Cynthia Stokes Brown was an avid reader and researcher. This collection is a digital representation of her personal library with the books categorized as Cynthia had them on the bookshelves in her home.
You can view the collection in it entirety or you can view them by category
American History | Big History| World History | Research | Poetry
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Humanity: The Chimpanzees Who Would Be Ants
Russell Merle Genet
A science story of how we came to be HUMANITY The Chimpanzees Who Would Be Ants by Russell M. Genet A highly-readable account of the physical, biological, and cultural evolution of humanity, from the big bang to present. The book makes a unique comparison between humans and chimpanzees as our genetic relatives and humans and ants as our social analogue. It also presents four possible future scenarios for humanity to allow the reader to "write their own ending."
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Supernova1987A: Astronomy's Explosive Enigma
Russell M. Genet, Donald S. Hayes, Douglas S. Hall, and David R. Genet
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The Evolutionary Epic: Science's Story and Humanity's Response
Russel Genet (Ed), Brian Swimme (Ed), Linda Palmer (Ed), and Linda Gibler (Ed)
The essays in this book take you from the struggles of our primitive ancestors on the savannahs of Africa to a mountain climber’s epiphany on the snow-capped heights of the Andes, from the mysteries of the quantum world to the vast reaches of the universe. Begin with a story of humanity’s evolution from primeval stardust to planetary stardom. Then explore the emergence of the story through scientific research and wonder. View the multi-faceted story through unexpected lenses and follow the story as it is engages education, becoming a vital part of the enlightenment of young minds. Finally, experience the story as it shifts our scientific and cultural paradigms, serves our quest for a brighter future, and enriches humanity’s imaginative and spiritual dimensions. The Evolutionary Epic Science's Story and Humanity's Response Edited by Cheryl Genet, Russell Genet, Brian Swimme, Linda Palmer & Linda Gibler Foreword by David Christian
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Jewish History Atlas: 121 Maps from Biblical Times to the Present
Martin Gilbert
This atlas traces the history, the worldwide migrations, the achievements, and the life of the Jewish people from ancient Mesopotamia to the present. The product of remarkable research, it sheds a vivid light on the role of the Jews in their various national settings, their complex history, their triumphs over persecution, and their enormous contributions to human experience in a wide variety of fields over the centuries -- from book jacket
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The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang
Marcelo Gleiser
Marcelo Gleiser refutes the notion that science and spirituality are irreconcilable. In The Dancing Universe, he traces mystical, philosophical, and scientific ideas about the cosmos through the past twenty-five centuries, from the ancient creation myths of numerous cultures to contemporary theories about an ever-expanding universe. He also explores the lives and ideas of history’s greatest scientists, including Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein. By exploring how scientists have unlocked the secrets of gravity, matter, time, and space, Gleiser offers fresh perspective on the debate between science and faith.
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The Island of Knowledge: the Limits of Science and The Search for Meaning
Marcelo Gleiser
Do all questions have answers? How much can we know about the world? Is there such a thing as an ultimate truth? To be human is to want to know, to understand our origins and the meaning of our lives. In The Island of Knowledge, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, the main tool we use to find answers, is fundamentally limited. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we are often faced with the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know. Limits to our knowledge of the world arise both from our tools of exploration and from the nature of physical reality: the speed of light, the uncertainty principle, the second law of thermodynamics, the incompleteness theorem, and our own limitations as an intelligent species. Our view of physical reality depends fundamentally on who we are and on how we interact with the cosmos.
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Only In America
Harry Golden
Author Harry Golden crafted this work in 1958, and it serves as an exemplar of an era, from a man who was an exemplar of a segment of the populace at the time. Specifically, Golden writes from the viewpoint of a born-and-bred New Yorker and a member of the Jewish community, dispensing wit and wisdom on the world at the time as viewed through his particular lens.
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The Cartoon History of the Universe, Volumes 1 - 7: From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great
Larry Gonick
An entertaining and informative illustrated guide that makes world history accessible, appealing, and funny.
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Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder From the World of Plants
Jane Goodall and Gail Hudson
In this book the author, a renowned naturalist examines the critical role that trees and plants play in our world. Long before she began her work with chimpanzees, she had a passion for the natural world. Now she opens our eyes to the profound relationship we have with the world of plants, exploring our dependence on the plant kingdom as food, medicine, and our helpers in the task of healing the harm we have inflicted on the natural world.
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The Sacred Depths of Nature
Ursula Goodenough
For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope.
This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder.
