Examines major civilizations that have flourished from antiquity to modern times, with a global perspective and a strong emphasis on daily life and social history. This volume provides in-depth coverage of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, 1750-1914.

"The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother's husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects...

"The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines--on punishment of death--and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction....

"From the author of 1491--the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas--a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together--and marked the beginning...

Covers entries ranging from Abolitionist movement to Zoos.

"A new mother takes us on a tour of Hamilton, a Rust Belt city born of the Industrial Revolution and dying a slow death due to globalization. This mother represents the city's next wave of inhabitants--the artists and young parents who swarm a run-down area for its affordability, inevitably reshaping the neighborhoods they take over. Creation looks at gentrification from the inside out--an artist mother making a home and neighborhood for her family,...

Humans have always revered long-lived trees. But as historian Jared Farmer reveals in Elderflora, our veneration took a modern turn in the eighteenth century, when naturalists embarked on a quest to locate and precisely date the oldest living things on earth. The new science of tree time prompted travelers to visit ancient specimens and conservationists to protect sacred groves. Exploitation accompanied sanctification, as old-growth forests succumbed...

Incorporated in 1827, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B & O) was one of America's first railroads, and Maryland was its heart and soul. The B & O's creation was a tangible symbol of the Industrial Revolution, representing commerce and progress to towns along its route. Its headquarters and operations, centered in Baltimore, provided years of economic growth for the port city. This book contains images of well-known stations in Maryland, including Ellicott...

History of World Trade Since 1450 starts at a year regarded as the beginning of the Age of Exploration and examines how the hunt for new resources and markets during that period resulted in the establishment of colonies in Africa, the Americas and Asia. The set looks at the Industrial Revolution, the rise of capitalism and the effects of imperialism on the global economy.

"In The Three Ages of Water, expert on water resources and climate change Peter Gleick guides us through the long, fraught history of our most valuable resource. Spread over a ten-thousand-year human history, it begins with the fundamental evolutionary role water had in shaping early civilizations and empires, crests to the scientific and social revolutions that created modern society, and spills into the global water crisis of depleted groundwater...