The Age Of Wonder How The Romantic Generation Discovered The Beauty And Terror Of Science

Author : Richard Holmes
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 578 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2010-03-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781400031870

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The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes Pdf

The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still.

Author : Richard Holmes
Publisher : Pantheon
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0375422226

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The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes Pdf

The winner of the Somerset Maugham Award presents the earliest ideas of the explorers of “dynamic science,” including William Herschel and his sister, Caroline, who changed the public's ideas about stars, and Humphry Davy, who invented the miners' lamp.

Author : Richard Holmes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Discoveries in science
ISBN : OCLC:960456205

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The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes Pdf

Author : Richard Holmes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Great Britain
ISBN : OCLC:939600522

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The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes Pdf

This biography charts the birth of modern science in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through the lives of several notable scientists. The author focuses on botanist, Joseph Banks, astronomers William and Caroline Herschel and chemist Humphry Davy. He reveals how great ideas and experiments are born, how intense relationships are broken by research and how religious faith and scientific truth collide.

Author : Richard Holmes
Publisher : HarperPress
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2014-05-12
Category : History
ISBN : 0007476515

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Falling Upwards by Richard Holmes Pdf

FALLING UPWARDS is a vivid group biography and adventure that tells how men and women first felt as they rose towards the clouds into a new dimension - of science, exploration, warfare, literature, discovery.Romantic biographer Richard Holmes floats across the world following the pioneer generation of balloon aeronauts, from the first heroic experiments of the Montgolfiers in 1780s to the tragic attempt to fly a balloon to the North Pole in the 1890s. Dramatic sequences move from the early Anglo-French balloon rivalries, the crazy firework flights of beautiful Sophie Blanchard; the revelatory ascents over sprawling Victorian industrial cities of Northern Europe; and the astonishing long-distance voyages of the American entrepreneur John Wise, and the French photographer Felix Nadar. Later we find balloons used to observe the horrors of battle during the American Civil War (including a memorable flight by General Custer); the tale of sixty balloons that escaped Paris during the Prussian siege of 1870; and the terrifying seven mile high flight - without oxygen - of James Glaisher, helping to establish the science of meteorology and the environmental notion of a 'fragile' planet. Readers will also discover the writers - from Mary Shelley to Edgar Alan Poe, Dickens to Verne - who allowed the imaginative impact of flight to soar in their work. In exploring the interplay between technology and science fiction, the understanding of the biosphere, and the metaphysics of flight itself, Holmes offers another of his subtle portraits of human endeavour, recklessness and vision.

Author : Sankar Muthu
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2009-01-10
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781400825882

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Enlightenment against Empire by Sankar Muthu Pdf

In the late eighteenth century, an array of European political thinkers attacked the very foundations of imperialism, arguing passionately that empire-building was not only unworkable, costly, and dangerous, but manifestly unjust. Enlightenment against Empire is the first book devoted to the anti-imperialist political philosophies of an age often regarded as affirming imperial ambitions. Sankar Muthu argues that thinkers such as Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Gottfried Herder developed an understanding of humans as inherently cultural agents and therefore necessarily diverse. These thinkers rejected the conception of a culture-free "natural man." They held that moral judgments of superiority or inferiority could be made neither about entire peoples nor about many distinctive cultural institutions and practices. Muthu shows how such arguments enabled the era's anti-imperialists to defend the freedom of non-European peoples to order their own societies. In contrast to those who praise "the Enlightenment" as the triumph of a universal morality and critics who view it as an imperializing ideology that denigrated cultural pluralism, Muthu argues instead that eighteenth-century political thought included multiple Enlightenments. He reveals a distinctive and underappreciated strand of Enlightenment thinking that interweaves commitments to universal moral principles and incommensurable ways of life, and that links the concept of a shared human nature with the idea that humans are fundamentally diverse. Such an intellectual temperament, Muthu contends, can broaden our own perspectives about international justice and the relationship between human unity and diversity.

Author : Richard Wortley,Stephen Smallbone
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2012-08-17
Category : Law
ISBN : 9798216104087

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Internet Child Pornography by Richard Wortley,Stephen Smallbone Pdf

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the problem of Internet child pornography that spotlights the connection between technology and behavior, presenting practical suggestions for reducing this pervasive problem. The role of the Internet in fueling the problem of child pornography is enormous. Prior to the Internet, child pornography was typically locally produced, of poor quality, expensive, and difficult to obtain. United States' law enforcement officials were able to boast in the late 1970s that the traffic in child pornography had virtually been eliminated. The advent of the Internet in the 1980s made vast quantities of child pornography instantly available in the privacy of the viewer's home. Today, child pornography largely exists because of the opportunities provided by the Internet. Internet Child Pornography provides a comprehensive overview of the issue by describing the problem of child pornography, examining the impact of the Internet, and presenting a profile of users. With this foundation in place, the authors then address responses to child pornography and shed light on the complexities of dealing with criminal activities that are perpetrated largely online—for example, the fact that people behave differently in online environments than they do in other areas of their lives. The book examines prevention efforts designed to reduce access to child pornography, law enforcement responses designed to catch known offenders, and treatment responses designed to reduce reoffending.

Author : Lonely Planet,Nick Ray,Ashley Harrell
Publisher : Lonely Planet
Page : 685 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2018-08-01
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9781787019324

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Lonely Planet Cambodia by Lonely Planet,Nick Ray,Ashley Harrell Pdf

Lonely Planet's Cambodia is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Watch the sun rise over the magnificent temples of Angkor, hit boho bars in Phnom Penh, and find a tropical hideaway in the Southern Islands- all with your trusted travel companion.

Author : Robert Finch,John Elder
Publisher : W. W. Norton
Page : 1135 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2002-01-01
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0393946347

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The Norton Book of Nature Writing by Robert Finch,John Elder Pdf

W. W. Norton is pleased to announce that The Norton Book of Nature Writing is now available in a paperback college edition.

Author : H.G. Wells
Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2006-09-12
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0819567299

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Star Begotten by H.G. Wells Pdf

H.G. Wells’s second Martian invasion comes from within.

Author : Andrea Penrose
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2012-12-04
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781101606827

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Recipe for Treason by Andrea Penrose Pdf

A diabolical traitor who's always out of reach... England, 1814. Lady Arianna Hadley and her husband, the Earl of Saybrook, want nothing more than to savor a quiet life embellished by the occasional cup of the finest chocolate. However, when they receive orders to travel to Scotland and capture an elusive traitor, they feel their duty to the Crown must come first. In a laboratory in Scotland, they discover the corpse of a chemistry professor--and cryptic papers hinting at a dangerous new discovery now in enemy hands. Racing against time, Arianna and Saybrook pursue their most cunning and dangerous adversary yet through a complex network of intrigue involving exotic chocolates, daredevil aviators, a missing inventor, and a secret recipe that must be recovered at any cost... INCLUDES CHOCOLATE RECIPES AND TRIVIA! From the Paperback edition.

Author : J. William Schopf
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2021-10-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691237572

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Cradle of Life by J. William Schopf Pdf

One of the greatest mysteries in reconstructing the history of life on Earth has been the apparent absence of fossils dating back more than 550 million years. We have long known that fossils of sophisticated marine life-forms existed at the dawn of the Cambrian Period, but until recently scientists had found no traces of Precambrian fossils. The quest to find such traces began in earnest in the mid-1960s and culminated in one dramatic moment in 1993 when William Schopf identified fossilized microorganisms three and a half billion years old. This startling find opened up a vast period of time--some eighty-five percent of Earth's history--to new research and new ideas about life's beginnings. In this book, William Schopf, a pioneer of modern paleobiology, tells for the first time the exciting and fascinating story of the origins and earliest evolution of life and how that story has been unearthed. Gracefully blending his personal story of discovery with the basics needed to understand the astonishing science he describes, Schopf has produced an introduction to paleobiology for the interested reader as well as a primer for beginning students in the field. He considers such questions as how did primitive bacteria, pond scum, evolve into the complex life-forms found at the beginning of the Cambrian Period? How do scientists identify ancient microbes and what do these tiny creatures tell us about the environment of the early Earth? (And, in a related chapter, Schopf discusses his role in the controversy that swirls around recent claims of fossils in the famed meteorite from Mars.) Like all great teachers, Schopf teaches the non-specialist enough about his subject along the way that we can easily follow his descriptions of the geology, biology, and chemistry behind these discoveries. Anyone interested in the intriguing questions of the origins of life on Earth and how those origins have been discovered will find this story the best place to start.

Author : Matthew McCann Fenton
Publisher : Twenty-First Century Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Bodies of water
ISBN : 0761342281

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Time Nature's Wonders by Matthew McCann Fenton Pdf

Colorful photographs and text explore landmark locations and scientific discoveries within the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, cryosphere, and geosphere; with chapters on visual phenomena, mangrove swamps, icebergs, caves, and more.

Author : Tony Orman
Publisher : Stackpole Books
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1994-08
Category : Lakes
ISBN : 9780811725675

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21 Great New Zealand Trout Waters by Tony Orman Pdf

Details on New Zealand's best trout waters. Fly patterns and selection tips, useful on North American waters. Fishing secrets of New Zealands noted anglers.

Author : Elizabeth Hand
Publisher : Prime Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1607013592

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Season of Wonder by Elizabeth Hand Pdf

Wonders abound with the winter holidays. Yuletide brings marvels and miracles both fantastic and scientific. Christmas spirits can bring haunting holidays, seasonal songs might be sung by unearthly choirs, and magical celebrations are the norm during this very special time of the year. The best stories from many realms of fantasy and a multitude of future universes, gift-wrapped in one spectacular treasury of wintertime wonder.