A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence. -
The Book of Life: An Illustrated History of the Evolution of Life on Earth
Stephen J. Gould
The Book of Life uses an exemplary fusion of art and science to tell the story of life on earth. The text, under the editorship of Stephen Jay Gould, provides a thorough understanding of the latest research and is accompanied by paintings prepared especially for this book. Never before has our planet's evolution been so clearly, so ingeniously explained. History is marked by disaster. The Book of Lifeexplains how mammals, having survived at least one of these disasters―the impact of a massive comet―luckily inherited the earth. Next came the rise of modern humans, who would shape the world as no creature has. As this fascinating history unfolds, gorgeous illustrations allow us to observe climate changes, tectonic plate movement, the spread of plant life, and the death of the dinosaurs. We discover the chains of animal survival, the causes and consequences of adaptation, and finally the environmental impact of human life.
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The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
Stephen Greenblatt
One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius―a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.
The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson. 16 pages of color illustrations -
The Elegant Universe
Brian Greene
Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away layers of mystery to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter―from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas―is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny loops of energy. The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.
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The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space,Time, and the Texture of Reality
Brian Greene
Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.
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Teaching and Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field
Leonid Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, and Andrey V. Korotayev
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Evolution: Cosmic, Biological, Social
Leonid E. Grinin, Andrey V. Krotayev, Robert L. Carneiro, and Fred Spier
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Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future
David Grinspoon
For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence.
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And Then There Was You…
Erika K.H. Gronek
And Then There Was You... is a story about everything. It was written and illustrated for my son about 6 months after he was born. One sleep-deprived night I nursed him in a rocking chair while pondering the design of his room. I had decorated the top half of the room with Maxfield Parrish-styled clouds and a layout of the summer constellations set in glow-in-the dark paint on the ceiling. I wanted this design to say: “the future is wide open” and “there is nowhere else to go but up.” The border of the room had wall paper that was a replica of a Victorian time-chart of all of human history. It started with Adam and Eve and was up-dated with the on-goings of the present day. Staring into my son’s eyes, I pondered all of the events that had to take place for all of his atoms to be aligned into his tiny form. That is when I decided to write and illustrate a children’s book that accidentally hit upon all of the major themes contained in “Big History.”
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A History of US: All the People
Joy Hakim
Hakim portrays contemporary American life in a lively, engaging way. Readers will encounter fascinating stories about famous Americans (Joe McCarthy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Nixon), historical events (the Vietnam War, the first man on the moon), and major cultural movements (1960s counterculture, feminism). Interspersed features provide further anecdotes about the characters that have shaped the last 65 years--for instance, one conjectures about what Alan Greenspan might hide in his briefcase; another discusses the life and times of Mark I, the world's first automatic computer. Sidebars, illustrations, definitions and quotes line the margins, providing illimitable sources of information and entertainment.
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A History of US: Reconstruction and Reform
Joy Hakim
Covering a time of great hope and incredible change, Reconstructing America is a dramatic look at life after the Civil War in the newly re-United States. Railroad tycoons were roaring across the country. New cities sprang up across the plains, and a new and different American West came into being: a land of farmers, ranchers, miners, and city dwellers. Back East, large-scale immigration was also going on, but not all Americans wanted newcomers in the country. Technology moved forward: Thomas Edison lit up the world with his electric light. And social justice was on everyone's mind with Carry Nation wielding a hatchet in her battle against drunkenness and Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois counseling newly freed African Americans to behave in very different ways. Through it all, the reunited nation struggles to keep the promises of freedom in this exciting chapter in A History of US.
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A History of US: The First Americans
Joy Hakim
Tells the story of the very beginnings of the United States, from the development of hundreds of Indian societies to the formation of the first permanent settlements by Europeans.
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A History of US: War, Terrible War
Joy Hakim
Riveting, moving, and impossible to put down, War, Terrible War takes us into the heart of the Civil War, from the battle of Manassas to the battle of Gettysburg and on to the South's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Follow the common soldiers in blue and gray as they endure long marches, freezing winter camps, and the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil. Off the war fields, War, Terrible War captures the passion and commitment of abolitionists and slaveowners alike in their fiery debates throughout the land. With profiles of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Jefferson Davis, soldiers on both sides, slave owners, abolitionists, average citizens, and others, War, Terrible War is the compelling story of a people affected by the horrors of war during this tragic and dramatic period in A History of US.
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The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a new Dimension
Joy Hakim
Students will look over Albert Einstein's shoulder as he and his colleagues develop a new kind of physics. It leads in two directions: to knowledge of the vast universe and its future (insights build on Einstein's theories of relativity), and to an understanding of the astonishingly small subatomic world (the realm of quantum physics). Students will learn why relativity and quantum theory revolutionized our world and led to the most important ideas in modern science, maybe of all time.
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Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science
Donna Haraway
Haraway's discussions of how scientists have perceived the sexual nature of female primates opens a new chapter in feminist theory, raising unsettling questions about models of the family and of heterosexuality in primate research.
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Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture
Marvin Harris
Cultural Materialism, published in 1979, was Marvin Harris's first full-length explication of the theory with which his work has been associated. While Harris has developed and modified some of his ideas over the past two decades, generations of professors have looked to this volume as the essential starting point for explaining the science of culture to students. Now available again after a hiatus, this edition of Cultural Materialism contains the complete text of the original book plus a new introduction by Orna and Allen Johnson that updates his ideas and examines the impact that the book and theory have had on anthropological theorizing.
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Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology
Marvin Harris
Professor Harris – the leading theorist in cultural materialism – bases this comprehensive work on the perspective of thematic and theoretical coherence, giving the book depth and continuity. Speaking directly to students, helpful chapter introductions and end-of-chapter summaries focus on key points before and after reading each chapter. This seventh edition includes meticulous updating of research and scholarship, especially in the very active field of physical anthropology and archaeology. A new feature – “America Now Updates” – turns an anthropological eye on the contemporary U.S., emphasizing the comparative aspects of anthropology and making the discipline relevant to students.
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Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology
Marvin Harris
Professor Harris – the leading theorist in cultural materialism – bases this comprehensive work on the perspective of thematic and theoretical coherence, giving the book depth and continuity. Speaking directly to students, helpful chapter introductions and end-of-chapter summaries focus on key points before and after reading each chapter. This seventh edition includes meticulous updating of research and scholarship, especially in the very active field of physical anthropology and archaeology. A new feature – “America Now Updates” – turns an anthropological eye on the contemporary U.S., emphasizing the comparative aspects of anthropology and making the discipline relevant to students.
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The Rise of Anthorpological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture
Marvin Harris
The best known, most often cited history of anthropological theory is finally available in paperback! First published in 1968, Harris's book has been cited in over 1,000 works and is one of the key documents explaining cultural materialism, the theory associated with Harris's work. This updated edition includes the complete 1968 text plus a new introduction by the author, which discusses the impact of the book and highlights some of the major trends in anthropological theory since its original publication. RAT, as it is affectionately known to three decades of graduate students, comprehensively traces the history of anthropology and anthropological theory, culminating in a strong argument for the use of a scientific, behaviorally-based, ethic approach to the understanding of human culture known as cultural materialism.
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The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.
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Green Immigrants: The Plants that Transformed America
Claire Shaver Haughton
Recounts the histories, lore, romance, and uses of nearly one hundred plants, including African violets and apple trees that have been brought to the United States from other countries.
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Natural Capitalism: Creating The Next Industrial Revolution
Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins
"Drawing upon sound economic logic, intelligent technologies, and the best of contemporary design, Natural Capitalism presents a business strategy that is both profitable and necessary. The companies that practice it will not only take a leading position in addressing some of our most profound economic and social problems, but will gain a decisive competitive advantage through the worthy employment of resources, money, and people."--Jacket.
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A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes
Stephen Hawking
In 1963, Stephen Hawking contracted motor neurone disease and was given two years to live. Yet he went on to Cambridge to become a brilliant researcher and Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. He held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, the chair held by Isaac Newton in 1663, for thirty years. Professor Hawking has over a dozen honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Science.
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The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years from Stardust to Living Planet
Robert M. Hazen
Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order.
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Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil
From plate tectonics to leptons to the first living cell, now you can understand the simple science behind our complex world.
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Power Over Peoples: Technology, Environments,and Western Imperialism, 1400 to Present
Daniel R. Headrick
For six hundred years, the nations of Europe and North America have periodically attempted to coerce, invade, or conquer other societies. They have relied on their superior technology to do so, yet these technologies have not always guaranteed success. Power over Peoples examines Western imperialism's complex relationship with technology, from the first Portuguese ships that ventured down the coast of Africa in the 1430s to America's conflicts in the Middle East today.
Why did the sailing vessels that gave the Portuguese a century-long advantage in the Indian Ocean fail to overcome Muslim galleys in the Red Sea? Why were the same weapons and methods that the Spanish used to conquer Mexico and Peru ineffective in Chile and Africa? Why didn't America's overwhelming air power assure success in Iraq and Afghanistan? In Power over Peoples, Daniel Headrick traces the evolution of Western technologies--from muskets and galleons to jet planes and smart bombs--and sheds light on the environmental and social factors that have brought victory in some cases and unforeseen defeat in others. He shows how superior technology translates into greater power over nature and sometimes even other peoples, yet how technological superiority is no guarantee of success in imperialist ventures--because the technology only delivers results in a specific environment, or because the society being attacked responds in unexpected ways.
