Showing titles in History & Culture

Communication has always been at the heart of human progress. From smoke signals on mountaintops to the invisible Wi-Fi networks that surround us today, every leap forward has reshaped how we share ideas, stay safe, build relationships, and understand the world. From Morse Code to Wi-Fi is a clear, captivating journey through the ten biggest breakthroughs that transformed human connection forever.

Welcome to Essentials of AI for Beginners, your go-to guide for exploring AI technologies like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Generative AI, and ChatGPT.

Brought to you by Penguin. “Tanks are like dinner jackets”, an Australian general once commented, “you don’t need them very often, but when you do, nothing else will do.” An authoritative history of the tank and the remarkable individuals who designed them and fought in them, from a...

Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.

Penguin Audio presents Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark, read by Rob Shapiro. We stand at the beginning of a new era. What was once science fiction is fast becoming reality, as AI transforms war, crime, justice, jobs and society-and, even, our very sense of what it means to be human. More than any other...

The author of The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self Our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of...

Audie Award, History/Biography, 2016. On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Based on in-depth interviews with 23 of the 24 moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, A Man on the Moon conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail.

‘Laura Bates explains how they built the future – and forgot to put women in it’ CAITLIN MORAN 'Fascinating and essential... I urge you to read every syllable' JO BRAND ‘All men must read this book if they have any interest in a truly just, fair and equal society’ ROBIN INCE AI is here...

Audible editor Sam Danis delves into spatial audio with Dolby Atmos: what it is, what makes it so immersive, and what the future holds for audio entertainment. Featuring conversations with experts in sound design and production, as well as samples from some of the most unique Audible productions available in Dolby Atmos. Listen in to discover the storytelling magic this innovative technology can offer.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller From one of our leading chroniclers of the intersection of innovation and capitalism, a landmark reckoning—based on unprecedented access—with one of the world’s most brilliant and driven tech visionaries, and his game-changing company Even by the...

Brought to you by Penguin. The Sunday Times and #1 New York Times Bestseller Silicon Valley’s brightest minds once collaborated with governments to advance technologies, securing the West’s dominance on the global stage. But that relationship has corroded – with perilous repercussions for...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Soonish by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, read by Kelly Weinersmith and Joseph May. What will the world of tomorrow be like? How does progress happen? And why don't we have a lunar colony already? In this witty and entertaining book, Kelly and Zach...

Brought to you by Penguin. A remarkable man in possession of limitless curiosity and intellect, Elon Musk makes a fascinating subject. Tech reporter Ashlee Vance has shadowed him for a year to bring us an engaging and deeply personal account of the man who wants to send us into outer space...

It's a signal paradox of our times that we live in an information society but do not know how it works. And without understanding how our information is stored, used and protected, we are vulnerable to having it exploited. In Fancy Bear Goes Phishing, Scott Shapiro exposes the secrets of the digital age. With lucidity and wit, he establishes that cybercrime has less to do with defective programming than with the faulty wiring of our psyches and society. And because hacking is a human story, he tells the fascinating tales of perpetrators.

Paul Kennedy, award-winning author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers and one of today’s most renowned historians, now provides a new and unique look at how World War II was won. Engineers of Victory is a fascinating nuts-and-bolts account of the strategic factors that led to Allied victory. Kennedy reveals how the leaders’ grand strategy was carried out by the ordinary soldiers, scientists, engineers, and businessmen responsible for realizing their commanders’ visions of success.

Brought to you by Penguin. Consumer AI has arrived. And with it, inescapable upheaval as we grapple with what it means for our jobs, lives and the future of humanity. Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most...

National Bestseller From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance, Bold, and The Future Is Faster Than You Think comes a bold exploration of what it means to stay human in a world where technology has granted us godlike power. In 1968, Stewart Brand declared: “We are as gods—and...

How AI Really Thinks takes you behind the screen and uncovers the ten core secrets that make modern artificial intelligence work. You’ll discover why data acts as AI’s fuel, how algorithms function as its rulebook, and how machines learn from examples the same way people learn from experience. You’ll explore the training methods that help AI recognise pictures and understand speech, and you’ll see how neural networks—loosely inspired by the human brain—allow AI to detect patterns far too complex for us to notice.

When two Stanford graduate students set out to create a new kind of cigarette that wouldn’t kill them, they didn’t foresee all the obstacles that lay ahead — or the powerful forces their invention would unleash. Nearly 10 years after the launch of the JUUL, Backfired: The Vaping Wars asks: Could e-cigarettes have been the solution to one of the world’s most pressing public health problems—or was this technology doomed to introduce a whole new generation to nicotine, and end up perpetuating an intractable addiction?

For many, the moon landing was the defining event of the twentieth century. So it seems only fitting that Norman Mailer - the literary provocateur who altered the landscape of American nonfiction - wrote the most wide-ranging, far-seeing chronicle of the Apollo 11 mission. A classic chronicle of America's reach for greatness in the midst of the Cold War, Of a Fire on the Moon compiles the reportage Mailer published between 1969 and 1970 in Life magazine