History Science Life

Since the Renaissance, people have been plagued by the tense battle between science and religion. Revered evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould suggests, instead of choosing between the two, why not opt for a golden mean that accords dignity and distinction to each realm? With intelligence and clarity, Gould renders the complex simple and sheds new light on this dilemma. In this dazzling gem of contemporary cultural philosophy, Gould posits that science defines the natural world, while religion defines our moral world, and they both can coexist peacefully in respectful noninterference.

In a sense, Cnut the Great was practically destined for greatness, if only because he came from a distinguished Danish royal family. Cnut's father was Sweyn Forkbeard, and his grandfather was Harald Bluetooth, both prominent and legendary kings of Denmark. Thanks to his background and his abilities, Cnut became the most prominent of the Danish kings of England, but he was also, at times, king of Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden.

A controversial figure in his day, Black Hawk was the leader of the Sauk American Indian tribe in the early 1800s. The son of the tribe’s medicine man, Black Hawk’s exploits as a warrior aided his rise to the status of tribal war leader. Here, Black Hawk chronicles his life as well as the story of his tribe, who were forced from their lands in Illinois during a series of skirmishes with American settlers in what came to be known as the Black Hawk War.

Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the 19th century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal. Half Lives tells the fascinating, curious, sometimes macabre story of the element through its ascendance as a desirable item - a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in-the-dark dance costume - to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday 20th-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element.

Buck O'Neil once described him as "Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one". Among experts, he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America's most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today.

A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly the most famous supernatural story in English. However, it was not the only supernatural story of the season that Charles Dickens wrote. In Victorian England, Christmas was the time to explore the supernatural in stories, and Charles Dickens was one of the best at it. Included in this volume are a full-cast dramatization of A Christmas Carol, plus three more of Dickens' best stories of the season.

Since the internet's earliest days, people have died and mourned online. In quiet corners of past iterations of the web, the dead linger. But attempts at preserving the data of the dead are often ill-fated, for websites and devices decay and die, just as people do. Death disrupts technologists' plans for platforms. It reveals how digital production is always collaborative, undermining the entrepreneurial platform economy and highlighting the flaws of techno-solutionism.

James Clerk Maxwell was a brilliant mathematician and scientist, but his impact on this world goes even deeper than that. Maxwell singlehandedly overturned what was believed to be fact with a whole new outlook on fundamental aspects of the universe. Maxwell is often credited as one of the first pioneers of quantum physics and rightly so....

George Murray Levick was the physician on Robert Falcon Scott's tragic Antarctic expedition of 1910. Marooned for an Antarctic winter, Levick passed the time by becoming the first man to study penguins up close. His findings were so shocking to Victorian morals that they were quickly suppressed and seemingly lost to history.

Discover the secret to a meaningful and fulfilled life through the ancient wisdom of King Solomon.

This is the story of the Universe including life as we know it.

It may seem paradoxical that the man behind the world’s most famous peace prizes was the same one who invented dynamite, yet this is exactly the case. Alfred Nobel: The Life and Legacy of the Famous Scientist and the Nobel Prizes examines the life and work that made Nobel one of history’s most important scientists. You will learn about Nobel like never before.

The tumultuous life and radical science of a revolutionary thinker, and the history of an idea that changed the world In the early nineteenth century, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science: biology. Yet for...

This “delightful…compelling” (Scientific American) and revelatory look at the science behind why animals play “will fill you with joy and wonder” (Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus). Acclaimed science writer David Toomey takes us on a fast-paced and entertaining tour of...

This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

Best known as a monumental achievement of the civil rights movement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act also revolutionized the lives of America's working women. Title VII of the law made it illegal to discriminate "because of sex". But that simple phrase didn't mean much until ordinary women began using the law to get justice on the job - and some took their fights all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Tangled Tree is David Quammen's detailed, fascinating, and artful look into the history of evolutionary biology and the brilliant minds behind it, as well as the answers to those eternal questions: who are we and where did we come from? The Tangled Tree is so much more than a book about evolution. Quammen covers every facet of this incredible story from the personal history of Charles Darwin to the technological hurdles facing scientists today.

For more than 75 years, Catwoman has forged her own path in a clear-cut world of stalwart heroes, diabolical villains, and damsels in distress. Her relentless independence across comic books, television, and film set her apart from the rest of the superhero world. When female-led comics were few and far between, Catwoman headlined her own series for over 20 years. But her unique path had its downsides as well.

David Falkner, noted author of five previous books about baseball, deftly portrays the rise to stardom of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play on a major-league team in baseball’s modern era. As Falkner traces the development of Robinson’s natural skill and tireless dedication, he focuses on the strengths that earned Robinson a unique place on the diamond and in the struggle for civil rights. This compelling biography illuminates a critical intersection of sports and cultural history.

This book takes you on an exciting, easy-to-understand, and entertaining journey through the new reality in which humans and machines work more closely together than ever before. You will learn what lies behind terms such as machine learning, deep learning, and artificial empathy, how AI works in schools, at work, in medicine, and even in art – and what social, ethical, and personal questions arise from this.