There are many kinds of deserts, and not all are hot and sandy. In fact, there's a desert in Antarctica! This eye-opening book takes readers into various deserts around the world where they'll learn about the incredible adaptations that make desert life possible. They'll also discover much about desert food webs and the interactions that plants and animals depend on to survive in this ecosystem. Flowcharts help crystalize new concepts, such as how carrion beetles are the cleaning machines of the desert. There's plenty of similar lively facts and vivid photographs of wildlife in action to keep readers captivated by this fascinating habitat.

From endless sand dunes and prickly cacti to shimmering mirages and green oases, deserts evoke contradictory images in us. They are lands of desolation, but also of romance, of blistering Mojave heat and biting Gobi cold. Covering a quarter of the earth’s land mass and providing a home to half a billion people, they are both a physical reality and landscapes of the mind. The idea of the desert has long captured Western imagination, put on display in films and literature, but these portrayals often fail to capture the true scope and diversity of the people living there. Bridging the scientific and cultural gaps between perception and reality, The Desert celebrates our fascination with these arid lands and their inhabitants, as well as their importance both throughout history and in the world today. Covering an immense geographical range, Michael Welland wanders from the Sahara to the Atacama, depicting the often bizarre adaptations of plants and animals to these hostile environments. He also looks at these seemingly infertile landscapes in the context of their place in history—as the birthplaces not only of critical evolutionary adaptations, civilizations, and social progress, but also of ideologies. Telling the stories of the diverse peoples who call the desert home, he describes how people have survived there, their contributions to agricultural development, and their emphasis on water and its scarcity. He also delves into the allure of deserts and how they have been used in literature and film and their influence on fashion, art, and architecture. As Welland reveals, deserts may be difficult to define, but they play an active role in the evolution of our global climate and society at large, and their future is of the utmost importance. Entertaining, informative, and surprising, The Desert is an intriguing new look at these seemingly harsh and inhospitable landscapes.

Introduction / Lyle Massey and James Nisbet -- Desolate dreams / Joseph Masco -- Air, wind, breath, life : desertification and Will Wilson's AIR (Auto-Immune Response) / Jessica L. Horton -- Notes from bioteknika / Albert Narath -- Troglodyte modernists / Lyle Massey -- Explosive modernism : Hiram Hudson Benedict's Bouldereign and Zabriskie Point at 50 / Edward Dimendberg -- Point Omega/Omega Point : desert In three parts / Stefanie Sobelle -- The desert in fine grain / Emily Eliza Scott -- The desert as black mythology / Bridget R. Cooks -- On the recalcitrance of the desert island, by way of Andrea Zittel's A-Z West / James Nisbet -- Four theses for the coming deserts / Hans Baumann and Karen Pinkus.

The Iraqi military has developed a designer biological weapon. When Americans accidently learn about it in some secret military papers, they discover that if unleashed, the pathogen will mutate and destroy all life on the planet. American intelligence quickly assembles an elite response team led by Captain Robert Walker. The captain leads his soldiers into the heart of the Iraqi desert to track down a young woman rumored to know of the weapon’s location. But the clock is ticking. Time is running out for Walker as his team races to find the biological agent before the Scorpion’s daughter can destroy the world. Will they find the answers with The Scorpion’s Daughter?

Detailed, first-person account of the famed low-level B-24 raid over the Ploesti oilfields on August 1, 1943.