Springfield - Small Topic, Big History

Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with beanbags and children's drawings--the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident. In The Library, the first major work of its kind, historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen trace this extraordinary history, from the famous collections of...

"A riveting history that tells the story of sex toys from ancient phalluses to 21st century vibrating rabbits. [Lieberman] focuses on the period from the 1950s through the present, when sex toys evolved from symbols of female emancipation to tools in the fight against HIV/AIDS to consumerist marital aids and finally to mainstays of today's pop culture. Lieberman's history is populated by vivid and fascinating characters, including Ted Marche, an entrepreneurial...

Explores the concept of land ownership and how it has shaped history, examining how people fight over, steward, and occasionally share land, and what humanity's proprietary relationship with land means for the future. "Land examines in depth how we determine where the land lies, how we acquire it, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and, finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the...

Roach tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries-- panic, exhaustion, heat, noise. She introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer these challenges. You'll learn why a zipper is a problem for a sniper; how amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds; how diarrhea can be a threat to national security.

"Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men-era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out and wanted up. Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5'3" and 5'9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire....

Despite increasingly liberal world views, black hair continues to be erased, appropriated, and stigmatized to the point of taboo. Through her personal and historical journey, Dabiri gleans insights into the way racism is coded in society's perception of black hair--and how it is often used as an avenue for discrimination. Dabiri takes us from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, and into today's Natural Hair Movement, exploring everything...

Cynthia Barnett's "Rain "begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science--the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains--with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes...

Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don't even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event. Rose...

"In the early 1970s, a businessman had a brilliant idea: why not start a women's football league? It was conceived as a gimmick and a publicity stunt to capitalize on the popularity of Second Wave Feminism and the passage of Title IX. He recruited women across the country; much to his surprise, he learned that women really wanted to play, and play hard. Hail Mary is the story of the unlikely rise of the National Women's Football League and the players...