Education

THE TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023
A BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK FOR THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE AND FINANCIAL TIMES
A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK | AN INSTANT #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
‘Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history’ Financial Times
‘Vast, learned and timely work’ Sunday Times
——
From the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development-and demise-of civilisations across time.

When we think about history, we rarely pay much attention to the most destructive floods, the worst winters, the most devastating droughts or the ways that ecosystems have changed over time.

In The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan, one of the world’s leading historians, shows that the natural environment is a crucial, if not the defining, factor in global history – and not just of humankind. Volcanic eruptions, solar activities, atmospheric, oceanic and other shifts, as well as anthropogenic behaviour, are fundamental parts of the past and the present. In this magnificent and groundbreaking book, we learn about the origins of our species: about the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; about how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; about how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; about how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long and deep history. All provide lessons of profound importance as we face a precarious future of rapid global warming.

Taking us from the Big Bang to the present day and beyond, The Earth Transformed forces us to reckon with humankind’s continuing efforts to make sense of the natural world.
—–
‘This is epic, gripping, original history that leaps off the page’ Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland
‘All Historians aiming to tell a narrative face the problem of when exactly to start it. Only Peter Frankopan would go back 2.5 billion years to the Great Oxidation Event’ Tom Holland

A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: BBC NEWS * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * FINANCIAL TIMES * NEW EUROPEAN * GUARDIAN * NEW STATESMAN * THE TIMES * THE WEEK * WATERSTONES * BLACKWELL’S

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The whole world in the palm of your hand

Ever wonder how you can have a rainforest on one side of a mountain and a desert on the other? Or zoom around the globe with Google Maps and wonder how everything got to where it is now? The answer is…geography.

In Geography For Dummies, you’ll discover that geography is more than just cool trivia―it explains tons about the world around us. From understanding the basics―like how to read maps and geographic coordinates―to learning about how the continents got to their current positions, you’ll learn fascinating things about the planet’s people, cities, resources, and more.

In this book, you’ll discover:

• How geographers make and use maps to understand and tell useful stories about the earth
• How weather and climate shape the planet, impact the water supply, and change landscapes
• How humans use (and overuse) the planet we live on to our advantage

Geography For Dummies is an incredible exploration of our planet and the people who live on it. This book takes a huge subject and makes it accessible for the rest of us!

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Get a rock-solid grasp on geology

Geology For Dummies is ideal reading for anyonewith an interest in the fundamental concepts of geology, whether they’re lifelong learners with a fascination for the subject or college students interested in pursuing geology or earth sciences.

Presented in a straightforward, trusted format―and tracking to a typical introductory geology course at the college level―this book features a thorough introduction to the study of earth, its materials, and its processes.

• Rock records and geologic time  
• Large-scale motion of tectonic plates  
• Matter, minerals, and rocks  
• The geological processes on earth’s surface  

Rock that geology class with Geology For Dummies!

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From the moment towns and cities arose, the struggle for land, resources and power has turned to violence. Almost from the start, maps have been an essential part of planning and waging war. History of War in Maps gives a unique visual representation of the development of warfare and the maps that have helped shaped our history.

Each map in this beautifully designed volume plays a crucial role. While countless campaign strategies have relied on detailed and accurate mapping, entire wars have been fought over the maps themselves, with hopes of redrawing boundaries and redefining nations. Spanning more than 2,000 years, this book expertly curates more than 70 historical maps which tell the fascinating story of war: from ancient and medieval warfare to modern-day global conflicts.

Featuring maps of historic battles such as:
• Battle of Marathon, 490 BC
• Battle of Hastings, 1066
• Battle of Crecy, 1346
• Battle of Lützen (Thirty Years’ War), 1632
• Battle of Saratoga, 1777
• Battle of Austerlitz, 1805
• Battle of Balaklava (Crimean War), 1854
• Siege of Vicksburg, 1863
• Battle of Isandhlwana (Anglo-Zulu War), 1879
• Battle of Spion Kop (Anglo-Boer War), 1900
• Gallipoli campaign, 1915
• D-Day, 1944
• Operation Desert Storm, 1993

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‘This is a great puzzle book, for budding explorers and young adventurers. There’s no better way to test your exploration skills without leaving the house!’ – Levison Wood

Can you pin-point the last-known location of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance?

