The essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it. • “Jahren asks the central question of our time: how can we learn to live on a finite planet?" —Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction "The voice that science has been waiting for.” —Nature Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist, a brilliant writer, a passionate teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, she illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. In concise, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions—from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles—that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before. She explains the current and projected consequences of global warming—from superstorms to rising sea levels—and the actions that we all can take to fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of global change and a lively, personal narrative given to us in Jahren’s inimitable voice, The Story of More is “a superb account of the deadly struggle between humanity and what may prove the only life-bearing planet within ten light years" (E. O. Wilson).

Published in celebration of the university sesquicentennial, this text chronicles Northwestern's history, from the effort to found an institution of the highest order through the rise of the modern university.

NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! In the tradition of Sebastian Junger and Linda Greenlaw comes Captain Sig Hansen's rags-to-riches epic of his immigrant family's struggle against deadly Alaskan seas, freezing shipwrecks, and dangerously brutal conditions to achieve the American Dream Sig Hansen has been a star of the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch from the pilot to the present. Seen in over 150 countries, the show attracts more than 49 million viewers per season, making it one of the most successful series in the history of cable TV. With its daredevil camera work, unpredictably dangerous weather, and a setting as unforgivable and unforgettable as the frigid Bering Sea, The Deadliest Catch is unlike anything else on television. But the weatherworn fishermen of the fishing vessel Northwestern have stories that don't come through on TV. For Sig Hansen and his brothers, commercial fishing is as much a part of their Norwegian heritage as their names. Descendants of the Vikings who roamed and ruled the northern seas for centuries, the Hansens' connection to the sea stretches from Alaska to Seattle and all the way to Norway. And after twenty years as a skipper on the commercial fishing vessel the Northwestern--which was his father's before him--Sig has lived to tell the tales. To be a successful fisherman, you need to be a mechanic, navigator, welder, painter, carpenter, and sometimes, a firefighter. To be a successful fisherman year after year, you need to be a survivor. This is the story of a family of survivors; part memoir and part adventure tale, North by Northwestern brings readers on deck, into the dockside bars and into the history of a family with a common destiny. Built around a gripping tale of a deadly shipwreck like The Perfect Storm, North By Northwestern is the multi-generational tale of the Hansen family, a clan of tough Norwegian-American fishermen who, through the popularity of The Deadliest Catch, have become modern folk-heroes.

Their program was once regarded as a powerhouse, but 25 years ago the Northwestern University football team set records for futility. Defying nearly all expectations, the Wildcats experienced a rebirth in 1995 and have been surprising the college football world since. Northwestern Wildcat Football describes in detail the team's first games in the 19th century, the Wildcats' title runs in the 1930s, the career of NU legend Otto Graham, the 1949 Rose Bowl championship, the era of Ara Parseghian, the woes of the '70s and '80s, and Northwestern's return to football prominence in the past decade. From their beginning as one of the earliest college teams in the Midwest to the recent series of Big Ten championships, the Northwestern Wildcats have clawed their way to claim 8 conference titles, 36 All-Americans, and victory in some of the most thrilling college football games ever played.

Widely regarded as the greatest Romanian novel of the twentieth century, Mateiu Caragiale’s Rakes of the Old Court (Craii de Curtea-Veche) follows four characters through the bars and brothels of Bucharest. Guided by an amoral opportunist, the shadowy narrator and his two affluent friends drink and gamble their way through a city built on the ruins of crumbled castles and bygone empires. The novel’s shimmering, spectacular prose describes gripping vignettes of love, ambition, and decay. Originally published in 1929, Rakes of the Old Court is considered a jewel of Romanian modernism. Devoted “Mateists” have long read, memorized, and reenacted the novel, and after the Romanian Revolution, it became part of the high school curriculum. Now canonical, Mateiu’s work has been celebrated for its opulent literary style and enigmatic tone.

In June 1792, amidst the chaos of the French Revolution, two intrepid astronomers set out in opposite directions on an extraordinary journey. Starting in Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre would make his way north to Dunkirk, while Pierre-François-André Méchain voyaged south to Barcelona. Their mission was to measure the world, and their findings would help define the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator—a standard that would be used “for all people, for all time.” The Measure of All Things is the astonishing tale of one of history’s greatest scientific adventures. Yet behind the public triumph of the metric system lies a secret error, one that is perpetuated in every subsequent definition of the meter. As acclaimed historian and novelist Ken Alder discovered through his research, there were only two people on the planet who knew the full extent of this error: Delambre and Méchain themselves. By turns a science history, detective tale, and human drama, The Measure of All Things describes a quest that succeeded as it failed—and continues to enlighten and inspire to this day.

Engineering the Revolution documents the forging of a new relationship between technology and politics in Revolutionary France, and the inauguration of a distinctively modern form of the “technological life.” Here, Ken Alder rewrites the history of the eighteenth century as the total history of one particular artifact—the gun—by offering a novel and historical account of how material artifacts emerge as the outcome of political struggle. By expanding the “political” to include conflict over material objects, this volume rethinks the nature of engineering rationality, the origins of mass production, the rise of meritocracy, and our interpretation of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

"Old Calabria" is a travelogue written by Norman Douglas. The book is an account of the author's journey through the rugged and remote region of Calabria, located in the southern part of Italy. In the book, Douglas vividly describes the landscape, culture, and people of Calabria, which at the time was largely unknown and undiscovered by tourists. He chronicles his travels through small villages and towns, sharing his observations and encounters with the locals, their customs, and their way of life. Douglas also delves into the history and mythology of the region, recounting tales of Greek and Roman gods, as well as the legendary bandits who once roamed the area. He discusses the region's food, music, and religious festivals, providing readers with a rich and immersive experience of Calabria's unique culture. Throughout the book, Douglas's writing is infused with humor and wit, as he shares his opinions and critiques of the region and its people.

In this fascinating history of the lie detector, Ken Alder exposes some persistent truths about our culture: why we long to know the secret thoughts of our fellow citizens; why we believe in popular science; and why we embrace ?truthiness.? For centuries people searched in vain for a way to unmask liars, seeking clues in the body?s outward signs: in blushing cheeks and shifty eyes. Not until the 1920s did a cop with a PhD team up with an entrepreneurial high school student and claim to have invented a foolproof machine capable of peering directly into the human heart. Scientists repudiated the technique, and judges banned its results from criminal trials, but in a few years their polygraph had transformed police work, seized headlines, and enthralled the nation.ø In this book, Alder explains why America?and only America?has embraced this mechanical method of reading the human soul. Over the course of the twentieth century, the lie detector became integral to our justice system, employment markets, and national security apparatus, transforming each into a game of bluff and bluster. The lie detector device may not reliably read the human mind, but this lively account shows that the instrument?s history offers a unique window into the American soul.

Southern Exposure is the definitive guide to the often overlooked architectural riches of Chicago's South Side by architecture expert and former Chicago Sun-Times architecture writer Lee Bey.