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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The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth tot eh Twenty-first Century
Robert B. Marks
This clearly written and engrossing book presents a global narrative of the origins of the modern world from 1400 to the present. Unlike most studies, which assume that the “rise of the West” is the story of the coming of the modern world, this history, drawing upon new scholarship on Asia, Africa, and the New World and upon the maturing field of environmental history, constructs a story in which those parts of the world play major roles, including their impacts on the environment. Robert B. Marks defines the modern world as one marked by industry, the nation state, interstate warfare, a large and growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest parts of the world, increasing inequality within the wealthiest industrialized countries, and an escape from the environmental constraints of the “biological old regime.” He explains its origins by emphasizing contingencies (such as the conquest of the New World); the broad comparability of the most advanced regions in China, India, and Europe; the reasons why England was able to escape from common ecological constraints facing all of those regions by the eighteenth century; a conjuncture of human and natural forces that solidified a gap between the industrialized and non-industrialized parts of the world; and the mounting environmental crisis that defines the modern world.
Now in a new edition that brings the saga of the modern world to the present in an environmental context, the book considers how and why the United States emerged as a world power in the twentieth century and became the sole superpower by the twenty-first century, and why the changed relationship of humans to the environmental likely will be the hallmark of the modern era—the “Anthopocene.” Once again arguing that the U.S. rise to global hegemon was contingent, not inevitable, Marks also points to the resurgence of Asia and the vastly changed relationship of humans to the environment that may in the long run overshadow any political and economic milestones of the past hundred years. -
Eaarth: Making A Life on a Tough New Planet
Bill McKibben
McKibben's earliest warnings about global warming went largely unheeded. In this book, he argues that we can meet the challenges of a new "Eaarth"--Still recognizable but suddenly and violently out of balance--by building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale.
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Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
J. R. McNeill
"In the course of the twentieth century the human race, without intending anything of the sort, has undertaken a giant, uncontrolled experiment on the earth. In time, according to J.R. McNeill in his startling new book, the environmental dimension of twentieth-century history will overshadow the importance of events like the world wars, the rise and fall of communism, and the spread of mass literacy. Contrary to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes that "there is nothing new under the sun," McNeill sets out to show that the massive change we have wrought in our physical world has indeed created something new. To a degree unprecedented in human history, we have refashioned the earth's air, water, and soil, and the biosphere of which we are a part." "McNeill's work is a fruitful compound of history and science. McNeill infuses a substrate of ecology with a lively historical sensibility to the significance of politics, international relations, technological change, and great events. He charts and explores the breathtaking ways in which we have changed the natural world with a keen eye for character and a refreshing respect for the unforeseen in history."--Jacket.
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Plagues and Peoples
William H. McNeill
Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind.
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The Islamic World
William H. McNeill and Marilyn Robinson Waldman
The Islamic World is a collection of important and representative documents from all periods of Islamic history. From the formative years in Arabia to the confrontations with and responses to modernity, these translations indicate the continuity and development of the youngest of the world's greatest civilizations. Included are historical, theological, philosophical, and political writings, as well as poetry and narratives, from Muslim writers in the Arab lands, Turkey, Persia, and other parts of the Islamic world. The editors have provided informative introductions to each historical period and to the individual texts, making this an enlightening and intriguing first look at Islamic civilization and tradition.
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Columbus and the World Around Him
Milton Meltzer
Describes the voyages of Columbus, the terrible impact of the Spaniards on the Indians, and the ultimate cultural influence of the Native Americans on their white conquerors.
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Slavery: A World History
Milton Meltzer
Slavery is not and has never been a "peculiar institution," but one that is deeply rooted in the history and economy of most countries. Although it has flourished in some periods and declined in others, human bondage for profit has never been eradicated completely. In Slavery: A World History renowned author Milton Meltzer traces slavery from its origins in prehistoric hunting societies; through the boom in slave trading that reached its peak in the United States with a pre-Civil War slave population of 4,000,000; through the forced labor under the Nazi regime and in the Soviet gulags; and finally to its widespread practice in many countries today, such as the debt bondage that miners endure in Brazil or the prostitution into which women are sold in Thailand.
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The Course of Mexican History
Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman
Mexico's political, social, and economic landscapes have shifted in very striking ways in recent years and the country now moves cautiously forward in the twenty-first century. Revised to address these remarkable transformations, The Course of Mexican History, now in its tenth edition, offers a completely up-to-date, lively, and engaging survey from the pre-Columbian times to the present.
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Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning
Mary Midgley
What is the role of scientists in society? What should we think when they talk about more than just science? Mary Midgley discusses the high spiritual ambitions which tend to gather around the notion of science.
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The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry
Perry Miller
Selections from the writings of Puritans in New England in the first century of colonial life.
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The Prehistory of the Mind:The Cognitive Origins of Art and Science
Steven Mithen
Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions:
- Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers?
- When did religious beliefs first emerge?
- Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive?
- What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind?
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General History of Africa, Vol. II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa
G. Mokhtar
Volume 2 covers the period beginning at the close of the Neolithic era, from around the eighth millenium before our era. This period of some nine thousand years has been sub-divided into four major geographical zones. Chapters 1 to 12 cover the Nile, Egypt and Nubia: by far the largest part of the book is devoted to the ancient civilization of Egypt because of its pre-eminent place in the early history of Africa. Chapters 13 to 16 relate to the Ethiopian highlands. Chapters 17 to 20 describe the Maghrib and its Sahara hinterland, and Chapters 21 to 29 the rest of Africa including some of the Indian Ocean islands. The series is co-published in Africa with seven publishers, in the United States and Canada by the University of California Press, and in association with the UNESCO Press.
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Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril
Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson
"An anthology bringing together the testimony of over eighty theologians, religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers to present a diverse and compelling call to honor humans' moral responsibility to the planet in the face of environmental degradation, species extinction, and global climate change"--Provided by publisher.
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Born with a Bang, Book One: The Universe Tells our Cosmic Story
Jennifer Morgan
The big bang is where it all started! Kids will learn it all in this scientifically accurate book telling the story of the universe up until the formation of young Earth. Gorgeous and ethereal illustrations and a story that brings children into a state of connectedness with the universe makes this an amazing book for parents and teachers who want to instill in kids a deep appreciation for themselves, their community, and the need to protect this planet that we all reside.
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From Lava to Life, Book Two: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story
Jennifer Morgan
The Universe tells the story of your living Earth and the unbroken chain that connects you to the very first life that began to twitch in the sea four billion years ago.
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Mammals Who Morph, Book Three: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story
Jennifer Morgan
This remarkable evolution series, narrated by the Universe itself, concludes with this third book, the amazing story of mammals and humans. It picks up after From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story with the extinction of dinosaurs, and tells how tiny mammals survived and morphed into lots of new Earthlings ... horses, whales and a kind of mammal with a powerful imaginationyou! It is a story of chaos, creativity and heroesthe greatest adventure on Earth! And it is a personal story...about our bodies, our minds, and spirits. It is our story. As the president of the American Montessori Society said, These books are alive with wonder, radiance, and deep relevance.
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Christopher Columbus, Mariner
Samuel Eliot Morison
One of the great adventure tales of all time, this is the breathtaking story of Christopher Columbus, the canny and skillful Genoese sailor who set out to explore the Indies and discovered the New World instead! Columbus's journeys in tiny ships across thousands of miles of unknown oceans, battling all kinds of weather and often dealing with unruly crews, are among the most significant achievements of recorded history.
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The Oxford History of the American People
Samuel Eliot Morison
A collective view of American life from the original natives to the assassination of President Kennedy
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Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex
Harold J. Morowitz
When the whole is greater than the sum of the parts--indeed, so great that the sum far transcends the parts and represents something utterly new and different--we call that phenomenon emergence. When the chemicals diffusing in the primordial waters came together to form the first living cell, that was emergence. When the activities of the neurons in the brain result in mind, that too is emergence.
In The Emergence of Everything, one of the leading scientists involved in the study of complexity, Harold J. Morowitz, takes us on a sweeping tour of the universe, a tour with 28 stops, each one highlighting a particularly important moment of emergence. For instance, Morowitz illuminates the emergence of the stars, the birth of the elements and of the periodic table, and the appearance of solar systems and planets. We look at the emergence of living cells, animals, vertebrates, reptiles, and mammals, leading to the great apes and the appearance of humanity. He also examines tool making, the evolution of language, the invention of agriculture and technology, and the birth of cities. And as he offers these insights into the evolutionary unfolding of our universe, our solar system, and life itself, Morowitz also seeks out the nature of God in the emergent universe, the God posited by Spinoza, Bruno, and Einstein, a God Morowitz argues we can know through a study of the laws of nature.
Written by one of our wisest scientists, The Emergence of Everything offers a fascinating new way to look at the universe and the natural world, and it makes an important contribution to the dialogue between science and religion. -
The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations
Ian Morris
In the last thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful. The Measure of Civilization presents a brand-new way of investigating these questions and provides new tools for assessing the long-term growth of societies. Using a groundbreaking numerical index of social development that compares societies in different times and places, award-winning author Ian Morris sets forth a sweeping examination of Eastern and Western development across 15,000 years since the end of the last ice age. He offers surprising conclusions about when and why the West came to dominate the world and fresh perspectives for thinking about the twenty-first century.
