Global warming is a reality, not for the first time in the past 130,000 years. The only question is how much of it is caused by nature, and how much by mankind. We examine the counterintuitive possibility that global warming may lead to an ice age, starting as early as our lifetimes. Our current epoch, the Holocene, began about 12,000 years ago. The Holocene has witnessed at least two warming episodes and several coolings. The ...

The Isis and Serapis district contains two famous temples by that name. It also contains the Thermae of Trajan and Titus, as well as the Colosseum, and at least one great gladiator school. As we 'walk' through this district with its many sights, we'll stop to watch some games in the Colosseum. We'll meet five of the most famous gladiators of the day, the best of a breed of gory killers, whose wild gazes and ...

When Adolf Hitler promised the German nation he would make them in to a thousand year Reich, a Third Reich, he was not just chattering. He was a shrewd manipulator of public opinion, who recognized the suffering of his adopted people (he was Austrian, not German) after their massive losses and defeat in World War I. He made many promises, including a return to the original First Reich--the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. ...

May 29, 1453: one of the world's great empires breathed its last breath and died under a pounding by the world's first super siege gun. That empire was the ancient Roman Empire--its surviving Eastern half, which outlived the Rome of the West by a thousand years. The people of Constantinople wouldn't know what 'Byzantine' meant--they considered themselves to be Romans. Orban's great bombard, named Basilica, pounded the impregnable walls for weeks. It was capable of ...

"All my life," writes Conor Cruise O'Brien, "I have been fascinated and puzzled by nationalism and religion; by the interaction of the two forces, sometimes in unison, sometimes antagonistic." In these wide-ranging and penetrating essays, O'Brien examines how throughout the world today these age-old forces are once again threatening democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of expression ? particularly in the United States, the nation founded on Enlightenment values. He weaves together beautifully written ...

Tracing the use of air power in World War II and the Korean War, Mark Clodfelter explains how U. S. Air Force doctrine evolved through the American experience in these conventional wars only to be thwarted in the context of a limited guerrilla struggle in Vietnam. Although a faith in bombing's sheer destructive power led air commanders to believe that extensive air assaults could win the war at any time, the Vietnam experience instead showed ...

The foremost historian of the care of the mentally ill compellingly recounts our various attempts to solve this ever-present problem, from its beginnings in colonial times through the inception of mental hospitals to the current plight of the mentally-ill homeless that confronts us every day.

Here is the untold story of an inbred, gifted, and powerful elite of families and friends who dominated America's relations with the Middle East for over a century. Known to Foreign Service colleagues as "the Arabists," these were the men and women who had spent much of their lives, usually with their families, living in the Arab world as diplomats, military attaches, intelligence agents, and educators. Descended from the missionaries, scholars, and explorers who first ...