Author: Adam Rutherford File Type: pdf The bestselling author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived investigates what it means to be humanand animal Publishers note Humanimal was published in the UK under the title The Book of Humans. Evolutionary theory has long established that humans are animals Modern Homo sapiens are primates who share an ancestor with monkeys and other great apes. Our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzees. And yet we think of ourselves as exceptional. Are we? In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not In Australia, raptors have been observed starting fires to scatter prey in Zambia, a chimp named Julie even started a fashion of wearing grass in one ear. We arent the only species that communicates, makes tools, or has sex for reasons other than procreation. But we have developed a culture far more complex than any other weve observed. Why has that happened, and what does it say about us?Humanimal is a new evolutionary historya synthesis of the latest research on genetics, sex, migration, and much more. It reveals what unequivocally makes us animalsand also why we are truly extraordinary.

Author: Thomas B. Costain File Type: epub There are periods in history when things are seen dimly as through a veil. Such were the years from 1377 to 1485. During this time the Chronicles were silent and the sources of information few. And yet these were eventful years, filled with important, strange, colorful and sometimes mystifying events. The Wars of the Roses were fought a few men began to preach and a nation began to listen to new beliefs the stout men of the soil rose against feudal injustices and the greatest of mysteries grew out of the deaths of two princes in the Tower of London. This is the period covered by Thomas B. Costain in THE LAST PLANTAGENETS. It is not claiming too much to say that here the veil has been raised and that throughout the book a bright light plays on this century of excitement and romance and stories stranger than fiction. Here we read of a king who devoted much of his reign to revenge of the same young monarch riding out boldly to face the peasants demanding a fairer deal of the winning of Fair Kate of France by the spectacular warrior king, Henry V of the emergence of a commoner known in history as the Kingmaker of a ruler who condemned his brother to death and the carrying out of the sentence, according to public report at the time, by drowning the prince in a butt of wine. By way of climax to the saga of the extraordinary Plantagenets with their brilliant successes, tragic reverses and wild extravagances, the last section of the book is devoted to a summary of the case of Richard III. Was Richard the villainous hunchback of stage and story who had his nephews murdered to clear his way to the throne? Or was he the whipping boy of history, whose voice could not be raised in defense from the grave and whose friends did not dare speak out? All the evidence in this unsolved mystery is gathered up and the author achieves in the telling a mounting tension which has never before, perhaps, been reached. Readers today might well raise their eyes from the perusal of newspaper murders to find in this case the strangest and most gripping story of all. This is the fourth, and last, volume in what Thomas B. Costain originally intended to be a history of England. The three earlier volumes were published under the titles The Conquerors, The Magnificent Century and The Three Edwards. Some time in the future the publishers may combine the four, with some necessary additions, to be issued as a history of the Plantagenet kings.

Author: John Ashworth File Type: pdf This book asks why the United States experienced a civil war in 1861 and analyses the descent into war in the final decade of peace. The book systematically surveys southern extremists, Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, temperance advocates and Know Nothings. It advances a new and unique explanation of the origins of the Civil War, the most important event in the history of the most powerful country in the world.ReviewJohn Ashworths explanation of the coming of the Civil War is intellectually attractive, structurally elaborate, and inadequately elaborated for so ambitious a book. -Lawrence T. McDonnell, The Journal of American History...a comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, examination of political ideology from Andrew Jacksons presidency to the firing on Fort Sumter. -James L. Huston, The Journal of Southern History Book DescriptionThis book asks why the United States experienced a civil war in 1861 and analyses the descent into war in the final decade of peace. The book systematically surveys southern extremists, Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, temperance advocates and Know Nothings.

Author: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks File Type: pdf Updated with new material to reflect the latest developments in the field, Gender in History Global Perspectives, 2nd Edition, provides a concise overview of the construction of gender in world cultures from the Paleolithic era to modern times. ul lIncludes examples drawn from the most recent scholarship relating to a diverse range of cultures, from Ancient Mesopotamia to post-Soviet Russia, and from the Igbo of Nigeria, to the Iroquois of north eastern North America.l lReflects new developments in the field with added coverage of primates, slavery, colonialism, masculinity, and transgender issuesl lFeatures significant discussion of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, an important trend in the study of world historyl lLays out key theoretical and methodological issues in an introduction that is written in accessible languagel lSupplementary material for instructors and students available at www.wiley.comgowiesnerhanksl ul **