Shortest History Series - Böcker

A country both admired and feared, Germany has been the epicenter of world events time and again: the Reformation, both World Wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It did not emerge as a modern nation until 1871-yet today, Germany is the world's four...

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Ancient Rome gave rise to the Roman Empire, one of history's greatest civilizations. It flourished for roughly five hundred years and, at its height, made up at least 20 percent of the world's population. It left an indelible mark on the world, sh...

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The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs¿tells the 230-million-year epic of these staggeringly fascinating prehistoric creatures, covering their small beginnings, spectacular golden periods, and stunning evolutionary success-before an unthinkable ast...

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Zen, haiku, martial arts, sushi, anime, manga, film, video games . . . Japanese culture has long enriched our Western way of life. Yet from a Western perspective, Japan remains a remote island country that has long had a complicated relationship w...

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This compact history unspools the tumultuous global story that began with democracy's radical core idea: We can collaborate, as equals, to determine our own futures. Acclaimed political thinker John Keane traces how this concept emerged and evolve...

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As we enter the "Asian century," China demands our attention for being an economic powerhouse, a beacon of rapid modernization, and an assertive geopolitical player. To understand the nation behind the headlines, we must take in its vibrant, tumul...

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Since Alan Turing first posed the question "Can machines think?" artificial intelligence has evolved from a speculative idea to a transformative force. The Shortest History of AI traces this evolution, from Ada Lovelace's visionary work to IBM's g...

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England-begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor-is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Ro...

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Celebrated historian John Hirst draws from his own lectures to deliver this ultra-accessible master class on the making of modern Europe, from Ancient Greece through World War II. With over 600,000 copies sold worldwide, this brief history is a gl...

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From the first microbial exchanges of DNA to Tinder and sexbots, how did sex begin, and how did it evolve to be so varied and complex in humans? What influence do our genetic ancestors have on our current love lives? And what might sex look like i...

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The calendar. The Senate. The university. The piano, the heliocentric model, and the pizzeria. It's hard to imagine a world without Italian influence-and easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from a strong, stable peninsula, su...

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France has long been feted for its unsurpassed cultural and historical riches. Gothic architecture, Louis XIV opulence, revolutionary spirit, café society . . . what could be more quintessentially French? Rarely do we think of France as a melting ...

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War has changed, but we have not. From our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the rival nuclear powers of today, whenever resources have been contested, we've gone to battle. Acclaimed historian Gwynne Dyer illuminates our many martial clashes in this b...

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We are a species in motion-from the first steps of Homo sapiens across Africa to America's "melting pot." And when we move-in search of better things, or against our will-our beliefs and skills clash and combine, reshaping society time and again. ...

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No other art is as popular-or pervasive-as music. With just a few clicks, anyone can cue up (and critique) Chopin or Cher, The Bangles or The Beatles-even the brand-new Beyoncé. But things weren't always this way. In this brisk, breakneck history ...

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Philosophy, art, democracy, language, even computers-the glories of Greek civilization have shaped our world even more profoundly than we realize. Pericles and the Parthenon may be familiar, but what of Epaminondas, the Theban general who saved th...

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The ongoing struggle between Israel and Palestine is one of the most bitter conflicts in history, with profound global consequences. In this book, Middle East expert Michael Scott-Baumann succinctly describes its origins and charts its evolution f...

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In this thrilling history, David Baker captures the longest-possible time span-from the Big Bang to the present day-in an astonishingly concise retelling. His impressive timeline includes the "rise of complexity" in the cosmos and the creation of ...

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India-a cradle of civilization with five millennia of history, a country of immense consequence and contradiction-often defies ready understanding. What holds its people together-across its many cultures, races, languages, and creeds-and how has I...

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For the last two centuries, groups of influential men have, in the professed interest of fiscal responsibility, crime reduction, and outright racism, attempted to control who was allowed to bear children. Their efforts, "eugenics," characterize a ...

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Scandinavia has long been lauded for its equality, universal welfare, peacefulness, and untouched nature-not to mention its interior design, crime literature, and love of all things hygge. But the Nordic nations have had their dark periods, too: p...

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When Britain's thirteen American colonies declared their independence on July 4, 1776, the United States of America was born. It became a profoundly powerful nation that, for much of its history, has been the crucible of invention and creativity, ...

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In 2026, the FIFA World Cup will return to North America for the first time since 1994, bringing the world's most watched sporting event to a nation of people more obsessed with soccer than ever before. With the proliferation of Emmy-winning telev...

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This brilliant distillation traces Turkey's long and complicated history from the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire - the most enduring, and perhaps the most important, Islamic empire in history - to the emergence of the modern Turkish Republ...

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