History

Benjamin Franklin was a pioneering scientist, leader of the Enlightenment and founding father of the USA. But perhaps less well known is that he was also the first person to use artificial respiration to revive an electric shock victim. Odder still, it...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780735223288Author Nicola TwilleyFormat HardbackPage Count 400Imprint Prentice Hall PressPublisher Prentice Hall Press

In 1942, the logician Kurt Godel and Albert Einstein became close friends; they walked to and from their offices every day, exchanging ideas about science, philosophy, politics, and the lost world of German science. By 1949, Godel had produced a...

'An utterly dazzling book, the best piece of history I have read for a long time' Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps'Not merely an horologist's delight, but an ingenious meditation on the nature and symbolism of time-keeping...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781585423316Author Penny Le CouteurFormat PaperbackPage Count 384Imprint Jeremy P TarcherPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 1gDimensions(mm) 229mm *...

This is the story of a single pebble. It is just a normal pebble, as you might pick up on holiday - on a beach in Wales, say. Its history, though, carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across the farthest reaches of space. This is a narrative...

The definitive account of the great Bohr-Einstein debate and its continuing legacy In 1927, Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein began a debate about the interpretation and meaning of the new quantum theory. This would become one of the most famous debates...

...a bracing adventure, and one where our ancestors are not reduced to characters of myth and legend, but real people of flesh and blood. It is through this most intimate dissection that the past is brought so vividly to life - The TelegraphIt's an...

A richly illustrated book that breaks new ground in exploring the relationship between science and power at the French court of Versailles - published to accompany the exhibition at London's Science Museum.Between the 1660s and the beginning of the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780943763521Author Basil AndersonFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint Gemstone PressPublisher Gemstone PressWeight(grams) 454gDimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm...

A highly ambitious and lucid history of ideas from the very earliest times to the present day.'A masterpiece' NEW STATESMAN'An extraordinary new book ... This is the history of "ideas" as it has never presented before' SUNDAY TELEGRAPHIn this hugely...

Charles Darwin's seminal formulation of the theory of Evolution, On the Origin of Species continues to be as controversial today as when it was first published. This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction and notes by William Bynum, and...

Hans Sloane was the greatest collector of his time, and one of the greatest of all time. His name is familiar today through the London streets and squares named after him, but the man himself, and his achievements, are almost forgotten.Born in the north...

A hilarious look at how the line between 'genius' and 'extremely lucky idiot' is finer than we'd like to admit.The more you delve into the stories behind history's greatest names, the more you realise they have something in common: a mystifying lack of...

Read the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the Earth's awesome impact on the shape of human civilisations.'Stands comparison with Sapiens... Thrilling' Sunday Times Human evolution in East Africa was driven by geological forces. Ancient Greece...

A Telegraph Book of the Year A remarkable, unprecedented account of the role of magic in cultures both ancient and modern -- from the first known horoscope to the power of tattoos.'Fascinating, original, excellent' Simon Sebag...

This book, in language accessible to the general reader, investigates twelve of the most notorious, most interesting, and most instructive episodes involving the interaction between science and Christianity, aiming to tell each story in its historical...

From the bestselling authors of Why does E=mc2? comes The Quantum Universe, in which Brian Cox, presenter of the BBC's Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe, and Jeff Forshaw go on a brilliantly ambitious mission to show that everyone...

A bold and revolutionary perspective on the science and cultural history of menstruationMenstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an...

'The clarity, authority, wit and insight Lawrence brings to bear are like torches shining into the turbulent darkness of a subject we all wonder at, but which we mostly feel unable to even to think or talk about with any confidence. Hugely recommended'...

This book takes readers to Antarctica, the Arctic and the high mountains, to see what is happening to their ice, snow and permafrost. Ice and snow reflect solar energy back to space, keeping the planet cool. As global overheating melts them away, we are...

This is the definitive book on the Hubble Space Telescope, written by noted astronomer Jim Bell. Looking deep into space, by definition, means looking back in time-and the Hubble Space Telescope can look very far back, including at stars, nebulae, and...

How can a plant as beautiful as the foxglove be so deadly and yet for more than a century be used to treat heart disease? The same is true of other naturally occurring molecules as will be revealed in this current book by award-winning author and...

The story of two brilliant nineteenth-century scientists who discovered the electromagnetic field, laying the groundwork for the amazing technological and theoretical breakthroughs of the twentieth century Two of the boldest and most creative...

The Periodic Table is one of the most recognizable images in science - and in our culture. Its 118 elements make up everything on our planet and in the entire universe. But how many of us actually know how to interpret its distinctive design? And what...

The twentieth century was defined by physics. From the minds of the world's leading physicists there flowed a river of ideas that would transport mankind to the pinnacle of wonderment and to the very depths of human despair. This was a century that began...

Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the...

A revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of maths'Lively, satisfying, good at explaining difficult concepts' The Sunday TimesMathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental...

The nineteenth century seems to have been full of hysterical women - or so they were diagnosed. Where are they now? The very disease no longer exists. In this fascinating account, Andrew Scull tells the story of Hysteria - an illness that disappeared not...

How the story of Noah's Flood was central to the development of a global environmental consciousness in early modern Europe.Winner, Morris D. Forkosch Prize, Journal of the History of IdeasMany centuries before the emergence of the scientific consensus...

From the bestselling author of Everything Bad is Good For You, Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map vividly recreates Victorian London to show how huge populations live together, how cities can kill - and how they can save us. Steven Johnson is one of today's...

Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books 2012, the world's leading prize for popular science writing. We live in the information age. But every era of history has had its own information revolution: the invention of writing,...

What happens when you really get under the skin of the world around you? Everything that surrounds us - and we ourselves - are made of molecules, constructed from a limited set of elements that can combine to form an almost limitless kaleidoscope of...

Winner of the 24th Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book PrizeFinalist for the 2023 Cundill History PrizeGold Medal Recipient, Nautilus Book Awards, SustainabilityThe dirty work essential to a clean energy transitionTo achieve fossil fuel...

Nikola Tesla's life is as interesting for his idiosyncrasy as it is for his brilliance. The inventor's mind knew no limits and his incredible sense of possibility rings through his memoir. This authorative volume of My Inventions includes three...

Why do female animals select certain mates, and how do scientists determine the answer? In considering these questions, Erika Lorraine Milam explores the fascinating patterns of experiment and interpretation that emerged as twentieth-century researchers...

From Schrodinger's cat to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, this book untangles the weirdness of the quantum world.Quantum mechanics underpins modern science and provides us with a blueprint for reality itself. And yet it has been said that if you're...

Depression has colonized the world. Today, more than 300 million of us have been diagnosed as depressed. But 150 years ago, "depression" referred to a mood, not a sickness. Does that mean people weren't sick before, only sad? Of course not. Mental...

1001 Inventions provides unique insight into a significant time period in Muslim history that has been looked over by much of the world. A time where discoveries were made and inventions were created that have impacted how Western civilization and the...

An Independent Climate Book of the Year 2023 In this sweeping work of science and history, the renowned climate scientist and author of The New Climate War shows us the conditions on Earth that allowed humans not only to exist but thrive, and how they...