Provides an entertaining history of one of Florida's oldest roadside attractions, Weeki Wachee Spring and its performing mermaids, that ranges from its development in 1947 to the present day, bringing together extensive archival research and interviews with dozens of mermaids and other park employees with 250 black-and-white and color photographs.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

A panoramic global history of the nineteenth century A monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudition. He examines the powerful and complex forces that drove global change during the "long nineteenth century," taking readers from New York to New Delhi, from the Latin American revolutions to the Taiping Rebellion, from the perils and promise of Europe's transatlantic labor markets to the hardships endured by nomadic, tribal peoples across the planet. Osterhammel describes a world increasingly networked by the telegraph, the steamship, and the railways. He explores the changing relationship between human beings and nature, looks at the importance of cities, explains the role slavery and its abolition played in the emergence of new nations, challenges the widely held belief that the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of the nation-state, and much more. This is the highly anticipated English edition of the spectacularly successful and critically acclaimed German book, which is also being translated into Chinese, Polish, Russian, and French. Indispensable for any historian, The Transformation of the World sheds important new light on this momentous epoch, showing how the nineteenth century paved the way for the global catastrophes of the twentieth century, yet how it also gave rise to pacifism, liberalism, the trade union, and a host of other crucial developments.

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

Why economists' attempts to help poorer countries improve their economic well-being have failed. Since the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. Attempted remedies have included providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms. None of these solutions has delivered as promised. The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work. In this book Easterly shows how these solutions all violate the basic principle of economics, that people—private individuals and businesses, government officials, even aid donors—respond to incentives. Easterly first discusses the importance of growth. He then analyzes the development solutions that have failed. Finally, he suggests alternative approaches to the problem. Written in an accessible, at times irreverent, style, Easterly's book combines modern growth theory with anecdotes from his fieldwork for the World Bank.

This title was first published in 2002: This volume follows on from the tradition of humanistic geography to examine tourism from an experiential perspective - examining the experience of the tourists themsleves. By analyzing theories on tourism from anthropology, psychology and culural tourism, it aims to further the geographical debates on interactions which occur in tourism. The text offers a geographical approach which examines how the resulting experience of tourism can reveal something of our relationship with places in general, and also about ourselves.

Selling Destinations is the resource travel professionals from all sectors of the industry need to greatly enhance their knowledge of the major and secondary destinations around the world, and to increase sales. The sales-geography philosophy is supported by essential information that will help travelers make the most of their experiences. The author provides detailed information on travel to the destination, local modes of transportation, trip highlights, day trips, lodging options and allied destinations. You will find analysis as to why a person typically travels to the destination covered and the types of individuals who chose particular destinations, helping the travel professional make the right recommendations for the customer. Sales strategies focus on extra services that yield extra income for almost all travel professionals. The reader will find case studies and hypothetical situations that help them apply their newly gained knowledge.

Widely praised for its balanced treatment of computer ethics, Ethics for the Information Age offers a modern presentation of the moral controversies surrounding information technology. Topics such as privacy and intellectual property are explored through multiple ethical theories, encouraging readers to think critically about these issues and to make their own ethical decisions.