Engelska

<b>Blending the allure of the supernatural with keen historical insights and more than 500 photos, this enchanting chronicle of magic around the world will bewitch skeptics and true believers alike.</b><br/><br/>Magic and the occult have held humanity in their thrall for thousands of years. This sweeping history traces its origins across time and culture-from the protective amulets of ancient Egypt to ceremonial magic in India, Celtic paganism to modern magic tricks.<br/><br/><i>National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult</i> illuminates this enthralling world across more than 90,000 years of history. You'll meet witches and wizards, healers and alchemists, discovering the legends behind them and how they have enriched modern culture. You'll also encounter a host of spellbinding subjects, including:<br/><br/><ul><li>Mystical moments, including spooky gatherings, strange happenings, and ghost stories</li><li>Magic in pop culture, from Harry Houdini to Harry Potter</li><li>Places of power, from Mount Fuji to "phantom" islands like Hy-Brasil</li><li>Magical creatures like dragons and the Loch Ness Monster</li><li>The art of divination, including the Chinese Zodiac, numerology, and tarot</li><li>Modern magic, from neopaganism to astrology and herbalism</li></ul><br/>Filled with more than 500 vivid illustrations and dynamic maps, this bewitching book is the true story of magical beliefs around the world.

New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt and reeling city back to life. But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city's Black and Hispanic residents were living below the poverty line. Thousands of New Yorkers were sleeping in the streets - and in many cases addicted to drugs, dying of AIDS, or suffering from mental illness. The manufacturing jobs that had once sustained a thriving middle class had vanished. Long-simmering racial tensions were boiling over.<br/><br/>Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events - involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters - would widen those divisions into chasms. Ed Koch. Donald Trump. Al Sharpton. The Central Park Five. Larry Kramer. Spike Lee. Rudy Giuliani. Howard Beach. Tawana Brawley. The Preppy Murder. The Tompkins Square Riots. Jimmy Breslin. Ivan Boesky. <i>Do the Right Thing</i>, Wall Street, crack, the AIDS epidemic, Black Monday and, of course, ready to pour gasoline on every fire - the tabloids.<br/><br/>In <i>The Gods of New York</i>, bestselling author Jonathan Mahler tells the story of these outsized characters and of these convulsive, defining years. It's an exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of a city in transformation, one whose long-held identity was suddenly up for grabs: Could it be both the great working-class city, drawing in and lifting up immigrants from around the world and the money-soaked capital of global finance? Could it retain a civic culture - a common idea of what it meant to be a New Yorker - when the rich were building a city of their own and vast swaths of its citizens were losing faith in the systems that were intended to protect them? New York was one thing at the dawn of 1986; it would be something very different as 1989 came to a close. This book is the story of how that happened.

Before the revolution, the Shah of Iran seemed invincible. The world watched in awe as he commanded a huge army and oversaw an economy awash with billions of dollars of oil revenues. The regime's secret police had crushed communist opposition and the Shah appeared to have bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. On the international stage, Iran had become an invaluable ally to the West during the Cold War.<br/><br/>But village streets spoke of a different country - people derided the Shah as an American lackey and blamed him for economic inequality, for spending recklessly on lavish parties and for ignoring the Muslim majority. When a volcanic religious revolution erupted, led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shah was forced off the throne and into exile. How did it all go so wrong?<br/><br/>Brilliantly brought to life by the <i>Sunday Times</i> bestselling author Scott Anderson, this gripping behind-the-scenes narrative reveals how the Iranian Revolution was as world-shattering an event as the French and Russian revolutions, and how its repercussions are still felt around the world today. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, and now in Europe and the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval - and Iran was the template.

<b>Antibiotics: one of humanity's greatest achievements - but invented by microbes.</b><br/><br/><b>An epic narrative of discovery and innovation - but also of extraction and exploitation.</b><br/><br/><b>This is the spellbinding story of how we have burned through the fossil fuels of medicine.</b><br/><br/>Since their advent, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, marking one of the greatest medical advances in our history. <i>Dangerous Miracle </i>weaves together the grand arc of the evolution of antibiotics over millions of years with a history of the past century: first as we mined the earth for naturally occurring antibiotic molecules, then as we learned to synthesise our own.<br/><br/>But like fossil fuels, antibiotics are a finite resource which we've regarded as a cheap, everlasting fuel. They are unlike other drugs: every time we use them we increase the possibility of antibiotic resistance emerging, risking their future effectiveness. If we want antibiotics to have a future, we need to prepare to adapt. And fast.<br/><br/>Rich with pioneering characters, great breakthroughs and grave risks, <i>Dangerous Miracle</i> is a grand drama of science, history and politics. It is a revelatory account of the miraculous history and uncertain future of antibiotics from a gifted writer.

Queens At War [Bok / Häftad]

Democracies are fragile. Liberties that seemed won for all time can be squandered. Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic, which resulted in the transfer of power to Hitler's Nazi Party. But this tragedy was not inevitable. In this gripping new book, celebrated historian Volker Ullrich charts the many lost alternatives and missed opportunities that contributed to German democracy's collapse. In an immersive style that takes us to the heart of political power, Ullrich argues that, right up until January 1933, history was open - and so too in the present it is within our hands whether democracy lives or dies.

<strong>Israel can't go on like this. </strong> <br/><br/>7 October and Israel's subsequent invasion of Gaza laid bare the cracks in its foundations. It was unveiled as a country unable to protect its citizens, divided between messianic theocrats and selective liberals, resented by its neighbours and losing the support of Jews worldwide. While its leaders justify bombing campaigns exceeding the worst atrocities of World War 2 and a spiralling humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, Israel is becoming a pariah state. Its worst enemy is not Hamas, but itself. <br/><br/>Ilan Pappe paves a path out of the Jewish state, rooted in restorative justice and decolonisation, including the return of refugees, the end of illegal settlements, and building bridges with the Arab world. The future can be one of reconciliation, not endless war.