Andrew Langley

"Codes and codebreaking explains how spies through the ages have sent messages in secret. Clever new codes have constantly been developed, only for even cleverer codebreakers to set about uncovering their secrets. Some of these messages have caused wars, and others have saved lives. And still today, codes are a vital part of the spy's trade."--Back cover.

Considers where wool comes from, how it is prepared and made into yarn, and its properties and various uses. Suggested level: junior, primary.

After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958-1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The stated goal of the Cultural Revolution was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalist elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semiautomatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in fifty people. This book draws for the first time on hundreds of previously classified party documents, from secret police reports to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches. Frank Dikötter uses this wealth of material to undermine the picture of complete conformity that is often supposed to have characterized the last years of the Mao era. After the army itself fell victim to the Cultural Revolution, ordinary people used the political chaos to resurrect the market and hollow out the party's ideology. In short, they buried Maoism. By showing how economic reform from below was an unintended consequence of a decade of violent purges and entrenched fear, Dikötter casts China's most tumultuous era in a wholly new light.--Adapted from dust jacket.

Stunning photographs help take readers into the world of natural disasters.

In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family's Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.

Discusses how the collapse of the Soviet Union changed politics.

Provides detailed information on the events leading up to and taking place on September 11, 2001, the day that thousands of innocent Americans were killed in acts of terror. Includes source notes and timeline.