Cranston Public Library

"From a distinctive, inimitable voice, a wickedly funny and fascinating romp through the strange, and often contradictory history of Western parenting"--

"With his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of why civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how some nations successfully recover from crises while adopting selective changes--a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals--ranging...

"A dozen of the best conversations from the podcast Making Sense, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to acting ethically"--

"Is civilization teetering on the edge of a cliff? Or are we just climbing higher than ever? Most people who read the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is...

"Before Tom Wolfe was a bestselling novelist, he was a groundbreaking journalist. Now the maestro storyteller turns his attention to the mystery behind the creation of his own most important tool: language. In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe makes the captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech--not evolution--is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the self-taught Englishman who beat Charles...

"The car has shaped the modern era more profoundly than any other human invention. Its manufacture introduced mass-production to the world, bringing with it tarmac, suburbs, and car culture. In this comprehensive world history of the most important transport innovation of the modern age, historian Dr. Steven Parissien examines the impact, development, and significance of the automobile over its turbulent and colorful 130-year history. He tells the...

Brilliant, reminiscent of Lewis Hyde's The Gift in its reach and of Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time in its haunting evocation of human lives, offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history-from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. Brox plumbs the class implications of light-who had it, who didn't-through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking...

Novelist, cultural commentator, memoirist, and historian Eva Hoffman examines our ever-changing perception of time in this inspired addition to the BIG IDEAS/small books series Time has always been the great given, the element that establishes the governing facts of human fate that cannot be circumvented, deconstructed, or wished away. But, these days we are tampering with time in ways that affect how we live, the textures of our experience, and...