Red Clocks

Download Red Clocks PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316434809
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (164 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Red Clocks by : Leni Zumas

Download or read book Red Clocks written by Leni Zumas and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. Five women. One question. What is a woman for? In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom. Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivv?r, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling herbalist, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt. Red Clocks is at once a riveting drama, whose mysteries unfold with magnetic energy, and a shattering novel of ideas. In the vein of Margaret Atwood and Eileen Myles, Leni Zumas fearlessly explores the contours of female experience, evoking The Handmaid's Tale for a new millennium. This is a story of resilience, transformation, and hope in tumultuous -- even frightening -- times.

Clocks and More Clocks

Download Clocks and More Clocks PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1481410725
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (814 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Clocks and More Clocks by : Pat Hutchins

Download or read book Clocks and More Clocks written by Pat Hutchins and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the hall clock reads twenty minutes past four, the attic clock reads twenty-three minutes past four, the kitchen clock reads twenty-five minutes past four, and the bedroom clock reads twenty-six minutes past four, what should Mr. Higgins do? He can't tell which of his clocks tells the right time. He is in for a real surprise when the Clockmaker shows him that they are all correct!

Farewell Navigator

Download Farewell Navigator PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1890447625
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (94 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Farewell Navigator by : Leni Zumas

Download or read book Farewell Navigator written by Leni Zumas and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A powerful, irresistible collection” of short stories about outsiders by the bestselling author of Red Clocks (Publishers Weekly). A teenage boy discovers his blind mother making a pass at his new best friend. A woman works in a factory by day and tends to a menagerie of sick animals by night. An aspiring witch is disillusioned by her spiritual shortcomings. A girl from a town so small it doesn’t exist on any map runs away with a rock band—all the while attempting to chart her way back home. The odds stacked against them, the lovingly rendered outsiders in these stories find connectedness and redemption in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Even the most surreal and ethereal moments take on a surprising familiarity, and the darkest experiences are imbued with unexpected hope. To become engrossed in Zumas’s world is a strange and beautiful delight. “Zumas gives socially awkward, mysteriously gifted and self-destructive outcasts spellbinding, unflinching voice in her debut collection. The heroes in this collection are trapped; some are resigned to years of caregiving, many are institutionalized and nearly all haunt the fringes of normalcy (or disregard the normal altogether).” —Publishers Weekly “Attention unrequited lovers, sisters of suicidal brothers, children of the legally blind: you are not alone. Leni Zumas understands your quiet agony.” —Miranda July, author of No One Belongs Here More Than You

Twelve Clocks

Download Twelve Clocks PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816531366
Total Pages : 105 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Twelve Clocks by : Julie Sophia Paegle

Download or read book Twelve Clocks written by Julie Sophia Paegle and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The book consists of interconnected poems concerned with various modes of time and its relation to personal and historical events"--Provided by publisher.

Goodnight Moon

Download Goodnight Moon PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062662899
Total Pages : 34 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (626 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Goodnight Moon by : Margaret Wise Brown

Download or read book Goodnight Moon written by Margaret Wise Brown and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classic of children's literature, beloved by generations of readers and listeners, the quiet poetry of the words and the gentle, lulling illustrations combine to make a perfect book for the end of the day. In a great green room, tucked away in bed, is a little bunny. "Goodnight room, goodnight moon." And to all the familiar things in the softly lit room—to the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs, to the clocks and his socks, to the mittens and the kittens, to everything one by one—the little bunny says goodnight. One of the most beloved books of all time, Goodnight Moon is a must for every bookshelf and a time-honored gift for baby showers and other special events.

This Particular Happiness

Download This Particular Happiness PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Forest Avenue Press
ISBN 13 : 1942436408
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (424 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis This Particular Happiness by : Jackie Shannon Hollis

Download or read book This Particular Happiness written by Jackie Shannon Hollis and published by Forest Avenue Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowing where your scars come from doesn’t make them go away. When Jackie Shannon Hollis marries Bill, a man who does not want children, she joyfully commits to a childless life. But soon after the wedding, she returns to the family ranch in rural Oregon and holds her newborn niece. Jackie falls deep into baby love and longing and begins to question her decision. As she navigates the overlapping roles of wife, daughter, aunt, sister, survivor, counselor, and friend, she explores what it really means to choose a different path. This Particular Happiness delves into the messy and beautiful territory of what we keep and what we abandon to make the space for love.

The Restless Clock

Download The Restless Clock PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022630292X
Total Pages : 571 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Restless Clock by : Jessica Riskin

Download or read book The Restless Clock written by Jessica Riskin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A core principle of modern science holds that a scientific explanation must not attribute will or agency to natural phenomena. "The Restless Clock" examines the origins and history of this, in particular as it applies to the science of living things. This is also the story of a tradition of radicals--dissenters who embraced the opposite view, that agency is an essential and ineradicable part of nature. Beginning with the church and courtly automata of early modern Europe, Jessica Riskin guides us through our thinking about the extent to which animals might be understood as mere machines. We encounter fantastic robots and cyborgs as well as a cast of scientific and philosophical luminaries, including Descartes and Leibnitz, Lamarck and Darwin, whose ideas gain new relevance in Riskin's hands. The book ends with a riveting discussion of how the dialectic continues in genetics, epigenetics, and evolutionary biology, where work continues to naturalize different forms of agency. "The Restless Clock "reveals the deeply buried roots of current debates in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology.

