Shares the events that shaped the creation of the painter's most famous portrait, covering such topics as the story of the salon hostess who was his model, contributing factors in turn-of-the-century Vienna, and the painting's fate.

"A Global History of Architecture, Third Edition has been updated and revised throughout to reflect current scholarship, including an expanded section on contemporary global architecture. Spanning from 3,500 b.c.e. to the present, this unique guide is written by an all-star team of architectural experts in their fields who emphasize the connections, contrasts, and influences of architectural movements throughout history"--

The historian John Lukacs offers a concise history of the twentieth century-its two world wars and cold war, its nations and leaders. The great themes woven through this spirited narrative are inseparable from the author's own intellectual preoccupations: the fading of liberalism, the rise of populism and nationalism, the achievements and dangers of technology, and the continuing democratization of the globe. The historical twentieth century began...

O'Brien's searing memoir of his years as a soldier in Vietnam takes readers with him through the ghostly ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong.

"Weinberg takes us across centuries from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato's Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral school of Chartres and the Royal Society of London. He shows that the scientists of ancient and medieval times not only did not understand what we understand about the world--they did not understand what there is to understand, or how to understand it. Yet over the centuries, through the struggle...

The insights, discoveries and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the past look back at critical pivotal events in history and then look forward at the evolving global scene.

Military working dogs gained widespread attention after one participated in the SEAL Team Six mission that led to Osama bin Laden's death. Before that, few civilians realized we had dogs serving in combat, let alone that they could parachute from up to 30,000 feet. And as astounding as that is, it's only one of the many things our four-legged soldiers can do. In this book, Lisa Rogak shows the amazing range of jobs that military working dogs perform,...

Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian James MacGregor Burns explores the most daring and transformational intellectual movement in history, the European and American Enlightenment In this engaging, provocative history, James MacGregor Burns brilliantly illuminates the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World, transforming thought, overturning...

"The major art pieces, most important artists, and significant artistic movements from 35,000 BCE to today are collected together in this easy to read resource on art history. Continuing in the tradition of the standout Handy Answer Book reference series, this book not only the covers the development of Western art, but also the history of art across the globe. An overview of art--its history, techniques, materials, forms, colors, style, the nature...

In Old Man River, Paul Schneider tells the story of the river at the center of America's rich history-the Mississippi. Some fifteen thousand years ago, the majestic river provided Paleolithic humans with the routes by which early man began to explore the continent's interior. Since then, the river has been the site of historical significance, from the arrival of Spanish and French explorers in the 16th century to the Civil War. George Washington fought...