Essential Histories

A concise introduction to the history and methods of espionage, illustrated by spy stories from antiquity to today's high-tech world.

More than ever, Americans are realizing that if we want to keep this country great, we must be citizen-patriots. And here’s the handbook every citizen-patriot needs: The Essential American, featuring the fundamental documents of our nation’s history.

The first of the series breaks the ice on what is Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. What is most important is not the academic or theoretical understanding of Bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency trading, investing, staking, etc. What is important is for the listener to understand in practical bite-size chunks. The book is not here to show how much the author knows. The book is to show you that you too can understand all these basic ideas in every-day useful examples.

Looking for the perfect gift for a young soccer star? Whether it’s for a birthday, Christmas, or just because, Soccer Success Playbook is the ideal present for any child aged 8-12 who dreams of improving their skills and becoming a soccer champion! This playbook is packed with 70 essential skills, drills, and winning strategies designed specifically for kids. It’s a comprehensive guide that covers everything from mastering ball control and perfecting passing techniques to advanced tactics and team dynamics.

Whether you want to learn about Wicca to advance your knowledge of different religious practices or wish to gather information on how to adopt Wicca, this book is for you! It uses a beginner-friendly approach to help you to understand Wicca well.

In this extraordinary audiobook, Robert D. Kaplan lets listeners experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground. Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts provides a riveting ground-level portrait of the Global War on Terrorism on several continents.

The Patrons of Husbandry - or the Grange - is the longest-lived US agricultural society and, since its founding shortly after the Civil War, has had immeasurable influence on social change as enacted by ordinary Americans. The Grange sought to relieve the struggles of small farmers by encouraging collaboration. Pathbreaking for its inclusion of women, the Grange is also well known for its association with Gilded Age laws aimed at curbing the monopoly power of railroads.

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps listeners understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities.

With the success of the Wonder Woman movies and the results following the outcry of the #MeToo movement, now is the time to highlight the female influences in film history previously left unheard!

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) was one of the most influential presidents of the USA, uniting the country and abolishing slavery after a terrible civil war. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, his life and works are presented here in an easy introductory form. Through a balance of biography and the key speeches and letters, the man is brought to life, demonstrating his keen intelligence and determination, which was maintained all the way to his tragic death at the hand of an assassin.

Did you know that a whale shark’s spots are as unique as a fingerprint? Or that sharks can go into a trance when flipped upside down? Or that the Megallodon’s mouth was 6 feet across? With The Shark Handbook, jump into brand new facts about these fierce sea creatures! Learn about over 400 profiles of every shark in existence, from the first sharks living about 445 million years ago to the ones lurking in the ocean deep today.

At once a requisite collector's guide and a pursuit of meaning within storytelling, The Essential Guide to Collecting Calvin and Hobbes also offers a critical appraisal of Bill Watterson, as well as a deep examination of the most obscure Calvin and Hobbes relic, the textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes: "a miraculous artifact unlike any other collectible in the world."

Brushstrokes in Time, written by Sylvia Vetta, is a memoir of fictional Chinese artist, Little Winter, written for her American daughter. It takes the story of Communist China beyond the death of Mao and for the first time in fiction shows the birth of the radical art movement, The Stars, in 1979. Her haunting love story connects us to this time of hope for freedom of expression in China, and to a man frustrated by "being kept in small shoes".

Historian and biographer James Srodes tells Benjamin Franklin's incredible life story, making full use of the previously neglected Franklin papers to provide the most riveting account yet of the journalist, scientist, polilician, and unlikely adventurer. From London, Paris, Philadelphia to his numerous romantic liaisons, Franklin's life becomes a panorama of dramatic history.

Stoicism: The Essential Guide to Stoicism Philosophy, Wisdom, and History is your fundamental guide that will teach you the core principles of Stoicism. This book will teach you the great wisdom of Stoic philosophers such as such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. By learning the Stoic teachings, you will be able to apply them to your life. Learn how to live a virtuous life and attain peace of mind and happiness. If you want to know how to remain stress-free amid problematic situations, and if you want to find more meaning in life, then this is the book for you.

In A Legacy of Discrimination, leading constitutional scholars Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone trace affirmative action's history and the legal challenges it has faced over the decades. They argue that in order to fully comprehend affirmative action's original intent and impact, we must reacquaint ourselves with the era in which it arose, beginning with the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century, 1954's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

Are you interested in philosophy but don't know where to start? Do you want a concise and accessible guide to Western philosophy's essential concepts and thinkers? Look no further than Flash Philosophy. From Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God to Schopenhauer's thoughts on sexual love's true nature, Flash Philosophy takes you on a chronological journey through almost three millennia, examining the key concepts and theories that have shaped the field over time.

The formal study of psychology as a scientific enterprise began in Germany in the late 19th century, but the observation of human behavior dates back to ancient Greece. Defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, psychology has attained a range of branches including clinical, cognitive, developmental, evolutionary, forensic, health, and neuropsychology. In a wide-ranging audiobook, listeners are introduced to the world of psychology and those who formed the science as we know it.

From Massachusetts to Florida to Washington to California, 50 Great American Places takes you on a journey through our nation's history. Sharing the inside stories of sites as old as Mesa Verde (Colorado) and Cahokia (Illinois) and as recent as Silicon Valley (California) and the Mall of America (Minnesota), each essay provides the historical context for places that represent fundamental American themes.

Steven Johnson, an acknowledged best-selling leader on the subject of innovation, gathers essays, interviews, and cutting-edge insights from exciting field leaders. Johnson also provides new material from Marisa Mayer of Google, Twitter's Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, and Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's former chief software architect. With additional commentary by Johnson himself, this book reveals the innovation found in a wide range of fields, including science, technology, energy, transportation, education, art, and sociology, making it vital, fresh, and fascinating reading for our time, and for the future.