This brilliant and highly readable history of modern Europe in its international setting explores the heritage of the West since the Renaissance, closely relating the trajectories of individual nations to European civilization as a whole.For this eighth edition, Professors Palmer and Colton have revised their classic account in light of recent momentous events (the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, the near-demise of communism, the reunification of Germany) and the transformed world that has emerged in their wake. On the brink of the twenty-first century, this world faces new challenges - among them, the fragile environment and the population explosion. By means of its incomparable depth and scope, this volume provides a superior context for understanding the past, negotiating the present and preparing for the future.

"Cat owners know the struggles of creating living spaces that are both functional and stylish for owner and cat. In Catification, Jackson Galaxy, the star of Animal Planet's My Cat from Hell, and Kate Benjamin, of the popular cat design website Hauspanther.com, walk readers through a step-by-step process of designing an attractive home that is also an optimal environment for cats"--

Quality work that fosters job satisfaction and health enjoys top priority in industry all over the world. This was not always so. Until recently analysis of job attitudes focused primarily on human relations problems within organizations. While American industry was trying to solve the unsolvable problem of avoiding interpersonal dissatisfaction, problems with the potential for solution, such as training and quality production, were ignored. When first published, The Motivation to Work challenged the received wisdom by showing that worker fulfillment came from achievement and growth within the job itself. In his new introduction, Herzberg examines thirty years of motivational research in job-related areas. Based on workers' accounts of real events that have made them feel good or bad on the job, the findings of Herzberg and his colleagues have stimulated research and controversy that continue to the present day. The authors surprisingly found that while a poor work environment generated discontent, improved conditions seldom brought about improved attitudes. Instead, satisfaction came most often from factors intrinsic to achievements, job recognition, and work that was challenging, interesting, and responsible. The evidence marshaled by this volume called into question many previous assumptions about job satisfaction and worker motivation. Feelings about intrinsic and extrinsic factors could not be validly averaged on a single scale of measurement. Motivation and performance are not merely dependent upon environmental needs and external rewards. Frederick Herzberg and his staff based their motivation?hygiene theory on a variety of human needs and applied it to a strategy of job enrichment that has widely influenced motivation and job design strategies. Motivation to Work is a landmark volume that is of enduring interest to sociologists, psychologists, labor studies specialists, and organization analysts.

“George W. Bush is a liar. He has lied large and small, directly and by omission. He has mugged the truth—not merely in honest error, but deliberately, consistently, and repeatedly.” —from the Introduction All American presidents have lied, but George W. Bush has relentlessly abused the truth. In this scathing indictment of the president and his inner circle, David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation, reveals and examines the deceptions at the heart of the Bush presidency. In a stunning work of journalism, he details and substantiates the many times the Bush administration has knowingly and intentionally misled the American public to advance its own interests and agenda, including: * Brazenly mischaracterizing intelligence and resorting to deceptive arguments to whip up public support for war with Iraq * Misrepresenting the provisions and effects of the president’s supersized tax cuts * Offering misleading explanations— instead of telling the full truth — about the 9/11 attacks * Lying about connections to corporate crooks * Presenting deceptive and disingenuous claims to sell controversial policies on the environment, stem cell research, missile defense, Social Security, white-collar crime, abortion, energy, and other crucial issues * Running a truth-defying, down-and-dirty campaign during the 2000 presidential contest and recount drama The Lies of George W. Bush is not a partisan whine—it is instead a carefully constructed, fact-based account that clearly denotes how Bush has relied on deception—from the campaign trail to the Oval Office—to win political and policy battles. With wit and style, Corn explains how Bush has managed to get away with it and explores the dangerous consequences of such presidential deceit in a perilous age.

Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. If reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us. In other words, reason helps humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This interactionist interpretation explains why reason may have evolved and how it fits with other cognitive mechanisms. It makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists--why reason is biased in favor of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones.--

"Why are housing prices in America so unbelievably high, especially in the country's most desirable locations? The superficial answer is "supply and demand," but the deep answer-the reason supply is so low-is draconian housing regulation. In Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation, economist Bryan Caplan makes the economic and philosophical case for radical deregulation of this massive market-freeing property owners to build as tall and dense as they wish. Not only would the average price of housing be cut in half, but the building boom unleashed by deregulation would simultaneously reduce inequality, increase social mobility, promote economic growth, reduce homelessness, increase birth rates, and help the environment. It's surprising then, that despite all these benefits, housing deregulation is universally unpopular with policymakers. Combining visually stunning graphics and careful interdisciplinary research, Build, Baby, Build, takes readers on a journey through what is wrong with the housing market-and what we can do about it"--

