Long before the Romantics embraced nature, people in the West saw the human and nonhuman worlds as both intimately interdependent and violently antagonistic. With its peerless selection of ninety-eight original sources concerned with the natural world and humankind's place within it, The Marvels of the World offers a corrective to the still-prevalent tendency to dismiss premodern attitudes toward nature as simple or univocal. Gathering together medical texts, herbals, and how-to books, as well as scientific, religious, philosophical, and poetic works dating from antiquity to the dawn of the Enlightenment, the anthology explores both mainstream and unconventional thinking about the natural world. Its seven parts focus on philosophy and science; plants; animals; weather and climate; ways of inhabiting the land; gardens and gardening; and European encounters with the wider world. Each section and each of the book's selections is prefaced with a helpful introduction by volume editor Rebecca Bushnell that weaves connections among these compelling pieces of the past. The early writers collected here wrote with extraordinary openness about ways of coexisting with the nonhuman forces that shaped them, Bushnell demonstrates, even as they sought to control and exploit their environment. Taken as a whole, The Marvels of the World reveals how many of these early writers cared as much about the natural world as we do today.

In his Book of Marvels and Travels, Sir John Mandeville describes a journey from Europe to Jerusalem and on into Asia, and the many wonderful and monstrous peoples and practices in the East. A captivating blend of fact and fantasy, Mandeville's Book is newly translated in an edition that brings us closer to Mandeville's worldview.

Features one hundred of the world's greatest modern architectural marvels, including the Sydney Opera House, the Georgia Dome, and Sears Tower.

Embark on an interactive tour of the wonders of the world, from the ancient to the modern, as well as its natural marvels. From the Great Pyramid of Giza to the Taj Mahal and on to the Grand Canyon - every page is bursting with amazing facts and vibrant illustrations. Lift the flaps to discover the history and the secrets that lie behind many of the most amazing sights on Earth.

Winner of the 2022 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book The first-ever full reckoning with Marvel Comics’ interconnected, half-million-page story, a revelatory guide to the “epic of epics”—and to the past sixty years of American culture—from a beloved authority on the subject who read all 27,000+ Marvel superhero comics and lived to tell the tale “Brilliant, eccentric, moving and wholly wonderful. . . . Wolk proves to be the perfect guide for this type of adventure: nimble, learned, funny and sincere. . . . All of the Marvels is magnificently marvelous. Wolk’s work will invite many more alliterative superlatives. It deserves them all.” —Junot Díaz, New York Times Book Review The superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are, as Douglas Wolk notes, the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages to date, and still growing. The Marvel story is a gigantic mountain smack in the middle of contemporary culture. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Everyone recognizes its protagonists: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men. Eighteen of the hundred highest-grossing movies of all time are based on parts of it. Yet not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing—nobody’s supposed to. So, of course, that’s what Wolk did: he read all 27,000+ comics that make up the Marvel Universe thus far, from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown. And then he made sense of it—seeing into the ever-expanding story, in its parts and as a whole, and seeing through it, as a prism through which to view the landscape of American culture. In Wolk’s hands, the mammoth Marvel narrative becomes a fun-house-mirror history of the past sixty years, from the atomic night terrors of the Cold War to the technocracy and political division of the present day—a boisterous, tragicomic, magnificently filigreed epic about power and ethics, set in a world transformed by wonders. As a work of cultural exegesis, this is sneakily significant, even a landmark; it’s also ludicrously fun. Wolk sees fascinating patterns—the rise and fall of particular cultural aspirations, and of the storytelling modes that conveyed them. He observes the Marvel story’s progressive visions and its painful stereotypes, its patches of woeful hackwork and stretches of luminous creativity, and the way it all feeds into a potent cosmology that echoes our deepest hopes and fears. This is a huge treat for Marvel fans, but it’s also a revelation for readers who don’t know Doctor Strange from Doctor Doom. Here, truly, are all of the marvels.

Don't miss Selznick's other novels in words and pictures, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck, which together with The Marvels, form an extraordinary thematic trilogy! A breathtaking new voyage from Caldecott Medalist Brian Selznick.Two stand-alone stories--the first in nearly 400 pages of continuous pictures, the second in prose--create a beguiling narrative puzzle.The journey begins at sea in 1766, with a boy named Billy Marvel. After surviving a shipwreck, he finds work in a London theatre. There, his family flourishes for generations as brilliant actors until 1900, when young Leontes Marvel is banished from the stage.Nearly a century later, runaway Joseph Jervis seeks refuge with an uncle in London. Albert Nightingale's strange, beautiful house, with its mysterious portraits and ghostly presences, captivates Joseph and leads him on a search for clues about the house, his family, and the past.A gripping adventure and an intriguing invitation to decipher how the two stories connect, The Marvels is a loving tribute to the power of story from an artist at the vanguard of creative innovation.

Some wild places are known for their sheer physical beauty, others for their incomprehensible vastness or their vanishing ecosystems. This comprehensive portrayal of such wondrous locales to visit includes marvels from every continent: Africa's Victoria Falls and Namib Desert; Asia's Himalayan Mountains and the rain forest in Borneo; Australia's Great Barrier Reef; Europe's Greek Islands and Norwegian fjords; North America's canyonlands and Everglades; South America's Amazon River and Galapagos Islands; and Antarctica's glaciers. This informative text describing each of these celebrated places covers geography, geology, and natural history, providing a concise survey about each location's evolution and its native plants and animals. This lively tour of the most awesome natural places will serve as an inspirational book for the intrepid traveler and an exciting but comfortable journey for the armchair tourist.

Set off on a journey of discovery in this beautiful photographic celebration of the natural world. From firefly squid glowing against the night sky in Japan to a Mexican cave filled with the largest crystals ever found, you'll discover the stories and science behind these wonders, the threats they now face and the efforts taking place to save them. How did the Grand Canyon come to be? Where is the most electric place on Earth? And what can we do to protect the Great Barrier Reef? Both a stunning tour of the planet we call home, and an overview of some of the biggest environmental problems of today, Natural Wonders of the World is the perfect gift for anyone who loves exploring the great outdoors.

Discover and explore the most incredible statues, monuments, temples, bridges, and ancient cities with this unparalleled survey of the most famous buildings and structures ever created by humans. From Stonehenge to the Sagrada Familia, from the Great Wall of China to the Burj Khalifa, Manmade Wonders of the World plots a continent-by-continent journey around the world, exploring and charting the ingenuity and imagination used by different cultures to create iconic buildings. This truly global approach reveals how humans have tackled similar challenges - such as keeping the enemy out or venerating their gods - in vastly different parts of the world. As writer, historian, and broadcaster Dan Cruickshank writes in his foreword, "reading this book is like taking a journey through the world not only of the present but also of the past, because the roots of many wonders lie in antiquity." By combining breathtaking photography with 3D cutaway artworks, floorplans, and other illustrations, the hidden details and engineering innovations that make each building remarkable are revealed. Featuring the most visited monuments in the world - such as the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, and Machu Picchu - as well as some hidden gems, Manmade Wonders of the World can help you to map out the trip of a lifetime or simply be enjoyed as a celebration of the world that humans have built over thousands of years.