"Vanity Fair" editor Carter addresses the fragile state of U.S. democracy with a critical review of the Bush administration in regard to the invasion of Iraq, personal rights, women's rights, the economy, and the environment.

Sometime during the summer of 1690, in east-central Saskatchewan, Englishmen Henry Kelsey and his Indian escorts walked out of the boreal forest and into a new world -- the northern great plains of western Canada. It was a landscape never encountered before by another European. Kelsey has been lauded as "first in the west" and the "discoverer of the Canadian prairies." But these accolades overlook the simple fact that any European and later Canadian activity in what would become the future province of Saskatchewan was entirely dependent on the goodwill and cooperation of the indigenous peoples of the region. After all, Kelsey had to be taken inland. He was a passenger, not a pathfinder. A World We Have Lost examines the early history of Saskatchewan through an Aboriginal and environmental lens. Indian and mixed-descent peoples played leading roles in the story -- as did the land and climate. Despite the growing British and Canadian presence, the Saskatchewan country remained Aboriginal territory. The region's peoples had their own interests and needs and the fur trade was often peripheral to their lives. Indians and Metis peoples wrangled over territory and resources, especially bison, and were not prepared to let outsiders control their lives, let alone decide their future. Native-newcomer interactions were consequently fraught with misunderstandings, sometimes painful difficulties, if not outright disputes. By the early nineteenth century, a distinctive western society had emerged in the North-West -- one that was challenged and undermined by the takeover of the region by a young dominion of Canada. Settlement and development was to be rooted in the best features of Anglo-Canadian civilization, including the white race. By the time Saskatchewan entered confederation as a province in 1905, the world that Kelsey had encountered during his historic walk on the northern prairies had become a world we have lost.

Provides a concise introduction to and overview of the centuries in Europe between the Renaissance and the French Revolution. Features include: surveys of key topics written by an international team of historians; suggestions for seminar discussion and further reading; extracts from primary sources; a glossary; and chapter chronologies of major events.

From the author of Apocalyptic Planet comes a vivid travelogue through prehistory, that traces the arrival of the first people in North America at least twenty thousand years ago and the artifacts that tell of their lives and fates. In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were. How they got here, persevered, and ultimately thrived is a story that resonates from the Pleistocene to our modern era. The lower sea levels of the Ice Age exposed a vast land bridge between Asia and North America, but the land bridge was not the only way across. Different people arrived from different directions, and not all at the same time. The first explorers of the New World were few, their encampments fleeting. The continent they reached had no people but was inhabited by megafauna—mastodons, giant bears, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, five-hundred-pound panthers, enormous bison, and sloths that stood one story tall. The first people were hunters—Paleolithic spear points are still encrusted with the proteins of their prey—but they were wildly outnumbered and many would themselves have been prey to the much larger animals. Atlas of a Lost World chronicles the last millennia of the Ice Age, the violent oscillations and retreat of glaciers, the clues and traces that document the first encounters of early humans, and the animals whose presence governed the humans’ chances for survival. A blend of science and personal narrative reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Across unexplored landscapes yet to be peopled, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light.

The acclaimed editor of The New York Times Book Review takes readers on a nostalgic tour of the pre-Internet age, offering powerful insights into both the profound and the seemingly trivial things we've lost. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS • “A deft blend of nostalgia, humor and devastating insights.”—People Remember all those ingrained habits, cherished ideas, beloved objects, and stubborn preferences from the pre-Internet age? They’re gone. To some of those things we can say good riddance. But many we miss terribly. Whatever our emotional response to this departed realm, we are faced with the fact that nearly every aspect of modern life now takes place in filtered, isolated corners of cyberspace—a space that has slowly subsumed our physical habitats, replacing or transforming the office, our local library, a favorite bar, the movie theater, and the coffee shop where people met one another’s gaze from across the room. Even as we’ve gained the ability to gather without leaving our house, many of the fundamentally human experiences that have sustained us have disappeared. In one hundred glimpses of that pre-Internet world, Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, presents a captivating record, enlivened with illustrations, of the world before cyberspace—from voicemails to blind dates to punctuation to civility. There are the small losses: postcards, the blessings of an adolescence largely spared of documentation, the Rolodex, and the genuine surprises at high school reunions. But there are larger repercussions, too: weaker memories, the inability to entertain oneself, and the utter demolition of privacy. 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet is at once an evocative swan song for a disappearing era and, perhaps, a guide to reclaiming just a little bit more of the world IRL.

From bestselling Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist and author Jackie Morris, a beautiful collection of poems and illustrations to help readers rediscover the magic of the natural world.

Lily doesn't like change although it seems to follow her everywhere she goes. She does a pretty good job at rejecting it every chance she gets, but when she stumbles upon an enchanted world everything moves faster than she can even perceive possible. She has two choices-stay in misery on her own, or learn how to surrender.

Heres a bitter pill to swallow: sooner or later we are likely to step on one of life's land mines. It will feel like being torn apart. The devastation may be emotional (job loss, divorce, death) or physical (illness or injury). Discover how to access higher wisdom and resources to turn tragedy into the biggest opportunity life has given you. SEL000000

Presented here are two volumes of apocryphal writings reflecting the life and time of the Old and New Testaments. Stories told by contemporary fiction writers of historical Bible times in fascinating and beautiful style.