Showing titles in History

The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most digestible book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI.

'Amazingly well researched, fabulously informative and an awful lot of fun. If you love Japanese culture or are just curious to know more I can't recommend this book highly enough' Jonathan Ross 'A nerd- and generalist-friendly look at how Japan shaped the post-World War II world, from toys to...

For most of human existence, people lived in a somewhat similar fashion. Everything that has been produced, from food and raw materials to clothing and other finished products, has been done either solely by hand or with some help of animal power. This was the same across the eras and throughout the world, no matter how advanced or backward the various civilizations were. Yet, our lives today couldn’t be more different.

After discussing what an algorithm does and how its effectiveness can be measured, Louridas covers three of the most fundamental applications areas: graphs, which describe networks, from eighteenth-century problems to today's social networks; searching, and how to find the fastest way to search; and sorting, and the importance of choosing the best algorithm for particular tasks. He then presents larger-scale applications: PageRank, Google's founding algorithm; and neural networks and deep learning.

As one of the world's leading experts in human reproduction and a research pioneer since the 1970s, Professor Winston is accustomed to working in the world of controversial science. From the earliest days of IVF treatment to current controversy over stem cell research, strong feelings and hot...

In the course of our enduring quest for knowledge about ourselves and our universe, we haven't found answers to one of our most fundamental questions: Does life exist anywhere else in the universe? Ten years and billions of dollars in the making, the Mars rover Curiosity is poised toanswer this all-important question.

The Victorians invented the idea of the future. They saw it as an undiscovered country, one ripe for exploration and colonization. And to get us there, they created a new way of ordering and transforming nature, built on grand designs and the mass-mobilization of the resources of the British Empire.

Bloomsbury presents Breaking the Chains of Gravity written and read by Amy Shira Teitel. The incredible story of spaceflight before the establishment of NASA. NASA’s history is a familiar story, one that typically peaks with Neil Armstrong taking his small step on the Moon in 1969. But...

In the 1970s, while their contemporaries were protesting the computer as a tool of dehumanization and oppression, a motley collection of college dropouts, hippies, and electronics fanatics were engaged in something much more subversive. Obsessed with the idea of getting computer power into their own hands, they launched from their garages a hobbyist movement that grew into an industry, and ultimately a social and technological revolution.

New York Times bestselling author Ben Mezrich pulls back the curtain on the most volatile, complex, and bizarre corporate takeover in history: Elon Musk’s acquisition and subsequent occupation of Twitter. ‘An excitable, high-octane account’ – Independent In October 2022, Elon Musk...

The next chapter of human history should not be written by algorithms, it should be written by us. It is only by fully understanding how data has shaped our past that we can decide what role it plays in our future. We live in an era when trading our information for access can feel harmless or...

On the evening of April 13, 1970, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13 were just hours from the third lunar landing in history. But as they soared through space, 200,000 miles from Earth, an explosion badly damaged their spacecraft. Thirteen is the shocking and miraculous true story of how the astronauts and ground crew guided Apollo 13 back to Earth. Expanding on dispatches written for The New Yorker, Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. brings listeners unparalleled detail on the moment-by-moment developments of one of NASA’s most dramatic missions.

The definitive and “captivating” (Marty Baron, author of Collision of Power) story of San Francisco’s meteoric transformation into a global capital of technology, and how the same creative and political forces that gave rise to its boom nearly engineered its collapse. At the dawn of the...

 Block by Block offers an original perspective on thermodynamic science and history based on the three approaches of a practicing engineer, academician, and historian. The book synthesizes and gathers into one accessible volume a strategic range of foundational topics involving the atomic theory, energy, entropy, and the laws of thermodynamics. 

How do we spark new scientific discoveries? How can we accelerate new breakthroughs in science? These are some of the biggest unsolved questions in science. Many believe that discoveries arise by chance or serendipity. The Engine of Scientific Discovery illustrates, for the first time, how we...

Yorkshire is 'a continent unto itself', a region where mountain, plain, coast, downs, fen and heath lie close. By weaving history, family stories, travelogue and ecology, Richard Morris reveals how Yorkshire took shape as a landscape and in literature, legend and popular regard. The result is a...

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.

This book will make you chuckle, gasp, and maybe even double-check your phone settings. From bizarre inventions to behind-the-scenes (or screens!) trivia, you’ll uncover things you didn’t even know were a thing about the tiny tech that rules your life.

The #1 New York Times and global bestseller from Walter Isaacson—the acclaimed author of Steve Jobs, Einstein: His Life and World, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci—is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating, controversial innovator of modern times. For two years...

No longer an uncertain technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence is starting to shape every aspect of our daily lives, from how we think to who we love. In this urgent polemic, leading barrister Susie Alegre explores the ways in which artificial intelligence threatens our fundamental human rights—including the rights to life, liberty and fair trial; the right to private and family life; and the right to free expression—and how we protect those rights.