Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in World

Popular biographer Carolly Erickson creates intimate and richly detailed portraits of her historical subjects. In this book she offers a provocative new perspective on Josephine and her fabled marriage to Napoleon.

In these lectures, Professor Donald M.G. Sutherland explores the life and times of Napoleon, one of history's most brilliant strategic thinkers. But despite his inarguable brilliance, Napoleon has also been denounced as unscrupulously ambitious and as alone responsible for the wars that bear his name. With his scholarly eye, Professor Sutherland imparts a fuller understanding of this polarizing figure and deftly shows how Napoleon fit into the sweep of history - and how he helped to define it.

The motorcycle was invented in 1885 when two visionary Germans decided to attach a small internal combustion engine to a bicycle. From that humble origin begins a remarkable story of technological innovation, record-setting, and the formation of a whole new subculture of society. People began racing motorcycles not long after their introduction. In grueling endurance races, an American company named Harley-Davidson rode to the front of the pack with a thunderous roar.

William Goldbloom Bloch is a respected professor of mathematics at Wheaton College. This intriguing lecture series, Mathematics Is Power, delves into both the history of mathematics and its impact on people’s everyday lives from a non-mathematician’s perspective. Bloch first examines the history of mathematics and age-old questions pertaining to logic, truth, and paradoxes. Moving on to a discussion of how mathematics impacts the modern world, Bloch also explores abstract permutations such as game theory, cryptography, and voting theory.

The story of the Incas is a powerful one, and their legacy remains a potent influence in the Andes of South America. In this insightful lecture series, Columbia University professor Terence D'Altroy focuses on Inca life at the height of the empire, the society's origins, its military, religion, ruling structure, and finally, the Inca legacy today.

Professor Jeffrey Burds of Northeastern University delves into the history of espionage in this eye-opening lecture series. The course opens with espionage activity in the ancient world and the Roman Empire and continues with the American Revolution, Age of Napoleon, and American Civil War. Throughout this compelling discussion it becomes evident that spying is not only a never-ending source of fascination but also a major contributor to world history and the development of nations.

"The Great War", as it was known at the time, was also said to be the "war to end all wars." It seized all of Europe and much of the rest of the world in its grip of death and destruction. The first truly modern war, it changed how war and peace would be conducted throughout the remainder of the 20th century and even to the present.

This series of lectures explores specific technologies, most of which we take for granted today, to offer a general picture of the economic and social development of Western nations from 1760 to 1900.

Anthropologist Susan Johnston turns a scholarly eye on one of humankind's primary interests throughout history: the spiritual belief system. Beginning her lectures with an attempt to define religion, Professor Johnston continues this intriguing study with an examination of mythology and symbols, rituals and witchcraft, gender, politics, and religion's place in the many customs surrounding death.

Located in the heart of Israel, Jerusalem is the center for the spiritual world's three largest religions. Throughout its millennia-old history, Jerusalem has been known by many names: Salem, Zion, Hierosolymae, Al-Quds and others, and no city has ever been in more dispute. Through an in-depth study of the various holy sites in Jerusalem, you'll begin to see which are considered sacred and to whom.

Islam and Christianity share both remarkable similarities and remarkable differences. This course is conceived to reveal the interaction of these two religions and civilizations throughout their histories, highlight their similarities and differences, and, finally, show that Muslims and Christians share much common ground, especially in terms of morality, life issues, and family.

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. This audiobook will look at the lives of the nine most mentally unbalanced figures in history.

License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity. Patrick Bixby examines the passports of artists and intellectuals, ancient messengers and modern migrants to reveal how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.

The author, one of the foremost scholars on Africa, fought to legitimize African history for more than 60 years. This book finally uncovers the tumultuous life of this great figure. Through a series of autobiographical essays, Clarke looks back on his lifelong struggle to restore African history to its proper place in the context of world history.

Historian Thomas J. Misa's sweeping history of the relationship between technology and society over the past 500 years reveals how technological innovations have shaped—and have been shaped by—the cultures in which they arose. In this edition, Misa brings his acclaimed text up to date by drawing on current scholarship while retaining sharply drawn portraits of individual people, artifacts, and systems. A masterful analysis of technology and culture, Leonardo to the Internet frames a history that illuminates modern-day problems and prospects of a technology-dependent world.

Never before had any century in history known the continually accelerating rate and scope of change experienced in the 20th century — with its revolutionary discoveries, technological inventions, political upheaval, and scientific advances, radical transformation touched virtually every arena of life.

Un día de septiembre de 1927, Nalo entró a trabajar en el palacio azul de los ingenieros belgas como aprendiz de jardinero. Las primaveras y las revoluciones llegaron al palacio antes que aningún otro lugar e iniciaron al joven en la amistad y el amor, en la comprensión y el análisis. Fulgencio Argüelles, a través de un narrador certero que observa con tenura, nos acerca a los avatares personales ehistóricos de quienes vivieron y trabajaron en el palacio azul.

As often as we use our senses, we rarely stop to think about their place in history. But perception is not dependent on the body alone. Carolyn Purnell persuasively shows that, while our bodies may not change dramatically, the way we think about the senses and put them to use has been rather different over the ages. Journeying through the past 300 years, Purnell explores how people used their senses in ways that might shock us now.

In a sweeping narrative that takes listeners from the production of Stone Age axes, to the invention of chocolate chip cookies, to the experience of Burning Man, Philip Auerswald argues that the key driver of human history is the advance of code. At each major stage in the advance of code over the span of centuries, shifts in the structure of society have challenged human beings to reinvent not only how we work, but who we are. We are at one of those stages now.

Mark R. Polelle of the University of Findlay examines the origins, major events, and consequences of the Second World War. Taking into account the First World War’s effect on politics, economics, culture, and the international system as a whole, the course illustrates the ideologies at play as communism, fascism, and democratic capitalism came into direct conflict.