Who was the first black queen? How much do you know about China`s history? Most people`s knowledge of world history is hazy & incomplete at best. This No-Nonsense Guide gives a full picture, revealing the hidden histories & communities left out of conventional textbooks
- from the civilizations of Africa, Asia & Latin America to the history of women. The updated & revised edition of this best-selling No-Nonsense Guide will include a new chapter from the perspective of the end of the first decade of the 21st century &

Includes:: material on the financial crisis, the world response to climate change, 9/11, the Iraq war, corporate power & China`s headlong growth fit into the broader patterns of world history.


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Population has always been an emotive topic. Understandably
- it`s about sex, birth & death. It`s about food, money, culture
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The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander Mc Call Smith features wayward daughters, missing husbands, philandering partners & curious conmen. If you`ve got an apparently insoluble problem, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s finest
- & only
- female private detective. Her methods may be unconventional but she`s got warmth, wit & canny intuition on her side, not to mention her friend Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the pitfall-strewn trail of a missing child.

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The No.1 Ladies` detective agency series made Alexander Mc Call Smith a household name in book-reading houses the world over. Featuring Precious Ramotswe
- Botswana’s leading, & only, female private detective
- the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels have been adapted for the screen & become undisputed international bestsellers. In this series -1. The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency 2. Tears of the Giraffe 3. Morality of Beautiful Girls 4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men 5. The Full Cupboard of Life 6. The Kalahari Typing School for Men 7. Blue Shoes & Happiness 8. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive 9. The Miracle at Speedy Motors 10. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

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When David Bramwell`s girlfriend left him for someone she described as `younger, but more mature than you`, & citing his endless `selfish projects` as a reason for their relationship breakdown, he decided he had something to learn about giving. So he embarked on a project. Taking a year off, he journeyed through Europe & America seeking out extraordinary communities that could teach him about how to share. Why? He had a few questions he wanted to answer: Is modern life rubbish? Why do so many of us feel lonely & unfulfilled despite a high standard of living? Are there communities out there who hold the key to happiness? & if so, why do so many of their inhabitants insist on dressing in tie-dye? Where? On his travels he visited an anarchist community in the heart of Copenhagen, had some hair-raising experiences in several free love communities, experienced an epiphany in a spiritual caravan park in Scotland & thought he`d found paradise in a Californian community dreamed up by Aldous Huxley. Most impressive of all was Damanhur, a 1000-strong science fiction-style community in the Alps with an underground temple the size of St Paul`s Cathedral, a village of tree houses & a `fully-functioning time machine`. What happened?! Inspired by the people & places he visited, he returned home with a desire to change. Not just himself but also his neighbourhood & city. Find out how he succeeded in this wry & self-deprecatingly funny spiritual journey that asks some big questions & finds the answers surprisingly simple. ...

Be manly; seek no undue advantage. Science & pluck give advantage enough The Noble English Art of Self-Defence is part of ` Found on the Shelves`, published with The London Library. The books in this series have been chosen to give a fascinating insight into the treasures that can be found while browsing in The London Library. Now celebrating its 175th anniversary, with over 17 miles of shelving & more than a million books, The London Library has become an unrivalled archive of the modes, manners & thoughts of each generation which has helped to form it. ...

A great book to drool over when bad weather keeps you out of the saddle & it's too dark in the shed to be messing around with ball bearings & grease. With a foreword by Lance Armstrong & 250 colour photographs, this is a celebration of this fantastic machine in the many designs that have appeared throughout its evolution. ...

When the photographer Enzo Barracco decided to mount a photographic expedition to Antarctica, inspired by the example of Sir Ernest Shackleton, he had much more than simple cold to contend with. As the world`s last empty continent, the snowy lands of the South Pole are a challenge for the most seasoned explorer, with their merciless winds, treacherous seas & vast sheets of ice. Even to arrive on the continent itself involves a perilous journey by sea from southern Argentina through the notoriously rough Drake Passage. THE NOISE OF ICE: ANTARCTICA explores what drove Barracco to embark on his journey, & tells the story of the expedition in words & astonishing photographs, all of them captured during the trip & many obtained in hazardous conditions. In his gripping text, Barracco explains how even his journey to Antarctica itself was undertaken with the essential help of an ice pilot, to spot & avoid icebergs that ship`s radar can miss. He tells of how the waves on that first journey threw him to the deck & brought home how hostile such an environment is, & of his constant battle to protect his photographic equipment & all-important memory cards from the extreme cold. Most importantly, he explains that in capturing these beautiful landscapes, his intention is to remind us all of the precarious position in which this part of the world finds itself. As the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes puts it in his foreword to THE NOISE OF ICE, ”witnessed by only a few, Antarctica should be enjoyed by many & protected by all”. ...

In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. & few who are taken to the Big House ever return. ...

From Margaret Wise Brown-author of the childhood favorite Goodnight Moon-and Caldecott-winning illustrator Leonard Weisgard comes The Noisy Book, now back in print in a sturdy board book! The little dog, Muffin, hears a noise. Squeak squeak squeak. What could it be? Originally published in 1939, the classic story of the little dog, Muffin, accompanied by big & bright illustrations will introduce children to the sounds around them. ...