Modern World History

Praised for his erudite writing, renowned scientist Frank Gonzalez-Crussi penned this concise history of medicine, beginning with the most primitive health-care practices and ending with the technology of modern medicine that we enjoy today. As with all Modern Library Chronicles, A Short History of Medicine is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in the subject.

Precariously positioned between China and India, Burma's population has suffered dictatorship, natural disaster, and the dark legacies of colonial rule. But when decades of military dictatorship finally ended and internationally beloved Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from long years of house arrest, hopes soared. As historian, former diplomat, and presidential advisor, Thant Myint-U saw the cracks forming. In this insider's diagnosis of a country at a breaking point, he dissects all of the elements that came together to challenge the incipient democracy.

History of the World: Ancient History in Mesopotamia to Modern History - The Events, People, and Leaders that Shaped Our Planet offers a tantalizing glimpse of our vast and varied history that is sure to inspire further study. Along the way, you will glimpse the intertwining of culture that led to our modern technology, science, arts, religions, and literature; discovering how our ancestor’s belief systems, thoughts, and culture inform who we are today.

When a groundbreaking experiment in 2029 goes disastrously wrong, the entire United States is transported to 1938, replacing the America of that era. Suddenly, modern technology, culture, and people are thrust into a world on the brink of World War II. For President Luke Stuart, who was optimistic about the start of his era as the youngest President ever, this is no longer the future he was elected to lead—it’s a past fraught with peril, prejudice, and the looming shadow of global war. Faced with hardened leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and Churchill, Stuart must navigate alliances, ...

From a master of popular history, the lively, immersive story of the race to seize Berlin in the aftermath of World War II as it’s never been told before.

Best-selling author Brian Fagan brings early humans out of the deep freeze with his trademark mix of erudition, cutting-edge science, and vivid storytelling. Cro-Magnon reveals human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges - including a rival species of humans, the Neanderthals. For ten millennia, Cro-Magnons lived side by side with Neanderthals, an encounter that Fagan fills with drama.

Have you ever wondered why we wear the type of clothes we do? Packed with outlandish outfits, this exciting history of fashion trends reveals the flamboyant fashions adopted (and discarded) by our ancestors. In the days before cosmetic surgery, people used bum rolls and bombastic breeches to augment their figures, painted their faces with poisonous concoctions, and doused themselves with scent to cover body odor.

Der Experte für Esskultur nimmt uns mit auf eine Reise in die spannende Geschichte des Koffeins. Erstmalig wurde der Wunderstoff im Osten Afrikas entdeckt, aber es dauerte nur ein kurzes Jahrhundert, bis der Großteil der Welt abhängig war. Durch den Einfluss des Koffeins wurden schon Kriege entschieden, politische Strömungen umgelenkt und ganze Wirtschaftssysteme dominiert. Der Autor erklärt anschaulich, dass sogar die industrielle Revolution ohne das Koffein unmöglich gewesen wäre.

Many people will remember Eric Liddell as the Olympic gold medalist from the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire. Famously, Liddell would not run on Sunday because of his strict observance of the Christian Sabbath, and so he did not compete in his signature event, the 100 meters, at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He was the greatest sprinter in the world at the time, and his choice not to run was ridiculed by the British Olympic committee, his fellow athletes, and most of the world press.

Written in the tradition of historians like Stacy Schiff and Amanda Foreman who find modern lessons in ancient history, this provocative narrative explores the lives of five remarkable pharaohs who ruled Egypt with absolute power, shining a new light on the country's 3,000-year empire and its meaning today.

Dazzling in its originality, Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War", as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point...for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places."

According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets and innovations but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. An utterly fascinating sequel to her critically acclaimed book The Bourgeois Virtues, Bourgeois Dignity is a feast of intellectual riches from one of our most spirited and ambitious historians - a work that will forever change our understanding of how the power of persuasion shapes our economic lives.

Based upon the premise that mankind experienced virtually zero economic growth from the dawn of time until 1820, this provocative, big-picture book identifies the four conditions necessary for sustained economic progress - property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and communications and transportation technology - and then analyzes their gradual appearance and impact throughout every corner of the globe.

The Pleistocene spans a period from around 2.5 million years ago (mya) to just over 12,000 years ago, and it was an epoch of enormous change on Earth, mainly characterized by climate changes involving fluctuations between periods of extreme heat and long periods of glaciation. This period is commonly known as the Ice Age, despite the fact there were actually a number of separate periods of cold. The Pleistocene Era: The History of the Ice Age and the Dawn of Modern Humans looks at the development of the era, what life on Earth was like, and the origins of archaic humans.

I do not pretend to have given an exhaustive picture of the Polish Underground, its organisation and its activities. Because of our methods, I believe that there is no one today who could give an all-embracing recital...This book is a purely personal story, my story. Jan Karski's Second World War memoir is a heroic act of witness: the courageous testimony of a man who risked everything for his country. First published in 1944, the book became an instant bestseller in the US while the war still raged in Europe.

Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America.

In this dazzling global history that charts five centuries of innovation and change, Alec Ryrie makes the case that Protestants made the modern world. Protestants introduces us to the men and women who defined and redefined this quarrelsome faith. Some turned to their newly accessible bibles to justify bold acts of political opposition, others to support a new understanding of who they were and what they could and should do. Above all, they were willing to fight for their beliefs.

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first colonised country to declare its independence after the Second World War.

Highlighting the key events, ideas, and individuals that have shaped modern Europe, this fresh and lively book provides a concise history of the continent from the Enlightenment to the present. Drawing on the enduring theme of revolution, David S. Mason explores the political, economic, and scientific causes and consequences of revolution; the development of human rights and democracy; and issues of European identity and integration.

When we think about the origins of modern science we usually begin in Europe. We remember the great minds of Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein. But the history of science is not, and has never been, a uniquely European endeavor. Copernicus relied on mathematical techniques that came from Arabic and Persian texts. Newton’s laws of motion used astronomical observations made in Asia and Africa. When Darwin was writing On the Origin of Species, he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia.