In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking. This is an account of the world's greatest 'intellectual virtuosos, ' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern...

Has there ever been a history of the world as readable as this?

In The Human Story, James C. Davis takes us on a journey to ancient times, telling how peoples of the world settled down and founded cities, conquered neighbors, and established religions, and continues over the course of history, when they fought two nearly global wars and journeyed into space.

Davis's account is swift and clear, never dull or dry. He lightens it with pungent anecdotes and witty quotes. Although this compact volume may not be hard to pick up, it's definitely hard to put...

In the sixteenth century, one of the world's most precious commodities was cochineal, a legendary red dye treasured by the ancient Mexicans and sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. As the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans joined the chase for cochineal -- a chase that lasted for more than three centuries -- a tale of pirates, explorers, alchemists,...

Integrating faith with introductory Western history, this text provides a Christian perspective on the major epochs, issues, and events of Western Civilization. It details the role of the Greeks and Hebrews, Jesus in history, the Renaissance, and more.

Think of anything bad, from art heists to Genghis Kahn, and it's likely to be included in this wickedly smart and humorous guide to the seedy underbelly of basically everything. The brainiac team at "mental_floss," creators of the hit magazine and last year's Condensed Knowledge, have scoured the darkest, dirtiest corners of history and the globe to gather this ultimate collection of the bad stuff you're not supposed to know and you certainly never learned in school.

Organized by theme, with chapters for each of the seven deadly sins, the book includes feuds, plagiarists,...

"Was there really a valiant little Dutch boy, a protesting Lady Godiva, a fiddling Nero, or a prudish Queen Victoria? No, says Shenkman ....No person, event, or thing is safe from Shenkman's corrections."
--Booklist

Founder of George Mason University's History News Network and bestselling author of Presidential Ambition and One Night Stands with American History, Rick Shenkman is an historian, a rebel, and a myth debunker par excellence. In Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of World History, he explodes some of the most honored and long-held...

Peter Watson's hugely ambitious and stimulating history of ideas from deep antiquity to the present day—from the invention of writing, mathematics, science, and philosophy to the rise of such concepts as the law, sacrifice, democracy, and the soul—offers an illuminated path to a greater understanding of our world and ourselves.

A fascinating, fun, and fact-filled compendium of the greatest lies, deceptions, propaganda, and frauds ever perpetrated

Throughout history--from the dawn of man to the War on Terror--governments, corporations, historians, and high-level braggarts of every stripe have freely engaged in the time-honored pastime of lying for fun and profit. You Said What? is an endlessly entertaining and outrageously edifying look at some of the biggest whoppers of all time, chock-full of deceptions, trickery, and incredible untruths both infamous and obscure.

• The press...

Muslims first appeared in the early seventh century as members of a persecuted religious movement in a sun-baked town in Arabia. Within a century, their descendants were ruling a vast territory that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus River valley in modern Pakistan. This region became the arena for a new cultural experiment in which Muslim scholars and creative artists synthesized and reworked the legacy of Rome, Greece, Iran, and India into a new civilization. "

A History of the Muslim World to 1405" traces the development of this civilization from the career of the Prophet...

The three co-editors, Professors Bowman, Chiteji, and Greene, have taught for many years global history classes in a variety of institutions. They wrote "Imperialism in the Modern World" to solve the problem of allowing teachers to combine primary and secondary texts easily and systematically to follow major themes in global history (some readers use primary materials exclusively. Some focus on secondary arguments)....

The history of the predominantly Muslim world is examined within the context of world history. It examines political, economic, and broad cultural developments, as well as specifically religious ones. The themes of the book are tradition and adaptation: it examines the tensions between the desire of Muslims to maintain continuity with their legacy and their recognition of the need to adapt to changing conditions.

An unlikely world history from the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World

In his fifth work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired...

Since the original publication of this book, Lewis Mumford...