Renowned archaeologist David Wengrow creates here a vivid new account of the "birth of civilization" in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, bringing together within a unified history the first two nations where people created cities, kingdoms, and monumental temples to the gods. But civilization, Wengrow argues, is not exclusively about large-scale settlements and endeavors. Just as important are the ordinary but fundamental practices of everyday life, such as cooking, running a home, and cleaning the body. Tracing the development of such practices, from prehistoric times to the age of the pyramids, Wengrow reveals unsuspected connections between distant regions and provides new insights into the workings of societies we have come to regard as remote from our own. The book obliges us to recognize that civilizations are not formed in isolation, but through the mixing and borrowing of culture between different societies. It concludes by drawing telling parallels between the ancient Near East and more contemporary attempts to reshape the world according to an ideal image.

Rescued in 1945 from Dachau--where he lay dying when Francois Mitterand, his onetime comrade in the resistance, recognized him among the thousands of quarantined prisoners-Robert Antelme set out to do what seemed "unimaginable", to describe not only his experience but the humanity of his captors. The result, The Human Race, was called by George Perec "the most perfect example, within contemporary French production, of what literature can be." 

In this volume, the extraordinary nature and extent of Robert Antelme's accomplishment, and of the reverberations he set in motion in French life and literature, finds eloquent expression. The pieces Antelme wrote for journals-including essays on "principles put to the test", man as the "basis of right," the question of revenge-appear here alongside appreciations of The Human Race by authors from Perec to Maurice Blanchot to Sarah Kofman; personal recollections of Antelme; and interviews with, among others, Dionys Mascolo (who brought Antelme back from Dachua), Marguerite Duras (Antelme's wife, who tells of his return from Germany), Francois Mitterand, Edgar Morin, Maurice Nadeau, and Claude Roy. Throughout, these reflections, reminiscences, and testimonials pose once more, in subtle and suggestive variations, the question lifted to an unprecedented level of sobriety, simplicity, and openness by Robert Antelme: Who is "the Other?"

Archimedes, the Center of Gravity, and the First Law of Mechanics deals with the most fundamental aspects of physics. The book describes the main events in the life of Archimedes and the content of his works. It goes on to discuss a large number of experiments relating to the equilibrium of suspended bodies under the influence of Earth's gravitational force. All experiments are clearly described and performed with simple, inexpensive materials. These experiments lead to a clear conceptual definition of the center of gravity of material bodies and illustrate practical procedures for locating it precisely. The conditions of stable, neutral, and unstable equilibrium are analyzed. Many equilibrium toys and games are described and explained. Historical aspects of the concept are presented, together with the theoretical values of center of gravity obtained by Archimedes. The book also explains how to build and calibrate precise balances and levers. Several experiments are performed leading to a mathematical definition of the center of gravity and the first law of mechanics, also called the law of the lever. Consequences of this law and different explanations of it are described at the end of the book, together with an exhaustive analysis of the works of Euclid and Archimedes.

Plenty of people want to write poetry - yet while it is not necessarily difficult to write poetry badly, it is harder to write it well. In this guide Fred Sedgwick explains - with numerous examples from successful poets - how the creative process works, from the initial impulse to write all the way through to the crafted and expressive poetry at the end.