Just as a traveler crossing a continent won’t sense the curvature of the earth, one lifetime of reading can’t grasp the largest patterns organizing literary history. This is the guiding premise behind Distant Horizons, which uses the scope of data newly available to us through digital libraries to tackle previously elusive questions about literature. Ted Underwood shows how digital archives and statistical tools, rather than reducing words to numbers (as is often feared), can deepen our understanding of issues that have always been central to humanistic inquiry. Without denying the usefulness of time-honored approaches like close reading, narratology, or genre studies, Underwood argues that we also need to read the larger arcs of literary change that have remained hidden from us by their sheer scale. Using both close and distant reading to trace the differentiation of genres, transformation of gender roles, and surprising persistence of aesthetic judgment, Underwood shows how digital methods can bring into focus the larger landscape of literary history and add to the beauty and complexity we value in literature.

The West has figured in the American imagination under many guises: as the last best place on earth, a refuge, an escape, a land of opportunity, but also as a place of conquest and failure. Where Lewis and Clark saw great possibilities, Native cultures found disappointment and loss. This collection presents the diverse and often contradictory accounts that make up the mosaic of the nineteenth-century American West. From Thomas Hart Benton?s famous speech in the Senate when he argued that non-white civilizations must fall before the western expansion of white Americans to Black Elk?s story of a way of life lost on the frozen ground at Wounded Knee, Gary Noy offers a representative sampling of the many Wests that historians have strug-gled to define for over a century. Distant Horizon chronicles the dusty world of the cowboy, the hard-scrabble existence of the farmer and the settler, and the miner?s vision of golden glory. It examines the independent nature of the explorer and mountain man and the sometimes heroic, sometimes cruel existence of the soldier. We hear the voices of those outside the mainstream of power?women and Westerners of color?and explore the most tragic element of Western history: the confinement, subjugation, and extermination of Native Americans. No other single volume provides as many readings on as many topics in the history of the American West.

1851 Ireland. After enduring years of a devastating potato famine, Ellen Kittrick is a survivor. Crop failures and a descent into poverty changes her from a happy wife and mother to a woman struggling to keep her children alive. To put food on the table and to stop the landowner's agent from tearing down their cottage due to unpaid rent, Ellen defies her family and works at an Englishman's manor, but with her husband out of work, and a secretive brother-in-law wanting her for his own, Ellen must face every challenge with new strength. When several shocking events occur, it forces her to make an enormous decision. With aid coming from an unlikely source, namely Englishman Rafe Hamilton, Ellen leaves Ireland with what is left of her family to start again in a new country. But will the colony give her the security and happiness she longs for, especially when she has left her heart behind? Can Ellen thrive in a strange land? Or has she made the greatest mistake of her life?

The story deals with how a trans-world entity tries to help reduce greenhouse gases on Earth.

The Community hides a terrifying secret. Sixty years ago, a hallucinogenic plague annihilated half the world’s population, leading to the formation of a strict Community—an international society that promises its citizens safety, security, and efficiency. To protect everyone from a resurgence of the plague, students are given a daily pill in their teen years and tested with the mandatory Health Scan before entering the adult world. It is boring but safe... Except that Jenna hasn't been taking her daily pill, and a surprise Health Scan was just announced. Terrified she's going to fail the scan, Jenna digs into everything she can find about what happens to those who fail-- And discovers none of them have returned, despite assurances of the Health Scan's safety. Making matters worse, two of the Community's most prominent leaders have arrived on campus in an unprecedented visit, and Jenna's long-thought-dead grandfather decides now would be a great time to try kidnapping her. Turns out he's the leader of a rebellion against the Community and he believes the plague is a cover-up for powers. Normally she would dismiss him as crazy, especially since those leaders have him hauled off to the coolers after she calls for help. But something doesn't sit right. Why was the Health Scan announced last minute? Why did not one, but two world leaders show up to a routine scan? And why is it that plants really are starting to act strangely around her... Read Distant Horizon to uncover the truth in this thrilling dystopian fantasy! KEYWORDS: young adult dystopian, young adult science fiction, dystopian science fiction, young adult dystopian fantasy, science fantasy, superpowers, evil organization, telepathy, mind games, mind control, rebel organization, rebel airship, plant powers, plant elemental, dystopian community, dystopian society, secret powers, female dystopian

Called "spellbinding" (Scientific American) and "thrilling...a future classic of popular science" (PW), the up close, inside story of the greatest space exploration project of our time, New Horizons’ mission to Pluto, as shared with David Grinspoon by mission leader Alan Stern and other key players. On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation—a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA’s Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune—and nothing quite like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA’s website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think that our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded in 2015 but made history and captured the world’s imagination. How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind this amazing mission: of their decades-long commitment and persistence; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons’ next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto in 2019. Told from the insider’s perspective of mission leader Dr. Alan Stern and others on New Horizons, and including two stunning 16-page full-color inserts of images, Chasing New Horizons is a riveting account of scientific discovery, and of how much we humans can achieve when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.

In a Time of Revolution, Even Hearts Can Be Overturned In England together at the Harrow estate, Anne and Nicole find themselves facing divergent futures. While Anne comfortably settles into British life, Nicole once again searches the far horizon. Despite the raging War of Independence, she sets sail for the American colonies to manage her uncle's landholdings. The gallant Captain Goodwind captures Nicole's attention, but not yet her heart. In the midst of revolution, her loyalties and faith are tested beyond what she could have ever imagined. Then she comes face to face with a staggering betrayal, and she is forced to choose her ultimate allegiance.