Can you help Amelia Earhart circumnavigate the globe?

Are you the next Neil Armstrong?

In this unique puzzle book, the Royal Geographical Society brings over a century of maps and expertise to inspire your inner Livingstone and tantalise your budding Columbus. With hundreds of questions on 50 iconic explorers and a mix of mind-boggling maps, word games and trivia questions – it’s time to dust off your compass, pack your snow shoes and test your geographical skills against the most legendary adventurers ever to traverse the globe.

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The idea of a Green New Deal was launched into popular consciousness by US Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. It has become a watchword in the current era of global climate crisis. But what – and for whom – is the Green New Deal? In this concise and urgent book, Max Ajl provides an overview of the various mainstream Green New Deals. Critically engaging with their proponents, ideological underpinnings and limitations, he goes on to sketch out a radical alternative: a ‘People’s Green New Deal’ committed to decommodification, working-class power, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology. Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he argues, requires nothing less than an infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South. As the climate crisis deepens and the literature on the subject grows, A People’s Green New Deal contributes a distinctive perspective to the debate.

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Clevelanders–Give this book to those new neighbors who just moved to town, your adult kids (who you want to stick around), or yourself for a fun and informative read!

Whether you’re new to Cleveland or have lived here for decades, you’ve probably wondered (as so many of us do) …

• Why Do Clevelanders Wear So Many Cleveland T-shirts?
• Do We Really Need All These Suburbs?
• How Can People Still Love the Browns Despite Decades of Crummy Football?
• Who Is That Building Named After?
• Why Are There So Many Different Bridges Over the Cuyahoga?
• Why Is an Airport Taking Up All that Prime Downtown Lakefront?
• How Did Cleveland Become a National Punchline?
• Why Doesn’t CSU Have a Football Team?
• Why Is It Called Whiskey Island?
• Why Is Cleveland Still So Segregated?
• Why Do So Many Cleveland Suburbs Have “Heights” in Their Name?

Answers to these and dozens of other frequently asked questions are delivered in this collection of thoughtful and entertaining short essays by Cleveland native and veteran journalist Jim Sweeney.

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The authors explain and discuss how the justice system evolved, the way it operates – including vivid descriptions of the trial process – and how lawyers work. Revised and updated throughout for this fifth edition, THE LAW MACHINE surveys recent developments in the workings of justice and the outlook for the future. ‘Refreshingly free of the patronizing attitude and the humbug with which other books about the legal system are riddled’ – THES

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This volume is about migration across South Asia and the complex negotiation of borders by people and the states in the process. A border is understood as a form of demarcation, but it also opens up the flow of people, goods, and ideas of legality and illegality. Borders are dynamic and dyadic in the interface of state and non-state actors involved in border operations. Consequently, transborder movement becomes a complex web involving concerns of security, trade, militancy, and questions of citizenship, along with discourses of ghettoisation, belonging and otherness. Since the mid-20th century, the South Asian region has witnessed growing social and political instability and breakdown of regional cooperation. In this context, the volume casts a wide, interdisciplinary lens across South Asia and discusses economic migration as well as forced migration due to persecution and natural disasters. It looks at how understandings of ‘territoriality’ and ‘border’ become blurred due to increasing transborder migration in the region: how states in South Asia address transborder movements at both policy level and on the ground; and how borderlands become spaces for illegal trade and informal economy in South Asia and for negotiations between states and refugees on identity and citizenship.

This highly topical volume is for a wide group of scholars and students interested in South Asia, ranging from sociology, anthropology, political science, history, to interdisciplinary fields like migration studies, peace and conflict studies, and development studies.

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Really useful map to plan then follow your travels across Central Asia.

