Fire and Civilization

Fire and Civilization PDF Author: Johan Goudsblom
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Fire is a destructive force. It is also a great purveyor of the advancement of human life. In an exploration of this dichotomy, Goudsblom investigates man and his realtionship to--and fascination with--combustion from every possible perspective--historical, archaeological, anthropological, psychological, biological, ecological, and sociological--illuminating the legacy of fire on world history.

Fire and Civilization

Fire and Civilization PDF Author: Johan Goudsblom
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Fire is a destructive force. It is also a great purveyor of the advancement of human life. In an exploration of this dichotomy, Goudsblom investigates man and his realtionship to--and fascination with--combustion from every possible perspective--historical, archaeological, anthropological, psychological, biological, ecological, and sociological--illuminating the legacy of fire on world history.

Fire in America

Fire in America PDF Author: Stephen J. Pyne
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805218
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 681

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Book Description
From prehistory to the present-day conservation movement, Pyne explores the efforts of successive American cultures to master wildfire and to use it to shape the landscape.

Books on Fire

Books on Fire PDF Author: Lucien X. Polastron
Publisher: Lucien X. POLASTRON
ISBN: 9781594771675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.

A World Lit Only by Fire

A World Lit Only by Fire PDF Author: William Manchester
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316082791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
A "lively and engaging" history of the Middle Ages (Dallas Morning News) from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion. From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth: the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains. "Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." --Chicago Tribune

A Fire Upon The Deep

A Fire Upon The Deep PDF Author: Vernor Vinge
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
ISBN: 1429981989
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 626

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Book Description
Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works. A Hugo Award-winning Novel! “Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. Tor books by Vernor Vinge Zones of Thought Series A Fire Upon The Deep A Deepness In The Sky The Children of The Sky Realtime/Bobble Series The Peace War Marooned in Realtime Other Novels The Witling Tatja Grimm's World Rainbows End Collections Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge True Names At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Fire and Light

Fire and Light PDF Author: James MacGregor Burns
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250024900
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian explores history’s most daring and transformational intellectual movement, the European and American Enlightenment. In this engaging, provocative history, James MacGregor Burns illuminates the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World. They transformed thought, overturned governments, and inspired visionary political experiments. Fire and Light brings to life the revolutionary leaders who, armed with a new sense of human possibility, created the modern world. Burns traces the origins of a distinctive American Enlightenment to men like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and their early encounters with incendiary European ideas about liberty and equality. It was these thinker-activists who framed the United States as a grand and continuing experiment in Enlightenment principles. Today the same principles have taken on new urgency around the world: in the turmoil of the Arab world, in the former Soviet Union, and in China, as well as in the United States itself. What should a nation be? What should citizens expect from their government? Who should lead, and how can leadership be made both effective and accountable? What is happiness, and what can the state contribute to it? Burns’s exploration of the ideals and arguments that formed the bedrock of our modern world shines a new light on these ever-important questions. Praise for Fire and Light “With this profound and magnificent book, Burns takes us into the fire’s center. . . . Essential for deciphering the challenges of the world we will live in tomorrow.” —Michael Beschloss, New York Times–bestselling author of Presidential Courage “James MacGregor Burns is a national treasure, and Fire and Light is the elegiac capstone to a career devoted to understanding the seminal ideas that made America—for better and for worse—what it is.” —Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author of Revolutionary Summer “[A] captivating tale. . . . Briskly and beautifully told. . . . Superb.” —Publishers Weekly

Vestal Fire

Vestal Fire PDF Author: Stephen J. Pyne
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295803525
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Book Description
Stephen Pyne has been described as having a consciousness "composed of equal parts historian, ecologist, philosopher, critic, poet, and sociologist." At this time in history when many people are trying to understand their true relationship with the natural environment, this book offers a remarkable contribution--breathtaking in the scope of its research and exhilarating to read. Pyne takes the reader on a journey through time, exploring the terrain of Europe and the uses and abuses of its lands as well as, through migration and conquest, many parts of the rest of the world. Whether he is discussing the Mediterranean region, Russia, Scandinavia, the British Isles, central Europe, or colonized islands; whether he is considering the impact of agriculture, forestry, or Enlightenment thinking, the author brings an unmatched insight to his subject. Vestal Fire takes its title from Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth and keeper of the sacred fire on Mount Olympus. But the book's title also suggests the strengths and limitations of Europe's peculiar conception of fire, and through fire, of its relationship to nature. Between the untamed fire of the wilderness and the tended fire of the hearth lies a never-ending dialectic in which human beings struggle to control natural forces and processes that in fact can sometimes be directed but never wholly dominated or contained.

