The masterfully told story of twelve volatile days in the life of Chicago, when an aviation disaster, a race riot, a crippling transit strike, and a sensational child murder transfixed and roiled a city already on the brink of collapse.
When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World."...

Plumbing its the arteries of civilization, surging with life-giving water and tons of waste. It feeds the fixtures that spoil us and flushes us with pride. Its potential is explosive and its history overflows with innovation.

Covers the history of the amazing ironclad steam warships used in the Civil War. From the ship's inventor, who had a history of blowing things up and only 100 days to complete his project, to the mischievous William Cushing, who pranked his way through the whole war, this book is filled with surprisingly true facts and funny, brave characters that modern readers will easily relate to.

An award-winning British-Egyptian writer presents an authoritative history of the first modern city and how it has shaped our modern world, including its role as a global capital of knowledge as well as the site of plagues and violence. Together, Greeks and Egyptians, Romans and Jews created a global knowledge capital of enormous influence: the inventive collaboration of its citizens shaped modern philosophy, science, religion and more. In this sweeping...

Thirty-six lectures that provide a survey of the expanse of human development and civilization across the globe, beginning with the invention of agriculture in the Neolithic era and ending with the urbanized, technologically sophisticated world of the 21st century.

Dynamite explodes hills to bits, drills divide sheer stone walls, 400,000-pound blocks are pulled from pits by giant cranes, and men work around the clock to wrest rock out of the earth. Not diamonds or gold...rock, the raw material of civilization! Without rock, modern society wouldn't exist. Roads, sewers, dams, bridges, buildings, paint, glue, make-up, antacids, and even chewing gum need crushed stone. From ancient days to the present, we explore...

Helps understand the present moment in American politics by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear, and presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism.

Discover the faith, culture, and history that have shaped the modern Islamic world.