Showing results by narrator "Mike Cooper" in All Categories

Farewell Yellow Brick Road is a celebration of Elton John's record-breaking, globe-spanning farewell tour—from Allentown to Auckland, from Sydney to San Francisco. Featured concerts include Elton’s dazzling performances at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium in November 2022, the finale of which streamed live on Disney+. Fans will be treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse into every aspect of these spectacular shows, including Elton’s legendary touring wardrobe by Gucci, the set design, official photography, and more.

Simon Schama explores the mysterious contradictions of the Dutch nation that invented itself from the ground up, attained an unprecedented level of affluence, and lived in constant dread of being corrupted by happiness. Drawing on a vast array of period documents and sumptuously reproduced art, Schama recreates in precise detail a nation's mental state. He tells of bloody uprisings and beached whales, of the cult of hygiene and the plague of tobacco, of thrifty housewives and profligate tulip-speculators.

Emotions are complex mental states that resist reduction. They are visceral reactions but also beliefs about the world. They are spontaneous outbursts but also culturally learned performances. And just as our emotions in any given moment display this complex structure, so their history is plural rather than singular. The history of emotions is where the history of ideas meets the history of the body, and where the history of subjectivity meets social and cultural history.

The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, while revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the 18th century to the very latest fossil finds.

Victoria risks everything to leave a dangerous marriage and gain a second chance at life. But when her escape goes awry, she finds herself caught in the embrace of a mysterious siren, forced to choose: temporary salvation or immediate death. Five years later, Victoria is alive—and the world’s finest ship captain. But her debt to the siren looms while her conniving ex has demanded a king’s ransom as the final price of her freedom. Victoria refuses to cause her family to suffer any more on her behalf, and is determined to make things right before her time is up. But that time is cut short.

Over the last decade, scientists have discovered the importance and widespread presence in the body of a remarkable family of proteins known as prion proteins. Research links various types of prion proteins to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's—and this has fueled the search for new drugs that could halt the progression of these terrible disorders. Other discoveries have revealed the essential roles prion proteins play in memory and immunity, and the part they may have played in the beginnings of life on our planet.

Condensed Chaos provides a practical introduction to Chaos Magic, one of the fastest growing areas of western occultism. Through it, you can change your circumstances, live according to a developing sense of personal responsibility, effect change around you, and stop living as a helpless cog in some clockwork universe. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magical acts. Magic leads us into exhilaration and ecstasy; into insight and understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in which we participate.

Was Jesus of Nazareth a real historical person or a fictional character in a religious legend? What do the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal about the origins of Christianity? Has there been a conspiracy to suppress information in the Scrolls that contradicts traditional church teaching? John Allegro addresses these and many other intriguing questions in this fascinating account of what may be the most significant archaeological discovery of the twentieth century.

Super Volcanoes revels in the incomparable power of volcanic eruptions past and present, Earth-bound and otherwise, and explores how these eruptions reveal secrets about the worlds to which they belong. Science journalist and volcanologist Robin George Andrews describes the stunning ways in which volcanoes can sculpt the sea, land, and sky, and even influence the machinery that makes or breaks the existence of life.

In 1827 the Royal Navy purchased a Baltimore clipper and renamed her the Black Joke. Assigned to the Preventative Squadron, she patrolled the west coast of Africa and freed 3,692 captives from enslavement. Beloved by seafarers and celebrated by the public, the Black Joke would become the most famous weapon in the campaign for abolition. But in her previous life as the Henriqueta, the Black Joke had been a slave ship. Through the experiences of slavers and abolitionists, captives and crew, Stephen Taylor charts the vessel's extraordinary double life.

This Very Short Introduction takes listeners into the inferno of a racing pyroclastic current, and the heart of a moving lava flow, as understood through the latest scientific research. Exploring how volcanologists forensically decipher how volcanoes work, Michael Branney and Jan Zalasiewicz explain what we do (and don't) understand about the fundamental mechanisms of volcanism, and consider how volcanoes interact with other physical processes on the Earth, with life, and with human society.

The Spartans of ancient Greece are typically portrayed as macho heroes: noble, laconic, totally fearless, and impervious to pain. And indeed, they often lived up to this image. But life was not as simple as this image suggests. In truth, ancient Sparta was a city of contrasts.

The original edition of this revered and authorized Queen biography explored every aspect of the legendary group’s career from inception to 1992. Newly revised and updated with cooperation and insight from Brian May and Roger Taylor—and drawing on exclusive interviews with the bandmembers—this book completes the story of the Mercury era and the immediate years after his death.

Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler have tested the forty-four most important communication theories and distilled them in book form....

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Drawing on the experience and insights of CEOs across several industries, as well as lessons from neuroscience, computer science, psychology, and philosophy, BCG's Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller provide a fascinating look into the mechanics of imagination and lay out a six-step process for creating ideas and bringing them to life. The Imagination Machine is the guide you need to demystify and operationalize this powerful human capacity, to inject new life into your company, and to head into unknown territory with the right tools by your side.

Here is Peter Caddick-Adams's third volume in his trilogy about the final year of the Western front in World War Two. Fire & Steel covers the war's final 100 days—beginning in late January 1945 and continuing until May 8, 1945, when the German high command surrendered unconditionally to all Allied forces. Caddick-Adams's previous two volumes in the acclaimed series—Sand & Steel, which covers the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, and Snow & Steel, the definitive study of the Battle of the Bulge—have set the stage for this concluding volume.

In this fully updated fourth edition, Pinder and Usherwood cover the migrant crisis and the UK's decision to leave the Union, set in the context of a body that is now involved in most areas of public policy. Discussing how the EU continues to draw in new members, they conclude by considering the future of the Union and the choices and challenges that may lie ahead.

In Churchill's D-Day, Allen Packwood and Richard Dannatt narrate and analyze Sir Winston Churchill's emotional turmoil and epic decision-making before, during, and after the world-defining action of D-Day. Culled from the official Churchill Papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, the book features historical documents, letters, and more, for a Churchillian experience of D-Day leadership, military strategy, and humanity.

This book explores why there is a major war again in Europe. Putin's actions need to be understood if not forgiven. With the Ukraine conflict seen as a proxy war of NATO versus Russia, how likely is the fighting to spread?