FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[itisbomb]

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
by Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson

is $2.99 at U.S. stores

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-F...t%2C398&sr=1-1

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/why-nations-fail-1

Below is the blurb:
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities.

The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

- China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?

- Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?

- What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?

Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

[WillAdams]

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World Kindle Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0727TN8H6/

[itisbomb]

A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn

is $2.99 at U.S. stores

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Histo...t%2C402&sr=1-2

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-p...nited-states-4

[sufue]

The Theory of Relativity: And Other Essays by Albert Einstein has dropped to $1.99 as part of today's US Kindle Daily Deal.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Relati...dp/B004Q9U0LA/

Spoiler:

E=mc2 is the world’s most famous equation. Discover the thought process and physics behind general relativity and Einstein’s contribution to science, in this authorized edition.

In this collection of his seven most important essays on physics, Einstein guides his reader step-by-step through the many layers of scientific theory that formed a starting point for his discoveries. By both supporting and refuting the theories and scientific efforts of his predecessors, Einstein reveals in a clear voice the origins and meaning of such significant topics as physics and reality, the fundamentals of theoretical physics, the common language of science, the laws of science and of ethics, and an elementary derivation of the equivalence of mass and energy.

This remarkable collection allows the general reader to understand not only the significance of Einstein’s masterpiece, but also the brilliant mind behind it.

This authorized ebook features a new introduction by Neil Berger and an illustrated biography of Albert Einstein, which includes rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by sufue

The Theory of Relativity: And Other Essays by Albert Einstein has dropped to $1.99 as part of today's US Kindle Daily Deal.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Relati...dp/B004Q9U0LA/

Got it! Thanks

[itisbomb]

How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
by Thomas C Foster

is $1.99 at U.S. stores

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Nove...t%2C390&sr=1-1

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/how...ke-a-professor

Below is the blurb:
Of all The literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today's masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history.

Thomas C. Foster—the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor—now examines the grammar of the popular novel. Exploring how authors' choices about structure—point of view, narrative voice, first page, chapter construction, character emblems, and narrative (dis)continuity—create meaning and a special literary language, How to Read Novels Like a Professor shares the keys to this language with readers who want to get more insight, more understanding, and more pleasure from their reading.

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors, Free


Sinn Féin: The History and Legacy of the Irish Republican Political Party

The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program: The History and Legacy of the USSR’s Efforts to Build the Atomic Bomb





https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-t...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=digital-te...+river+editors

[GtrsRGr8]

Get a free copy of Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, from Mary-Hardin-Baylor University's website.

The ebook is on the subject of environmentalism.

The book was a bestseller (somewhere, at some time). Ratings for the book now are good.

Anyway, this edition has 452 pages. There were apparently several "releases," editions, et al. of this book that were published. I wasn't able to ascertain where along the line this edition falls.

About all that I could ascertain, of that sort of information, is that the copyright date is 2008. That makes the book a little bit dated; for example, "fracking" had not started yet then, or was just beginning to be used.

A 2009 Kindle edition is $9.99.

For you PDF-haters, I regret to tell you that that appears to be the only format available for this deal.

Link.

[wandalynn]

Originally Posted by sufue

Was it possibly a "Great on Kindle" credit from a previous purchase of a "Great on Kindle" title?

Originally Posted by wandalynn

I think the Amazon $1.49 credit was a sham - I don't see that I have a credit even though I absolutely remember seeing the offer.

Nm, I contacted amazon chat and was told the credit was there, it just wasn't visible on my end. Why, Amazon?

Sufue, I don't think so since I didn't get the credit on the purchase I made yesterday. Looks like I should get it on my next one.

Turns out this was a Great on Kindle credit. I didn't understand how the program worked, now I do. I used the @$3 credit against McCullough's The Pioneers, which brought it down to @$12 and got another $11 credit. I guess the trick is to find the list of available books and use the credit before it expires. I found the list by pulling up an available book, in this case The Pioneers, on my kindle which then showed a link to the available books. The credit is good for 60 days IIRC. There are a number of titles on the Great on Kindle list that I'm interested so this is a good deal for me. Of course, YMMV.

