Walter-Hobbs Collection / Bistro area
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Thomas Paine's Rights of Man argues that human rights are inherent. As such, they cannot be conferred on citizens by their governments because to do so would mean that these rights can be revoked by that same government. Paine further suggests that government is responsible for protecting the rights of men, and therefore, the interests of governments and citizens are united. Within this context, Paine argues that revolution is acceptable when the...
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From the publisher. In Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney explores the brilliant and prescient mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest scientists and inventors. Called a madman by his enemies, a genius by others, and an enigma by nearly everyone, Nikola Tesla was, without a doubt, a trailblazing inventor who created astonishing, sometimes world-transforming devices that were virtually without theoretical precedent. Tesla not only discovered...
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In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of...
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Presents Abraham Lincoln as we have never before seen him. This insightful and vibrant narrative draws extensively on diaries, letters, and other primary sources to provide a remarkably close-up view of Lincoln: the boy, the homespun politician, the president, the military leader, the man with his family.
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Called "the veriest trash" by a member of the Concord, Massachusetts Library Board that banned the novel when it was first published, Huckleberry Finn has come to be viewed, as H.L. Mencken put it, as "one of the great masterpieces of the world." Ernest Hemingway wrote that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." A daringly ironic...
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"Irresistible. . . . Slowness is an ode to sensuous leisure, to the enjoyment of pleasure rather than just the search for it." - Mirabella
Milan Kundera's lightest novel, a divertimento, an opera buffa, Slowness is also the first of this author's fictional works to have been written in French.
Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows the narrator of Slowness through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated by more than...
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A study of new and reappearing diseases that have been causing death and terror around the world in the last few decades of the twentieth century, spotlighting the doctors and scientists who are risking their lives to contain the viruses, and arguing that the deadly microbes are a result of the human impact on earth's ecosystem.
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In this forceful, comprehensive analysis of generals, John Keegan argues that generalship, like warfare itself, is not only an exercise in power or military skill but also a cultural activity that tells us much about a particular era or place. Central to Keegan's theme is the proposition that heroism first appeared as a principle with the rise to conquer. He vivifies this concept through the cogent definition of the careers and styles of four key...
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Written by the renowned authority on ancient ships and seafaring Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners has long served the needs of all who are interested in the sea, from the casual reader to the professional historian. This completely revised edition takes into account the fresh information that has appeared since the book was first published in 1959, especially that from archaeology's newest branch, marine archaeology. Casson does what no other author...
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Traces the history of struggles to find the source and cure for smallpox, yellow fever, measles, and poliomyelitis, drawing from personal reports and letters of participants who saw the events firsthand; and discusses some of the viral diseases that remain out of control, including AIDS and Ebola.
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What compels millions of people to ignore the medical evidence and continue smoking? David Krogh offers some fascinating and surprising answers in this critically acclaimed analysis of what doctors and scientists know about the passion for tobacco.
This feisty and provocative work gives smokers, ex-smokers, non-smokers, or anyone captivated by the quirkiness of human behavior a better understanding of this complex, deep-rooted habit, and in a broader...
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What is it about the human mind that accounts for the fact that we can speak and understand a language? Why can't other creatures do the same? And what does this tell us about the rest of human abilities? Recent dramatic discoveries in linguistics and psychology provide intriguing answers to these age-old mysteries. In this fascinating book, Ray Jackendoff emphasizes the grammatical commonalities across languages, both spoken and signed, and discusses...