From its earliest days, the Virginia landscape has elicited dramatically contradictory descriptions. The sixteenth-century poet Michael Drayton exalted the land as "earth's onely paradise," while John Smith, in his reports to England, summarized the area around Jamestown as "a miserie, a ruine, a death, a hell." Drawing upon both familiar history and lesser-known material from deep geological time through the end of the seventeenth century, Stephen Adams focuses on both the physical changes to the land over time and the changes in the way people viewed Virginia. The Best and Worst Country in the World reaches well beyond previous accounts of early American views of the land with the inclusion of fascinating and important pre-1700 sources, Native American perceptions, and prehuman geography and geology. A blend of history, literature, geology, geography, and natural history, enriched by illustrations ranging from a dinosaur footprint to John Smith's famous "Map of Virginia," Adams's work offers an ecocritical exploration of the varied preconceptions that have shaped and colored the human relationship with "the best and worst country in the world"--the early Virginia landscape.

The preeminent doctor and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel is repeatedly asked one question: Which country has the best healthcare? He set off to find an answer. The US spends more than any other nation, nearly $4 trillion, on healthcare. Yet, for all that expense, the US is not ranked #1 -- not even close. In Which Country Has the World's Best Healthcare? Ezekiel Emanuel profiles eleven of the world's healthcare systems in pursuit of the best or at least where excellence can be found. Using a unique comparative structure, the book allows healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers alike to know which systems perform well, and why, and which face endemic problems. From Taiwan to Germany, Australia to Switzerland, the most inventive healthcare providers tackle a global set of challenges -- in pursuit of the best healthcare in the world.

The book studies various aspects & facets of life & social systems, styles, & characteristics of people worldwide. Great emphasis is placed upon general conception about distinctive characteriology of each society & nationality. How people around the globe think, act, do business, dream, fight, marry, date, promote themselves, deal with other people, & conduct their daily affairs. Is it a myth or a fact that the French are refined but arrogant? Italians are great seducers? Greeks do not take life seriously? British are polite but have a cold nature? Arabs are extremely generous but unreliable? Germans are disciplined & lack sensitivity? Jews are business tycoons & overly aggressive? Japanese are reverently mannered but culturally biased? Koreans are hard workers, pleasant, but introverted? Americans are easy going, but critically suspicious about foreigners & their leaders? Who are the real friends & enemies of American people? What are the true feelings, hidden wishes & unrevealed attitudes of foreigners towards Americans at home & abroad? The author questions, wonders, studies & answers these questions through international & national surveys, questionnaires, & interviews with over 10,000 individuals around the globe. Special section: Etiquette - international rules about do's & dont's in 150 countries, success & power.

Denmark is set to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030. Iceland has topped the gender equality rankings for a decade and counting. South Korea’s average life expectancy will soon reach ninety. How have these places achieved such remarkable outcomes? And how can we apply those lessons to our own communities? The future we want is already here - it's just not evenly distributed. By bringing together for the first time tried and tested solutions to society's most pressing problems, from violence to inequality, Andrew Wear shows that the world we want to live in is already within reach. Solved is a much-needed dose of optimism in an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Informative, accessible and revelatory, it is a celebration of the power of human ingenuity to make the future brighter for everyone.

The extraordinary tale of early colonial Australia as seen through the eyes of Mary Pitt and her family, who voluntarily migrated from their home in Dorset in 1801 to live in a penal colony.

They say it's a small world. a small world. It isn't. Planet Earth is a big place and full of infinite variety.There are around 200 countries in the world, depending on how you count them. No one can ever visit them all, except for a few box-tickers. In this book we have tried to give you a brief overview of most of the world's countries and what makes them worth visiting. We actually rank 120 countries and look at dozens more (we didn't spell it out â a hundred sounds better).We have tried to paint a picture of each of them. It is not definitive. There are plenty of good sources of more detailed information, most of it free and online. The days of relying solely on a Frommers or a Lonely Planet guidebook are long gone.We believe what we have done is unique. We have taken ten different criteria for our 120 countries, found numeric ratings for them, and combined them into an overall score to rate and rank each country. We also rank them for each factor. The result is a useful guide to how easy and desirable these countries are to visit. It will help you decide where on earth to go next.The Top 100 Countries index uses the following criteria, all of them from independent and reputable international sources: 1.Popularity (number of tourists per year)2.Number of things to see and do3.Tourist friendliness4.Value for money5.Number of World Heritage Properties6.Safety and security7.Quality of the health system8.Quality of the environment9.Corruption level10.Personal and economic freedom The Top 100 Countries index does not cover things like excitement level, the tastiness of the local cuisine, or the ease or cost of travel to these destinations (which will vary according to your starting point). Nor does it look at a range of other subjective factors. Travel is the most personal of experiences, and individual tastes cannot be quantified.But we believe the ten factors we have chosen give a good indication of the relative merits of each country, based on the criteria that are important to most travelers. The rating methodology and sources are explained in Appendix 1, and Appendix 2 ranks every country by each criterion.The book does not cover countries in the order of preference, though there is an overview in Chapter 1. The main body of the book is structured according to the regions of the world, looking at most countries individually, even those that are not rated. It is intended as a guide to help you work out which countries you might visit. We look at the best things to see and do, and at each country's history and culture.The description of each country is accompanied by its detailed score in the Top 100 Countries rating, for each of the ten criteria, plus other things like the level of tourist infestation. The ratings help us see the pros and cons of each destination. Different people like different things, but by using this rating system we have tried to give an objective analysis of each country.For major destinations, like the USA, Europe's 'Big Five', China and Japan, we go into some detail, breaking our descriptions down by the regions of that country. Some places are mentioned only briefly, and most unrated countries are skimmed over â they are simply not very good places to go. But India, for example, gets a detailed listing, despite its low score, because it is so big and so interesting.