Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was one of the most renowned geologists of the nineteenth century. He was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society in 1858 and the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society of London in 1866 for his contributions to geology. Lyell's most important contribution to modern geology was his refining and popularising the geological concept of uniformitarianism, the idea that the earth has been formed through slow-acting geological forces. This biography, first published in 1881 and edited by his sister-in-law K. M. Lyell, provides an intimate view of Lyell's personal and professional life through the inclusion of his correspondence with family, friends and academic peers. His changing ideas concerning the validity of the theory of natural selection and other geological ideas are also examined through the inclusion of extracts from his private journal. Volume 2 contains Lyell's later career from 1837-1875.

This 1939 work gives deserved recognition to the achievements of the engineer and businessman Matthew Boulton. Boulton's importance has generally been overshadowed by that of his partner James Watt, but he was a significant figure in his own right, particularly in relation to the Soho Foundry and his production of coins and medals. He belonged to a network of highly significant men of the period, including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin and Benjamin Franklin, and was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. An engineer by profession, H. W. Dickinson researched widely, and published highly readable works on the history of the steam engine, Watt, and Trevithick, also reissued in this series. He succeeds in producing a work which appeals to the scientist, the historian and the general reader, without feeling obliged to over-simplify the technical details.

Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876) contains the letters and diaries of the celebrated astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), edited by her niece, Mary Herschel. Caroline was born in Hanover to a musician father and an illiterate mother who did not want her daughter to be educated. However Caroline's brother William, an organist employed in Bath, persuaded their mother to allow Caroline to join him there. She left for England in 1772 to live with William, to whom she remained devoted all of her life. In Bath, William turned towards telescope-making and astronomy, to such effect that in 1781 he discovered the planet Uranus. He was appointed 'the King's astronomer' in 1782, and Caroline, trained by William, continued to work at his side as a scientist in her own right. Between them, they discovered eight comets and raised the number of recorded nebulae from a hundred to 2500.

"[T]his is a scholarly, commendable biography and intellectual history. Lay readers will be challenged; psychologists and historians will be grateful."-Library Journal, starred review First published in 1946, Viktor Frankl's memoir Man's Search for Meaning remains one of the most influential books of the last century, selling over ten million copies worldwide and having been embraced by successive generations of readers captivated by its author's philosophical journey in the wake of the Holocaust. This long-overdue reappraisal examines Frankl's life and intellectual evolution anew, from his early immersion in Freudian and Adlerian theory to his development of the "third Viennese school" amid the National Socialist domination of professional psychotherapy. It teases out the fascinating contradictions and ambiguities surrounding his years in Nazi Europe, including the experimental medical procedures he oversaw in occupied Austria and a stopover at the Auschwitz concentration camp far briefer than has commonly been assumed. Throughout, author Timothy Pytell gives a penetrating but fair-minded account of a man whose paradoxical embodiment of asceticism, celebrity, tradition, and self-reinvention drew together the complex strands of twentieth-century intellectual life. From the introduction: At the same time, Frankl's testimony, second only to the Diary of Anne Frankin popularity, has raised the ire of experts on the Holocaust. For example, in the 1990s the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington purportedly refused to sell Man's Search for Meaningin the gift shop.... During the late 1960s and early 1970s Frankl became very popular in America. Frankl's survival of the Holocaust, his reassurance that life is meaningful, and his personal conviction that God exists served to make him a forerunner of the self-help genre.

A brilliantly witty book about the intertwined lives of psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, surgeon Wilfred Trotter and the guru of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Ernest Jones was Sigmund Freud's closest associate and most fervent disciple. Clever, self-confident and intensely ambitious, Jones promoted psychoanalysis as a kind of secular religion. It was also an escape for him from a medical career blighted by repeated allegations of sexual abuse. Meanwhile, his intimate friend and brotherin-law Wilfred Trotter - a celebrated surgeon who dramatically saved the life of George V, and who took on Freud as a patient during his London exile - refused to yield to the seductions of the new Freudianism. A quintessentially English figure, Trotter was unimpressed by slick medical careerists, distrusted grand theories and lacked pomposity and self-regard. From the early beginnings of psychoanalysis to the illness of King George in 1928 and the final meeting of Freud and Trotter in 1939, Seamus O'Mahony tells the story of these three figures and their lives with lapidary wit and erudition. This is a book about cultish belief, healthy scepticism and the sexual obsessions of intellectual and bohemian circles in London, Cambridge and Vienna, and doctors in pursuit of wealth and fame. It brings to life a pivotal moment in modern cultural history and reflects on how and why the writings of a failed neurologist from Vienna became so influential.

