Showing results by narrator "Steve Marvel" in All Categories

Many believe that despite its destructive character, war ultimately boosts long-term economic growth. For the United States this view is often supported by appeal to the experience of the Second World War, understood as a triumph of both production and productivity. Alexander Field shows that between 1941 and 1945 manufacturing productivity actually declined, depressed by changes in the output mix and resource shocks from enemy action, including curtailed access to natural rubber and, on the Eastern Seaboard, petroleum.

Paris Bombay is looking for lasting love - a real woman to share Harvey Wallbangers with - which isn't easy to find when you're a member of history's most prolific family of assassins. Instead, he ends up with a lethal assignment that isn't his, a reluctant role as the new Bachelor on a reality TV show, and a slew of menacing death threats. Paris knew life as a Bombay wasn't easy, but if this assassin is going to find the love of his life, he's got to find out who's threatening his life first....

Accompanied by Tanuki, his shape-shifting badger sidekick, Tarō embarks on a quest of self-discovery and revenge, falls for Kamehime, the teenage samurai daughter of a powerful warlord, and ultimately becomes embroiled in the political struggle for the imperial throne. Along the way, Tarō and his allies face fearsome yōkai, the ghosts, goblins, and ghouls of Japanese folklore.

Eighteen billion Wi-Fi devices are in use around the world, with four billion more added every year. Connecting everyone to everything, it is central to our lives today. How did this happen? Beyond Everywhere is the surprising story in its entirety: the techno/political conflicts at its birth, the battles against competing technologies as it was being nurtured, and the international diplomatic intrigue as it spread across the planet. This vivid narrative about the people who gave Wi-Fi to the world is told with humor, insight, and charm by one of Wi-Fi's key developers.

Contained herein are tales of the history of mankind's future first colony, from the first failed attempt at colonization, to the rise in crime, to the rise in terrorism, to its descent into widespread civil war and rebellion...and ultimately, liberation. As with most of human history, this history is messy, with good men and women turning bad, bad men and women inadvertently doing good, and blood flowing in the streets.

Solving a crime is like piecing together a puzzle. But what happens if the pieces don't fit? When police chief Gordon Hepler's doctor orders him to cut down on the stress in his life or risk losing his vision, Gordon books a winter retreat at a remote bed and breakfast. Hours away from Mapleton, where nobody knows he's a cop, he plans to relax and try to forget about his eyes.

Ten-year-old Nem has just witnessed her mother's brutal murder and her life appears destined for tragedy. Until, that is, she finds her mother‘s old green journal which holds an incredible secret. This innocent looking book seems to contain the power over luck. As she uses it, Nem discovers the diary keeps a strange kind of karmic balance, that in gifting someone good fortune she must steal another's first. All it takes is a simple entry. There's dangers though, and not just for others but also for Nem.

Jaxon Jennings. Cop. Homicide detective. Partner. He always had your back and rarely made mistakes. Until the death of his son. Until the night he couldn't save him. Until everything he held dear was taken away from him. Now, a shell of a man, his reckless actions mark him as a burn-out. A Loner. A dangerous man whom many in the Fairfax County Police Department cannot trust.

An urgent plea from a former flame brings CIA agent Scott Stiletto to San Francisco. Ali Lewis was once a capable spy herself before striking out on her own, creating a fashion empire that stretches around the world. Now her father has been murdered, and Stiletto is the only man Ali can trust to learn the truth behind the killing. Evidence points to a growing international conspiracy orchestrated by Iran involving the smuggling of nuclear bomb parts, kidnapped scientists, and a decades-old mafia/Silicon Valley alliance the government has been powerless to stop.

The Soviet Union delivers an ultimatum to the president of the United States: Surrender unconditionally within 72 hours, or a secret weapon of unprecedented capabilities will take millions of American lives. President William Mellon Stark ran on a campaign of peace and kept his promises, slashing the military budget and pouring millions into domestic programs. Now the nation is years behind in the technology of mass destruction.

The Southern Fault Line explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mindsets were in continual tension from the 1800s to the 1960s, when the adherents of the more democratic side of the struggle capitulated to the oligarchical side in response to the Civil Rights movement. Bryan Jones draws from his own family's centuries-old history in the region to explore the rise and fall of the "two minds" of the South.

With the inquisitive heart of an adventurer and the rigor of a scholar, this spellbinding work leads listeners through centuries of dark folklore, lost legends, and the wild inspirations behind Bram Stoker's immortal classic.

Life is a balancing act. When you’re a cop, the choices can be deadly. Ed Solomon, long-time police officer in the small town of Mapleton, Colorado, has been ribbed for thinking there’s a ring of assassins out killing deadbeat dads. However, he’s convinced these killers exist and they’re doing their dirty work from behind an innocuous-looking travel blog. Proving the ring exists has been a sideline investigation for him, but it’s shoved further onto the back burner when Ed is forced to assume the duties of Chief.

The Pallas Group Solutions Contractors have put the hurt on Chinese operations in Mexico. In the aftermath, alliances shift and powers that hadn’t appeared to be involved before start to take a hand. In a world of unrestricted warfare, PGS has to adapt.

For most of us, fond memories of the Christmas season are inseparable from television's holiday presentations. The world loves everything from iconic cartoons like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas to the groundbreaking Julia sitcom segment, "I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas," Christmas in Rockefeller Center, and the 1992 television-remake of Christmas in Connecticut directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Christmas TV Memories: Nostalgic Holiday Favorites of the Small Screen embraces it all, offering a tinsel-decked traipse down memory lane.

Life for Lucas Walker is a constant adventure, a daily game to be won in the vast Teton wilderness. Facing every challenge head-on, he values the freedom to go where he wants, when he wants, and without attachments to any one person. She is known to the native people of the land as Ghost Woman. Hiding from a terrifying past, she has lived alone and under conditions too harsh for even the hardiest men. Trusting another person is something she can't do.

Set in a revolutionary era of physics and science when a series of rapid-fire discoveries was upending our understanding of the universe, Splinters of Infinity by Mark Wolverton tells a little-known story: the tale of two of America's foremost physicists, Robert Millikan (1868-1953) and Arthur Compton (1892-1962), who found themselves locked in an intense, often deeply personal, conflict about cosmic rays. 

Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

From best-selling author Nathan Goodman: A nuclear device, a ruthless terrorist, and only one asset that can stop him. Special Agent Jana Baker's worst fears are about to be realized. A terrorist has a nuclear device and intends to detonate it deep within the San Andreas Fault line. The resulting explosion would kill millions. When terrifying post-traumatic stress episodes threaten to pull her from active duty, Jana struggles to maintain her grip on reality. Compelled to follow the terrorist's bizarre trail of clues, she finds herself in a death trap with no escape.

Parker tries to help an old family friend and is caught up in a deadly mix of terror and kidnapping. Opie Taylor returns to help Parker and brings along a new friend, a young, Puerto Rican, mixed martial art master named Gabriel Condore. Along with the old friend, Parker, Taylor and Gabe battle a suspected drug cartel from Miami trying to free the beautiful kidnap victim. All this takes place in the teeth of an on-rushing hurricane that is determined to rip Florida from the map.