Other books that might interest you

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  PTSD - A Short History

  Allan V. Horwitz

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  Post-traumatic stress disorder — and its predecessor diagnoses, including soldier's heart, railroad spine, and shell shock — was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the latter part of the 19th century. The psychic impacts of train crashes, wars, and sexual shocks among children first drew psychiatric attention. Later, enormous numbers of soldiers suffering from battlefield traumas returned from the world wars.It was not until the 1980s that PTSD became a formal diagnosis, in part to recognize the intense psychic suffering of Vietnam War veterans and women with trauma-related personality disorders. PTSD now occupies a dominant place in not only the mental health professions but also major social institutions and mainstream culture, making it the signature mental disorder of the early 21st century.In PTSD, Allan V. Horwitz traces the fluctuations in definitions of and responses to traumatic psychic conditions. Arguing that PTSD, perhaps more than any other diagnostic category, is a lens for showing major historical changes in conceptions of mental illness, he surveys the conditions most likely to produce traumas, the results of those traumas, and how to evaluate the claims of trauma victims.

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  The Big Bang of Numbers - How to...

  Manil Suri

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  Our universe has multiple origin stories, from religious creation myths to the Big Bang of scientists. But if we leave those behind and start from nothing—no matter, no cosmos, not even empty space—could we create a universe using only math? Irreverent and boundlessly creative, The Big Bang of Numbers invites us to try.In this new mathematical origin story, mathematician and novelist Manil Suri creates a natural progression of ideas needed to design our world, starting with numbers and continuing through geometry, algebra, and beyond. He reveals the secret lives of real and imaginary numbers, teaches them to play abstract games with real-world applications, discovers unexpected patterns that connect humble lifeforms to enormous galaxies, and explores mathematical underpinnings for randomness and beauty. With evocative examples ranging from multidimensional crochet to the Mona Lisa's asymmetrical smile, as well as ingenious storytelling that helps illuminate complex concepts like infinity and relativity, The Big Bang of Numbers charts a playful, inventive course to existence. Mathematics, Suri shows, might best be understood not as something we invent to explain Nature, but as the source of all creation, whose directives Nature tries to obey as best she can.

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  Nikola Tesla - Prophet Of The...

  Michael W. Simmons

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  Nikola Tesla: inventor or magician? Tesla was one of the most famous inventors who ever lived, but after his death, he was nearly forgotten. He was a celebrity during the height of America’s Gilded Age. In this book, you will read about his friendship with Mark Twain, his furious competition with his former employer Thomas Edison, his uneasy relationship with billionaire J.P. Morgan, and his rivalry with Albert Einstein. 
  During his lifetime, Tesla revolutionized the field of electrical engineering with his most famous invention: the induction motor. But that wasn’t all he contributed to the world of technology. His coils, turbines, robotic boats, and mysterious “death ray” continue to beguile the imagination and inspire the inventors of the 21st century. 
  But who was Tesla really? This book will take you from his early childhood in Croatia, where he experienced strange optical visions and “luminous phenomenon” that gave him near super-human powers of memory and visualization, to the “War of the Currents”, Thomas Edison’s bizarre campaign to ruin Tesla’s reputation. From trying to fight the Spanish American War with robots, to electrifying the skies of the Colorado desert, and to starting an earthquake in the middle of New York city, learn how Nikola Tesla shaped the world we live in today.

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  Conversations with Birds

  Priyanka Kumar

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  "Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself."So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape—and in the cosmos—by way of watching birds.Tracing her movements across the American West, this stirring collection of essays brings the avian world richly to life. Kumar's perspective is not that of a list keeper, counting and cataloguing species. For Kumar, birds "become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world." At a time when climate change, habitat loss, and the reckless use of pesticides are causing widespread extinction of species, Kumar's reflections on these messengers from our distant past and harbingers of our future offer luminous evidence of her suggestion that "seeds of transformation lie dormant in all of our hearts. Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us."

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  The Spanish Flu Epidemic and Its...

  Jaime Breitnauer

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  Where did Spanish flu come from, and what can the possible sites of origin tell us today? This book looks at how Spanish flu changed the focus of scientific thought from eugenics to the creation of public health, and how it unfolded across each continent.In Budapest, a lone woman dies quietly on a bench in the late afternoon sun, while in South Africa, a group of men plunge to their death in the blackness of a mine shaft elevator. In London, a loving father takes his daughter's life while in Austria a man grieves for his unborn baby trapped inside his dead wife's body. In Western Samoa, entire villages are wiped out in a matter of days and in India, the river Ganges becomes clogged with bloated corpses and the pungent smell of disease . . . This is not some post-apocalyptic future, but the reality of Spanish flu, which claimed the lives of around 100 million people globally between 1918 and 1920. Often overshadowed by the tragedy of the Great War, this book walks us through the lives of some of the victims, discusses the science behind the disease, and asks, what will the next pandemic look like?

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  Disaster Survival Guide - The...

  David Burke

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  You Know How To Survive A Disaster? 
  If the answer is "NO," then the Disaster Survival Handbook is a MUST-HAVE! 
  This is a reference book on how to stay alive in man-made and natural disasters. 
  Prepare yourself with the skills you need, because you never know when tragedy hits! 
  If disaster strikes, the world changes. Everything we've come to rely on is in doubt, and we often find ourselves with only our wits to get us through. Chances are there will be anarchy in the streets, public services will be restricted if they do not exist, and former safe havens can suddenly become death traps. 
  This helps everyone to learn and understand what is going on in a crisis and to take the right steps to ensure their own personal safety and that of those responsible for it. You will learn through the pages of this book:What everybody needs to know about disastersBasic disaster preparedness skillsHow to pack a bug out bagWhat you need in a first aid kitHow to learn what to do about the earthquake, the storm, the flood, the landslide, and so much more.  
  With the wisdom found herein, you and your family will be able to venture out confidently knowing that you have the best weapon to protect yourself; your own imagination. Whether you're facing an earthquake, a storm, or a terrorist attack, we're going through the various steps you need to take in a variety of situations to ensure that you have the best chance of surviving a catastrophe.

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