These Memorials of Andrew Crosse (1784 1855), published by his wife after his death, include his experiments, and some of his poetry and prose. After graduating from Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1805 (described in this volume as 'a perfect hell on earth'), he returned to his family's manor house where he studied electricity, chemistry, and mineralogy, and installed a mile and a quarter of insulated copper wire in his grounds. A controversial figure, Crosse was thorough in his approach to his scientific work, if somewhat unusual in his practice. In 1836 he famously conducted a series of experiments on electro-crystallization in which he noted an appearance of life forms, named Acarus, seemingly created in the metallic solutions which should have been destructive to organic life. This book recounts these experiments, and the public sensation that they gave rise to by their apparent suggestion of life created by electricity.

On August 9, 1945, an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing tens of thousands of people in the blink of an eye, while fatally injuring and poisoning thousands more. Among the survivors was Takashi Nagai, a pioneer in x-ray research and a convert to the Catholic Faith. Living in the rubble of the ruined city and suffering from leukemia caused by over-exposure to radiation, Nagai lived out the remainder of his remarkable life by bringing physical and spiritual healing to his war-weary people.

Michael Faraday (1791 1867) made foundational contributions in the fields of physics and chemistry, notably in relation to electricity. One of the greatest scientists of his day, Faraday held the position of Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain for over thirty years. Not long after his death, his friend Henry Bence Jones attempted 'to join together his words, and to form them into a picture of his life which may be almost looked upon as an autobiography'. Jones' compilation of Faraday's manuscripts, letters, notebooks, and other writings resulted in this Life and Letters (1870) which remains an important resource for learning more about one of the most influential scientific experimentalists of the nineteenth century. Volume 1 (1791 1830) covers Faraday's earliest years as an errand boy and bookbinder's apprentice, his arrival at the Royal Institution as an assistant and his early publications on electricity.

Michael Faraday (1791 1867) made foundational contributions in the fields of physics and chemistry, notably in relation to electricity. One of the greatest scientists of his day, Faraday held the position of Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain for over thirty years. Not long after his death, his friend Henry Bence Jones attempted 'to join together his words, and to form them into a picture of his life which may be almost looked upon as an autobiography'. Jones' compilation of Faraday's manuscripts, letters, notebooks, and other writings resulted in this Life and Letters (1870) which remains an important resource for learning more about one of the most influential scientific experimentalists of the nineteenth century. Volume 2 (1831 1867) describes his research on electricity and electromagnetism, his work as a scientific adviser to the government and industry and his service to education.

First published in 1873, this co-authored biography of the Scottish physicist, Alpine explorer, and university leader James David Forbes (1809 1868) includes extracts from Forbes' letters. John Campbell Shairp, Forbes' successor as principal of the United College of the University of St Andrews, writes of Forbes' personal, family, and professional life, including his years at St Andrews. Forbes' student and his successor in the Natural Philosophy chair at the University of Edinburgh, Peter Guthrie Tait, himself an accomplished mathematical physicist who co-wrote, with Lord Kelvin, Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867), discusses Forbes' scientific achievements and contributions. A. Adams-Reilly, a celebrated Irish mountaineer, cartographer, and friend of Forbes, writes of the latter's Alpine travels and his work and interest in glaciers. In Shairp's words, in addition to all of his academic accomplishments, Forbes was also Britain's 'father of Alpine adventure'.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish physicist well-known for his extensive work with electromagnetism, colour analysis, and kinetic theory. Considered by many to be a giant in his field with significant influence on the physicists who would follow, Maxwell spent time as a professor at Aberdeen University, King's College, London, and Cambridge. This 1882 Life by his friend Lewis Campbell and natural philosopher William Garnett represents an important - and lengthy - investigation into Maxwell's life and thought. Part I is concerned with biographical matters while the second section focuses upon his scientific mind. A third part contains Maxwell's poetry, so included because the poems are 'characteristic of him' and have 'curious biographical interest'. At nearly 700 pages, the Life represents an important starting point for those curious about the state of theoretical physics and the person in whom it reached its culmination in the nineteenth century.