The Bone Clocks

Download The Bone Clocks PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0812994736
Total Pages : 642 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Bone Clocks by : David Mitchell

Download or read book The Bone Clocks written by David Mitchell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller by the author of Cloud Atlas • Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize • Named One of the Top Ten Fiction Books of the Year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, and O: The Oprah Magazine • A New York Times Notable Book • An American Library Association Notable Book • Winner of the World Fantasy Award “With The Bone Clocks, [David] Mitchell rises to meet and match the legacy of Cloud Atlas.”—Los Angeles Times Following a terrible fight with her mother over her boyfriend, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her family and her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life. For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born. A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting on the war in Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder. Rich with character and realms of possibility, The Bone Clocks is a kaleidoscopic novel that begs to be taken apart and put back together by a writer The Washington Post calls “the novelist who’s been showing us the future of fiction.” An elegant conjurer of interconnected tales, a genre-bending daredevil, and a master prose stylist, David Mitchell has become one of the leading literary voices of his generation. His hypnotic new novel, The Bone Clocks, crackles with invention and wit and sheer storytelling pleasure—it is fiction at its most spellbinding. Named to more than 20 year-end best of lists, including NPR • San Francisco Chronicle • The Atlantic • The Guardian • Slate • BuzzFeed “One of the most entertaining and thrilling novels I’ve read in a long time.”—Meg Wolitzer, NPR “[Mitchell] writes with a furious intensity and slapped-awake vitality, with a delight in language and all the rabbit holes of experience.”—The New York Times Book Review “Intensely compelling . . . fantastically witty . . . offers up a rich selection of domestic realism, gothic fantasy and apocalyptic speculation.”—The Washington Post “[A] time-traveling, culture-crossing, genre-bending marvel of a novel.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Great fun . . . a tour de force . . . [Mitchell] channels his narrators with vivid expertise.”—San Francisco Chronicle

The 13 Clocks

Download The 13 Clocks PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYRB Kids
ISBN 13 : 9781590179376
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (793 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The 13 Clocks by : James Thurber

Download or read book The 13 Clocks written by James Thurber and published by NYRB Kids. This book was released on 2015-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a cold, gloomy castle where all the clocks have stopped, a wicked Duke amuses himself by finding new and fiendish ways of rejecting the suitors for his niece, the good and beautiful Princess Saralinda.

The Radium Girls

Download The Radium Girls PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1492649368
Total Pages : 585 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (926 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Radium Girls by : Kate Moore

Download or read book The Radium Girls written by Kate Moore and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Charts Bestseller! For fans of Hidden Figures, comes the incredible true story of the women heroes who were exposed to radium in factories across the U.S. in the early 20th century, and their brave and groundbreaking battle to strengthen workers' rights, even as the fatal poison claimed their own lives... In the dark years of the First World War, radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. And, until they begin to come forward. As the women start to speak out on the corruption, the factories that once offered golden opportunities ignore all claims of the gruesome side effects. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come. A timely story of corporate greed and the brave figures that stood up to fight for their lives, these women and their voices will shine for years to come. Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives...

The Crying Book

Download The Crying Book PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1948226456
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (482 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Crying Book by : Heather Christle

Download or read book The Crying Book written by Heather Christle and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.

The Turquoise Ledge

Download The Turquoise Ledge PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101464585
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Turquoise Ledge by : Leslie Marmon Silko

Download or read book The Turquoise Ledge written by Leslie Marmon Silko and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-10-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly original and poetic self-portrait from one of America's most acclaimed writers. Leslie Marmon Silko's new book, her first in ten years, combines memoir with family history and reflections on the creatures and beings that command her attention and inform her vision of the world, taking readers along on her daily walks through the arroyos and ledges of the Sonoran desert in Arizona. Silko weaves tales from her family's past into her observations, using the turquoise stones she finds on the walks to unite the strands of her stories, while the beauty and symbolism of the landscape around her, and of the snakes, birds, dogs, and other animals that share her life and form part of her family, figure prominently in her memories. Strongly influenced by Native American storytelling traditions, The Turquoise Ledge becomes a moving and deeply personal contemplation of the enormous spiritual power of the natural world-of what these creatures and landscapes can communicate to us, and how they are all linked. The book is Silko's first extended work of nonfiction, and its ambitious scope, clear prose, and inventive structure are captivating. The Turquoise Ledge will delight loyal fans and new readers alike, and it marks the return of the unique voice and vision of a gifted storyteller.

