Global History

With unparalleled access to Taiwan’s political leaders and a deep understanding of the island’s history and culture, Professor Kerry Brown provides an updated reading of Taiwan, its twenty-three million people, and how they navigate being caught in this frightening geopolitical standoff. This is the essential book delving into Taiwan’s unique story, buried beneath the headlines, told in an accessible, expert and urgent way.

An overview of how French Colonies have retained French traits. This article covers France's legacy in Cambodia, Canada, Laos, Morocco, and Vietnam.

Many popular modern board games were invented in the United States. But some of our favorite games came from other countries and have deep historic roots.

In 1917, a band of communist revolutionaries stormed the Winter Palace of Tsar Nicholas II - a dramatic and explosive act marking that Vladimir Lenin’s communist revolution was now underway. But Lenin would not be satisfied with overthrowing the Tsar. His goal was a global revolt that would topple all Western capitalist regimes - starting with the British Empire. Russian Roulette tells the spectacular and harrowing story of the British spies in revolutionary Russia and their mission to stop Lenin’s red tide from washing across the free world.

The Spanish Flu was the worst disaster to have occurred in modern history. It began to erupt in 1918 and spread to become an epidemic affecting communities. As it was also a time of war, the epidemic became a pandemic because of the travelling soldiers who unknowingly became the carriers of the deadly virus.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.

Triffin’s Dilemma: Why Economic Power Always Ends in Collapse is a gripping deep dive into the structural flaw at the core of every global currency system. From ancient empires to the modern dollar-based order, this meticulously researched narrative exposes a repeating pattern: monetary dominance leads to overreach, overreach leads to fragility, and collapse follows. It’s not ideology—it’s math. Named after economist Robert Triffin, the dilemma explains why any nation issuing the world’s reserve currency must eventually undermine its own economic foundation. The book tracks this ...

"Echoes of Freedom: A Global History of Democracy" is a riveting journey through time, tracing the footsteps of humanity's enduring quest for self-governance. From the sun-drenched agoras of ancient Athens to the digital town squares of today, this book unveils the rich tapestry of democratic ideals that have shaped our world. Dr. Amelia Thornton, a renowned political historian, brings to life the triumphs, struggles, and transformations that have defined democracy's evolution across cultures and continents. Prepare to be transported across millennia as you explore the birth of the polis in...

From the acclaimed author of The Pencil and To Engineer Is Human, The Essential Engineer is an eye-opening exploration of the ways in which science and engineering must work together to address our world's most pressing issues, from dealing with climate change and the prevention of natural disasters to the development of efficient automobiles and the search for renewable energy sources.

In 2015, FIFA - the multibillion dollar governing body of the world's most-loved sport - was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion. Beginning with early morning raids in Zurich and the indictment of 27 executives by the US Department of Justice, the rottenness at the core of FIFA seemed to extend throughout all of soccer, from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to lesser known cases of embezzlement from Trinidad to South Africa.

Beer is and has always been more than an intoxicating beverage. Its invention 13,000 years ago was one of the fundamental motivations for the domestication of grains around the world. In early states, the control over the technological knowledge and resources to produce beer contributed to social hierarchies. Beer even likely provided the capital to motivate laborers to construct the ancient pyramids and other large-scale public works. Beer is a social lubricant that brings people together.

A fascinating look at archeological finds in Scotland, South Africa, and Malta that offer clues about ancient civilizations.

The Wake Up Call examines the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack when Hamas and Gaza terrorists breached Israel's borders, brutally murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others. This attack marked the worst security breach in Israel’s history. “10.7” ignited a global surge of antisemitism, spreading across university campuses and city streets worldwide.

On May 6, 2010, financial markets around the world tumbled simultaneously and without warning. In the span of five minutes, a trillion dollars of valuation was lost. The Flash Crash, as it became known, represented the fastest drop in market history. When share values rebounded less than half an hour later, experts around the globe were left perplexed. What had they just witnessed? Navinder Singh Sarao hardly seemed like a man who would shake the world's financial markets to their core.

This thoughtful examination of a century of travel writing about the American West overturns a variety of popular and academic stereotypes. Looking at both European and American travelers' accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counternarrative to the nation's romantic entanglement with its Western past and suggests the importance of some long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive witnesses to our history who deserve new attention.

Dive into the world of creative learning with "Unlocking Imagination's Pathway", a comprehensive guide to the revolutionary Destination Imagination Program. This book is a treasure trove of information, inspiration, and insight for individuals eager to explore new ways of learning. Chapter One will take you on a captivating journey, revealing the unique mission and vision of the program, its brief history, and far-reaching global impact. By delving into the seven core principles – from fun learning and creative critical thinking to teamwork and celebrating achievement, the book provides ...

Conspiracy theories, and particularly the belief that elements of the world are secretly controlled by individuals or groups, have been around for as long as people have lived in groups. Perhaps that’s inevitable—after all, those who are excluded from power are very likely to be inclined to see their position not as an outcome of their own choices or situation but because of the secret machinations of shadowy groups. One of the most widely discussed conspiracy theories concerns what has become known as the New World Order.

In 1920, at the age of eight, Moisye Kaptzan spent months hiding in squalid pigsties and opium dens after Bolsheviks murdered his father and hunted his surviving family members. Three years later, when the Great Yokohama earthquake flattened that city, Moisye was buried under rubble. Trapped in Shanghai as a young man during WWII, he outwitted Japanese occupiers while assisting Jewish refugees running from Hitler. Undaunted by disasters, Moisye Kaptzan relied on his keen understanding of human nature and fluency in multiple languages to thrive throughout these tumultuous times.

This audiobook asks us to reconsider "whose global village" we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to reimagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures.

What if everything we thought we knew about history was wrong? From the global best-selling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, this is a whole new way of looking at the world. Most history is hierarchical: it's about popes, presidents, and prime ministers. But what if that's simply because they create the historical archives? What if we are missing equally powerful but less visible networks-leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati?