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All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended, whether it be because of external pressures or internal fracturing; too much hubris or too little wariness.

Hear about the pursuit of riches turning to grief in this mesmerizing story collection! A thrilling exploration of the world's most intriguing and dangerous treasure hunts, Lost Loot: Cursed Treasures and Blood Money collects dozens of fascinating stories of reward, riches, greed, and ruin, including curses, deaths, and centuries-old treasure on Oak Island,

Taking listeners on a thought-provoking journey into our ancestors’ beliefs about death, dying, and the afterlife, Gregory Shushan, Ph.D., reveals the powerful influence of near-death experiences (NDEs) on religious beliefs and ritual practices throughout human history. Focusing on five ancient world regions in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and Mesoamerica, Shushan expertly explores each civilization’s afterlife beliefs.

In 1831, Charles Darwin set out on an expedition to South America, brought along as a gentleman companion for Captain Robert FitzRoy. Initially conceived as a Christian mission, the voyage would change drastically as the Beagle sailed through the Pacific, with Darwin’s observations becoming the building blocks of his revolutionary theory of evolution. This theory put the rational, scientific Darwin at odds with the deeply religious FitzRoy, who would go on to publicly denigrate Darwin and his heretic ideas.

In this groundbreaking book, renowned scholar Philip Jenkins explores a vast and forgotten network of the world’s largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—eventually died.

Covering international wars from 1700 – and now updated to include Ukraine and Gaza - Blainey demolishes many widely-held theories of why nations fight, arguing that peace is not the ‘natural’ state of international relations and war is not an aberration. Both are best understood as means of advancing national interests: when one is failing, the other becomes more likely, and therefore we need to understand what causes ‘the mystery of peace’ as urgently as we understand what causes war.

No need to spend the day at an archaeological dig when you can simply make a cup of tea, clamber into your comfiest chair, and settle in with The Encyclopedia of the Weird and Wonderful, a compilation of 92 funny, strange, and strangely funny tales throughout human history.

For the first 200,000 years, humanity lived in egalitarian groups and successfully thwarted any individual from ruling permanently. Our ancestors avoided a dominance hierarchy. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. The global Goliath has incentivised the creation of ever faster and more interconnected systems, all of which exacerbate the severity of our fall. Whether you are worried about climate change, nuclear weapons, or over-extended, just-in-time supply chains, the answer is the same: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or we might face a final collapse.

The Seventymile Kid tells the remarkable account of Harry Karstens, who was the actual—if unheralded—leader of the Hudson Stuck Expedition that was the first to summit Mount McKinley in Alaska. All but forgotten by history, a young Karstens arrived in the Yukon during the 1897 Gold Rush, gained fame as a dog musher hauling U.S. Mail in Alaska, and eventually became the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park (now known as Denali National Park and Preserve).

In their long-awaited debut, the Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome…

From breakups that ended empires to naps that sank ships, 10 Mistakes That Changed History reveals how overlooked historical errors are responsible for some of the most era-defining events of the past. Featuring many of the most recognisable characters and episodes in history, from Cleopatra to the sinking of the Titanic, comedian and historian Paul Coulter reframes our understanding of these pivotal moments, revealing how human errors and their unintended outcomes have governed our world – and will likely determine our future.

In this enlightening book, anthropologist Manvir Singh offers a new explanation for one of the most misunderstood religious traditions. Travelling from Indonesia to the Amazon, living with shamans and observing music, drug use and indigenous curing ceremonies, he journeys into the origins of shamanism. Fundamentally, shamans are specialists who use altered states to engage with unseen realities and provide services like healing and divination. As Singh shows, shamanism’s ubiquity stems from its psychological resonance.

With The Interpretation of Cultures, the distinguished anthropologist Clifford Geertz developed the concept of thick description, and in so doing, he virtually rewrote the rules of his field. Culture, Geertz argues, does not drive human behavior. Rather, it is a web of symbols that can help us better understand what that behavior means. A thick description explains not only the behavior, but the context in which it occurs, and to describe something thickly, Geertz argues, is the fundamental role of the anthropologist.

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious “pirate” outlaws ever, but his notorious legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Captain Kidd has captivated imaginations for over three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, but was he really a criminal? Just how many ships did he plunder, how many men did he force to walk the plank, and how many throats did he slit? Or is the truth more inconvenient, that he was a buccaneer’s worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?

As an author himself, Guy Stagg has long been fascinated by the role that retreat plays in the lives of writers and artists. Determined to see if seclusion could help his own work, he decided to follow in the footsteps of three seminal figures of the twentieth century: Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Jones and Simone Weil. Beautifully written and researched, THE WORLD WITHIN sees Stagg trace each of their journeys to isolation, hoping to see what they saw.

Das hätte der Hülsenfrucht niemand zugetraut! Bohnen haben Revolutionen ausgelöst, den Aufstieg von Imperien ermöglicht, Freiheitskämpfe symbolisch begleitet, die Globalisierung befeuert und die Genetik begründet. Joël Broekaert schaut mit der Bohne in die Geschichte und entdeckt: Erbse und Linse haben so manches Mal die Menschheit gerettet. Und auch für eine nachhaltigere Zukunft lohnt es sich, auf diese Wunderpflanzen und Kraftpakete zu setzen. In dreizehn frisch zubereiteten Kapiteln steht dieses uralte und unterschätzte Gewächs endlich im Zentrum der Geschehnisse.

Mount Everest is known to everyone—but what of the person after whom it was named? This book traces the life and profession of that person, George Everest. In particular, it covers his life dedicated to surveying in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. George Everest went to India at the tender age of sixteen but within a few years was leading survey parties into the remotest areas of the subcontinent. His particular passion was geodesy—the determination of the size and shape of the earth—and he soon became Superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey.

Combining the scope of Yuval Noah Harari with the political savvy of Francis Fukuyama, The Origin of Politics, Wade’s work draws from anthropology, evolutionary biology, and historical analysis to explore how human nature shapes the direction of society—and how policies which ignore human nature risk chaos and even extinction. Political scientists agree that the roots of politics must lie in human nature, but then assume that human behavior is infinitely flexible. The Origin of Politics shows that limits set by human evolution cannot be ignored without penalty.

Anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-reason beliefs seem to be triumphing over common sense today. How did we get here? Sick brings a huge missing piece to this puzzle—the experience of actually being ill. History tells us about human life and death, but there’s too often a blank spot in those stories. What did it feel like to be a woman or man struggling with illness in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, in the seventeenth century, or in 1920? And how did that shape our thoughts and convictions?

In Up the Youth Club, Emma Warren maps the shifting story of youth clubs in the UK and Northern Ireland, from factory workers in Victorian Boys' and Girls' clubs to renegade self-emancipatory spaces in the 1970s and the music-generating youth clubs of more recent decades. With a mixed lineage in church evangelism, the patronage of the upper classes, grassroots' DIY, and erratic state funding, the youth club has had a huge, yet almost invisible, effect on music, sport, culture and society.