* This book will appeal to a diverse group of readers: sailors, people interested in how the oceans work and how they control the Earth’s climate, the vision-impaired community, those who like seagoing adventure stories, and anyone who wants to see a strong woman character. * A firsthand account of a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia *Americans’ experience of 9/11 from the helpless position of being at sea in a microcosmic world cut off from the rest of the world * A behind-the-scenes look into the life of an oceanographer and a realistic description of how science at sea is accomplished * There is a large community of blind and visually impaired individuals and their families who are looking for inspirational figures leading successful, productive lives with a disability. A blind woman who is a top ocean physicist, leading months-long research trips on huge vessels all over the world’s oceans, is a great inspiration. * The scientific concepts presented in this book are woven into the story and are explained in a manner that is easy for the reader to understand, since the author was a “layman” when he began going to sea. This information is timely and satisfying to those readers eager to learn more about how the oceans affect global warming.
"Essential reading for the devout, the agnostic, and the atheist. In tackling the question of the religious brain, Graziano is respectful, sincere, and scientifically plausible. This might even be an Important Book."—Sam Wang, author of Welcome to Your Brain"A beautifully crafted, tightly scripted account of how the far-flung legions of the brain's neurons give rise to social awareness and our notions of soul, religion and God."—Christof Koch, author of The Quest for Consciousness"Lucid and engaging. . . . Moves with pace and humor."—Philip Johnson-Laird, author of Mental Models"Do we know the origins of Gods and ghosts? This well-written book makes the bold case that new discoveries in social neuroscience can illuminate human spiritual experience."—Terry Sejnowski, PhD, Salk Institute/UC San DiegoWriting for the general public, Michael S. A. Graziano explores the controversial relationship between science and religion, first dismissing the «science versus religion» debate as outdated. The cutting-edge field of social neuroscience explains how our perceptions of our own consciousness, of other minds, and of spirits and gods depend on machinery in the brain that evolved to make us socially intelligent animals. In clear prose without technical jargon, Graziano discusses his and others' findings in this twenty-year-old science and the implications for human spirituality and religion.Michael S. A. Graziano, professor of neuroscience, Princeton University, is the author of numerous articles on the functioning of the brain. He is internationally known for fundamental discoveries about sensory-motor coordination. His previous book on the brain, The Intelligent Movement Machine, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008.
• “A celebration of immigrants” • A book for both casual readers and those interested in sociology and history • A mix of scholarly analysis and personal reminiscence, written in a way that is very accessible to the average reader but also informative for those who study history • Will appeal to all Americans whose families immigrated to America in the last 150 years • Italian history and culture • Early 20th century American history, including World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, and the political environments of both America and Italy • For readers interested in the mass emigration of Europeans to America in the late 19th and early 20th century • Describes the causes of major historical events and their effects on ordinary, individual people • Analyses the phenomenon of the poor, uneducated European immigrant landing in the bottom of society, ridiculed and exploited, plunged into the Depression with no resources, and yet succeeding in ways that would have been unimaginable in his former country • Includes index and sources • Describes how the decade leading to the Great Depression holds lessons for us today • Author is a well-known scholar in the field of psychology who has written chapters and articles on the history of psychology, science, and certain groups of people • Known author in the worlds of psychology and sociology, with 15 previous books
Praise for Mary Malloy's The Wandering Heart:"An impressive fiction debut. . . . Malloy mixes history and fantasy with flair and delivers a wonderfully satisfying puzzler."—Publishers Weekly"A fabulous thriller. . . . A modern psychological tale with strong implications of horror."—MBR The Bookwatch"Mystery à la Gothic. . . . Historian Malloy does her research proud."—Mystery SceneThe second book in the Lizzie Manning trilogy. Following the path of a medieval pilgrimage, historian Lizzie Manning finds unexpected danger. Chaucer may have based his Wife of Bath on a real woman, whose descendant holds certain artifacts, but will the investigation lead to something more sinister? Are the bones of St. Thomas Becket, believed to have been destroyed nearly six hundred years ago, hidden in Canterbury Cathedral, and is someone willing to kill to protect the secret?Mary Malloy is the author of four maritime history books, including Devil on the Deep Blue Sea, which won the 2006 John Lyman Book Award for best maritime biography. Her first historical mystery The Wandering Heart introduced historian Lizzie Manning. Malloy has a PhD from Brown University and teaches maritime history at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Museum Studies at Harvard University.