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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > History of science

The Creator Revealed - A Physicist Examines the Big Bang and the Bible (Paperback): Michael G Strauss The Creator Revealed - A Physicist Examines the Big Bang and the Bible (Paperback)
Michael G Strauss
R361 R206 Discovery Miles 2 060 Save R155 (43%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Do current scientific discoveries support or contradict the story of creation in the Bible? Does science give evidence for or against God's existence? Does it matter what you think about origins, science, and the Bible? Does your understanding of science and creation affect your daily living or your relationship with God? In The Creator Revealed, author and physicist Dr. Michael G. Strauss explores these central questions about science and faith in simple and entertaining language, showing how modern scientific discoveries about the origin and design of the universe proclaim the character of God and agree with the biblical story of creation. For the Christian confronted with possible inconsistencies between faith and science, and for the skeptic who believes modern science has shown that belief in God is unnecessary, The Creator Revealed can demonstrate the glory, power, and wonder of God by looking at science, the Bible, and the effect that truth has on people's lives. Reconciling the truth of scripture with the truth of science can change your perspective and your life. The message of The Creator Revealed will expand your idea of who God is, increase your faith in him, and provide a way to share this revelation of God in creation with others.

You Bet Your Life - From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation (Hardcover):... You Bet Your Life - From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation (Hardcover)
Paul A. Offit
R741 R617 Discovery Miles 6 170 Save R124 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Scientists - Pioneers of Discovery (Paperback): Andrew Robinson The Scientists - Pioneers of Discovery (Paperback)
Andrew Robinson
R311 Discovery Miles 3 110 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Forty articles expertly curated by biographer Andrew Robinson provide an unrivalled account of the lives and personalities behind the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. Who made us see the atom, our minds, our planet and the universe afresh? How did we uncover the mysteries of life on earth? What next? The theories, discoveries and inventions of scientists have revolutionized our consciousness. Think of gravity, evolution, relativity, radioactivity and the Big Bang; electric motors, vaccines, nuclear power and computers. Behind these breakthroughs lie the personal stories of men and women with vision and determination: singular thinkers who defied adversity in their quest for answers. This book tells the remarkable lives of the pioneers - from Galileo, Faraday and Darwin, through Pasteur and Marie Curie, to Einstein, Freud and Turing. Written by an international team of distinguished scientists, historians and science writers, it will intrigue budding scientists; those fascinated by the lives of great individuals; and anyone curious to know how we came to understand the exterior world and the pulse of life within.

The Reason for the Darkness of the Night - Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science (Paperback): John Tresch The Reason for the Darkness of the Night - Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science (Paperback)
John Tresch
R484 R393 Discovery Miles 3 930 Save R91 (19%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

We all think we know Poe - the most popular American writer around the world, dissolute puzzle-maker, pioneer of detective fiction, and author of haunting, atmospheric verse. But what if there was another side to the man who wrote "The Raven" and "The Fall of the House of Usher"? What if Poe were as well known for his speculations about the birth of the universe or his "Sonnet - to Science"? In The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science, John Tresch offers a bold new life of one of the nineteenth century's most iconic writers. By shining a spotlight on a time when the line between speculative endeavors and scientific inquiry was blurred, Tresch reveals Poe to have been much more than a practitioner of science fiction - in fact, he was an avid commentator on scientific developments, publishing and circulating in literary milieux that also played host to lectures and demonstrations by the era's most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues. As one newspaper put it, "Mr. Poe is not merely a man of science - not merely a poet - not merely a man of letters. He is all combined; and perhaps he is something more." Beginning with his study of mathematics and engineering at West Point, and taking us through the tumultuous years leading up to publication of "The Raven," Tresch shows that Poe nurtured a fascination with science from his earliest days as a writer. In works such as "A Descent into the Maelstrom" and "Mesmeric Revelation," Poe explored subjects ranging from the physics of vortices to occult psychology, later turning his attention to the origins of the universe in a dazzling lecture that would win the admiration of Albert Einstein and other twentieth-century physicists. Throughout, he lived and suffered for his ideas, and remained a figure of brilliant contradiction: he gleefully exposed the hoaxes of the era's pseudo-scientific fraudsters even as he perpetrated hoaxes himself.

American Sherlock - Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI (Paperback): Kate Winkler Dawson American Sherlock - Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI (Paperback)
Kate Winkler Dawson
R471 R390 Discovery Miles 3 900 Save R81 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Computer - A History of the Information Machine (Paperback, 4th edition): Martin Campbell-Kelly, William F. Aspray, Jeffrey R.... Computer - A History of the Information Machine (Paperback, 4th edition)
Martin Campbell-Kelly, William F. Aspray, Jeffrey R. Yost, Honghong Tinn, Gerardo Con Diaz
R1,084 Discovery Miles 10 840 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Computer: A History of the Information Machine traces the history of the computer and its unlimited, information-processing potential. Comprehensive and accessibly written, this fully updated fourth edition adds new chapters on the globalization of information technology, the rise of social media, fake news, and the gig economy, and the regulatory frameworks being put in place to tame the ubiquitous computer. Computer is an insightful look at the pace of technological advancement and the seamless way computers are integrated into the modern world. The authors examine the history of the computer including the first steps taken by Charles Babbage in the nineteenth century, and how wartime needs and the development of electronics led to the giant ENIAC, the first electronic computer. For a generation IBM dominated the computer industry. In the 1980s, the desktop PC liberated people from room-sized, mainframe computers. Next, laptops and smartphones made computers available to half of the world's population, leading to the rise of Google and Facebook, and powerful apps that changed the way we work, consume, learn, and socialize. The volume is an essential resource for scholars and those studying computer history, technology history, and information and society, as well as a range of courses in the fields of computer science, communications, sociology, and management.

The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge (Hardcover, illustrated edition): Hans S. Jensen, Lykke M. Ricard, Morten T. Vendelo The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge (Hardcover, illustrated edition)
Hans S. Jensen, Lykke M. Ricard, Morten T. Vendelo
R3,002 Discovery Miles 30 020 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge aims to reach a unique understanding of science with the help of economic and sociological theories. The economic theories used are institutionalist and evolutionary. The sociological theories draw from the type of work on social studies of science that have, in recent decades, transformed our picture of science and technology. Science - and more broadly research - is a field where economics and sociology meet in an attempt to understand how complex organizations emerge and work. While the authors argue that science is neither an institution nor an order that emerged as the result of conscious and willful design, nor is it like a 'normal' market, they also acknowledge that science has aspects of market orders and aspects of orders created by design. Furthermore, science develops in specific ways that are to some extent like the development of economic systems, and at the same time are very different. This fascinating book will be of great interest to economists, philosophers, historians and sociologists by focussing on a multidisciplinary understanding of science.

Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal, and the Rise of Naturalism, 1861-1864 (Paperback): Marsha Driscoll, Elizabeth E. Dunn, Dann... Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal, and the Rise of Naturalism, 1861-1864 (Paperback)
Marsha Driscoll, Elizabeth E. Dunn, Dann Siems, B. Kamran Swanson
R1,065 Discovery Miles 10 650 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Since its appearance in 1859, Darwin's long awaited treatise in genetic biology had received reviews both favorable and damning. Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce presented arguments for and against the theory in a dramatic and widely publicized face-off at the 1860 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford. Their encounter sparked a vigorous, complex debate that touched on a host of issues and set the stage for the Royal Society s consideration of whether or not they ought to award Darwin the Copley Medal, the society s most prestigious prize. While the action takes place in meetings of the Royal Society, Great Britain s most important scientific body, a parallel and influential public argument smoldered over the nature of science and its relationship to modern life in an industrial society. A significant component of the Darwin game is the tension between natural and teleological views of the world, manifested especially in reconsideration of the design argument, commonly known through William Paley s Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802) and updated by Wilberforce. But the scientific debate also percolated through a host of related issues: the meaning and purposes of inductive and hypothetical speculation in science; the professionalization of science; the implications of Darwinism for social reform, racial theories, and women s rights; and the evolving concept of causation in sciences and its implications for public policy. Because of the revolutionary potential of Darwin s ideas, the connections between science and nearly every other aspect of culture became increasingly evident. Scientific papers and laboratory demonstrations presented in Royal Society meetings during the game provide the backdrop for momentous conflict, conflict that continues to shape our perceptions of modern science.

Reacting to the Past is a series of historical role-playing games that explore important ideas by re-creating the contexts that shaped them. Students are assigned roles, informed by classic texts, set in particular moments of intellectual and social ferment.

