"A visual stunner....The format is wonderfully inventive--once the traveler arrives in the city, the book is flipped over and read back to the beginning, with the black-and-white pictures taking on new meanings....Sure to delight and fascinate."--Publishers Weekly.

Historians of migration will welcome Mark Wyman's new book on the elusive subject of persons who returned to Europe after coming to the United States. Other scholars have dealt with particular national groups... but Wyman is the first to treat... every major group.... Wyman explains returning to Europe as not just the fulfillment of original intentions but also the result of 'anger at bosses and clocks, nostalgia for waiting families,' nativist resentment and heavy-handed Americanization programs, and a complex of other problems.... Wyman's 'nine broad conclusions' about the returnees deserve to be read by everyone concerned with international migration.

Along the way he meets an unforgettable cabal of characters who populate the funeral underground - among them the Undertaker and the Crusader, the Anatomist and the Astrologer, the Organist and the Grave-digger - and learns why the living always get the last word, and why when sprinkling ashes it's best to use a wide-mouthed urn."--Jacket.

Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition explores the theme of visits to the underworld in the ancient Greek and Byzantine traditions from a broad perspective including written sources, iconography and archaeology.

For one-way transfers between Earth and Venus, charts are obtained that show velocity, time, and angle parameters as functions of the eccentricity and semilatus rectum of the Sun-focused vehicle conic. From these curves, others are obtained that are useful in planning one-way and round-trip missions to Venus. The analysis is characterized by circular coplanar planetary orbits, successive two-body approximations, impulsive velocity changes, and circular parking orbits at 1.1 planet radii. For round trips the mission time considered ranges from 65 to 788 days, while wait time spent in the parking orbit at Venus ranges from 0 to 467 days. Individual velocity increments, one-way travel times, and departure dates are presented for round trips requiring the minimum total velocity increment. For both single-pass and orbiting Venusian probes, the time span available for launch becomes appreciable with only a small increase in velocity-increment capability above the minimum requirement. Velocity-increment increases are much more effective in reducing travel time for single-pass probes than they are for orbiting probes. Round trips composed of a direct route along an ellipse tangent to Earth's orbit and an aphelion route result in the minimum total velocity increment for wait times less than 100 days and mission times ranging from 145 to 612 days. Minimum-total-velocity-increment trips may be taken along perihelion-perihelion routes for wait times ranging from 300 to 467 days. These wait times occur during missions lasting from 640 to 759 days.

If you have ever wondered about space travel, now you have the opportunity to understand it more fully than ever before. Traveling into space and even emigrating to nearby worlds may soon become part of the human experience. Scientists, engineers, and investors are working hard to make space tourism and colonization a reality. As astronauts can attest, extraterrestrial travel is incomparably thrilling. To make the most of the experience requires serious physical and mental adaptations in virtually every aspect of life, from eating to intimacy. Everyone who goes into space sees Earth and life on it from a profoundly different perspective than they had before liftoff. Astronomer and former NASA/ASEE scientist Neil F. Comins has written the go-to book for anyone interested in space exploration. He describes the wonders that travelers will encounter—weightlessness, unparalleled views of Earth and the cosmos, and the opportunity to walk on another world—as well as the dangers: radiation, projectiles, unbreathable atmospheres, and potential equipment failures. He also provides insights into specific trips to destinations including suborbital flights, space stations, the Moon, asteroids, comets, and Mars—the top candidate for colonization. Although many challenges are technical, Comins outlines them in clear language for all readers. He synthesizes key issues and cutting-edge research in astronomy, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology to create a complete manual for the ultimate voyage.

"A most wonderful book...there hasn't been a novel in years that can do a job on readers' emotions that the last fifty pages of The Immigrants does."—Los Angeles Times The first book in bestselling author Howard Fast's beloved family saga, The Immigrants is a transcendent work of historical fiction. In this sweeping journey of love and fortune, master storyteller Howard Fast recounts the family saga of roughneck immigrants determined to make their way in America at the turn of the century. Quick to ascend from the tragic depths of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Dan Lavette becomes the head of a powerful shipping empire and establishes himself among the city's cultural elite. But when he finds himself caught in a loveless marriage to the daughter of San Francisco's richest family, a scandalous love affair threatens to destroy the empire Dan has built for himself. The first novel of a compelling family saga, The Immigrants is fast-paced, emotional historical fiction that captures the wide range of relationships across Immigrant America during the tumultuous defining events of the early twentieth century. NOW A MOTION PICTURE