Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. Here, at last, is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human...

A follow-up to the popular edition from the 1990s, this edition includes the work of eighty playwrights, spotlighting the best of Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and experimental writings since 2000. The book is edited by three theater experts who have carefully selected the strongest pieces for auditions, acting classes, and study. Ultimately, these editors reveal the pulse of the millennial theatrical scene. A special foreword by Broadway casting...

"Israel's 2009 invasion of Gaza was an act of aggression that killed over a thousand Palestinians and devastated the infrastructure of an already impoverished enclave. The Punishment of Gaza shows how the ground was prepared for the assault and documents its continuing effects. From 2005 -- the year of Gaza's 'liberation' -- through to 2009, Levy tracks the development of Israel policy, which has abandoned the pretense of diplomacy in favor of raw...