An award-winning active-learning pedagogy, Reacting to the Past improves speaking, writing, and leadership skills, promotes engagement with classic texts and history, and builds learning communities. Reacting can be used across the curriculum, from the first-year general education class to capstone experiences. A Reacting game can also function as the discussion component of lecture classes, or it can be enlisted for intersession courses, honors programs, and other specialized curricular purposes."

The Environment in World History (Hardcover, New): Stephen Mosley The Environment in World History (Hardcover, New)
Stephen Mosley
R3,904 Discovery Miles 39 040 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Covering the last five hundred years of global history, The Environment in World History examines the processes that have transformed the Earth and put growing pressure on natural resources.

Chapters and case studies explore a wide range of issues, including:

  • the hunting of wildlife and the loss of biodiversity in nearly every part of the globe
  • the clearing of the world's forests and the development of strategies to halt their decline
  • the degradation of soils, one of the most profound and unnoticed ways that humans have altered the planet
  • the impact of urban-industrial growth and the deepening 'ecological footprints' of the world's cities
  • the pollution of air, land and water as the 'inevitable' trade-off for continued economic growth worldwide.

The Environment in World History offers a fresh environmental perspective on familiar world history narratives of imperialism and colonialism, trade and commerce, and technological progress and the advance of civilisation, and will be invaluable reading for all students of world history and environmental studies.

Contemporary Issues in Islam and Science - Volume 2 (Paperback): Muzaffar Iqbal Contemporary Issues in Islam and Science - Volume 2 (Paperback)
Muzaffar Iqbal
R1,455 Discovery Miles 14 550 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The articles selected for this volume explore emergent issues in the contemporary relationship between Islam and science and present studies of eight major voices in the discourse. Also included is a section on the operationalization of Islamic science in the modern world and a section on studies in traditional Islamic cosmology.

Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought - Essays to Commemorate The Advancement of Learning (1605-2005)... Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought - Essays to Commemorate The Advancement of Learning (1605-2005) (Paperback)
Julie Robin Solomon; Catherine Gimelli Martin
R1,419 Discovery Miles 14 190 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning (1605), this collection examines Bacon's recasting of proto-scientific philosophies and practices into early modern discourses of knowledge. Like Bacon, all of the contributors to this volume confront an essential question: how to integrate intellectual traditions with emergent knowledges to forge new intellectual futures. The volume's main theme is Bacon's core interest in identifying and conceptualizing coherent intellectual disciplines, including the central question of whether Bacon succeeded in creating unified discourses about learning. Bacon's interests in natural philosophy, politics, ethics, law, medicine, religion, neoplatonic magic, technology and humanistic learning are here mirrored in the contributors' varied intellectual backgrounds and diverse approaches to Bacon's thought.

The Perfect Tonic - The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits and Cocktails (Hardcover): Camper English The Perfect Tonic - The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits and Cocktails (Hardcover)
Camper English
R394 Discovery Miles 3 940 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

An intoxicating interconnected history of booze and medicine, from one of the world's foremost cocktail writers. Consider the Negroni. The bittersweet cocktail dating to the early 1900s is made of equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari. Gin takes its name and flavour from the juniper tree, which medieval doctors burned to ward off bubonic plague and other miasmas. 'Vermouth' comes from the German word for wormwood, a herb famous for its ability to rid the body of intestinal parasites. Campari is a brand of liqueur dating to 1860 with a secret recipe probably containing gentian (effective against indigestion) and rhubarb root (used as a laxative). The perfect cocktail of curative ingredients is now self-prescribed as an aperitif. The intertwined stories of medicine and alcohol stretch back to the ancient world, and involve alchemy, madness and monks, not to mention microbiology, biochemistry and germ theory. Now, in The Perfect Tonic, Camper English reveals how and why the contents of our medicine and liquor cabinets were, until surprisingly recently, one and the same.

The Wholeness of Nature - Goethe's Way of Science (Paperback): Henri Bortoft The Wholeness of Nature - Goethe's Way of Science (Paperback)
Henri Bortoft
R632 R521 Discovery Miles 5 210 Save R111 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

The scientific work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) represents a style of learning and understanding which is largely ignored today. The approach of modern science is largely detached, intellectual and analytical, and it is increasingly recognized that many of our contemporary problems stem from the resulting divorce from nature. By contrast, Goethe's way of science pursued understanding through the experience of the 'authentic wholeness' of what was observed. Working with the intuitive mode of consciousness, Goethe aimed at an encounter with the whole phenomenon in its relationship with the observer. In his way of seeing, rather than dividing merely in order to categorize, we should investigate the parts of an object in order to reveal the true nature of the whole. In this invaluable study, Henri Bortoft examines the phenomenological and cultural roots of Goethe's ways of science.