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Powers of Ten: About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe
Philip Morrison, Phylis Morrison, and Office of Charles and Ray Eames
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The Cosmic Verses: A Rhyming History of the Universe
James Muirden
From mankind's ancestors to Professor Stephen Hawking, James Muirden cleverly and humorously examines our quest to make sense of the cosmos in wonderful rhyming couplets. If you've ever wondered about the universe, or wanted to broaden your horizons, here are the theories, discoveries, writings and sayings of Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras, Ptolemy, and the Arab astronomers and mathematicians who flourished during Europe's Dark Ages, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Boyle and many more by way of Einstein and so to the present day…and now the education is fun! Here also are the thoughts of space scientists, alchemists, writers, and theologians all weighing in on the cosmos as, through Muirden's delightful presentation, he spins the history of science on a new axis.
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Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines
Richard A. Muller
We live in complicated, dangerous times. Present and future presidents need to know if North Korea's nascent nuclear capability is a genuine threat to the West, if biochemical weapons are likely to be developed by terrorists, if there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels that should be nurtured and supported by the government, if private companies should be allowed to lead the way on space exploration, and what the actual facts are about the worsening threats from climate change. This is "must-have" information for all presidents―and citizens―of the twenty-first century. >
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From These Beginnings: A Biographical Approach to American History, Volume I
Roderick Nash and Gregory Graves
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From These Beginnings: A Biographical Approach to American History, Volume II
Roderick Nash and Gregory Graves
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Cliffs Quick Review: Chemistry
Harold D. Nathan and Charles Henrickson
CliffsNotes Quick Review guides give you a clear, concise, easy-to-use review of the basics. Introducing each topic, defining key terms, and carefully walking you through sample problems, this guide helps you grasp and understand the important concepts needed to succeed.
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Evolution of Non-Violence: Studies in Big History, Self Organization and Historical Psychology
Akop P. Nazaretyan
This book is a collection of papers (2005-2010) focused on various subjects, but related by a single research issue: developing life, culture and mind as the stages in the evolution of Metagalaxy. Megatrends and mechanisms of evolution are explored in the context of an advanced self-organization model (synergetics; complexity theory). The author pays special attention to the evolution of technologies, violence and non-violence: the papers reveal system dependence between growing instrumental might and the perfection of cultural aggression-sublimation throughout human history. The pattern is illustrated by case studies and verification procedures demonstrating its both destructive and constructive attributes. The results of the retrospective research are used to trace probable scenarios of the global civilization's future and the conditions for its sustainable development.
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Take Over: How Euroman Changed the World
Arthur Niehoff
A retired anthropologist attempts to explain the conquering of the New World, plunder of natural resources, and global imposition of Christianity to aliens who cannot fathom twenty-first-century Earth's homogeneous business structure
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The Fourth Horseman: A Short History of Epidemics, Plagues, Famine and Other Scourges
Andrew Nikiforuk
A history of epidemics, plagues, and famines chronicles the disastrous effects of these often cataclysmic events on the individual and on human history
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A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, Volume II: Since 1865
Mary Beth Norton, David M. Katzman, Paul D. Escott, Howard P. Chudacoff, Thomas G. Paterson, and William M. Tuttle
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A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, Volume I: To 1877
Mary Beth Norton, David M. Katzman, Paul D. Escott, Howard P. Chudacoff, Thomas G. Paterson, and William M. Tuttle
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Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed
Martin A. Nowak
Looks at the importance of cooperation in human beings and in nature, arguing that this social tool is as important an aspect of evolution as mutation and natural selection.
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Babylon
Joan Oates
Dr. Oates describes the rise of Babylon from Sargon of Agade to Hammurabi, the great law-giver under whom in the 18th century BC the city first attained pre-eminence. She charts its progress under his successors, its greatest period of empire during he reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus in the 6th century BC, and its decay and final abandonment as Persians and Greeks turned Mesopotamia into a battleground.
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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barack Obama
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.
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The Oregon Trail
Francis Parkman
The Oregon Trail is the gripping account of Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. After crossing the Allegheny Mountains by coach and continuing by boat and wagon to Westport, Missouri, he set out with three companions on a horseback journey that would ultimately take him over two thousand miles. His detailed description of the journey, set against the vast majesty of the Great Plains, has emerged through the generations as a classic narrative of one man's exploration of the American Wilderness.
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The Essentials of Ancient History: 4,500 BC to 500 AD, The Emergence of Western Civilization
Gordon M. Patterson
REA’s Essentials provide quick and easy access to critical information in a variety of different fields, ranging from the most basic to the most advanced. As its name implies, these concise, comprehensive study guides summarize the essentials of the field covered. Essentials are helpful when preparing for exams, doing homework and will remain a lasting reference source for students, teachers, and professionals. Ancient History: 4500 BC to 500 AD discusses Mesopotamian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Hebrew civilization, Greek civilization, Alexander and the Hellenistic Age, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and Christianity in the ancient world.
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How the Mind Works
Steven Pinker
In this Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestseller, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational―and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness? How the Mind Works synthesizes the most satisfying explanations of our mental life from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and other fields to explain what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and contemplate the mysteries of life.
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The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined
Steven Pinker
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millenia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, gruesom punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?
This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the esesnce of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives--the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away--and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.
