In Sticky, Laurie Winkless explores some of the ways that friction shapes both the manufactured and natural worlds, and describes how our understanding of surface science has given us an ability to manipulate stickiness, down to the level of a single atom.--

"We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to millions of fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence billions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, in which new infectious diseases spread across continents at lightning speed, and in which complex social forces are increasingly impacted by digital technology. This is globalization....

"Taking place during the most critical period of our nation's birth, The First Conspiracy tells a remarkable and previously untold piece of American history that not only reveals George Washington's character, but also illuminates the origins of America's counterintelligence movement that led to the modern day CIA.In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington's bodyguards. Washington trusted them; relied on them....

An entertaining and evocative stroll through the rise, fall, and ongoing reinvention of malls, which proved to be a powerful draw for creative thinkers including Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury, and George Romero, chronicles how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in cultural ascent. Since their birth in the 1950s, malls have been temples of commerce. Amid the aftershocks of financial crises, a global pandemic, and the rise of online...

Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering moss is a mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses. In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives...

Arlington began three centuries ago as the farm section of Alexandria County and emerged in the 1900s as a vibrant suburb of the nation's capital. Global notice came after the creation and expansion of Arlington National Cemetery, the Pentagon and Fort Myer, site of history's first airplane casualty--September 17, 1908. Add in some modern marquee employers--PBS, WETA, Nestlé, the Foreign Service Institute and Amazon--and it's a recipe for accelerating...

"When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war - the invasion...

"Asian American Histories of the United States illuminates how an over-century-long history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the United States is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early twenty-first century"--

"A Concise History of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive interpretation of the history of the Caribbean islands from the beginning of human settlement to the present. It narrates processes of early human migration, the disastrous consequences of European colonization, the development of slavery and the slave trade, the extraordinary profits earned by the plantation economy, the great revolution in Haiti, movements towards political independence,...

"By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal. Beef production in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in the nation's rapidly growing cities. Red Meat Republic tells the remarkable story of the violent conflict...