SUMMARY: Includes articles, games, poems, and suggestions for projects based on American history.

“The mystery of the pyramids is solved before our eyes” in this illustrated YA guide to their construction by the Caldecott Medal-winning author (Kirkus).
 
In Pyramid, acclaimed author and illustrator David Macaulay explores the construction of ancient Egyptian pyramids from the initial planning stages to the methods used to lift stones up to the structure’s highest level. Through concise text...

Civilization and Its Discontents is one of the last of Freud's books, written in the decade before his death and first published in German in 1929. It is, considered his most brilliant work. In it, he states his views on the broad question of man's place in the world. It seeks to answer several questions fundamental to human society and its organization: What influences led to the creation of civilization? Why and how did it come to be? What determines...

"Scientific methods, tools, and discoveries have shaped modern civilization and created the landscape we've built for ourselves on which to live, work, and play. Tyson shows how an infusion of science and rational thinking renders worldviews deeper and more informed than ever before-and exposes unfounded perspectives and unjustified emotions. With crystalline prose and an abundance of evidence, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette...

A photo essay on ancient Egypt and the people who lived there, documented through the mummies, pottery, weapons, and other objects they left behind. Describes their society, religion, obsession with the afterlife, and methods of mummification.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization takes us on a journey through the landmarks of art and bloodshed that defined Greek culture nearly three millennia ago.
“A triumph of popularization: extraordinarily knowledgeable, informal in tone, amusing, wide ranging, smartly paced.” —The New York Times Book Review

In the city-states of Athens and...

From the inimitable and bestselling author Thomas Cahill, another popular history, focusing on the Renaissance and Reformation and how this innovative period changed the Western world.

"From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts--always adroit, often acerbic--on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation. Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she's in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice -- sharp, witty, as compassionate as it...