Wonderdog - How the Science of Dogs Changed the Science of Life (Paperback): Jules Howard Wonderdog - How the Science of Dogs Changed the Science of Life (Paperback)
Jules Howard
R337 Discovery Miles 3 370 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

How dogs defied science and changed the way we think about animals What do dogs really think of us? What do dogs know and understand of the world? Do their emotions feel like our own? Do they love like we do? Driven by his own love of dogs, Charles Darwin was nagged by questions like these. To root out answers, his contemporaries toyed with dog sign language. To reveal clues, they made special puzzle boxes and elaborate sniff tests using old socks. Later, the same perennial questions about the minds of dogs drove Pavlov and Pasteur to unspeakable cruelty in their search for truth. These big names in science influenced leagues of psychologists and animal behaviourists, each building upon the ideas and received wisdom of previous generations but failing to see what was staring them in the face - that the very methods humans used to study dogs' minds were influencing the insights reflected back. To discover the impressive cognitive feats that dogs are capable of, a new approach was needed. Treated with love and compassion, dogs would open up their unique perspective on the world, and a new breed of scientists would be provided answers to life's biggest questions. Wonderdog is the story of those dogs - a historical account of how we came to know what dogs are capable of. It's a celebration of animal minds and the secrets they hold. And it's a love letter to science, through the good times and the bad.

The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire (Paperback): Andrew Goss The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire (Paperback)
Andrew Goss
R1,259 Discovery Miles 12 590 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire introduces readers to important new research in the field of science and empire. This compilation of inquiry into the inextricably intertwined history of science and empire reframes the field, showing that one could not have grown without the other. The volume expands the history of science through careful attention to connections, exchanges, and networks beyond the scientific institutions of Europe and the United States. These 27 original essays by established scholars and new talent examine: scientific and imperial disciplines, networks of science, scientific practice within empires, and decolonised science. The chapters cover a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology and psychiatry to biology and geology. There is global coverage, with essays about China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, India, the Middle East, Russia, the Arctic, and North and South America. Specialised essays cover Jesuit science, natural history collecting, energy systems, and science in UNESCO. With authoritative chapters by leading scholars, this is a guiding resource for all scholars of empire and science. Free of jargon and with clearly written essays, the handbook is a valuable path to further inquiry for any student of the history of science and empire.

Urban Histories of Science - Making Knowledge in the City, 1820-1940 (Hardcover): Oliver Hochadel, Agusti Nieto-Galan Urban Histories of Science - Making Knowledge in the City, 1820-1940 (Hardcover)
Oliver Hochadel, Agusti Nieto-Galan
R3,921 Discovery Miles 39 210 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book tells ten urban histories of science from nine cities-Athens, Barcelona, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Dublin (2 articles), Glasgow, Helsinki, Lisbon, and Naples-situated on the geographical margins of Europe and beyond. Ranging from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, the contents of this volume debate why and how we should study the scientific culture of cities, often considered "peripheral" in terms of their production of knowledge. How were scientific practices, debates and innovations intertwined with the highly dynamic urban space around 1900? The authors analyze zoological gardens, research stations, observatories, and international exhibitions, along with hospitals, newspapers, backstreets, and private homes while also stressing the importance of concrete urban spaces for the production and appropriation of knowledge. They uncover the diversity of actors and urban publics ranging from engineers, scientists, architects, and physicians to journalists, tuberculosis patients, and fishermen. Looking at these nine cities around 1900 is like glancing at a prism that produces different and even conflicting notions of modernity. In their totality, the ten case studies help to overcome an outdated centre-periphery model. This volume is, thus, able to address far more intriguing historiographical questions. How do science, technology, and medicine shape the debates about modernity and national identity in the urban space? To what degree do cities and the heterogeneous elements they contain have agency? These urban histories show that science and the city are consistently and continuously co-constructing each other.

