogance... This exceptional book is required reading for anyone concerned about the human impact on the future of the world.Bookpage RivetingMr. Rhodes has scored another masterpiece.The Wall Street Journal About the Author Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award. He graduated from Yale and received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.