These Personal Recollections contain the memoirs and a selection of the correspondence of the nineteenth-century polymath Mary Somerville (1780 1872). The book was first published in 1873, a year after Mary's death, by her daughter Martha, who wrote brief introductions to the text. Mary Somerville is best known for her pioneering scientific publications which include her translation of Laplace's M canique C leste (1831: also resissued in this series); On the Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834); Physical Geography (1848); and On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869). Through these publications, Somerville made a lasting contribution to the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Somerville's correspondence deals primarily with her public life, while the memoirs offer insight into her private sphere: the discouragement she faced in pursuit of learning; her passion for women's education and suffrage; family life; and personal faith. Her story is compelling, and her experiences may resonate with many women today.

Silas Burroughs arrived in London from America in 1878 and proved himself an exceptional entrepreneur, taking the pharmaceutical business by storm. He was the brains and energy behind Burroughs Wellcome & Co. With his business partner Henry Wellcome he created an internationally successful firm, the legacy of which can be found in the charity the Wellcome Trust, yet few now remember him and the impact he made in his short lifetime. A consummate salesman, Burroughs was also an astute businessman, with new ideas for marketing, advertising and manufacturing: his writings describe sales trips around the world and the people he met. He was also a visionary employer who supported the eight-hour working day, profit-sharing, and numerous social and radical political movements, including the single tax movement, free travel, Irish Home Rule and world peace. In this first biography of Burroughs, Julia Sheppard explores his American origins, his religion and marriage, and his philanthropic work, as well as re-evaluating the dramatic deterioration of his relationship with his partner Wellcome.

To British television viewers, the name 'Patrick Moore' has been synonymous with Astronomy and Space Travel since he first appeared on The Sky at Night in 1957. To amateur astronomers he has been a source of inspiration, joy, humour and even an eccentric role model since that time. Most people know that his 55 years of presenting The Sky at Night is a world record, but what was he really like in person? What did he do away from the TV cameras, in his observatory, and within the British Astronomical Association, the organisation that inspired him as a youngster? Also, precisely what did he do during the War Years, a subject that has always been shrouded in mystery? Martin Mobberley, a friend of Patrick Moore's for 30 years, and a former President of the British Astronomical Association, has spent ten years exhaustively researching Patrick's real life away from the TV cameras. His childhood, RAF service, tireless voluntary work for astronomy and charity and his endless book writing are all examined in detail. His astronomical observations are also examined in unprecedented detail, along with the battles he fought along the way and his hatred of bureaucracy and political correctness. No fan of Sir Patrick Moore can possibly live without this work on their bookshelf!

Simon Newcomb (1835-1903) was an astronomer and mathematician remembered for his work in recalculating the major astronomical constants to a new international standard. He was a founding member of the American Astronomical Society and became its first president in 1899. Although Newcomb's mathematical work is well known, this autobiography, first published in 1903, focuses on his achievements and work as an astronomer. In it he provides an account of his scientific research with comments on his approach, which together with his descriptions of scientific discoveries and collaborations occurring in Washington DC show the variety of scientific research being conducted in the United States in the late nineteenth century. His detailed descriptions of how telescopes were used, together with accounts of his experience of working conditions in various observatories, provide valuable insights into astronomical research methods in the late nineteenth century.

The Herschels in this biography are Sir William Herschel (1738 1822), his sister Caroline (1750 1848) and Sir John Herschel (1792 1871), William's son. Sir William was an astronomer and telescope-maker who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781. He was appointed 'the King's astronomer' to George III in 1782, and under his patronage built the then largest telescope in the world. Caroline Herschel worked as her brother's assistant for much of his career but was also an accomplished astronomer in her own right, discovering eight comets and producing a catalogue of nebulae. Her nephew Sir John Herschel was also a distinguished astronomer who made many observations of stars in the southern hemisphere. This book by the astronomer and writer Agnes Clerke (1842 1907), published in 1895, provides both an analysis of their work and an assessment of its contribution to later astronomical research.

