Health History

In The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter.

One of the US government's leading China experts reveals the hidden strategy fueling that country's rise - and how Americans have been seduced into helping China overtake us as the world's leading superpower.

After fourteen years apart, forty veterans of brutal close-quarters combat, lost souls to a man, were brought back together when one of them, the author, received the Medal of Honor. Their impromptu reunion in June 2019 helped heal them all—and saved more than a few of them too. This is their story.

Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals, and political assassins to show how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison. From the deadly origins of the gin and tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads listeners on a fascinating tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive - or don’t.

I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Blindspot is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases.

Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story - up to a certain point. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground", he said, "and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened." It is precisely this point - that of a people faced with the end of their way of life - that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear's view, Plenty Coups' story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all.

Wing Chun is the most popular form of Chinese kung fu in the world today, with more than four million practitioners. This guide will fascinate and educate anyone interested in the martial arts, from beginner to master. The art as it is presently understood has been handed down from teacher to student for more than 300 years. Until now, no one has ever stepped back and taken a critical look at why this art's techniques are presented and performed the way they are.

Butler’s DMT Field Guide: A Brief History, Step-by-Step Recipes, and Personal Experiences From a DMT Saturated Consciousness summarizes the author’s life-saving and transformational journey after using DMT hundreds of times for medicinal, meditative, and spiritual purposes. His research into the history, recipes, and usage of DMT helps bridge the gap between what has been uncovered from the structured scientific studies, with the knowledge that has been gleaned from real world DMT sessions.

From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies.

Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.

Told with the same intimate style, brutal honesty, and uproarious wisdom that placed Wishful Drinking on the New York Times bestseller list for months, Shockaholic is the juicy account of Carrie Fisher’s life, focusing more on the Star Wars years and dishing about the various Hollywood relationships she’s formed since she was chosen to play Princess Leia at only 19 years old.

The first major bioterror event in the United States - the anthrax attacks in October 2001 - was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a number-one New York Times best seller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor after the death of her parents. With the help of a robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden brings happiness to Mary.

100 Deadly Skills contains proven self-defense skills, evasion tactics, and immobilizing maneuvers - modified from the world of black ops - to help you take action in numerous "worst case" scenarios from escaping a locked trunk to making an improvised Taser to tricking facial recognition software. With easy-to-understand instructions, Emerson outlines in detail many life-saving strategies and teaches you how to think and act like a member of the special forces.

Men and Style reaches beyond standard "what to wear" advice: It is equal parts style guide and intriguing conversation about the masculine identity within the world of fashion. David Coggins explores the history of men's style and learns from some of the most notable tastemakers in the industry and beyond. Its essays and interviews discuss the lessons men learned from their fathers, the mistakes they made as young men, and how they emerged to become better men.

Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution - one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today.

An epic story told by a unique voice in Ameri­can medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physi­cian. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.

“Like being deemed a witch hundreds of years ago, being presumed a slut today is cause for ostracism, abuse, and death”.... Archetypes of “witch” and “slut” have been used to police female sexuality and punish women; now, feminists are reclaiming them as positive affirmations. This book unearths the sex positive feminist legacy of the witch in art, music, politics, and popular culture, connecting the fictional witch we love to emulate and fear with real women, past and present.

For the last four centuries, science has tried to account for everything in terms of atoms and molecules and the physical laws they adhere to. Recently, this effort was extended to try to include the inner world of human beings. Gary Lachman argues that this view of consciousness is misguided and unfounded. He points to another approach to the study and exploration of consciousness that erupted into public awareness in the late 1800s.