Earth Science History

Frank Ledwidge offers a sweeping look at the history of air warfare, introducing the major battles, crises, and controversies where air power has taken center stage and exploring the changes in technology and air power capabilities over time. Considering whether bombing has ever been truly effective, he discusses whether wars can be won from the air and concludes by analyzing whether there is a future for manned air power, or if it is inevitable that drones will dominate 21st-century war in the air.

Here, political scientist Jakub J. Grygiel brings to light the importance of incorporating geography into grand strategy. He argues that states can increase and maintain their position of power by pursuing a geostrategy that focuses on control of resources and lines of communication.

Netting the Sun offers a carefully crafted diversity of natural and human stories from a landscape seemingly empty and forlorn to passing casual travelers. This surprising interpretation of south central Oregon's botany, geology, wildlife, ethnography, and history reveals what a truly special place the high desert is.

Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir, Craft for a Dry Lake, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless, but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its traditional owners, the mining companies have arrived and Aboriginal art has flourished.

On a snowy morning in January 1910, the Alaska Steamship Company's Farallon struck Black Reef in Cook Inlet. The vessel carried no wireless radio to broadcast an SOS. Thirty-eight men scrambled into lifeboats, to be cast up on the rugged shore where they huddled under make-shift tents constructed from the Farallon's sails. Exposed to a bitter northern winter with meager equipment and clothing, a disturbing awareness sank in-rescuers may arrive too late.

Geologists have amassed data that indicate that islands have disappeared in the Pacific, a phenomenon that oral traditions of many groups of Pacific Islanders also highlight. This book explores the issue of vanished islands in the Pacific by bringing together the geology and the myths.

A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to survivors, and experience their terror and exhilaration in villages and towns where all shelter and hope seemed lost.

The past fifteen thousand years--the entire span of human civilization--have witnessed dramatic sea level changes, which began with rapid global warming at the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels were more than 700 feet below modern levels. Over the next eleven millennia, the oceans climbed in fits and starts. These rapid changes had little effect on those humans who experienced them, partly because there were so few people on earth, and also because they were able to adjust readily to new coastlines.

In 1947, a peaceful day at home for talented negotiator Ryan Wilcox is rudely interrupted by a phone call from the president. With the help of General Jones and Malcolm Dow, he’s to arrange an interplanetary alliance. It’s an opportunity that Earth can’t afford to miss. But as with any friendship, the beginning stages require a delicate approach. And there’s one issue of “delicacy” that threatens to turn their partnership into an outright war. Will Ryan the wordsmith rise to the challenge and find common ground? Or is it the end of life as we know it?

When Private Malcolm Dow went to clean up a crashed weather balloon, he came face-to-face with an alien instead. Being an alien of sorts in his own otherwise all-white regiment, Malcolm instantly took on the Alien’s plight - military help for his besieged planet, Zalma. And it’s not just Zalma; Earth will be next. But to do so, he must first overcome the obstacles he’s faced since childhood and find a voice for himself. The trouble is, he’s not the only one who knows they’re here.

What's sexy about saving the planet? Funny you should ask. Because that is precisely - or, perhaps, broadly - what Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have spent many years bringing to light in their live art, exhibitions, and films. In 2008, Sprinkle and Stephens married the Earth, which set them on the path to explore the realms of ecosexuality as they became lovers with the Earth and made their mutual pleasure an embodied expression of passion for the environment.

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.

The discovery of the Americas around AD 1500 was an extraordinary watershed in human experience. It gave rise to the modern period of human ecology, a phenomenon global in scope that set in motion profound changes in almost every society on Earth. This new period, which saw the depletion of the lands of the New World, proved tragic for some, triumphant for others, and powerfully affecting for all.

La apasionante historia de la evolución de la humanidad y sus procesos de adaptación en la Tierra, descritos en un resumen fascinante. Desde su primera aparición en el planeta hace millones de años y su fisonomía actual, mucha agua ha desembocado en el océano. Aprenda a conocerlas con nosotros. Le aseguramos, nuestra historia evolutiva y mental lo atrapará.

La historia de las primeras formas de vivienda y cuáles de ellas sobreviven hasta hoy, referidas dentro de un audio-resumen de gran utilidad histórica. Desde las chozas, a las casas australianas, las viviendas sobre pilotes o las viviendas de hielos, el anhelo del hombre por guarecerse bien lo ha llevado a vencer todos los obstáculos posibles.

For almost 500 years, human beings have been finding ways to circle the Earth - by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving, flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodily power. The story begins with the first centuries of circumnavigation, when few survived the attempt: In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with five ships and 270 men, but only one ship and 35 men returned, not including Magellan, who died in the Philippines. Starting with these dangerous voyages, Joyce Chaplin takes us on a trip of our own as we travel with Francis Drake, William Dampier, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and James Cook.

Volcanic Fury is a thrilling nonfiction book that delves into the destructive power of volcanoes and their impact on human civilization. The book explores the science behind volcanic eruptions, the different types of volcanoes, and the devastating consequences of their explosive eruptions.

Amelia Earhart was used to all the death. For 20 years, she served the empire in the Human Soldiers of Earth. After the mushroom clouds destroyed Tehran, she grew tired of killing humans for the empire. Now she kill humans for the Rough Riders. She received a mission from the Rough Rider commander, Escort Albert Einstein, pride of the upper caste and tool of the empire, from Paris to the South Pacific. All she had to do was avoid the combined might of the Human Soldiers of Earth searching for the loudest fugitive in existence.

Unnatural Selection is the first book to examine the rise of the "technocentric being" - or geek - who personifies a distinct new phase in human evolution. People considered geeks often have behavioral or genetic traits that were previously considered detrimental. But the new environment of the Anthropocene period - the Age of Man - has created a kind of digital greenhouse that actually favors their traits, enabling many non-neurotypical people to bloom.

Each of those worlds - or continents - evolved, and continues to evolve, its own way of life. From the jungle of the Congo or the majestic Himalayas to the densely populated wilds of Europe or the comparatively isolated Australasia, Seven Worlds, One Planet explores the natural wonders that give each of our continents its distinct character. Following the animals that have made these iconic environments their home, it discovers spectacular wildlife stories that reveal what makes each of these seven worlds unique.