Birth Science

Constantin Valdor. It is a name that brings forth images of heroism, honour and peerless duty. For it is he who commands the will of the Legio Custodes that most esteemed and dedicated cadre of elite warriors. He is the Emperor’s sword, His shield, His banner and he knows no equal. Clad in shining auramite, his fist clenched around the haft of his Guardian Spear, he is the bulwark against all enemies of the throne, within or without. Nearing the end of the wars of Unity, Valdor’s courage and purpose is put to the test as never before.

One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration. It is here that the philosopher expresses his frustration with the contemporary world and urges man to embrace Dionysian energy once more. He refutes European culture since the time of Socrates, arguing that it is one-sidedly Apollonian and prevents man from living in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life.

During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis. In this ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, acclaimed journalist and author Lucy Jones brings to light the emerging concept of 'matrescence'. Drawing on new research across various fields - neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology - Jones shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain and body are far more profound, wild and enduring than we have been led to believe.

In the first intellectual history of neoliberal globalism, author Quinn Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the World Trade Organization to show that neoliberalism emerged less to shrink government and abolish regulations than to redeploy them at a global level.

A freak thunderstorm strikes just as Gameknight999 is activating his father’s digitizer to reenter Minecraft. Sparks flash across his vision as he is sucked into the game...and when the smoke clears, he’s arrived safely. But it doesn’t take long to realize that things in the Overworld are very different. Gameknight sees the same blocky terrain and square clouds as usual, but almost everything else has changed. His friends are nowhere to be found. His castle has disappeared, and the village he calls home is missing its defenses and fortified wall.

Natural Hospital Birth, Updated Edition shows how to apply the guidelines and tactics of natural birth in a hospital setting, where 99 percent of births take place. Doula Cynthia Gabriel shows expectant mothers what they can do to avoid unnecessary medical interventions and how to take initiative and consciously prepare for the kind of birth they want to have. Also included are inspiring stories from other women who know firsthand that natural birth in the hospital is possible.

Trapped 100 years in Minecraft’s past, Gameknight999 struggles to keep his real identity a secret from the villagers of long ago, all while preparing them for battle. Herobrine’s forces are getting closer every day, advancing across the Overworld and leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Furious at Gameknight’s unexpected meddling, the evil virus takes revenge, creating the terrifying shadow-crafters.

According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood.

This is a discussion of the transformation of drug use (especially morphine and cocaine, which was once commonly available in any chemist's shop) into a national menace. It revolves around the death of Billie Carleton, a West End musical actress, in 1918. Its cast of characters includes Brilliant Chang, a Chinese restaurant proprietor and Edgar Manning, a jazz drummer from Jamaica. They were eventually identified as the villains of the affair and invested with a highly charged sexual menace.

Join Dale Mitchell, your run-of-the-mill truck driver. Until one day, he accidentally runs someone over. Now, through a series of strange and unforeseeable circumstances, he has become anything but normal. A story of magic, of a history that never was, and of a man trying to go through his day-to-day life while managing the affairs of an entire world. Join Dale Mitchell on his journey.

The four spies at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence in the balance during the War of Independence, our spies went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a kiosk....

What's a girl to do when she finds out she has a great destiny? Reject it, of course. Until she starts having dreams that are someone else's memories. The world is on its second pandemic in a decade and EMT Angelica Morgan is burned out. Believing tea and cookies are a good solution, Angelica heads to her grandmother's. Can the world get weirder? Yes, yes it can. What Angelica learns sends her careening down an entirely new path. One she isn't even sure she wants, no matter how much she desires to help humanity. Angelica realizes the advantages. But will she live to make use of them?

Revealed for the first time in Racing for the Bomb, Groves played a crucial and decisive role in the planning, timing, and targeting of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions. Norris offers new insights into the complex and controversial questions surrounding the decision to drop the bomb in Japan and Groves' actions during World War II, which had a lasting imprint on the nuclear age and the Cold War that followed.

Fountain of Youth, or Valley of Death? While eating his supper of microwave popcorn, PhD student-genius Salinger Jacobs is grabbed from his apartment in California, stuck on a C-130 military plane, and sent to the Sahara Desert to witness the reality of the ZOO for himself. With the life expectancy of untrained scientists working inside the ZOO measured in hours, he has a lot to learn. Fast. First order of business? How do you shoot a gun, and just how much is that plant worth?

Hormonal contraception is something most women will use at some point during their life. But the reach of the pill goes far beyond the small number of targeted effects we take it for. It affects almost every system in our body. Column inches and anecdotal conversations prove there are many questions about the pill and its effects yet until now we have known very little about. In this trailblazing book expert psychologist Dr Hill reveals the latest science on the pill and how it's changing women and the world, for better and for worse.

Josephson-Storm traces the history of the myth of disenchantment in the births of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, folklore, psychoanalysis, and religious studies. Ironically, the myth of mythless modernity formed at the very time that Britain, France, and Germany were in the midst of occult and spiritualist revivals. It was specifically in response to this burgeoning culture of spirits and magic that they produced notions of a disenchanted world.

A riveting saga in the history of rock ‘n’ roll: the decades-long rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound - Leo Fender and Les Paul - and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.

Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative comes across like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry—a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin—also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.

The Free Fleet now has a powerful partner in the Ghatazhak. Together, they will finally be able to bring peace and prosperity to the fringe, and beyond.

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first colonised country to declare its independence after the Second World War.