Showing results by narrator "Sean Runnette" in All Categories

In Sacred Scripture, Sacred War, James Byrd offers the first comprehensive analysis of how American revolutionaries defended their patriotic convictions through scripture. Byrd shows that the Bible was a key text of the American Revolution. Indeed, many colonists saw the Bible as primarily a book about war. They viewed God as not merely sanctioning violence but actively participating in combat, playing a decisive role on the battlefield.

What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.

Bigger than Watergate! Bigger than Iran-Contra! Ten times bigger than both, said one representative. The Bengahzi scandal may have been covered up by the White House, but the truth is about to come out. The Real Benghazi Story is a groundbreaking investigative work that finally exposes some of the most significant issues related to the murderous September 11, 2012, attack - information with current national security implications.

Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress - Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham - Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history.

The discovery of the quantum - the idea, born in the early 1900s in a remote corner of physics, that energy comes in finite packets instead of infinitely divisible quantities - planted a rich set of metaphors in the popular imagination. Quantum imagery and language now bombard us like an endless stream of photons. Phrases such as multiverse, quantum leap, alternate universe, the uncertainty principle, and Schrödinger's cat get reinvented continually in cartoons and movies, coffee mugs and T-shirts, and fiction and philosophy.

Can Mike battle back from the final outcome? Now the world needs him the most. New and old threats emerge to claim a war-ravaged world on the verge of collapse. Lana, Bailey, and Azile the Red Witch have assembled all that remains of man in one final battle that could determine the fate of mankind forever. And it just might not be enough.

It has been three years since the Progerians left their mark of devastation upon Earth. The remaining humans are in a desperate race against time as they do their best to reverse engineer the alien technology they captured, in an effort to bolster their beleaguered defenses against the oncoming onslaught of Progerians hell-bent on revenge.

Eric - part-time king, quasi-avatar, and unconventional wizard - has an epic quest before him. He must return to his lost kingdom to save it, slay a creature claiming to be a god, and navigate the terrible risks of a paradox that could undo everything! And to top it off, he's trying to raise a daughter. Nobody said being a vampire was going to be easy, but none of this was in the brochure!

Mike is back. The battle with Eliza is past. Now Mike must strike out once again in a desperate race against time as his son and best friend are succumbing to the zombie virus within them. What he does not know is that an old foe hasrisen up and a more insidious threat has emerged to not just the Talbots but all of humanity.

Though Moynihan never wrote an autobiography, he was a gifted author and voluminous correspondent, and in this selection from his letters Steven Weisman has compiled a vivid portrait of Moynihan’s life, in the senator’s own words. Before his four terms as Senator from New York, Moynihan served in key positions under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. His letters offer an extraordinary window into particular moments in history.

The author of Breakfast with Buddha brings his characteristic whimsy to a new novel about New York book editor Otto Ringling and Mongolian monk Volya Rinpoche, who embark on a road trip from Rinpoche's meditation center in North Dakota to the glitter and glitz of the Las Vegas strip.

Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola.

A "Manchurian Candidate" is an unwitting assassin brainwashed and programmed to kill. In this book, former State Department officer John Marks tells the explosive story of the CIA's highly secret program of experiments in mind control. His curiosity first aroused by information on a puzzling suicide, Marks worked from thousands of pages of newly released documents as well as interviews and behavioral science studies, producing a book that "accomplished what two Senate committees could not" (Senator Edward Kennedy).

Buddhism, one of the world's most widely practiced religions, is a fascinating yet complex eastern religion that is rapidly spreading throughout western civilization. What does it mean to be a Buddhist? What are the fundamental beliefs and history behind this religion? Buddhism for Dummies explores these questions and more in this updated guide to Buddhist culture. You'll gain an understanding of the origins of this ancient practice and how they're currently applied to everyday life.

Eric didn't ask to be a vampire. In fact he didn't even believe in them. Biting your own tongue with your fangs does a lot of convincing. Even so, being a part-time undead isn't as easy as you might think. It can let you hold down a day job, true, but sometimes the night "life" can be more than a little difficult, what with those bloodthirsty urges and predatory instincts kicking in.

Etna Station and everything Mike cares about is on the brink of collapse. All will be lost unless Mike can convince his team to heed the crazed warnings of an old friend. Against all odds, they must make a dangerous journey, leaving all at the mercy of a familiar foe who won’t rest until the world is brought to its knees. Will the universe regain balance? Or will fate finally be sealed against our heroes? Find out in what may be the most action-packed chapter of the Zombie Fallout saga thus far.

The Mind Illuminated is the first how-to meditation guide from a neuroscientist who is also an acclaimed meditation master. This innovative book offers a 10-stage program that is deeply grounded in ancient spiritual teachings about mindfulness and holistic health and also draws from the latest brain science to provide a road map for anyone interested in achieving the benefits of mindfulness.

Nigeria. The densely packed cities are abandoned and in ruins. Isolated villages survive behind locked doors under constant threat of a war on two fronts; a war the living cannot win. Hidden miles into the desert is a secret weapon that, if unleashed, will bring peace—but at the risk of total annihilation. Undermanned and with scant resources, Michael Talbot's squad of misfits is ordered to retrieve classified data of the utmost imperative.

The First Congress was the most important in US history, says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed - as many at the time feared it would - it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today.

Uncommon Valor is a look into the formation and operation of an advanced Special Forces recon company during the Vietnam War. Code-named the Studies and Observations Group, SOG was the most covert US military unit in its time and contained only volunteers from such elite units as the Army's Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Air Force Air Commandos. SOG warriors operated in small teams, going behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, tasked with performing special reconnaissance, sabotaging North Vietnamese Army ammunition, and far more.