It is 1897, during the last few years of Victoria's reign at the height of the Empire, a period marred by unrest in Africa, and the Kenya Colony is an exciting world of hate, passion, loyalty and violence. Stories abound about the wild nature of the railroad line - shaky wooden trestle bridges over enormous chasms, man-eating lions pulling railway workers out of carriages at night - and back home the British Parliament is upset that construction of what the Africans call the Iron Snake wil...

From ancient Pharaohs to 21st Century water wars, papyrus is a unique plant that is now the fastest growing plant species on earth. It produces its own “soil”—a peaty, matrix that floats on water—and inspired the fluted columns of the ancient Greeks. In ancient Egypt, the papyrus bounty from the Nile delta provided not just paper for record keeping—instrumental to the development of civilization—but food, fuel and boats. Disastrous weather in the 6th Century caused famines and plagues that...

A thoughtful exploration of how the Sahara Desert can be returned to its former glory as a green paradise while actively combating climate change.A green Sahara is something the world has not seen since 10,000 BC when the Sahara was a wet, lush region. By 3,000 BC though the climate changed, the rains stopped, and the ancient green Sahara dried into today's desert. It was the victim of a phenomenon that reminds us today of global climate warming. But what if we cou...

For our entire history, humans have always searched for new ways to share information. This innate compulsion led to the origin of writing on the rock walls of caves and coffin lids or carving on tablets. But it was with the advent of papyrus paper when the ability to record and transmit information exploded, allowing for an exchanging of ideas from the banks of the Nile throughout the Mediterranean—and the civilized world—for the first time in human history.In The Pharaoh’s Treasure, John...

"This is a must-read that lays out the clear and present dangers of climate change—and what we must do to avoid global catastrophe." —Rhea Suh, former president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)Bustle 's "17 Best Nonfiction Books Coming Out in September 2018"The world itself won't end, of course. Only ours will: our livelihoods, our homes, our cultures. And we're squarely at the tippi...

The little-known history of how the Sahara was transformed from a green and fertile land into the largest hot desert in the worldThe Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to China or the United States. Yet, this arid expanse was once a verdant, pleasant land, fed by rivers and lakes. The Sahara sustained abundant plant and animal life, such as Nile perch, turtles, crocodiles, and hippos, and attracted prehistoric hunters and herders. What tra...

African Beads: Jewels of a Continent is the first book ever published to deal exclusively with African-made beads. In detailed chapters organized by material (bone and shell, wood and amber, stone, metal, glass) authors Evelyn Simak and Carl Dreibelbis trace the historical journey of bead making in Africa. Prefaced with an essay by Lois Sherr Dubin and accompanied by 163 color photographs, this magnificent book is a showcase for some of the rarest, most beautiful and most collectible beads...

Shortlisted, Donner Prize and Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction AwardDroughts, floods, and contamination of fresh water in the American Southwest, in the Great Lakes region, in Australia, in northern China, in the Middle East, and in India have brought the critical issue of water supply to the forefront of public consciousness. In dozens of countries, ordinary citizens have cause to worry about what (or how much) will come out of their taps — if they even have taps — a...

This activity book features 25 projects such as making a surface survey of a site, building a screen for sifting dirt and debris at a dig, tracking soil age by color, and counting tree rings to date a find, teaches kids the techniques that unearthed Neanderthal caves, Tutankhamun's tomb, the city of Pompeii, and Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire. Kids will delight in fashioning a stone-age tool, playing a seriation game with old photographs of cars, "reading" objects excavated in t...

A revelatory account of how water has shaped the course of human life and history, and a positive vision of what the future can hold—if we act nowFrom the very creation of the planet billions of years ago to the present day, water has always been central to existence on Earth. And since long before the legendary Great Flood, it has been a defining force in the story of humanity.In The Three Ages of Water, Peter Gleick guides us through the long, fr...

Professor Li’s World Atlas of Oil and Gas Basins is a fresh and comprehensive treatise of the distribution of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves. The Atlas highlights the geographical, sedimentary and geological features of the basins, using a combination of maps and stratigraphic diagrams to depict the history, prospectivity and commercial production capacity of the reserves on a continental and country-by-country basis.The Atlas is an essential reference source for petrole...

Deserts make up a third of the planet's land surface, but if you picture a desert, what comes to mind? A wasteland? A drought? A place devoid of all life forms? Deserts are remarkable places. Typified by drought and extremes of temperature, they can be harsh and hostile; but many deserts are also spectacularly beautiful, and on occasion teem with life. Nick Middleton explores how each desert is unique: through fantastic life forms, extraordinary scenery, and ingenious human adaptations. He...