"Do you shape the world or does the world shape you? Is freedom something we are born with or something we must work to attain? Offering a torrent of mind-expanding ideas and information THE LOTTERY OF BIRTH is going to make you think again about what it means to be free. Drawing on the best minds in philosophy, history, psychology, physics and economics, it employs decades of evidence to interrogate what we are, where we are and where we want to...

"An illuminating work of environmental history that chronicles the great climate crisis of the 1600s, which transformed the social and political fabric of Europe. Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the sixteenth century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and "frost fairs" were erected on a frozen Thames--with kiosks,...

In a small Protestant village in Northern Germany prior to the outbreak of World War I, strange events, accidents, and deaths are occurring involving the children and teenagers of a choir run by the school teacher and their families. The village people are beside themselves with worry and can't figure out what to do. After the school teacher starts to unravel the mystery, he discovers that the children of the town may be guilty of the crimes and have...