"A book about the literal and figurative end of time and what that means for us as conscious beings, Desert Notebooks looks at how both the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and our increasingly unstable global socio-political institutions have led to an existential crisis orders of magnitude greater than any humankind has confronted before. As inhabitants of the Anthropocene what might some of our own histories tell us about how to grapple with apocalypse? And how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act towards time? Employing an elegant, discursive style that interweaves memoir with science writing, creation myths, and history, National Magazine Award winner and The Nation columnist Ben Ehrenreich uses the desolate landscape of the American desert -the main locales for the book are Joshua Tree and Las Vegas- as a springboard to examine how we formulate our concepts of time and what it means to confront the looming apocalypse. Desert Notebooks is a moving confrontation with Deep Time and a meditation on landscape in the face of climate change. Faced with an uncertain future, Ehrenreich argues there is comfort in reflecting on the role we humans have played in our own demise in the past. The difference is that this time the clock may finally be running out for good"--

The Definitive How-To Guide for Business and Competitive Analysis Transform raw data into compelling, actionable business recommendations Answer the questions executives ask--"What?" "So What?" and "Now What?" Today's 24 most valuable techniques: how to choose them, how to use them For everyone who performs analysis: managers, consultants, functional specialists, and strategists A completely new book by the authors of the popular Strategic and Competitive Analysis Business success begins with deep clarity about your competition and your business environment. But, even as data gathering has improved dramatically, few business professionals know the state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing their data. Now there's a comprehensive, immensely practical guide to today's best tools and techniques for answering tough questions and making actionable recommendations. Business and Competitive Analysis begins with end-to-end guidance on the analysis process, including defining problems, avoiding analytical pitfalls, choosing tools, and communicating results. Next, the authors offer detailed guides on 24 of today's most valuable analysis models: techniques that have never been brought together in one book before.They offer in-depth, step-by-step guidance for using every technique--along with realistic assessments of strengths, weaknesses, feasibility, and business value.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Man and Coolidge offers a stunning revision of our last great period of idealism, the 1960s, with burning relevance for our contemporary challenges. "Great Society is accurate history that reads like a novel, covering the high hopes and catastrophic missteps of our well-meaning leaders." --Alan Greenspan Today, a battle rages in our country. Many Americans are attracted to socialism and economic redistribution while opponents of those ideas argue for purer capitalism. In the 1960s, Americans sought the same goals many seek now: an end to poverty, higher standards of living for the middle class, a better environment and more access to health care and education. Then, too, we debated socialism and capitalism, public sector reform versus private sector advancement. Time and again, whether under John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, or Richard Nixon, the country chose the public sector. Yet the targets of our idealism proved elusive. What's more, Johnson's and Nixon's programs shackled millions of families in permanent government dependence. Ironically, Shlaes argues, the costs of entitlement commitments made a half century ago preclude the very reforms that Americans will need in coming decades. In Great Society, Shlaes offers a powerful companion to her legendary history of the 1930s, The Forgotten Man, and shows that in fact there was scant difference between two presidents we consider opposites: Johnson and Nixon. Just as technocratic military planning by "the Best and the Brightest" made failure in Vietnam inevitable, so planning by a team of the domestic best and brightest guaranteed fiasco at home. At once history and biography, Great Society sketches moving portraits of the characters in this transformative period, from U.S. Presidents to the visionary UAW leader Walter Reuther, the founders of Intel, and Federal Reserve chairmen William McChesney Martin and Arthur Burns. Great Society casts new light on other figures too, from Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, to the socialist Michael Harrington and the protest movement leader Tom Hayden. Drawing on her classic economic expertise and deep historical knowledge, Shlaes upends the traditional narrative of the era, providing a damning indictment of the consequences of thoughtless idealism with striking relevance for today. Great Society captures a dramatic contest with lessons both dark and bright for our own time.

