Fields Michelle HIS 109 History of the United States Since 1865 IN PERSON: 2000s

Horror. Sadness. Protests. Military action. Conspiracy theories. From personal loss to economic upheaval to a paradigm shift in U.S. foreign relations, few events in the past 100 years have impacted American life so greatly as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This comprehensive two-volume set details every event leading up to 9/11, going back up to a decade prior to the attacks, and including all participants from any place in the world. Also covered are events since the attack that have influenced our understanding of the ordeal.

Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory.

The story of carbon--the building block of life that is, ironically, humanity's great threat . It could be said that all of us are a little alien--our bodies' carbon atoms first shot forth from supernovas billions of years ago and far, far away. And yet, when we hear the word today, it is more often than not in a crisis context: carbon dioxide emissions have sped up the carbon cycle; chlorofluorocarbons are destroying the ozone layer and warming the planet; the volatile Middle East explodes atop its stores of volatile hydrocarbons; carbohydrates threaten obesity and diabetes. In The Carbon Age, Eric Roston evokes this essential element, its journey illuminating history from the Big Bang to modern civilization. Charting the science of carbon--how it was formed, how it came to Earth and built up--he chronicles the often surprising ways mankind has used it over centuries, and the growing catastrophe of the industrial era, leading us to now attempt to wrestle the Earth's geochemical cycle back from the brink.

The mortgage meltdown: what went wrong and how do we fix it? Owning a home can bestow a sense of security and independence. But today, in a cruel twist, many Americans now regard their homes as a source of worry and dashed expectations. How did everything go haywire? And what can we do about it now? In The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Mortgage and Credit Markets, renowned finance expert James Barth offers a comprehensive examination of the mortgage meltdown. Together with a team of economists at the Milken Institute, he explores the shock waves that have rippled through the entire financial sector and the real economy.