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Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History
by Moudhy N. Al-Rashid
In her accessible and illuminating debut, historian Moudhy Al-Rashid utilizes eight artifacts, including cuneiform tablets and weapon fragments, to explore everyday life and culture in ancient Mesopotamia. Further reading: The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World by Selena Wisnom.
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Slither: How Nature's Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate our World
by Stephen S. Hall
Science writer Stephen S. Hall has been fascinated by snakes since childhood, and his enthusiasm comes through in this sweeping overview of all things herpetological. Hall covers topics including people’s fear of snakes, snake venom, locomotion, evolutionary history, religious symbolism, and the ease with which snakes adapt to their surroundings. An enticing choice for snake lovers (and haters!).
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The Lobster Trap: The Global Fight for a Seafood on the Brink
by Greg Mercer
A page-turning examination of how a multi-billion dollar industry creates enormous wealth and endless heartache, at a time when climate change, swings in the market, and greed are impacting fishermen’s livelihoods in new and dramatic ways. Lobster has been a phenomenal success story, with a commercial fishery that has generated enormous wealth and fueled global appetites for one of the world’s most recognizable luxury foods. The great lobster boom that began in the 1990s has also led to violent fights over who has the right catch North America’s most valuable seafood, including for Canada’s Indigenous people who until now have been excluded from this industry. But overfishing and climate change are pushing lobster toward a cliff.
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Capitalism and Colonialism: The Making of Modern Canada 1890-1960
by Bryan D. Palmer
This second volume of Bryan Palmer’s history of Canada covers 1890 to 1960. Weaving together themes that include business, labour, politics, and social history, this account brings the experiences of Indigenous peoples into the centre of the narrative. Canada experienced extraordinary growth during these decades, notably after WWII when many Canadians quickly became far better off. Yet vast inequalities persisted, Indigenous peoples experienced ongoing and often worsening deprivation, and ordinary people saw little or no real improvement in their lives. These realities set the stage for the interplay of reform, resistance and reaction that followed after 1960.
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Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization
by Tim Queeney
A sailor explores the history of rope through the story of civilization—from Magellan's world-circling ships, to the 15th-century fleet of Admiral Zheng He, to Polynesian multihulls with crab claw sails, he shows how without rope, none of their adventurous voyages and discoveries would have been possible.
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An Accidental Villain: a Soldier's Tale of War, Deceit and Exile
by Linden MacIntyre
After distinguishing himself on the battlefields of the First World War, Major-General Sir Hugh Tudor could have sought a respectable retirement in England, his duty done. But in 1920, his old friend Winston Churchill, Minister of War in Lloyd George's cabinet, called on Tudor to serve in a very different kind of conflict--one fought in the Irish streets and countryside against an enemy determined to resist British colonial authority to the death. And soon Tudor was directing a police force waging a brutal campaign against rebel "terrorists," one he was determined to win at all costs--including utilizing police death squads and inflicting brutal reprisals against IRA members and supporters and Sinn Fâein politicians.
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