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors, Free


The Voyager Program: The History and Legacy of NASA’s First Probes that Traveled to the Outer Solar System

Mysteries of the Sea: A Collection of Lost Ships, Supernatural Stories, and Other Odd Tales Underneath the Waves





https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-t...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=digital-te...+river+editors

[sufue]

On sale again today as part of the US Kindle Daily Deal at $2.99, matched and coupon/VIPable at Kobo US. @j.p.s's Kindle link below is still good.

Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-b...o-ever-lived-1

Spoiler:

National Book Critics Circle Award—2017 Nonfiction Finalist

“Nothing less than a tour de force—a heady amalgam of science, history, a little bit of anthropology and plenty of nuanced, captivating storytelling.”—The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice

A National Geographic Best Book of 2017

In our unique genomes, every one of us carries the story of our species—births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration, and a lot of sex. But those stories have always been locked away—until now. Who are our ancestors? Where did they come from? Geneticists have suddenly become historians, and the hard evidence in our DNA has blown the lid off what we thought we knew. Acclaimed science writer Adam Rutherford explains exactly how genomics is completely rewriting the human story—from 100,000 years ago to the present.

Originally Posted by j.p.s

$2.40 today only
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes
by Adam Rutherford
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XP9Z5TS/

I haven't read it yet, but I will probably let it jump to very near the top of my TBR stack.

If you think this book isn't for you, I suggest doing at least a little research about it.

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors, Free


The Amber Road: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Trade Network that Moved Amber across Europe

Modern Balloons and Airships: The History and Legacy of Dirigibles during the 20th Century

Operation Rolling Thunder: The History of the American Bombardment of North Vietnam at the Start of the Vietnam War





https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-t...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=digital-te...+river+editors

[Little.Egret]

Cornell University Press, FREE

The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Medieval West by Clarissa W. Atkinson

After tracing the roots of medieval ideologies of motherhood in early Christianity, Clarissa W. Atkinson reconstructs the physiological assumptions underlying medieval notions about women's bodies and reproduction; inherited from Greek science and popularized through the practice of midwifery, these assumptions helped shape common beliefs about what mothers were. She then describes the development of "spiritual motherhood" both as a concept emerging out of monastic ideologies in the early Middle Ages

No mention of apple pie


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SW7RPJR

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07SW7RPJR

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07SW7RPJR

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors, Free


Werewolves: The Legends and Folk Tales about Humans Shapeshifting into Wolves

The Amber Road: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Trade Network that Moved Amber across Europe

Oliver Winchester: The Life and Legacy of America’s Famous Rifle Manufacturer

Modern Balloons and Airships: The History and Legacy of Dirigibles during the 20th Century

Operation Rolling Thunder: The History of the American Bombardment of North Vietnam at the Start of the Vietnam War





https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-t...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital...+river+editors

https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=digital-te...+river+editors

[Little.Egret]

Reprint, free


The Searchers: Radio Intercept in the Two World Wars by Kenneth John Macksey

This is the story, not of the codebreakers, but of the Y Service, the searchers who made their vital work possible: men and women with headphones clamped to their ears who for hours on end searched the radio bands in order to overhear the enemy

First published in 2003 by Cassell Military Paperbacks.

Kenneth John Macksey (1923 – 2005) was a British author and historian who specialised in military history and biography, particularly WWII. He was commissioned in the Royal Armoured Corps and served during the Second World War, winning a Military Cross. Macksey gained a permanent commission in 1946, was transferred to the Royal Tank Regiment, reached the rank of major in 1957 and retired from the Army in 1968. He wrote over 15 books on various aspects of the war


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FXNMJY2/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FXNMJY2/

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07FXNMJY2/