Helen Plum Library

Oh, Florida! That name. That combination of sounds. Three simple syllables, and yet packing so many mixed messages. To some people, it's a paradise. To others, it's a punchline. As Oh, Florida! shows, it's both of these--and, more importantly, it's a Petri dish, producing trends that end up influencing the rest of the country. Without Florida there would be no NASCAR, no Bettie Page pinups, no Glenn Beck radio rants, no USA Today, no "Stand Your Ground,"...

At Will Durant's death in 1981, his personal papers were dispersed among relatives, collectors, and archive houses. Twenty years later, scholar John Little discovered the previously unknown manuscript of Heroes of History in Durant's granddaughter's garage. Written shortly before he died, these twenty-one essays serve as an abbreviated version of Durant's bestselling, eleven-volume series, The Story of Civilization. Durant traces the lives and ideas...

The follow-up to Pinker's groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against...

"In the late 8th to early 7th century BC, Scythian steppe warriors conquered Central Eurasia and peripheral regions in Iran and China, revolutionizing the local cultures. A nomadic herding people who lived with their cats in felt-tent homes on wheels, the Scythians spread their complex, mobile, highly innovative culture into the frontiers of Southeast Europe, the Near East, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia. They produced the world's first "global"...

This book is a comprehensive, and deeply personal history of Rome, as city, as empire, and, crucially, as an origin of Western art and civilization covering the span from the city's origins more than two thousand years ago through the twentieth century. The founding of Rome is shrouded in legend, but current archaeological evidence supports the theory that Rome grew from pastoral settlements and coalesced into a city in the 8th century BC. It developed...

Vikings raided and traded all over the world! Discover the origin of Vikings, their historical development, famous Vikings, key skills and traits, and details about weapons, training, and raids. Fast facts, maps, infographics, a glossary, timeline, index, and historical and color photos supplement easy-to-read text. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Checkerboard Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division...

"Germany is unlike any other country in the world. But how much do we really know about it, and how do its people understand themselves? In Germany: Memories of a Nation, Neil MacGregor -- director of the British Museum and author of A History of the World in 100 Objects -- presents the stories of a nation through a collection of thirty objects and touchstones. From coins and crowns to fairy tales and philosophers, MacGregor presents the inventions,...