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The scandals, mysteries, and human stories behind the worldΓÇÖs greatest gems are brought to life by the curator of the SmithsonianΓÇÖs National Gem Collection Dr. Jeffrey E. Post, curator of the National Gem Collection for more than 25 years, separates fact from fiction in an all-new and original book, revealing fresh information and regaling the reader with anecdotes and tales of some of the worldΓÇÖs greatest and most famous gemstones. Dr. Post is the author of the now out-of-print book The National Gem Collection (Abrams, 1997), which has sold more than 50,000 copies. In this brand-new book, he tells the stories of the SmithsonianΓÇÖs most famous gems, including the Hope Diamond, Star of Asia Sapphire, Carmen Lucia Ruby, Hooker Emerald, and Blue Heart DiamondΓÇöand also presents the tales, details, and fascinating facts surrounding rarely displayed gems from the Smithsonian vault and additions made to the collection since 1997. Not only a resource for learning about rare and beautiful gems, the book also presents the stories of the people who once owned or were associated with these jewelsΓÇöfrom ordinary people to kings, emperors, maharajas, celebrities, and captains of industry.

The ideal gift for anyone interested in language, geography and people. We communicate through the spoken and written word and language has evolved over the centuries. Many languages have survived although only in small pockets throughout the world. This book explores a selection of those languages.

Beautyscapes is the first book to focus specifically on cosmetic surgery tourism. It draws on key themes of interest to students and researchers interested in globalisation and mobility, such as gender and class, neoliberalism, social media, conviviality and care, to explain the nature and growing popularity of international medical travel. -- .

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.In the galvanising speeches and essays brought together in This Can't Be Happening, George Monbiot calls on humanity to stop averting its gaze from the destruction of the living planet, and wake up to the greatest predicament we have ever faced.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

The old distinctions - between natural and artificial, dystopia and utopia, science fiction and science fact - have blurred, losing all meaning. We inhabit an uncanny landscape of our own creation. From Odds Against Tomorrow to Losing Earth to the film Dark Waters (adapted from the first chapter of this book), Nathaniel Rich''s stories and reporting have come to define the way we think of contemporary ecological narrative. In Second Nature, he asks what it means to live in an era of terrible responsibility. The question is no longer, How do we return to the world that we''ve lost? It is, What world do we want to create in its place?

A fun and practical guide to changing the way you shop, from a popular journalist who was The Pool's 'Wardrobe Stories' columnist

This book "challenges our relationship to the environment and to each other, not only now but across generations. It is an important question for our time, when communities have become fragmented by a global consumer society, when our selves have become isolated in a competitive and technology-driven economy, and when our spiritual, social, and ecological impacts on human and other-than-human beings extend farther than ever imagined due to globalization and climate change. Through interviews and poetic snapshots into the experience of Indigenous people and others, this book demands that the reader think about how contemporary concerns oblige us to see ourselves as someone's future ancestor and, in turn, creates for the reader a different way of looking at his or her traditions and self"--

Carving a timeline through the aeons of evolution that have taken place before our time on Earth, Deep Time explores the evidence that exists beneath our feet, in our museums, in the skies and surrounding us every day, which can help us to make sense of the great age of our world.

This evocative account underlines how an unprecedented crisis has changed the way we relate to the natural world, giving us hope for the future at perhaps the darkest time in our lives. And it puts down a marker for the 'new normal': the many species around us, all enjoying, for once, a land less lived in than usual by humankind.

Luka is imprisoned in the Block when an audacious break-out reunites him with his friends at last. Hiding out in the heart of the destroyed city, Luka realises the scale of their mission to defeat all-powerful AI, Happy. How can they stay hidden, let alone win the war?

How will we eat a decade from now, or a century? Will we be eating meat?

Live life in full bloom. This beautiful book features your favourite flowers grouped by their purpose - for love, for joy, for luck, for calm, to console, and to celebrate.

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.The courageous, unflinching speeches and writings collected in The Most Dammed Country in the World detail the devastating human and environmental cost of China's economic rise.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

A journey of discovery through our natural world.Bushcraft and survival legend Ray Mears takes us on his own lifetime's journey through the natural world, into the British countryside and across continents, and shows us how to tune our senses, enhance our experience of nature, and understand our place within it.Guiding us through practical fieldcraft tips, Ray brings us up close with creatures we share our planet with, and reveals how we can learn from them, from the stealth of the leopard to the patience and stillness of the crocodile, and even the colour-changing camouflage of the octopus.With Ray as your companion, you will unlock the hidden secrets of the wild and begin to see, instead of merely look.

This textbook introduces political ecology as an interdisciplinary approach to critically examine land and environmental issues.

What can we really do about the climate emergency? The inconvenient truth is that we are causing the climate crisis with our carbon intensive lifestyles and that fixing - or even just slowing - it will affect all of us. But it can be done.

Unabridged. 97 original photographs and maps. An epic account of one of the most extraordinary feats of physical and mental endurance in a battle for survival in the most extreme natural conditions. Shackleton's 800 mile voyage with a crew of five in a 22.5-foot open boat through the hurricane-force winds and gargantuan waves of the Furious Fifties is the greatest small-boat journey ever recorded. This was but one of the trials endured by the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in this gripping account.Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO OBE, was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Scott's 1901-04 Expedition: he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909, he and three companions reached a record Farthest South latitude at 88°23'S, a mere 97 geographical miles (from the South Pole, by far the closest approach up to that time. Shackleton was knighted by Edward VII on his return home.This edition:covers Shackleton's final, and most dramatic Antarctic expeditionis complete and undbridgedis presented crisp well-spaced modern font which will be a pleasure to read.