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Sustainability Education: A Classroom Guide provides an accessible, in-depth guide and critique of sustainability education for school and university students, teachers, curriculum makers and school governors working around the world with children aged 3- to 14-years old. Informed by research findings and learning theory, it provides a progressive framework for sustainability education spanning all subject areas and applicable in a wide range of settings. There are over 180 age-related teaching ideas on topics such as conservation, health, food, wildlife, climate change, social justice and sustainable living, as well as provocative questions designed to stimulate educational debate. Written by two highly experienced UK-based educators, it draws together specially commissioned contributions from Australia, Israel, Norway, South Africa, the UK and the USA. Key concepts and links to the UN Global Goals (SDGs), are highlighted throughout. A companion website offers an extensive toolkit of specially prepared PowerPoint presentations and details of over 100 lectures, reports, picture books, websites and classroom and INSET teaching resources.

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What can political theory teach us about architecture, and what can it learn from paying closer attention to architecture? The essays assembled in this volume begin from a common postulate: that architecture is not merely a backdrop to political life but a political force in its own right. Each in their own way, they aim to give countenance to that claim, and to show how our thinking about politics can be enriched by reflecting on the built environment. The collection advances four lines of inquiry, probing the connection between architecture and political regimes; examining how architecture can be constitutive of the ethical and political realm; uncovering how architecture is enmeshed in logics of governmentality and in the political economy of the city; and asking to what extent we can think of architecturetributary as it is to the flows of capitalas a partially autonomous social force. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the salience of a range of political theoretical approaches for the analysis of architecture, and show that architecture deserves a place as an object of study in political theory, alongside institutions, laws, norms, practices, imaginaries, and discourses.

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This sumptuous and comprehensive evaluation showcases Smith’s 1815 hand-coloured map, A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland, and illustrates the story of his career, from apprentice to fossil collector and from his 1799 geological map of Bath and table of strata to his detailed stratigraphical county maps.

The introduction places Smith’s work in the context of earlier, concurrent and subsequent ideas regarding the structure and natural processes of the earth. The book is then organized into four geographical sections, each beginning with four sheets from the 1815 strata map, accompanied by related geological cross sections and county maps (1819–24), and is followed by displays of Sowerby’s fossil illustrations (1816–19) organized by strata. Interleaved between the sections are essays by leading academics that explore the aims of Smith’s work, its application in the fields of mining, agriculture, cartography, fossil collecting and hydrology, and its influence on biostratigraphical theories and the science of geology. Concluding the volume are reflections on Smith’s later work as an itinerant geologist and surveyor, plagiarism by his rival – President of the Geological Society, George Bellas Greenough – receipt of the first Wollaston Medal in 1831 in recognition of his achievements, and the influence of his geological mapping and biostratigraphical theories on the sciences, culminating in the establishment of the modern geological timescale.

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Discover the history of the United Kingdom through maps

From Mappa Mundi to modern election maps, the United Kingdom has evolved rapidly, along with the ways in which it has been mapped. In this time, cartography has not only kept pace with these changes, but has often driven them. In this beautiful book, more than 90 maps give a visual representation of the history of Britain.

Every map tells a story and this book tells the incredible history of Britain through maps, and includes many famous examples of cartography, along with some that deserve to be better known. See the establishment of Great Britain, the British Empire expand, the impact of World Wars and the latest statistical mapping.

Maps include
• Rudge Cup (schematic map of western forts on Hadrian’s Wall), 2nd century AD
• Matthew Paris map of the Anglian Heptarchy (Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms), c. 1250
• Gough map of Britain, 1360
• Cambriae Typus, first published map of Wales, 1573
• Raven maps of the Ulster Plantations, 1622
• Enclosure map (eg of Norfolk, c. 1800)
• Booth Poverty Map of London, 1886
• Map of Beeching cuts to Britain’s railways, 1963
• Map of EU Referendum voting patterns, 2016

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A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK | AN INSTANT #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
‘Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history’ Financial Times
‘Vast, learned and timely work’ Sunday Times
——
From the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development-and demise-of civilisations across time.

When we think about history, we rarely pay much attention to the most destructive floods, the worst winters, the most devastating droughts or the ways that ecosystems have changed over time.

