Mankinds past is strewn with mistakes
- colossal blunders driven by virtue as often as vice. The unlucky people in this book didnt
...

The people in this book set out to change the world with their brilliant new discovery or design. At best they failed monumentally; at worse they changed the world in ways for which no one will thank them. Historys Worst Inventions" is an entertaining look at the failures of celebrated inventors & less well-known (for good reason) pioneers. The book

Includes:: the parachute-overcoat (its inventor leapt from the Eiffel Tower to demonstrate it & plunged to his death) Trevethicks locomotive (too heavy for its rails & broke them) Soviet anti-tank dogs (with mines strapped to their backs they turned on their owners & blew up an entire Red Army division) & TGN1412 (the drug which in its 2006 clinical trial nearly killed its test subjects). A compendium of cock-ups " Historys Worst Inventions" provides a clear warning
- its all too easy to go down in history as an idiot!"


...

There are many stories we can tell about the past & we are not perhaps as free as we might imagine in our choice of which stories to tell or where those stories end. John Arnold's Very Short Introduction is a stimulating essay about how we study & understand history. The book begins by inviting us to think about various questions provoked by our investigation of history & explores the ways these questions have been answered in the past. Concepts such as causation interpretation & periodization are introduced by means of concrete examples of how historians work giving the reader a sense of the excitement of discovering not only the past but also ourselves. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts analysis perspective new ideas & enthusiasm to make interesting & challenging topics highly readable. ...

A new drug is out. Everyone is talking about it. Death. Take it & you have one amazing week to live. It's the ultimate high. At the ultimate price Adam is tempted. Life is rubbish; his girlfriend's over him his brother's gone. So what's he got to lose? Everything as it turns out. It's up to his girlfriend Lizzie to show him. violet & red cover available. ...

When government hit man Will Robie is given his next target he knows he's about to embark on his toughest mission yet. He is tasked with killing one of their own following evidence to suggest that fellow assassin Jessica Reel has been turned. She's leaving a trail of death in her wake including her handler. The trap is set. To send a killer to catch a killer. But what happens when you can't trust those who have access to the nation's most secret intelligence? ...

A serial killer is hunting the Pacific Northwest murdering victims in a gruesome & spectacular way. The local police suspect monsters are involved & have called in Anita Blake & Edward US Marshals who really know their monsters to catch the killer. But some monsters are very real. The Harlequin have been the bogeymen of the vampire world for more than a thousand years; they are a secret so dark that even to speak their name can earn you a death sentence. Now they are here in America hunting weretigers & human police. The Harlequin serve the Mother of All Darkness the first vampire. She was supposed to be dead but only her body was destroyed. Now she needs a new one & shes decided that Anita Blakes is the body she wants. Edward thinks the serial killings are a trap to lure Anita closer to the most dangerous vampire theyve ever hunted. The vampires call Edward Death & Anita the Executioner but Mommy Darkest is coming to kill one & possess the other & she doesnt care how many others have to die along the way. ...

When Robert Maxwell is assassinated at sea by an unknown agency it can only be a matter of time before the dark secret at the heart of the British Establishment is exposed to the light of day. SAS soldier Neil Slater has left the Army but soon it seems he is to be drawn back into the covert world. Bowing to the inevitable he allows himself to be recruited by the Cadre a group that applies the rules of war to those who threaten the internal & external security of the State. Slater soon finds himself in a rising body count situation & asking the question: who is the real enemy? Hit List is another action-packed explosive story from an establisehd master of the military thriller. ...

Fourteen years ago scientist William Fox implanted four babies with the Medusa gene
- a gene for psychic aibilities. Fox's experiment
...

In this long-awaited & candid memoir Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date from his childhood in Portsmouth with his adoring tragic mother & reserved Naval officer father; to his life in Washington DC the base from which from he would launch fierce attacks on tyranny of all kinds. Along the way he recalls the girls boys & booze; the friendships & the feuds; the grand struggles & lost causes; & the mistakes & misgivings that have characterised his life. Hitch-22 is by turns moving & funny charming & infuriating enraging & inspiring. It is an indispensable companion to the life & thought of our pre-eminent political writer. ...

In No One Left to Lie To a blistering polemic which shows that Clinton was at once philanderer & philistine crooked & corrupt Hitchens challenges perceptions
- of liberals & conservatives alike
- of this highly divisive figure. In The Missionary Position Hitchens unmasks pseudo-miracles questions Mother Teresas fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex & reproduction & reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators corrupt tycoons & convicted frauds. In its caustic iconoclasm & unsparing wit showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens writing at its polemical best. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger Hitchens goes straight for the jugular. Under his fearsome gaze Kissinger is accused of being a war criminal whose reckless actions & heinous disregard for international law have led to torture kidnapping & murder.

...