Thomas Sowell explains exactly what economics is and what its guiding principles are. No jargon, no graphs, no equations in this comprehensive survey, from scarcity, the balance of trade, and price controls to minimum-wage laws, competition, profits, losses and the role of government. Intended as a primer for the citizen not trained in the basics of economic theory.

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Earthquakes and Tsunamis - Civil Engineering Disaster Mitigation Activities

Earthquakes and tsunamis are two major natural disasters, causing enormous life and material losses over the entire world, especially in the developing countries that are not well prepared. Since earthquakes and tsunamis are natural phenomena that cannot be prevented, a series of measures need to be taken to minimize the losses. Disaster mitigation covers a wide variety of activities involving numerous disciplines. Civil engineering makes probably the most effective contribution to the mitigation of life and material losses in earthquakes and tsunamis.

Even Money

On the first day of Royal Ascot, the world's most famous horse race, the crowd rejoices in a string of winning favorites. Ned Talbot has worked all his life as a bookmaker- taking over the family business from his grandfather- so he knows not to expect any sympathy from the punters as they count their winnings, and he his losses. He's seen the ups and downs before-but, as the big gambling conglomerates muscle in on small concerns like his, Ned wonders if it's worth it any more.

Plain Secrets - An Outsider Among the Amish

In an engaging personal memoir, Mackall, an Ohio-based writer and professor of English, describes the close-knit relationship he has cultivated over more than a decade with a neighboring Amish family. This is neither an exposé nor an outsider's fanciful romanticization of the Amish. By focusing on the loves and losses of one large Amish clan, Mackall breathes life into a complex group often idealized or caricatured.

Acts Of God - The Unnatural History Of Natural Disaster In America
The ten most costly catastrophes in U.S. history have all been natural disasters--seven of them hurricanes--and all have occurred since 1989, a period, ironically, that Congress has dubbed the Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Ted Steinberg, professor of history and law at Case Western Reserve University, looks at how much of the death and destruction has been well within the realm of human control. Surveying more than a century of losses from weather and seismic extremes, he exposes the fallacy of seeing such calamities as simply random events.
Acts of God explores the unnatural history of natural calamity, the decisions of business leaders and government officials that have paved the way for the greater losses of life and property, especially among those least able to withstand such blows--America's poor, elderly and minorities. Seeing nature or God as the primary culprit, Steinberg argues, has helped to obscure the fact that, in truth, some Americans are better protected from violence of nature than their counterparts lower down the socioeconomic ladder. Donald Worster, the author of Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, says, "This compelling book blows away many obscuring clouds of misunderstanding and denial in our national environmental memory."