Ecological Design is a landmark volume that helped usher in an exciting new era in green design and sustainability planning. Since its initial publication in 1996, the book has been critically important in sparking dialogue and triggering collaboration across spatial scales and design professions in pursuit of buildings, products, and landscapes with radically decreased environmental impacts. This 10th anniversary edition makes the work available to a new generation of practitioners and thinkers concerned with moving our society onto a more sustainable path. Using examples from architecture, industrial ecology, sustainable agriculture, ecological wastewater treatment, and many other fields, Ecological Design provides a framework for integrating human design with living systems. Drawing on complex systems, ecology, and early examples of green building and design, the book challenges us to go further, creating buildings, infrastructures, and landscapes that are truly restorative rather than merely diminishing the rate at which things are getting worse. --Publisher description.

New York Times bestselling author Seth M. Siegel shows how our drinking water got contaminated, what it may be doing to us, and what we must do to make it safe. If you thought America’s drinking water problems started and ended in Flint, Michigan, think again. From big cities and suburbs to the rural heartland, chemicals linked to cancer, heart disease, obesity, birth defects, and lowered IQ routinely spill from our taps. Many are to blame: the EPA, Congress, a bipartisan coalition of powerful governors and mayors, chemical companies, and drinking water utilities—even NASA and the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the bottled water industry has been fanning our fears about tap water, but bottled water is often no safer. The tragedy is that existing technologies could launch a new age of clean, healthy, and safe tap water for only a few dollars a week per person. Scrupulously researched, Troubled Water is full of shocking stories about contaminated water found throughout the country and about the everyday heroes who have successfully forced changes in the quality and safety of our drinking water. And it concludes with what America must do to reverse decades of neglect and play-it-safe inaction by government at all levels in order to keep our most precious resource safe.

"An inquiry into how to build the political force to make a global Green New Deal a reality"--

"By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change--including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. [This] is their story"--

"From hunting and gathering to GMOs and ultraprocessed foods, this expansive tour of human history rewrites the story of our species-and points the way to a better future"--

From the bestselling author of Eating Animals and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - a brilliant, fresh take on climate change and what we can do about it.

Containing star charts, a guide to the constellations, and details about seasons and the movement of the objects we see in the sky, this classic book makes H. A. Rey's passion for astronomy evident on every page. New updates concentrate on the planetary and solar system information in the latter part of the book. Facts and figures for each planet have been revised, and new scientific information has been added, such as Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet. There's also a new online resource that allows readers to track the positions of the planets in the night sky till the year 2100.

Twenty years ago... Fact: 100,000 people were wiped out in Minamata, Japan. Cause: a chemical neurotoxin. Effect: Sickness... Madness... Death. Source: Water. Now, in Manatee County, Maine... Biological changes are beginning to occur. People are sick. Their minds are confused. Children are born dead... born deformed. And a family of campers has been found dead, mutilated by some indescribable brutal force... The Prophecy has been horribly fulfilled!

The amazing story of the trapped Chilean miners and their incredible rescue that Publishers Weekly calls “a riveting, in-depth recounting of the events that held the world rapt.” In early August 2010, the unthinkable happened when a mine collapsed in Copiapó, Chile, trapping thirty-three miners 2,000 feet below the surface. For sixty-nine days they lived on meager resources with increasingly poor air quality. When they were finally rescued, the world watched with rapt attention and rejoiced in the amazing spirit and determination of the miners. What could have been a terrible tragedy became an amazing story of survival. In Trapped, Marc Aronson provides the backstory behind the rescue. By tracing the psychological, physical, and environmental factors surrounding the mission, Aronson highlights the amazing technology and helping hands that made it all possible. From the Argentinean soccer players that hoped to raise morale, to NASA volunteering their expertise to come up with a plan, there was no shortage of enterprising spirit when it came to saving lives. Readers will especially appreciate the eight pages of full-color photos, timeline, glossary, notes, and more.

“Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long-term shifts taking place in full view of the world.” —George Friedman In his long-awaited and provocative new book, George Friedman turns his eye on the future—offering a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century. The Next 100 Years draws on a fascinating exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years. Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era—with changes in store, including: • The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown cold war with Russia. • China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power. • A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Far East; but armies will be much smaller and wars will be less deadly. • Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications. • The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century. Written with the keen insight and thoughtful analysis that has made George Friedman a renowned expert in geopolitics and forecasting, The Next 100 Years presents a fascinating picture of what lies ahead. For continual, updated analysis and supplemental material, go to www.Stratfor.com