West Academic

Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband, George, encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud and startled owners of a near-derelict croft house - a farmer’s stone cottage - on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse.

Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner recounts the remarkable career of Major John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of the Southwest Indian tribes. This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the Powell’s career, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, in which Powell and his men famously became the first to descend the Colorado River, to his eventual expulsion from the Geological Survey.

This audiobook follows the saga of more than 100 influential men and women who together wove the story of early Western frontier America. The engaging account of their lives forms a unique tapestry of human experience.

Inferno is a gripping history of the world wars told through twelve battles that shaped the fate of the 20th century. From Verdun and the Somme to the Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, D-Day and the fall of Berlin, this is war at full intensity: the clashes that shattered armies, toppled regimes...

Once upon Atari is an intimate view into the dramatic rise and fall of the early video game industry, and how it shaped the life of one of its key players. This book offers eye-opening details and insights delivered in a creative style that mirrors the industry it reveals. An innovative work from one of the industry’s original innovators.

It Began with a Dream is the story of Dr. Gladys B. West, who played an integral role in the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS) as a mathematician with navy. Born in 1930, in the poor farming community of Sutherland, Virginia, she rose from poverty despite segregation, The Great Depression, and Jim Crow laws to become one of the first professional black women hired at the Dahlgren Naval Proving Grounds in Virginia (now Dahlgren Surface Naval Warfare Center). Dr. West takes us on her incredible life journey in this heartwarming and unforgettable memoir.

Between 1800 and 1920, an extraordinary cast of bold innovators and entrepreneurs - individuals such as Cyrus McCormick, Brigham Young, Henry Wells and James Fargo, Fred Harvey, Levi Strauss, Adolph Coors, J. P. Morgan, and Buffalo Bill Cody - helped lay the groundwork for what we now call the American West. They were people of imagination and courage, adept at maneuvering the rapids of change, alert to opportunity, persistent in their missions.

When studying social work, it can be difficult to find the time to step back and think about what it actually means to be a social worker. Now in its third edition, How to Be a Social Worker critically examines the knowledge base of social work and encourages you to explore how your own values...

Am I a writer? Where should I get ideas? Is my writing any good? How did my favorite authors make it big? The act of writing is a daunting task for many people, and becoming a “writer” means so much more than putting pen to paper. Dean Nelson embraces the questions that plague writers by...

Bloomsbury presents Byzantium and the Crusades by Jonathan Harris, read by John Sackville. Jonathan Harris’s classic text chronologically surveys Byzantine history in the time of the Crusades. The book reveals the attitudes of the Byzantine ruling elites towards the Crusades and their ultimate...

How do we come by our worldviews and philosophies? What impact did Christianity have on the worldviews that are common to Western civilization? Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine...

Bloomsbury presents Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd by Rick Pender, read by John Chancer. An award-winning Sondheim expert dives into all facets of this unique, murder-filled masterpiece—its slimy roots, original production, characters from killers to lovers to bakers, soaring score, gripping...

A fascinating retrospective on the life and career of one of Hollywood's most enigmatic actors, George Peppard. George Peppard covers the life and career of one of Hollywood’s more enigmatic and forgotten players, an A-list star and his career in such productions as Breakfast at Tiffany’s...

‘The people generally are out for a Republic and they propose to get it.’ – County Inspector RIC, West Galway, July 1920 The period 1913–22 witnessed extraordinary upheaval in Irish society. The Easter Rising of 1916 facilitated the emergence of new revolutionary forces and the eruption of guerrilla warfare. In Galway and elsewhere in the west, the new realities wrought by World War One saw the emergence of a younger generation of impatient revolutionaries. In 1916, Liam Mellows led his Irish Volunteers in a Rising in east Galway and up to 650 rebels took up defensive positions at ...

We Find Answers: True Tales of a Real Private Investigator pulls back the curtain on real-life cases ranging from missing persons and military misconduct to insurance fraud and criminal defense. With decades of experience as a former Military Police Officer, OSI Special Agent, and private investigator, Michael J. West takes you inside the world of high-stakes decisions, hidden truths, and justice hard-won.

For decades, scattered references in local archives have hinted at a little‑known subterranean population living beneath the remote moorlands of Cornwall. Most historians have dismissed these accounts as remnants of mining folklore or misinterpreted rural superstition. Yet among the papers of Professor Adaline H. Snaith, a meticulous but largely forgotten field researcher active in the 1930s, lies a body of material that suggests a far more complex reality. Drawing on Snaith’s original notes, sketches, and artefact studies, this volume presents the first structured ethnological account ...

Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West (October 6, 1924 to January 2, 1999), Director Emeritus, Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California at Los Angeles, was an American psychiatrist and longtime contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its Project MKUltra. Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph. D., was an Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley. The following recording is from a 1998 conference.

In Custody MD: Fighting for the Woo, Dr. Adwoafuaa Nwokocha delivers a raw, gripping memoir chronicling her descent into the high-stakes hell of family court. What begins as a love story between two med school students unravels into a devastating custody battle against her ex-husband—an elite cardiac surgeon with the money, lawyers, and manipulative tactics to weaponize the legal system. Told with vulnerability, humor, and razor-sharp clarity, this book is far more than a courtroom drama. It's a powerful indictment of how race, gender, and power intersect in modern custody disputes.

Discover exciting new research illuminating the most mysterious centuries of British history. How Roman Britain ended is one of the most controversial questions in British history. Unique among former Roman citizens in Western Europe, the Britons established long-lived kingdoms, resisting...

Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.