Central Kansas Library System

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...

From the tsunami in Sri Lanka to the war in Iraq to the starvation in Niger and ultimately to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Mississippi, Cooper gives us a firsthand glimpse of the devastation that takes place, both physically and emotionally, when the normal order of things is violently ruptured on a massive scale. Cooper had been in his share of life-threatening situations before, but he had never seen human misery quite like this. Writing...

Archaeologist and historian Ian Morris explains that Western dominance is largely the result of the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, however, the world over the next hundred years will subsequently change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process.

Is America a source of pride, as Americans have long held, or shame, as Progressives allege? Beneath an innocent exterior, are our lives complicit in a national project of theft, expropriation, oppression, and murder, or is America still the hope of the world? D'Souza offers a passionate and sharply reasoned defense of America, knocking down every important accusation made by Progressives against our country.

Friedman discusses how the key to understanding the 21st century is understanding that the planet's three largest forces--Moore's law (technology), the market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss)--are accelerating all at once. And these accelerations are transforming the five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community. Friedman posits that we should purposely "be late"--we should pause...

It happens to all of us: You're minding your own business, when some idiot informs you that guns are evil, the Prius will save the planet, or the rich have to finally start paying their fair share of taxes. Just go away! you think to yourself -- but they only become more obnoxious. Your heart rate quickens. You start to sweat. You can't get away. Your only hope is this book. Glenn Beck, author of the number-one New York Times best sellers An Inconvenient...

Looks at the seventies, including the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, detente, the oil crisis, Nixon's visit to China, terrorism, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and Three Mile Island.