Item category 1: Countries: History & Geography

Red dirt, intense heat, and hordes of flies; the Australian Outback is one of the harshest environments in the world. But this did not stop early settlers from attempting to make a living in the desert in the search for gold and the chance at a better life. Now the mining boom has created special...

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT. How do you tell that a country has died? In this devastating, pessimistic, though critically-timed revised edition of his classic book, Peter Hitchens describes and regrets the abolition of Britain. In the years since Peter Hitchens first wrote The Abolition of Britain, he ...

The city of Acre, powerfully fortified and richly provisioned, was the last crusader stronghold. When it fell in 1291, two hundred years of Christian crusading in the Holy Land came to a bloody end. With his customary narrative brilliance and immediacy, Roger Crowley chronicles the tumultuous and...

"The examination of four great civilizations that existed before Columbus's arrival in North America offers evidence of sustained contact between the Old and New Worlds"--Provided by publisher.

A professional genealogist reveals how to get past brick walls in research and unearth hard-to-find ancestors.

Seierstad introduces us to three people whose lives have been shaped by the fall and rise of the Taliban - Jamila, Bashir and Ariana - as well their families, friends, foes and co-fighters. Jamila is a women's rights activist; Bashir is a Taliban commander; Ariana is a law student who had one sem...

The end of the Second World War signalled the rapid end of the European African empires. In 1945, only four African countries were independent; by 1963, thirty African states created the Organization of African Unity. Despite formidable problems, the 1960s were a time of optimism as Africans enjo...

Subject: Spanning more than 200,000 years, from the emergence of the first humans to the rise of megacities, Africa explores the history and cultures of the world's second-largest continent in vivid detail. It brings to life the stories that shaped Africa and the world around it, from powerful an...

Jana Hensel tells the story of her confused generation of East Germany, who were forced to abandon their past and feel their way through a foreign landscape to an uncertain future.

Inspired by the tales of Homer and his own ambitions of empire, Alexander the Great sketched the idea of a city onto the sparsely populated Egyptian coastline. He did not live to see Alexandria built, but his vision of a sparkling metropolis that celebrated learning and diversity was swiftly real...