Routledge Library Editions: Science and Technology in the Nineteenth Century (Hardcover): Various Routledge Library Editions: Science and Technology in the Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)
Various
R14,755 Discovery Miles 147 550 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This set of 10 volumes, originally published between 1900 and 1994, amalgamates a wide breadth of research on Science and Technology in the Nineteenth Century, including studies on notable figures such as Gregor Johann Mendel, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sir Humphry Davy. This collection of books from some of the leading scholars in the field provides a comprehensive overview of the subject how it has evolved over time, and will be of particular interest to students of history and the sciences.

All Things Hold Together in Christ - A Conversation on Faith, Science, and Virtue (Paperback): James K.A. Smith, Michael L... All Things Hold Together in Christ - A Conversation on Faith, Science, and Virtue (Paperback)
James K.A. Smith, Michael L Gulker
R410 R338 Discovery Miles 3 380 Save R72 (18%) Ships in 4 - 8 working days

As Christians engage controversial cultural issues, we must remember that "all things hold together in Christ" (Col. 1:17)--even when it comes to science and faith. In this anthology, top Christian thinkers--including Robert Barron, Timothy George, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Mark Noll, and N. T. Wright--invite us to find resources for faithful, creative thinking in the riches of the church's theological heritage and its worship traditions.

Challenging the Therapeutic Narrative - Historical and Clinical Perspectives on the Genetics of Behavior (Hardcover): Robert G.... Challenging the Therapeutic Narrative - Historical and Clinical Perspectives on the Genetics of Behavior (Hardcover)
Robert G. Goldstein
R1,386 Discovery Miles 13 860 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

This volume explores and challenges the assumption that behavioral proclivities and pathologies are directly traceable to experience-an assumption that still widely dominates folk psychology as well as the perspective of many mental health practitioners. This tendency continues despite powerful evidence from the field of behavioral genetics that genetic endowment dwarfs other discrete influences on development and psychopathology when extrinsic conditions are not extreme. An interdisciplinary collection, the book uses historical, cultural and clinical perspectives to challenge the longstanding notion of identity as the product of a life-narrative. Although the nativist-empiricist debate has been revivified by recent advances in molecular biology, such ideas date back to the Socratic dialogue on the innate mathematical sense possessed by an illiterate slave. The author takes a philosophical and historical approach in revisiting the writings of select figures from science, medicine, and literature whose insights into the potency of inherited factors in behavior were particularly prescient, and ran contrary to the modern declivity toward the self as narrative. The final part of the volume uses historical and clinical perspectives to help illuminate the elusive concept of innateness, and highlights important ramifications of the revolution in behavioral genetics. Seeking to challenge the clinical utility of the therapeutic narrative rather than the importance of experience per se, the book will ultimately appeal to psychiatrists, psychologists, and academics from various disciplines working across the fields of behavioral genetics, evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, and the history of science.

Medicine and Conflict - The Spanish Civil War and its Traumatic Legacy (Hardcover): Sebastian Browne Medicine and Conflict - The Spanish Civil War and its Traumatic Legacy (Hardcover)
Sebastian Browne
R3,912 Discovery Miles 39 120 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book focuses on an important but neglected aspect of the Spanish Civil War, the evolution of medical and surgical care of the wounded during the conflict. Importantly, the focus is from a mainly Spanish perspective - as the Spanish are given a voice in their own story, which has not always been the case. Central to the book is General Franco's treatment of Muslim combatants, the anarchist contribution to health, and the medicalisation of propaganda - themes that come together in a medico-cultural study of the Spanish Civil War. Suffusing the narrative and the analysis is the traumatic legacy of conflict, an untreated wound that a new generation of Spaniards are struggling to heal.

Health Policies in Interwar Europe - A Transnational Perspective (Hardcover): Josep L Barona Health Policies in Interwar Europe - A Transnational Perspective (Hardcover)
Josep L Barona
R3,903 Discovery Miles 39 030 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Research into public health policies and expert instruction has been oriented traditionally in the national context. There is a rich historiography that analyses the development of health policies and systems in various European and American countries during the first decades of the twentieth century. What is often ignored, however, is the study of the great many connections and circulations of knowledge, people, technologies, artefacts and practices during that period between countries. This book redresses that balance.

