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The Big Ones
- How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them)
- Narrated by: Dr. Lucy Jones
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
By the world-renowned seismologist, a riveting history of natural disasters, their impact on our culture, and new ways of thinking about the ones to come
Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes - they stem from the same forces that give our planet life. Earthquakes give us natural springs; volcanoes produce fertile soil. It is only when these forces exceed our ability to withstand them that they become disasters. Together they have shaped our cities and their architecture; elevated leaders and toppled governments; influenced the way we think, feel, fight, unite, and pray. The history of natural disasters is a history of ourselves.
In The Big Ones, leading seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones offers a bracing look at some of the world's greatest natural disasters, whose reverberations we continue to feel today. At Pompeii, Jones explores how a volcanic eruption in the first century AD challenged prevailing views of religion. She examines the California floods of 1862 and the limits of human memory. And she probes more recent events - such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and the American hurricanes of 2017 - to illustrate the potential for globalization to humanize and heal.
With population in hazardous regions growing and temperatures around the world rising, the impacts of natural disasters are greater than ever before. The Big Ones is more than just a work of history or science; it is a call to action. Natural hazards are inevitable; human catastrophes are not. With this energizing and exhaustively researched book, Dr. Jones offers a look at our past, readying us to face down the Big Ones in our future.
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Critic reviews
“In The Big Ones, Jones presents the history of natural disasters as the history of ourselves; looking back as a way to look forward.” (Los Angeles Times)
“This incredible book by leading seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones shows just how influential natural disasters are on life as we know it.” (Chicago Review of Books, "The Best Nature Writing of 2018 so Far")
“[A] bracing examination.... This work could prove beneficial to all who live in an area prone to natural disasters, which is just about everyone.” (Publishers Weekly)
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Story
Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About® History, Don't Know Much About the Civil War and Don't Know Much About the Bible, turns his inimitable wit and wide-ranging knowledge to the subject of geography, and proves once and for all that there is a lot more to it than labeling countries on a map. From often amusing perceptions people have had through the ages about the world and the universe to the changing map of today, Davis shows how geography is really a great crossroad of many fields: biology, meteorology, astronomy, history, economics, and even politics.
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Errors
- By The Product Owner on 08-29-15
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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Warnings
- Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
- By: Richard A. Clarke, R.P. Eddy
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?
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On prediction, catastrophe and mitigation
- By S. Yates on 02-28-18
By: Richard A. Clarke, and others
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Artificial Intelligence
- Modern Magic or Dangerous Future?
- By: Yorick Wilks
- Narrated by: Hannibal Hills
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies, and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life and how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.
By: Yorick Wilks
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Why Geography Matters
- More Than Ever
- By: Harm de Blij
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In recent years our world has seen transformations of all kinds: intense climate change accompanied by significant weather extremes; deadly tsunamis caused by submarine earthquakes; unprecedented terrorist attacks; costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a terrible and overlooked conflict in Equatorial Africa costing millions of lives; an economic crisis threatening the stability of the international system.
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A book that needs more than just narration
- By Organic Design on 06-10-15
By: Harm de Blij
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A Paradise Built in Hell
- The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Emily Beresford
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster's grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become - one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local.
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Eye opening and thought provoking
- By zachery on 10-09-15
By: Rebecca Solnit
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The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
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Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
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Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster
- By: Susan Stranahan, David Lochbaum, The Union of Concerned Scientists, and others
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to knock the earth from its axis sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Over the following weeks, the world watched in horror as a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe: fail-safes failed, cooling systems shut down, nuclear rods melted.
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Internal workings of the NRC
- By Eduards J. Vucins on 05-11-14
By: Susan Stranahan, and others
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Generalist, Volume 1
- By: iMinds
- Narrated by: Luca James Lee, Ellouise Rothwell
- Length: 1 hr and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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A compilation of diverse topics across our 12 categories. You will learn about: the history of whaling, the art of film noir, the psychology behind the Stockholm Syndrome, the history of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the story of Joan of Arc, the discovery of penicillin, the science of meteorites, the history of the D-Day Invasion, the unexplained phenomenon of crop circles, the adventure of climbing Everest, the thought of Confucius, and the start of fireworks.
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Excellent Compilation
- By Michael T Schreiber on 09-18-09
By: iMinds
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The Great Quake
- How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet
- By: Henry Fountain
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting narrative about the biggest earthquake in North American recorded history - the 1964 Alaska earthquake that demolished the city of Valdez and swept away the island village of Chenega - and the geologist who hunted for clues to explain how and why it took place.
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Fascinating to hear the full story
- By Debby A Davis on 08-18-17
By: Henry Fountain
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Haiti After the Earthquake
- By: Paul Farmer
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep, Edoardo Ballerini, Edwidge Danticat
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 12, 2010, a major earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and the greater part of the capital was demolished. Dr. Paul Farmer, U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, who had worked in the country for nearly thirty years treating infectious diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS, and former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, had just begun to work on an extensive development plan to improve living conditions in Haiti.
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If you read one book about Haiti make it this one
- By Bryan on 06-07-12
By: Paul Farmer
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Disasterology
- Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis
- By: Samantha Montano
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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With temperatures rising and the risk of disasters growing, our world is increasingly vulnerable. Most people see disasters as freak, natural events that are unpredictable and unpreventable. But that simply isn’t the case - disasters are avoidable, but when they do strike, there are strategic ways to manage the fallout.
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We’re in trouble
- By D. Birnbaum-Lowey on 11-06-24
By: Samantha Montano
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Chernobyl
- The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno. He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry....
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Companions to Each Other
- By Tim on 06-04-19
By: Serhii Plokhy