The House With a Clock In Its Walls

Download The House With a Clock In Its Walls PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101659718
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The House With a Clock In Its Walls by : John Bellairs

Download or read book The House With a Clock In Its Walls written by John Bellairs and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-08-03 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting gothic tale by master mysery writer John Bellairs--soon to be a major motion picture starring Cate Blanchett and Jack Black! "The House With a Clock in Its Walls will cast its spell for a long time."--The New York Times Book Review When Lewis Barnavelt, an orphan. comes to stay with his uncle Jonathan, he expects to meet an ordinary person. But he is wrong. Uncle Jonathan and his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Zimmermann, are both magicians! Lewis is thrilled. At first, watchng magic is enough. Then Lewis experiments with magic himself and unknowingly resurrects the former owner of the house: a woman named Selenna Izard. It seems that Selenna and her husband built a timepiece into the walls--a clock that could obliterate humankind. And only the Barnavelts can stop it!

Thirteen Clocks

Download Thirteen Clocks PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469662582
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Thirteen Clocks by : Robert G. Parkinson

Download or read book Thirteen Clocks written by Robert G. Parkinson and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his celebrated account of the origins of American unity, John Adams described July 1776 as the moment when thirteen clocks managed to strike at the same time. So how did these American colonies overcome long odds to create a durable union capable of declaring independence from Britain? In this powerful new history of the fifteen tense months that culminated in the Declaration of Independence, Robert G. Parkinson provides a troubling answer: racial fear. Tracing the circulation of information in the colonial news systems that linked patriot leaders and average colonists, Parkinson reveals how the system's participants constructed a compelling drama featuring virtuous men who suddenly found themselves threatened by ruthless Indians and defiant slaves acting on behalf of the king. Parkinson argues that patriot leaders used racial prejudices to persuade Americans to declare independence. Between the Revolutionary War's start at Lexington and the Declaration, they broadcast any news they could find about Native Americans, enslaved Blacks, and Hessian mercenaries working with their British enemies. American independence thus owed less to the love of liberty than to the exploitation of colonial fears about race. Thirteen Clocks offers an accessible history of the Revolution that uncovers the uncomfortable origins of the republic even as it speaks to our own moment.

Longitude

Download Longitude PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0802779433
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (27 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Longitude by : Dava Sobel

Download or read book Longitude written by Dava Sobel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-07-05 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.

Mother Winter

Download Mother Winter PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501193090
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mother Winter by : Sophia Shalmiyev

Download or read book Mother Winter written by Sophia Shalmiyev and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Lyrical and emotionally gutting." —O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE “Intellectually satisfying [and] artistically profound.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW) “Mesmeric.”—THE PARIS REVIEW “Vividly awesome and truly great." —EILEEN MYLES “Gorgeous, gutting, unforgettable." —LENI ZUMAS “Brilliant.” —MICHELLE TEA An arresting memoir equal parts refugee-coming-of-age story, feminist manifesto, and meditation on motherhood, displacement, gender politics, and art that follows award-winning writer Sophia Shalmiyev’s flight from the Soviet Union, where she was forced to abandon her estranged mother, and her subsequent quest to find her. Russian sentences begin backward, Sophia Shalmiyev tells us on the first page of her striking lyrical memoir. To understand the end of her story, we must go back to the beginning. Born to a Russian mother and an Azerbaijani father, Shalmiyev was raised in the stark oppressiveness of 1980s Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where anti-Semitism and an imbalance of power were omnipresent in her home. At just eleven years old, Shalmiyev’s father stole her away to America, forever abandoning her estranged alcoholic mother, Elena. Motherless on a tumultuous voyage to the states, terrified in a strange new land, Shalmiyev depicts in urgent, poetic vignettes her emotional journeys through an uncharted world as an immigrant, artist, and, eventually, as a mother of two. As an adult, Shalmiyev voyages back to Russia to search endlessly for the mother she never knew—in her pursuit, we witness an arresting, impassioned meditation on art-making, gender politics, displacement, and most potently, motherhood.

About Time

Download About Time PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 1324021950
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis About Time by : David Rooney

Download or read book About Time written by David Rooney and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best History Books of 2021 A captivating, surprising history of timekeeping and how it has shaped our world. For thousands of years, people of all cultures have made and used clocks, from the city sundials of ancient Rome to the medieval water clocks of imperial China, hourglasses fomenting revolution in the Middle Ages, the Stock Exchange clock of Amsterdam in 1611, Enlightenment observatories in India, and the high-precision clocks circling the Earth on a fleet of GPS satellites that have been launched since 1978. Clocks have helped us navigate the world and build empires, and have even taken us to the brink of destruction. Elites have used them to wield power, make money, govern citizens, and control lives—and sometimes the people have used them to fight back. Through the stories of twelve clocks, About Time brings pivotal moments from the past vividly to life. Historian and lifelong clock enthusiast David Rooney takes us from the unveiling of al-Jazari’s castle clock in 1206, in present-day Turkey; to the Cape of Good Hope observatory at the southern tip of Africa, where nineteenth-century British government astronomers moved the gears of empire with a time ball and a gun; to the burial of a plutonium clock now sealed beneath a public park in Osaka, where it will keep time for 5,000 years. Rooney shows, through these artifacts, how time has been imagined, politicized, and weaponized over the centuries—and how it might bring peace. Ultimately, he writes, the technical history of horology is only the start of the story. A history of clocks is a history of civilization.