Hidden Histories: A Spotter's Guide to the British Landscape

Author: Mary-Ann Ochota
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 0711240086
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Book Description
For the times when you’re driving past a lumpy, bumpy field and you wonder what made the lumps and bumps; for when you’re walking between two lines of grand trees, wondering when and why they were planted; for when you see a brown heritage sign pointing to a ‘tumulus’ but you don’t know what to look for… Entertaining and factually rigorous, Hidden Histories will help you decipher the story of our landscape through the features you can see around you. This Spotter’s Guide arms the amateur explorer with the crucial information needed to ‘read’ the landscape and spot the human activities that have shaped our green and pleasant land. Photographs and diagrams point out specific details and typical examples to help the curious Spotter ‘get their eye in’ and understand what they’re looking at, or looking for. Specially commissioned illustrations bring to life the processes that shaped the landscape - from medieval ploughing to Roman road building - and stand-alone capsules explore interesting aspects of history such as the Highland Clearances or the coming of Christianity. This unique guide uncovers the hidden stories behind the country's landscape, making it the perfect companion for an exploration of our green and pleasant land.

Storm Kings

Author: Lee Sandlin
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307473589
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
With 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations In Storm Kings, Lee Sandlin retraces America's fascination and unique relationship to tornadoes and the weather. From Ben Franklin's early experiments, to "the great storm debates" of the nineteenth century, to heartland life in the early twentieth century, Sandlin shows how tornado chasing helped foster the birth of meteorology, recreating with vivid descriptions some of the most devastating storms in America's history. Drawing on memoirs, letters, eyewitness testimonies, and numerous archives, Sandlin brings to life the forgotten characters and scientists that changed a nation and how successive generations came to understand and finally coexist with the spiraling menace that could erase lives and whole towns in an instant.

Surprise, Kill, Vanish

Author: Annie Jacobsen
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316441406
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.

Secret Britain

Author: Mary-Ann Ochota
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 0711253463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
In this beautifully illustrated book, anthropologist and broadcaster Mary-Ann Ochota unearths more than fifty of Britains most intriguing ancient places and artefacts and explores the mysteries behind them.

Secret Britain

Author: Mary-Ann Ochota
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
ISBN: 0711288852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
In Secret Britain, join anthropologist and broadcaster Mary-Ann Ochota for a tour of more than 70 of Britain's most intriguing archaeological sites and artefacts.

The Anatomy of Severe Weather

Author: Zach Roberts
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780996172707
Category : Lightning
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Book Description
Every spring the Central United States awakens from its winter slumber and begins the tumultuous transition to summer. The battle ground known as Tornado Alley comes to life as moisture, heat and wind come together to spawn the most intense storms on the planet. These storms traverse the landscape with hail, tornadoes, and lightning. As storm chasers, our mission is to capture these dynamic systems and share our experiences with you. Severe weather and the processes by which these mammoth storms develop are to this day an inexact science. However, the research that has been done on these storms, and experience in the field, has led to amazing developments in meteorology. How does a severe storm form? What are the signs a tornado may be imminent? What makes one severe storm different from another severe storm? The Anatomy of Severe Weather will visually take you through the process of severe weather using in depth explanations and high resolution photography. * A comprehensive visual guide to severe weather including thunderstorms, supercells, tornadoes, and lightning.* Illustrated throughout with easy to understand diagrams over high resolution photography and Doppler high radar images. * Covers an array of topics such as climatology, weather history, and storm chasing.

The Pebbles on the Beach

Author: Clarence Ellis
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571353592
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Book Description
This is a book about the simple pleasure of pebble spotting. Clarence Ellis is a charming, knowledgeable and witty guide to everything you didn't know there was to know about pebbles. He ruminates on what a pebble actually is, before showing us how they are formed, advising on the best pebble-spotting grounds in the UK, helping to identify individual stones, and giving tips on the necessary kit. You'll know your chert from your schist, your onyx from your agate, and will be on your guard for artificial intruders before you know it. Understanding the humble pebble makes a trip to the beach, lake-side or river bank simply that little bit more fascinating.

Material Cultures of Childhood in Second World War Britain

Author: Gabriel Moshenska
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351345508
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
How do children cope when their world is transformed by war? This book draws on memory narratives to construct an historical anthropology of childhood in Second World Britain, focusing on objects and spaces such as gas masks, air raid shelters and bombed-out buildings. In their struggles to cope with the fears and upheavals of wartime, with families divided and familiar landscapes lost or transformed, children reimagined and reshaped these material traces of conflict into toys, treasures and playgrounds. This study of the material worlds of wartime childhood offers a unique viewpoint into an extraordinary period in history with powerful resonances across global conflicts into the present day.

Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance

Author: Richard B. M. Schasfoort
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
ISBN: 1782627308
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 555

Book Description
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) plays a dominant role in real-time interaction sensing of biomolecular binding events, this book provides a total system description including optics, fluidics and sensor surfaces for a wide researcher audience.

Play The Forest School Way

Author: Jane Worroll
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1780289294
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
Woodland games, crafts, and other outdoor adventures from the Forest School—for parents and their children The rise of the grassroots Forest School movement in recent years is part of a groundswell of concern about the wellbeing of our children, with many media scare stories about child obesity, "nature deficit disorder" (as described in Last Child in the Woods), and lack of exposure to risk. This outdoor adventure manual is the antidote! Packed full of ideas, from making nature jewelry and whittling a bow and arrow, to building a shelter and foraging for food, it also celebrates the Forest School philosophy of encouraging self-esteem, confidence, and social skills through engagement with nature. The activities contain variations for varied age groups, small groups like play dates or birthday parties, as well as things to do with just one or two children. Parents are encouraged to guide the play but the activity instructions are written in a simple style with fun illustrations so that kids can take the lead as well.