In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes readers across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a twenty-five-foot tidal bore that crashes eighty miles up the Qiantang River; in France, he interviews the monks that live in the tide-wrapped monastery of Mont Saint-Michel; in Chile and Scotland, he investigates the growth of tidal power generation; and in Panama and Venice, he delves into how the threat of sea level rise is changing human culture—the very old and very new. Tides combines lyrical prose, colorful adventure travel, and provocative scientific inquiry into the elemental, mysterious paradox that keeps our planet’s waters in constant motion. Photographs, scientific figures, line drawings, and sixteen color photos dramatically illustrate this engaging, expert tour of the tides.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the British sought to master the physical properties of the oceans; in the second half, they lorded over large portions of the oceans’ outer rim. The dominance of Her Majesty’s navy was due in no small part to collaboration between the British Admiralty, the maritime community, and the scientific elite. Together, they transformed the vast emptiness of the ocean into an ordered and bounded grid. In the process, the modern scientist emerged. Science itself expanded from a limited and local undertaking receiving parsimonious state support to worldwide and relatively well financed research involving a hierarchy of practitioners. Analyzing the economic, political, social, and scientific changes on which the British sailed to power, Tides of History shows how the British Admiralty collaborated closely not only with scholars, such as William Whewell, but also with the maritime community —sailors, local tide table makers, dockyard officials, and harbormasters—in order to systematize knowledge of the world’s oceans, coasts, ports, and estuaries. As Michael S. Reidy points out, Britain’s security and prosperity as a maritime nation depended on its ability to maneuver through the oceans and dominate coasts and channels. The practice of science and the rise of the scientist became inextricably linked to the process of European expansion.

“This enigmatic tale of adolescent friendship . . . is smart, sly, and as knowing about the mind and heart of a teenage girl as an Elena Ferrante novel.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “One of the best novels about girlhood and female friendship I’ve ever read.” —Mary Beth Keane, New York Times–bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes “A tough and exquisite sliver of a short novel whose world I want to remain lost in. . . . [A] spectacular narrator . . . [A] wonder of a novel.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air Teenager Eulabee and her best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their San Francisco neighborhood. They know Sea Cliff’s homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act—or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola’s sudden disappearance—a potential kidnapping that shakes the community and threatens to expose unspoken truths. Set in pre-tech boom San Francisco, a city on the brink of radical transformation, and told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth. “The affectionate specificity of the portrait [Vida] offers is one of the book’s real pleasures.” —The New York Times Book Review “Detailed and vibrant.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Smart, perceptive, elegant, sad, surprising and addictive.” —Nick Hornby, New York Times–bestselling author of About a Boy “There’s something naughty, almost gleeful about this nostalgia-soaked portrayal of pre-tech-boom San Francisco that keeps the pages turning.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Five Million Tides is the story of Cornwall's Helford River from the Stone Age to the dawning of the twenty-first century. From prehistoric pioneers and their megalithic successors, this account goes on to expose a remarkable truth: the Helford became one of Europe's most significant waterways during the Iron Age and Roman periods. Despite being mainland Britain's southernmost safe haven, it has not always been a place of good fortune – once a thriving seat of Celtic Christianity the river would ultimately become more synonymous with lawless seafarers. Nor could it be relied upon for sanctuary from every storm, as the graves of mariners in its village churchyards attest. Although now overshadowed by its more famous sibling estuaries, the Helford is an enigmatic beauty of the family whose rich past deserves wider knowledge.

San Francisco Bay is the largest and most productive estuary on the Pacific Coast of North America. It is also home to the oldest and densest urban settlements in the American West. Focusing on human inhabitation of the Bay since Ohlone times, Down by the Bay reveals the ongoing role of nature in shaping that history. From birds to oyster pirates, from gold miners to farmers, from salt ponds to ports, this is the first history of the San Francisco Bay and Delta as both a human and natural landscape. It offers invaluable context for current discussions over the best management and use of the Bay in the face of sea level rise.

Contains daily predicted times of slack water and predicted times and velocities of maximum current.

Narrated from death row by Alcibiades’ bodyguard and assassin, a man whose own love and loathing for his former commander mirrors the mixed emotions felt by all Athens, Tides of War tells an epic saga of an extraordinary century, a war that changed history, and a complex leader who seduced a nation. Brilliant at war, a master of politics, and a charismatic lover, Alcibiades was Athens’ favorite son and the city’s greatest general. A prodigal follower of Socrates, he embodied both the best and the worst of the Golden Age of Greece. A commander on both land and sea, he led his armies to victory after victory. But like the heroes in a great Greek tragedy, he was a victim of his own pride, arrogance, excess, and ambition. Accused of crimes against the state, he was banished from his beloved Athens, only to take up arms in the service of his former enemies. For nearly three decades, Greece burned with war and Alcibiades helped bring victories to both sides — and ended up trusted by neither. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steven Pressfield's The Profession. Praise for Tides of War “Pressfield’s battlefield scenes rank with the most convincing ever written.”—USA Today “Pressfield serves up not just hair-raising battle scenes . . . but many moments of valor and cowardice, lust and bawdy humor. . . . Even more impressively, he delivers a nuanced portrait of ancient athens.”—Esquire “Unabashedly brilliant, epic, intelligent, and moving.”—Kirkus Reviews “Pressfield’s attention to historic detail is exquisite. . . . This novel will remain with the reader long after the final chapter is finished.”—Library Journal “Astounding, historically accurate tale . . . Pressfield is a master storyteller, especially adept in his graphic and embracing descriptions of the land and naval battles, political intrigues and colorful personalities, which come together in an intense and credible portrait of war-torn Greece.”—Publishers Weekly

A new 100th anniversary edition of the only adult book on one of the odder disasters in US history—and the greed, disregard for poor immigrants, and lack of safety standards that led to it. Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston’s North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window—“Oh my God!” he shouted to the other men, “Run!” A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston’s waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead wasn’t known for days. It would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was responsible for the disaster.