Flammable Cities

Flammable Cities PDF Author: Greg Bankoff
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299283836
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
In most cities today, fire has been reduced to a sporadic and isolated threat. But throughout history the constant risk of fire has left a deep and lasting imprint on almost every dimension of urban society. This volume, the first truly global study of urban conflagration, shows how fire has shaped cities throughout the modern world, from Europe to the imperial colonies, major trade entrepôts, and non-European capitals, right up to such present-day megacities as Lagos and Jakarta. Urban fire may hinder commerce or even spur it; it may break down or reinforce barriers of race, class, and ethnicity; it may serve as a pretext for state violence or provide an opportunity for displays of state benevolence. As this volume demonstrates, the many and varied attempts to master, marginalize, or manipulate fire can turn a natural and human hazard into a highly useful social and political tool.

The Ring of Fire

The Ring of Fire PDF Author: Liviu C. Tudose
Publisher: Liviu C. Tudose
ISBN:
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
My dear warm-hearted reader, Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime!? All you need is a drop of courage, and the adrenaline will get you right in the middle of this adventure. In my story, no one feels SAFE, and life has a single purpose: SURVIVAL! All you can see now is a cover captivating your eyes. Isn’t it wonderful? But when you hold the book in your hands, you will discover places and people who will leave their mark on your life. The beginning reveals a titanic fight between two kings of nature – the King of the Dry Land and the King of the Seas. One fights in order to cross the seas and augment his territories, the other one want his turbid waters to invade the land. And because they are equally powerful, the line of war is almost always at the shore. A balance that prevents their advancement on the enemy territory. Until one day when the “Legend of the Four Sons” disrupts this balance, and the Kingdom of the Seas invades mercilessly the Kingdom of the Dry Land, breaking it into a number of islands; over time, only four pieces of land are left amidst the seas; on them – four port-towns: Isbynorr, Narzomand, Salgornu, and Zendovir. On the other hand, the Kingdom of the Dry Land sends its explorers to cross the endless seas in search of other territories. Even so, nature seems to be unfair; it has some gifts for some and almost nothing for others… This is the setting; now for the actors. We have the four governors of districts, Stephen, Olympia, Theodore, and Elena, then skilled captains who cross the infinite seas, aboard all sorts of ships; there is also a king who lives his old age under the dark star of a somber destiny, his life called into question. There is the fascinating love story of Amelia and Tudor, and we also have the bright wanderers Tiťi and Bum, an orphan boy and his pet, who put smiles on the face of a world put to hard tests. There are various dishes that tempt any respectable gourmand, carefully prepared by innkeeper Francis and his loving wife, Natalia. There are old sages and young apprentices who imprint on the story a touch of knowledge you won’t see everywhere. There are many others who appear just enough to please you and to share their deep experiences. But since the submerging of the land under the waters is not enough for survival, the landscape is also populated by power-blinded people, such as the Badrokels, who have a single purpose – the royal throne. The events unfold quickly, and people are slow to understand that their lands are swallowed by the waters and that they have no escape, because, in the distance, everything is hindered by an immense wall of active volcanoes imprisoning them seemingly forever. They now believe their end is near and that may tomorrow will never come for them. Before they die, they try to SURVIVE against the unleashed nature and against their dangerous foes. Everything is an adventure, and each event, each character will enchant your eyes. They hope to survive! Do you have any HOPE for something GREAT? Do you feel SAFE? You can answer these questions on your own! QUENCH your curiosity RIGHT NOW! Arrrrrrrgh!

Civilization

Civilization PDF Author: Niall Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101548029
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.