Consider this: If mankind's history spanned just twenty-four hours since its beginnings, agriculture would have existed in only the last five minutes. Yet despite its recency, the development of farming has radically changed both human society and the world's environment. This rapid evolution - from small, egalitarian bands of hunters and gatherers to a globally interconnected society dependent on food produced by 20 percent of its population - has profoundly altered our lives. So Shall You Reap presents a fresh and informed perspective on how farming and the crops we grow have developed throughout history. Beginning with the prehistoric era, Otto and Dorothy Solbrig describe the intriguing connections between the evolution of farming techniques and major societal changes: cultivated cereals and the beginning of civilization; the search for spices and European exploration; extraction of sugar from sugarcane and sugar beets and the use of slave labor; industrialism and the new agriculture; and Malthusian prophecy and the advent of bioengineering. Taking this engaging historical approach, the authors also explain the ancient origins of agriculture; the drastic alterations in our diet; the migration and transformation of wild fruits, grains, and legumes; and the reasons for and the effects of irrigation, fertilization, and crop rotation. As they review agriculture's fundamental importance to history, the authors trace how farming has taken its toll on the physical world. To feed the more than 5 billion people on our planet, we have completely transformed natural landscapes in order to provide room for large-scale growth of only a few species of plants and even fewer species of domesticatedanimals. Agriculture has altered the earth's biosphere and changed its geosphere: Biodiversity has been imperiled; the soil has been modified; forests have been felled; swamps have been drained; rivers have been dammed and diverted. So Shall You Reap concludes with a description of current agricultural practices and future expectations. The Solbrigs make a strong case for the need to understand the origins and evolution of agriculture so that we might be better prepared to anticipate what the future may hold, and what we must do to increase food production while minimizing environmental problems.

In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon’s bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti’s own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim’s interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signora Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle—random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships—that appear to have little in common, until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

The New York Times bestseller: “Venice shines through the pages of this novel. . . . Coupled with unexpected twists and turns [it] doesn’t disappoint” (Tulsa Book Review). A Los Angeles Times Bestseller • A Library Journal Mystery Bestseller • A Booklist Best Crime Novel of the Year • A Crime Reads Most Anticipated Book of the Year Guido Brunetti is urged by his father-in-law to investigate—and preferably intervene in—the seemingly innocent plan of the elderly Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejeda to adopt a much younger man as his son. Under Italian inheritance laws, this man would then be heir to Gonzalo’s entire fortune, a prospect Gonzalo’s friends find appalling. For his part, Brunetti wonders why the old man, a close family friend, can’t be allowed his pleasure in peace. And yet, what seems innocent on the Venetian surface can cause tsunamis below. Gonzalo unexpectedly drops dead on the street, and one of his friends—who just arrived in Venice for the memorial service—is strangled in her hotel room. Now with an urgent case to solve, Brunetti reluctantly untangles the long-hidden mystery in Gonzalo’s life that has ultimately led to murder . . . a resolution that brings him more pain than satisfaction. “Like Louise Penny, Leon has cultivated an utterly devoted audience, ever anxious to get to know more about her characters.” ―Booklist (starred review) “Redolent, as always, with the sights, smells, sounds, and mealtimes of the water-immersed city. . . . In Leon’s latest, a pleasantly deceptive lull . . . is dissolved with deadly force.” ―The Seattle Review of Books

New York Times Bestseller: Two injured, unconscious American women are found in Venice, Italy, leading a police detective down a dark path: “A splendid read.” —BookPage In his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. In this novel in Silver Dagger Award-winning series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joyriding in the Laguna with two young Italians. But Brunetti’s curiosity is aroused by the men’s behavior. Why did they run off after bringing the victims to the hospital if the injuries were accidental? As Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, investigate, they discover that one of the young men works for someone rumored to be involved in more sinister nighttime activities in the Laguna. To get to the bottom of what proves to be a gut-wrenching case, Brunetti needs to enlist the help of both the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Costiera. Determining how much trust he and Griffoni can put in these unfamiliar colleagues adds to the difficulty of solving a peculiarly horrible crime—whose perpetrators are technologically brilliant and ruthlessly organized . . . “Highly atmospheric . . . Brunetti continues to delight.” —Library Journal “[An] endlessly enjoyable series.” —The New York Times Book Review

According to dictates of the Holy Vedas, "Anything born must die. You do not die before your assigned time. But die not a thousand deaths, before your destiny gives you a call.” (Atharva, 5.30.6.) Such a sermon has been echoed in the Holy Gita as well. ‘Providential Dictates’ provides the reader with a cocktail of tragedies and comedies, romances and contradictions of caste and cultural bias prevailing in the Indian society. This professional and emotional memoir also incorporates entertaining profiles of signs of progress in the lives of respectable medical men. Why does Rupashree, the only child of the Dean of a Medical Institution, a glamorous woman born and brought up in opulence and sophistication take her own life, in spite of being married to a handsome officer as graceful as a Greek God? What are the social contradictions or the mythological aberrations which impede progress and happiness in the society? What is the truth behind glittering lives of medical men in the society? Are these patrons of clubs and mall culture really as generous and moralizing as they are meant to be? One has to read on to find out.

This paper presents an analysis of the public investment scaling-up strategy for Togo using a dynamic macroeconomic model that explicitly analyzes the links between public investment, economic growth, and debt sustainability. In the model, public capital is productive and complementary to private capital, generating positive medium and long-run effects to increases in public investment. The model application indicates that a very large increase in public investment would have positive macroeconomic effects in the long-run, but would require unrealistic increases in the tax burden to cover recurrent costs and ensure debt sustainability. More modest increases in public investment would require more feasible increases in the tax burden, particularly if the efficiency of tax collection is improved. The model simulations also emphasize the importance of improvements in the efficiency of public investment to reap welfare gains. However, even if the macroeconomic implications of public investment scaling-up can be favorable in the long-run under certain assumptions on rates of return and efficiency of investment, the transition period is challenging and exposes the country to increased risk of unsustainable debt dynamics. The model was also used to assess the growth projections underlying the standard Excel-based debt sustainability analysis for Togo.

Venice’s Commissario Brunetti takes on his “most difficult and politically sensitive case to date” in the gripping New York Times–bestselling series (Booklist). In Death and Judgment, a truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the laguna. But it will take another violent death in Venice before Brunetti and his colleagues begin to understand what is really going on. “No one is more graceful and accomplished than Leon.” —The Washington Post “The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti, with his love of food and his loving family, proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities.” —The Wall Street Journal “[Brunetti’s] humane police work is disarming, and his ambles through the city are a delight.” —The New York Times Book Review “The heady atmosphere of Venice and a galaxy of fully realized characters enrich this intriguing and finally horrifying tale.” —Publishers Weekly “The first of Leon’s books to knit together all her strengths: endearing detective, jaundiced social pathology, and a paranoid eye for plotting on a grand scale.” —Kirkus Reviews