Acclaimed author and independent scholar P. D. Smith explores what it was like to live in the first cities, how they have evolved, and why in the future, cities will play an even greater role in human life. "For the first time in the history of our planet, more than half the population-3.3 billion people-is now living in cities. City is the ultimate guidebook to our urban centers-the signature unit of human civilization. With erudite prose and carefully...

What would happen if every human being on Earth disappeared? This isn't the story of how we might vanish it's the story of what happens to the world we leave behind.

Told through key historical moments, current experiments to improve immigrant education and profiles of immigrant students, this groundbreaking book will reshape how we all think about nurturing one of America's greatest assets-the newcomers who enrich this country with their energy, talents and drive.

"An exuberant, opinionated, stereotype-busting view of contemporary Africa in all its splendid diversity by one of its leading new writers. A lively and diverse continent of fifty-four countries, over two thousand languages, and 1.4 billion people, Africa has long been painted with a broad brush in Western literature, media, and culture, flattening it into a monolith. In Africa is Not a Country, the acclaimed journalist Dipo Faloyin boldly counters...

An illustrated tableau of Egyptian myths, combines narrative accounts of the stories of the Sun God Ra, the Sphinx, and numerous pharaohs and queens along with historical, cultural, and geographic facts.

"An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest. During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about...

The Human Race is a compelling adventure documentary set in the Kimberley Region - an ancient, remote and spectacular landscape in North Western Australia. Three men from different continents begin the race on the rim of Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater, the second largest meteorite crater in the world, and finish in the small coastal town of Wyndham.. Australian Aboriginal elder, 72 year old Jack Jugarie, travels with little more than his Dreamtime knowledge...

"As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories...

Compelling interviews and remarkable re-creations offer a rarely seen firsthand picture of life inside a cult.

Electronic Dance Music (EDM) is the most lucrative sector of the music industry, but it's a world dominated by men, who represent 100% of the genre's top earners. Rhiannon Rozier wanted to break into that world, but the Vancouver-raised DJ says she ran into the glass ceiling. She couldn't make it to the next level, so she did something she never thought she would do: she posed for Playboy.. The rationale seems absurd, yet strangely familiar, which...