In The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan, one of the world’s leading historians, shows that the natural environment is a crucial, if not the defining, factor in global history – and not just of humankind. Volcanic eruptions, solar activities, atmospheric, oceanic and other shifts, as well as anthropogenic behaviour, are fundamental parts of the past and the present. In this magnificent and groundbreaking book, we learn about the origins of our species: about the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; about how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; about how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; about how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long and deep history. All provide lessons of profound importance as we face a precarious future of rapid global warming.

Taking us from the Big Bang to the present day and beyond, The Earth Transformed forces us to reckon with humankind’s continuing efforts to make sense of the natural world.
—–
‘This is epic, gripping, original history that leaps off the page’ Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland
‘All Historians aiming to tell a narrative face the problem of when exactly to start it. Only Peter Frankopan would go back 2.5 billion years to the Great Oxidation Event’ Tom Holland

A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: BBC NEWS * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * FINANCIAL TIMES * NEW EUROPEAN * GUARDIAN * NEW STATESMAN * THE TIMES * THE WEEK * WATERSTONES * BLACKWELL’S

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Explore Ireland’s fascinating story with more than 100 maps.

From the early history of the Emerald Isle to the modern day, Ireland has evolved rapidly – along with the ways in which it has been mapped. Cartography has not only kept pace with these changes, but often driven them.

Combining the artistic world of early cartography with modern computerised surveys, this is a beautiful and unique addition to any map- or history-lover’s collection. Irish author and historian Pat Liddy produces an invaluable history of Ireland and its relationship with its neighbours, and indeed, the world.

Featured maps include:

• Ptolemaic Map of Ibernia, 15th century
• Mercator’s Irlandiae Regnum, c. 1560
• Battle of Kinsale, 1601
• John Speed’s Map of Ireland, 1610
• Down Survey, 1683
• Siege of Londonderry, 1689
• Survey of Dublin Bay, 1800
• INFOMAR’s Map of the Seabed, 2019
  Other books in the Collins History in Maps series:
• History of War in Maps by Philip Parker (ISBN 9780008506490)
• History of World Trade in Maps by Philip Parker (ISBN 9780008409296)

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It’s time to spice up your home cooking and transform your dishes from bland and boring to punchy and flavoursome with this definitive guide to spices!

Taking the periodic table of spices as a starting point, this adventurous recipe book explores the science behind the art of making incredible spice blends to help you release the flavour in your dishes. Discover a spice book like no other from TV personality, food scientist and bestselling author, Dr Stuart Farrimond.

Spice profiles – organised by their dominant flavour compound – showcase the world’s top spices, with recipe ideas, information on how to buy, use, and store, and more in-depth science to help you release the flavours and make your own spice connections. There is also a selection of recipes using innovative spice blends, based on the new spice science, designed to brighten your palate and inspire your own culinary adventures.

Sure to get your taste-buds tingling, you can explore:

– An explanation of what spices are and how they’re produced.
– Which countries favour which spices and a bit of the history behind it.
– Dozens of spice blends you can make and what you can use it for.
– 52 exciting recipes from around the world which showcase each spice blend.
– A reference guide to look up each spice to understand how to use it.
– Colour-coded charts to help you learn the chemical compounds that make up the flavours.
– Instructions on how to design your own spice blends with photographic references without.

Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe – it’s knowing how to use the right combination of spices and herbs to get the greatest possible flavour from your dishes. From learning how the flavour compounds within spices work together to exploring the world’s top spices, this is the perfect cookbook for curious cooks and adventurous foodies. Whether you’re a fan of spice seeking to experiment with new flavour combinations, or simply a beginner-level home-cook looking to advance your knowledge on all things spice-related, this is a must-have volume also doubling up as a great coffee table book for the whole family to love.

Explore the world’s best spices, be inspired to make your own new spice blends, and take your cooking to new heights. You’ll turn to this beautiful and unique book time and again – to explore and innovate.

At DK, we believe in the power of discovery.

So why stop there? This series from DK is designed to help you perfect your cooking with practical instruction – and the science behind it. There are more cookbooks to discover from The Science of… series giving you the essentials to cook up a storm! Find the answers to your everyday cooking questions and get more out of your recipes with The Science of Cooking, paired together they make the ideal cookery gifts for your food-loving friends too!

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