Social Geography

Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for over 15 years, in pursuit of the objects that the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hair pins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. These objects tell her about London and its lost ways of life. Moving from the river's tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it meets the sea in the east, Mudlarking is a search for urban solitude and history on the River Thames, what Lara calls 'the longest archaeological site in the world'.

Too Small Tola lives in an apartment with her clever sister, Moji; her big brother, Dapo; and Grandmommy, who is very bossy. In the first of three endearing new adventures, Tola is sized just right to wriggle under the bed and rescue Grandmommy’s prized possession when it goes missing. Her savvy and math skills save the day when Grandmommy gets sick, and when the family can’t afford new clothes, industrious Tola finds a way—with a little help from Grandmommy—to be just as fine as the three fine girls she so greatly admires.

Journey without End chronicles the years-long journey of "extracontinentales"—African and South Asian migrants moving through Latin America, toward the United States. Based on five years of collaborative research between a journalist and an anthropologist, this book makes a narrative-driven critique of how state-level immigration policy fails extracontinental migrants.

The story of the birth of India's states is the story of the birth and continuing rebirth of India, the nation. It is a story that everyone in India must know, from young to old. This rigorously researched book lays out the fascinating political and historical circumstances of the birth of India's states and union territories.

On the day of his birth, Prince Alexos is revealed to be the long-awaited champion of Athene. He grows up lonely, conscious of all that is expected of him. But Alexos discovers that being a champion isn't about fame and glory - it's about sacrifice and courage.

Welcome to Cuba! Hear the strong dance beat of salsa music. Walk city streets lined with colorful buildings. Learn about the people, places, and traditions of this hot island country.

Learn bravery and independence with Luz. Luz stays strong on his journey by thinking of his family. His tale is truly a powerful representation of immigration and determination. His real-life adventure across the border will ignite hope in the hearts of every child who listens to this short Spanish story.

Pilgrimage is a sacred tradition that has existed around the world for centuries. Every year, more than 100 million devotees from different cultures and faiths embark on journeys to such holy sites as Santiago de Compostela, Mecca, and Banaras. For some, making a pilgrimage is a spiritual act, while for others it is a secular experience of personal restoration. And yet there has never existed a tradition of pilgrimage within the US. Cultural geographer James E. Mills makes a compelling case for the creation of a network of American pilgrimage routes to heal societal divisions....

When guerrilla soldiers strike Santiago's village, they destroy everything in their path -- including his home and family. Santiago and his four-year-old sister escape, running for their lives. But the only way they can be truly safe is to leave Guatemala behind forever. So Santiago and Angelina set sail in a sea kayak their Uncle Ramos built while dreaming of his own escape.

All too often we think of the past as static, 'frozen in time', and indeed movement is not always easy to decipher from the archaeological record. With Jim Leary's expert eye we explore the tangible remains, from fossilized footprint tracks to prehistoric wooden trackways, ridgeways, holloways, droveways, green ways, corpse roads, and Roman roads. Isotope studies and archaeogenetics now allow us see the arduous journeys that people made across continents and oceans, proving that migration has been continuous throughout our past, an endless ebb and flow of populations.

To understand how humans react and adapt to economic change we need to study people who live in harsh environments. This audiobook tells the personal stories of humans living in extreme situations, and of the financial infrastructure they create. Here, economies are not concerned with the familiar stock market crashes, housing crises, or banking scandals of the financial pages.

Adults don’t talk about the business of doing our business. We work on one assumption: The world of public bathrooms is problem - and politics-free. No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs reveals the opposite is true. No Place to Go is a toilet tour from London to San Francisco to Toronto and beyond. From pay potties to deserted alleyways, No Place to Go is a marriage of urbanism, social narrative, and pop culture that shows the ways - momentous and mockable - public bathrooms just don’t work.

Over the past decade, new oil plays have unsettled U.S. energy landscapes and imaginaries. Settling the Boom studies how the disruptive forces of an oil boom in the northern Great Plains are contained through the extension of settler temporalities, reassertions of heteropatriarchy, and the tethering of life to the volatility of oil and its cruel optimisms.

One day, villagers from Lacaune, in the mountains of southern France, returned from the woods with a startling story. They’d glimpsed a naked boy digging in the leaves. A year later - in 1798 - the strange, scarred boy appeared again, and this time woodsmen captured him and marched him down the mountain to the village square, where everyone crowded around to take in the spectacle. And so began the curious public life of the boy known as the Savage of Aveyron, whose journey took him all the way to Paris.

Welcome to Russia! Look at the fairy-tale castles of Moscow. Search forests for endangered Siberian tigers. Learn about the people, places, and traditions of the world's largest country.

Tara is one of the lowest class, untouchable, and works as a maid in Kolkata, India. Her boss, a Brahmin, is the highest class, and Tara must accept her position in life inside India's caste system. After hearing encouraging words from her grandfather in his pottery shop, she learns to accept her reality. Will Tara accept the forgiveness from her boss for the prejudice during a deathly illness?

Wonder, mysticism, heartache, and joy are the stones that set the path to one girl's journey as her destiny unfolds. In the village of Huanan in medieval China, the deity that rules is the Great Huli Jing. Though 12-year-old Li Jing's name is a different character entirely from the Huli Jing, the sound is close enough to provide constant teasing - but maybe is also a source of greater destiny and power. Jing's life isn't easy....

Emilia Bassano is a girl who relishes the music of words. Although she plays the lute and writes poetry, Emilia nurtures a dream: to hear her words come alive on stage. Emilia wants to write soliloquies for heroes and kings and queens of old, fashion fierce villains to make audiences howl, and try her hand at comedy and romance. Most of all, she wants to create unforgettable women characters.

Most works about the environment build on dire threats warning of the possible extinction of humanity. Alan Weisman avoids frightening off readers by disarmingly wiping out our species in the first few minutes. He then continues with an astounding depiction of how Earth will fare once we're no longer around. The World Without Us is a one-of-a-kind work that sweeps through time from the moment of humanity's future extinction to millions of years into the future.

Even a trip to Scotland hasn’t done the trick. Lucas is driving Kari crazy with her nonstop talk about her so-called boyfriend. If Edinburgh’s famous arts festival can’t distract Lucas, what will? The answer turns out to be Seneca Crane. Seneca is the reason they’re in Scotland in the first place. Kari’s mother is interviewing the 15-year-old piano prodigy for a magazine story. At first, the two best friends are sure the beautiful and talented Seneca will be too famous to relate to.