The Last Two Million Years

A four-part survey of the human adventure.

Also available in an open-access, full-text edition at http: //oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/85768 With the evolution of human consciousness, nature has finally become conscious of itself. It has taken eons of time, this lumbering progress through the minds of reptiles, mammals, and primates, and it is still working its purpose out in the archetypes of the collective unconscious encoded in the most ancient parts of the human brain. The recent evolutionary history of our species, which Jung personified as "the two million-year-old human being in us all," is still active in our dreams, myths, psychiatric symptoms, traditional healing practices, and typical patterns of behavior. And it is still struggling to help us survive in the often alienating conditions of the modern world. Through a wide-ranging review of developments in anthropology, ethology, sociobiology, neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and Jungian psychology, Anthony Stevens explores the nature of the two million-year-old Self and examines ways in which the contemporary world both fulfills and frustrates its basic needs and intentions. Drawing on his experience as an analyst, Stevens evokes dreams and psychiatry to reveal a compelling and challenging view of the two million-year-old Self as embodying no less than the will of nature, providing ancient wisdom that we neglect at our collective peril. By granting close attention to nature's mind, Stevens argues, we not only further personal wholeness but help redress the gross imbalances of our culture, which are threatening the destruction of the earth. For the ecologically concerned, this book offers a dramatic new perspective on our future relations with our planet.

A Four-part survey of the human adventure: Countdown to Civilization, The Great Civilizations, Man and His World, and The Nations of the World.

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted. In this gloriously entertaining romp through human history, Greg Jenner explores the gradual—and often unexpected—evolution of our daily routines. This is not a story of wars, politics, or great events. Instead, Jenner has scoured Roman rubbish bins, Egyptian tombs, and Victorian sewers to bring us the most intriguing, surprising, and sometimes downright silly historical nuggets from our past. Drawn from across the world, spanning a million years of humanity, this book is a smorgasbord of historical delights. It is a history of all those things you always wondered about—and many you have never considered. It is the story of your life, one million years in the making.

A New York Times Notable Book and Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist: This epic chronicle of ten immortals over the course of history “succeeds admirably” (The New York Times). The immortals are ten individuals born in antiquity from various cultures. Immune to disease, able to heal themselves from injuries, they will never die of old age—although they can fall victim to catastrophic wounds. They have walked among mortals for millennia, traveling across the world, trying to understand their special gifts while searching for one another in the hope of finding some meaning in a life that may go on forever. Following their individual stories over the course of human history and beyond into a richly imagined future, “one of science fiction’s most revered writers” (USA Today) weaves a broad tapestry that is “ambitious in scope, meticulous in detail, polished in style” (Library Journal).

With more than 15,000 species, nearly a quarter of the total number of vertebrate species on Earth, freshwater fishes are extremely varied. They include the largest fish species, the beluga at over 7 meters long, and the smallest, the Paedocypris at just 8 millimeters, as well as the carnivorous, such as the piranha, and the calm, such as the Chinese algae eater. Certain species evolve rapidly, cichlids for example, while others transform very slowly, like lungfish. The fossils of these animals are very diverse in nature, sometimes just small scattered bones where sites correspond to ancient river beds or magnificent fossils of entire fish where there was once a lake. This book covers the history of these fishes over the last 250 million years by exploring the links between their biological evolution and the paleogeographic and environmental transformations of our planet, whether these be gradual or sudden. Gathers and synthetizes data from a vast number of publications regarding past freshwater assemblages and several fish lineages that invaded freshwaters Describes the work of the author's own team, concerning fauna from the Cretaceous of France, Morocco, and Thailand Presents the recent results of the tempo of diversification in freshwater environments and the evolutionary histories of clades and gar lineages

A 15-year-old girl in Cleveland has an affair with an older man, her mother's friend. Years later the emotional fallout will echo in unexpected ways through the lives of people close to her. A first novel.