Walls

Walls PDF

Author: David Frye

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2019-08-27

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1501172719

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“A lively popular history of an oft-overlooked element in the development of human society” (Library Journal)—walls—and a haunting and eye-opening saga that reveals a startling link between what we build and how we live. With esteemed historian David Frye as our raconteur-guide in Walls, which Publishers Weekly praises as “informative, relevant, and thought-provoking,” we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existed—to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources, and each man was bred to a life of struggle. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected; on the other, those the walls kept out. The stars of this narrative are the walls themselves—rising up in places as ancient and exotic as Mesopotamia, Babylon, Greece, China, Rome, Mongolia, Afghanistan, the lower Mississippi, and even Central America. As we journey across time and place, we discover a hidden, thousand-mile-long wall in Asia's steppes; learn of bizarre Spartan rituals; watch Mongol chieftains lead their miles-long hordes; witness the epic siege of Constantinople; chill at the fate of French explorers; marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line; tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin; gape at Hollywood’s gated royalty; and contemplate the wall mania of our own era. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “provocative, well-written, and—with walls rising everywhere on the planet—timely,” Walls gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them? Find out in this masterpiece of historical recovery and preeminent storytelling.

14 Miles

14 Miles PDF

Author: DW Gibson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-07-07

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1501183427

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An esteemed journalist delivers a compelling on-the-ground account of the construction of President Trump’s border wall in San Diego—and the impact on the lives of local residents. In August of 2019, Donald Trump finished building his border wall—at least a portion of it. In San Diego, the Army Corps of engineers completed two years of construction on a 14-mile steel beamed barrier that extends eighteen-feet high and cost a staggering $147 million. As one border patrol agent told reporters visiting the site, “It was funded and approved and it was built under his administration. It is Trump’s wall.” 14 Miles is a definitive account of all the dramatic construction, showing readers what it feels like to stand on both sides of the border looking up at the imposing and controversial barrier. After the Department of Homeland Security announced an open call for wall prototypes in 2017, DW Gibson, an award-winning journalist and Southern California native, began visiting the construction site and watching as the prototype samples were erected. Gibson spent those two years closely observing the work and interviewing local residents to understand how it was impacting them. These include April McKee, a border patrol agent leading a recruiting program that trains teenagers to work as agents; Jeff Schwilk, a retired Marine who organizes pro-wall rallies as head of the group San Diegans for Secure Borders; Roque De La Fuente, an eccentric millionaire developer who uses the construction as a promotional opportunity; and Civile Ephedouard, a Haitian refugee who spent two years migrating through Central America to the United States and anxiously awaits the results of his asylum case. Fascinating, propulsive, and incredibly timely, 14 Miles is an important work that explains not only how the wall has reshaped our landscape and countless lives but also how its shadow looms over our very identity as a nation.

Gathering Moss

Gathering Moss PDF

Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer

Publisher:

Published: 2021-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780141997629

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"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 of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us. Drawing on her experiences as a scientist, a mother, and a Native American, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world"--Publisher's description.

Sky Woman Falling

Sky Woman Falling PDF

Author: Kirk Mitchell

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2004-11-02

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1101143584

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She’s an FBI Special Agent and Modoc Indian. He’s a Bureau of Indian Affairs Investigator and Comanche. Together, Anna Turnipseed and Emmett Parker have proven to be “a memorable literary pair” (Publishers Weekly). Now, they’re called upon to tackle a case thousands of miles from their home-sweet-home on the range... On the New York reservation of the Oneida, the team finds the broken body of Brenda Two Kettles, a community elder, in a cornfield. From what Turnipseed and Parker can see, she wasn’t attacked. Instead, it seems Ms. Two Kettles—much like the woman in the Oneida creation myth—simply fell out of sky. But it’s a land dispute that has claimed Ms. Two Kettles’ life—one that threatens to ground Turnipseed and Parker in facts far stranger than fiction...

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

A Random Walk Down Wall Street PDF

Author: Burton Gordon Malkiel

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780393057829

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An informative guide to successful investing, offering a vast array of advice on how investors can tilt the odds in their favour.