Industrial History

The Victorians invented mass entertainment. As the 19th century's growing industrialized class acquired the funds and the free time to pursue leisure activities, their every whim was satisfied by entrepreneurs building new venues for popular amusement. Contrary to their reputation as dour, buttoned-up prudes, the Victorians reveled in these newly created "palaces of pleasure".

For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political - and cosmetic - tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.

The Second History of Man focuses mostly on bacteria and bacterial infections as the foundation, jumping off into Darwin and evolution, gin and tonics and the discovery of the first antibiotic to treat infection (and it wasn’t penicillin), and visiting with those clever chaps who cook up drugs in the lab. We’ll call upon poets and poetry, celebrities like Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, and Bobby Darin, the classical music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the tragic story of World War II, Anne Frank and the Holocaust....

Rosemary Mahoney tells the story of Braille Without Borders, the first school for the blind in Tibet, and of Sabriye Tenberken, the remarkable blind woman who founded the school. Fascinated and impressed by what she learned from the blind children of Tibet, Mahoney was moved to investigate further the cultural history of blindness. As part of her research, she spent three months teaching at Tenberken's international training center for blind adults in Kerala, India, an experience that reveals both the shocking oppression endured by the world's blind, as well as their great resilience.

this exciting story illuminates the captivating world of the late Renaissance - in this case its plagues, remedies, and alchemy - through the life of Leonardo Fioravanti, a brilliant, remarkably forward-thinking, and utterly unconventional doctor. Fioravanti's marvelous cures and talent for self-aggrandizement earned him the adoration of the people, the scorn of the medical establishment, and a reputation as one of the age's most colorful, combative figures.

From the beginning of the eighteenth century to the high water mark of the Victorian era, the world was transformed by a technological revolution the like of which had never been seen before. Inventors, businessmen, scientists, explorers all had their part to play in the story of the Industrial Revolution and in this Brief History Thomas Crump brings their story to life, and shows why it is a chapter in English history that can not be ignored.

For readers and listeners of Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Henry Marsh, a riveting, gorgeously written biography of one of history's most fascinating and confounding diseases - Alzheimer's - from its discovery more than 100 years ago to today's race toward a cure.

All seems tranquil as newly qualified health visitor Sarah motors into a small Kentish hilltop village in her new green mini. She's barely out of the car when she's called to assist the midwife with a bride who's gone into labour in the middle of her own wedding reception. And so her adventures begin.... As a health visitor, Nurse Sarah is as green as grass, but she puts her best foot into wellies and braves the mad dogs, killer ganders and muddy tracks of the farming community.

Laine Griffey brings over 20 years of expertise in quality management, with a strong background in both operations and quality. With a career spanning diverse industries from plastics to automotive, Laine has consulted with numerous companies in developing and enhancing their quality management systems. Having worked at every level from the production line to management, and performing tasks ranging from internal audits to supplier quality assessments, Laine is a recognized authority in the field.

We have long understood the Industrial Revolution as a triumphant story of innovation and technology. Empire of Guns, a rich and ambitious new book by award-winning historian Priya Satia, upends this conventional wisdom by placing war and Britain's prosperous gun trade at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the state's imperial expansion.

With its signature "DARE to keep kids off drugs" slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug education program of the 1980s and 1990s. But behind the cultural phenomenon is the story of how DARE and other antidrug education programs brought the War on Drugs into schools and ensured that the velvet glove of antidrug education would be backed by the iron fist of rigorous policing and harsh sentencing.

Dr. Mackowiak, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, offers a gripping and authoritative account of 13 patients who took center stage in world history. The result is a new understanding of how the past unfolded, as well as a sweeping survey of the history of medicine. What was the ailment that drove Caligula mad? Why did Stonewall Jackson die after having an arm amputated, when so many other Civil War soldiers survived such operations?

In Unsustainable, Dr. Christopher Voss—a physician with expertise in anesthesiology, critical care, pain medicine, and lifestyle medicine—offers a compelling, well-researched examination of how capitalism has shaped modern healthcare, often rewarding continuous treatment over definitive cures.

Habitual drug use in the United States is at least as old as the nation itself. Habit Forming traces the history of unregulated drug use and dependency before 1914, when the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act limited sales of opiates and cocaine under US law. Many Americans used opiates and other drugs medically and became addicted. Some tried Hasheesh Candy, injected morphine, or visited opium dens, but neither use nor addiction was linked to crime, due to the dearth of restrictive laws. After the Civil War, American presses published extensively about domestic addiction.

A quarter of a million people braved miserable conditions at Epsom Downs on June 2, 1954, to see the 175th running of the prestigious Derby Stakes. Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Winston Churchill were in attendance, along with thousands of Britons who were all convinced of the unfailing superiority of English bloodstock and eager to see a British colt take the victory. They were shocked when a Kentucky-born chestnut named Never Say Die galloped to a two-length triumph at odds of 33-1.

Big Tobacco Versus the World Cigarettes: the only consumer product that kills half its loyal customers when used exactly as intended. Yet somehow, for over a century, they’ve been marketed with charm, sophistication, cowboy hats, and cartoon camels. What gives? Big Tobacco Versus the World is a wry, sharp-eyed look at how a global industry managed to hook billions, bury the evidence, and keep the profits rolling while the bodies piled up. It’s a tale of manipulation, addiction, denial, and the people fighting back with facts, lawsuits, and a lot more stamina than a chain-smoker’s ...

Two cities, one dream, and a river that held them captive. Before the bridge, the daily crossing between America's first and third largest cities was an ordeal of filth, danger, and frustration. When the great freeze of 1867 severed the artery completely, the cry for a permanent crossing became a roar. The call was answered by John A. Roebling, a brilliant, iron-willed engineer with a revolutionary vision. But just as his dream was approved, a freak accident and his own stubborn pride led to his shocking death. The colossal project was left in the hands of his son, Washington Roebling. ...

When Jesus sent 70 disciples on ahead of him, part of their mission was to heal the sick. In fact, they were supposed to heal the sick before they preached the Gospel. Best-selling author Mike Aquilina calls this command the healing imperative. And it's an imperative that ushered in the world of modern medicine. In The Healing Imperative: The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine as We Know It, Aquilina reconstructs the fascinating history of a uniquely Christian institution: the hospital.

A vibrant young Hispano woman, Shonnie Medina, inherits a breast-cancer mutation known as BRCA1.185delAG. It is a genetic variant characteristic of Jews. The Medinas knew they were descended from Native Americans and Spanish Catholics, but they did not know that they had Jewish ancestry as well. The mutation most likely sprang from Sephardic Jews hounded by the Spanish Inquisition. The discovery of the gene leads to a fascinating investigation of cultural history and modern genetics by Dr. Harry Ostrer and other experts on the DNA of Jewish populations.

A powerful critique of the failures in our healthcare system and an inquiry into the sinister strains of wellness culture that prey on people’s vulnerabilities through schemes, scams, and diets. Jacqueline Alnes was a Division One runner during her freshman year of college, but her season was cut short by a series of inexplicable neurological symptoms.