Breathtaking in scope, Power over Peoples is a revealing history of technological innovation, its promise and limitations, and its central role in the rise and fall of empire.
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Case Studies in Twentieth-Century World History
Derek Heater
Explores major modern issues such as international cooperation, war, and human rights through primary sources relating to specific incidents in twentieth-century history.
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Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander Von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed The Way We See The World
Gerard Helferich
This is the story of the charismatic explorer who Simon Bolivar called "the true discoverer of South America," and of the daring expedition that altered the course of science. Humboldt was the reigning scientific mind of the early 19th century, a unique combination of naturalist and adventurer. On a 6,000-mile journey through what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Cuba, risking his life in treacherous terrain, he conducted the first extensive scientific explorations of the Andes and the Amazon, literally redrawing the map and dramatically expanding our knowledge of the natural world. He set an altitude record while climbing Chimborazo, made revolutionary discoveries about volcanoes and the earth's magnetic field, and introduced Americans and Europeans to the cultures of the Aztecs and the Incas. He laid the groundwork for the fields of climatology and oceanography, and profoundly influenced followers such as Darwin and Agassiz.--From publisher description.
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Future Primal: How Our Wilderness Origins Show Us the Way Forward
Louis G. Herman
"How should we respond to our converging crises of violent conflict, political corruption, and global ecological devastation? In this sweeping, big-picture synthesis, Louis G. Herman argues that for us to create a sustainable, fulfilling future, we need to first look back into our deepest past to recover our core humanity. Important clues for recovery can be found in the lives of traditional San Bushman hunter-gatherers of South Africa, the closest living relatives to the ancestral African population from which all humans descended. Their culture can give us a sense of what life was like during the tens of thousands of years when humans lived in wilderness, without warfare, walled cities, or slavery. Herman suggests we draw from the experience of the San and other earth-based cultures and weave their wisdom together with the scientific story of an evolving universe to help create something radically new--an earth-centered, planetary politics with the personal truth quest at its heart"-- Provided by publisher.
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Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth
Mark Hertsgaard
For twenty years, Mark Hertsgaard investigated climate change, but it took the birth of his daughter to bring the truth home. Another revelation came when an expert advised that, without doubt, global warming had arrived, more than a hundred years earlier than expected. Now, with his daughter and the next generation in mind, Hertsgaard delivers a resounding, motivating message of hope that will spur activism among parents, college students, and all readers. He gives specifics about what we can expect in the next fifty years: Chicago's climate transformed to resemble Houston's; the loss of cherished crops and luxuries, such as California wines; the redesign of U.S. cities. Addressing problems we'll face very soon and revealing where they'll be most serious, Hertsgaard offers "pictures" of what unbiased experts expect, and looks at who is taking wise, creative precautions. Hot is, finally, a book about how we'll survive.--Publisher description.
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Conceptual Physical Science
Paul G. Hewitt, John Suchocki, and Leslie A. Hewitt
Conceptual Physical Science, Third Edition takes learning physical science to a new level by combining HewittUs leading conceptual approach and friendly writing style in a new edition that provides stronger integration of the sciences, more quantitative coverage, and a wealth of new media resources to help readers. The dynamic new media program includes hundreds of animations and interactive tutorials developed specifically for students taking physical science courses. Media references throughout the book point readers to additional online help. KEY TOPICS The bookUs consistent, high-quality coverage includes five new chapters on chemistry, astronomy, and earth science for an even more balanced approach to physical science. For college instructors, students, or anyone interested in physical science.
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Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz
Eric Hobsbawm
This engaging collection features twenty-six Hobsbawm essays covering the history of working men and women between the late eighteenth century and today, bringing back into print Hobsbawm's pioneering studies in labor history along with more recent, previously unpublished pieces.
Uncommon People shows the range of Hobsbawm's work, on such subjects as the formation of the British working class, revolution and sex, and socialism and the avant garde. From essays on Mario Puzo and the mafia, to the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano and the cultural consequences of Christopher Columbus, Hobsbawm's passionate concern for the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women shines through. -
An Atlas of Africa
J. F. Horrabin
J. F. Horrabin has produced, in the handy Atlas, the perfect aid to a better understanding of the African land, its people, and its complex independence movement.