The Frontiers of Knowledge - What We Know About Science, History and The Mind (Paperback): A. C. Grayling The Frontiers of Knowledge - What We Know About Science, History and The Mind (Paperback)
A. C. Grayling
R350 R280 Discovery Miles 2 800 Save R70 (20%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

In very recent times humanity has learnt a vast amount about the universe, the past, and itself. But through our remarkable successes in acquiring knowledge we have learned how much we have yet to learn: the science we have, for example, addresses just 5% of the universe; pre-history is still being revealed, with thousands of historical sites yet to be explored; and the new neurosciences of mind and brain are just beginning. What do we know, and how do we know it? What do we now know that we don't know? And what have we learnt about the obstacles to knowing more? In a time of deepening battles over what knowledge and truth mean, these questions matter more than ever. Bestselling polymath and philosopher A. C. Grayling seeks to answer them in three crucial areas at the frontiers of knowledge: science, history, and psychology. In each area he illustrates how each field has advanced to where it is now, from the rise of technology to quantum theory, from the dawn of humanity to debates around national histories, from ancient ideas of the brain to modern theories of the mind. A remarkable history of science, life on earth, and the human mind itself, this is a compelling and fascinating tour de force, written with Grayling's verve, clarity and remarkable breadth of knowledge.

A Most Improbable Story - The Evolution of the Universe, Life, and Humankind (Paperback): Steven J. Theroux A Most Improbable Story - The Evolution of the Universe, Life, and Humankind (Paperback)
Steven J. Theroux
R1,404 Discovery Miles 14 040 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

The first "Big History" written from the perspective of a biologist Summarizes multiple perspectives of history Documents the unique conditions for the emergence of life Speculates on the future

Seeking the American Tropics - South Florida's Early Naturalists (Hardcover): James A. Kushlan Seeking the American Tropics - South Florida's Early Naturalists (Hardcover)
James A. Kushlan
R729 R611 Discovery Miles 6 110 Save R118 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

For centuries, the southernmost region of the Florida peninsula was seen by outsiders as wild and inaccessible, one of the last frontiers in the quest to understand and reveal the natural history of the continent. Seeking the American Tropics tells the stories of the explorers and adventurers who-for better and for worse-helped open the unique environment of South Florida to the world.Beginning with the arrival of Juan Ponce de Leon in 1513, James Kushlan describes how most of the famous Spanish explorers never made it to South Florida, leaving the area's rich natural history out of scientific records for the next 250 years. It wasn't until the British colonial and early American periods that the first surveyors were commissioned and the first naturalists-Titian Peale and John James Audubon-arrived to collect, draw, and report the subtropical flora and fauna that were so unique to North America. Moving into the railroad era, Kushlan illuminates the activities of scientists such as Henry Nehrling and Charles Torrey Simpson alongside the dabbling of wealthy amateur naturalists. He follows the story to the 1920s, when tourism was flourishing and signs of ecological damage were starting to show. Years of wildlife trade, resource extraction, invasive species introduction, and swamp drainage had taken their toll. And many of the naturalists who had been outspoken about protecting South Florida's environment had also played a part in its destruction. Today the region is among one of the most thoroughly studied places on the planet-but at a cost. In this absorbing and cautionary tale, Kushlan illustrates how exploration has so often trumped conservation throughout history. He exposes how much of the natural world we have already lost in this vivid portrait of the Florida of yesterday.

Universe in Creation - A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life (Hardcover): Roy R. Gould Universe in Creation - A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life (Hardcover)
Roy R. Gould
R611 R562 Discovery Miles 5 620 Save R49 (8%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

We know the universe has a history, but does it also have a story of self-creation to tell? Yes, in Roy R. Gould’s account. He offers a compelling narrative of how the universe—with no instruction other than its own laws—evolved into billions of galaxies and gave rise to life, including humans who have been trying for millennia to comprehend it. Far from being a random accident, the universe is hard at work, extracting order from chaos. Making use of the best current science, Gould turns what many assume to be true about the universe on its head. The cosmos expands inward, not outward. Gravity can drive things apart, not merely together. And the universe seems to defy entropy as it becomes more ordered, rather than the other way around. Strangest of all, the universe is exquisitely hospitable to life, despite its being constructed from undistinguished atoms and a few unexceptional rules of behavior. Universe in Creation explores whether the emergence of life, rather than being a mere cosmic afterthought, may be written into the most basic laws of nature. Offering a fresh take on what brought the world—and us—into being, Gould helps us see the universe as the master of its own creation, not tethered to a singular event but burgeoning as new space and energy continuously stream into existence. It is a very old story, as yet unfinished, with plotlines that twist and churn through infinite space and time.

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