This book presents the extraordinary story of a Bolognese woman of the settecento. Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (1711-1778) defended 49 Theses at the University of Bologna on April 17, 1732 and was awarded a doctoral degree on May 12 of the same year. Three weeks before her defense, she was made a member of the Academy of Sciences in Bologna. On June 27 she defended 12 additional Theses. Several of the 61 Theses were on physics and other science topics. Laura was drawn by the philosophy of Newton at a time when most scientists in Europe were still focused on Descartes and Galen. This last set of Theses was to encourage the University of Bologna to provide a lectureship to Laura, which they did on October 29, 1732. Although quite famous in her day, Laura Bassi is unfortunately not remembered much today.

This book presents Bassi within the context of the century when she lived and worked, an era where no women could attend university anywhere in the world, and even less become a professor or a member of an academy. Laura was appointed to the Chair of experimental physics in 1776 until her death. Her story is an amazing one. Laura was a mother, a wife and a good scientist for over 30 years. She made the transition from the old science to the new very early on in her career. Her work was centered on real problems that the City of Bologna needed to solve. It was an exciting time of discovery and she was at the edge of it all the way.

Such Silver Currents is the first biography of a mathematical genius and his literary wife, their wide circle of well-known intellectual and artistic friends, and through them of the age in which they lived. William Clifford is now recognised not only for his innovative and lasting mathematics, but also for his philosophy, which embraced the fundamentals of scientific thought, the nature of the physical universe, Darwinian theory, the nature of consciousness, personal morality and law, and the whole mystery of being. Clifford algebra is seen as the basis for Dirac's theory of the electron, fundamental to modern physics, and Clifford also anticipated Einstein's idea that space is curved. The book includes a personal reflection on William Clifford's mathematics by the Nobel Prize winner Sir Roger Penrose O.M. The year after his election to the Royal Society, Clifford married Lucy Lane, the journalist and novelist. During their four years of marriage they held Sunday salons attended by many well-known scientific, literary and artistic personalities. Following William's early death, Lucy became a close friend and confidante of Henry James. Her wide circle of friends included Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Leslie Stephen, Thomas Huxley, Sir Frederick Macmillan and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

"Healing the split between my mind and my body has been my life's challenge. In the sixty years that I have practiced psychotherapy, I have learned that the pathway to emotional health is through the body. The underlying purpose of Bioenergetic Analysis has always been to heal the mind-body split." - From the Introduction. Alexander Lowen was a teacher, lawyer, medical doctor, psychotherapist, writer, and a pioneer in the fields of body-psychotherapy and psychobiology. His life and work are recorded in this candid autobiography.

In July 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins piloted the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the moon.

Fifty years later, it is still one of the greatest achievements in human history.

In this remarkable memoir, a defining classic, Michael Collins conveys, in a very personal way, the drama, beauty, and humour of that adventure. He also traces his development from his first flight experiences in the air force, through his days as a test pilot, to his involvement in Project Gemini and his first spaceflight on Gemini 10. He presents an evocative picture of the famous Apollo 11 spacewalk, detailing the joys of flight and a new perspective on time, light, and movement from someone who has seen the fragile Earth from the other side of the moon.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon-landing, Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins is the utterly absorbing and truly compelling classic account of what it was like to be a member of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Nobel Laureate in Physics, was a towering figure in 20th century physics, but remained a highly private man. The many letters and correspondence in this book reveal in Chandrasekhar's own words the depth of his pursuit of science as well as his personal struggles. This book is an important addition to the three previous volumes by Kameshwar C. Wali, including Chandra, A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar, S. Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend, and A Quest for Perspectives: Selected Works of S. Chandrasekhar (With Commentary), Volumes 1 & 2.Included in the correspondence are Chandra's thoughts and feelings about his student days in India and Cambridge, his trials and tribulations in the competitive world of British academia, his travels to Russia and Germany, and his unexpected and historic encounter with Sir Arthur Eddington. The book also includes rare correspondence and conversations with Lalitha, Chandrasekhar's wife of over sixty years. The letters and conversations with her reflect her own views of their life. She, a student of physics herself, eventually gave up her own work in science to become an integral part of Chandra's life. As Chandra wrote, 'The full measure of [of my indebtedness] cannot really be recorded; it is too deep and too all persuasive. Let me then record simply that Lalitha was the motivating source and strength of my life.'This new book adds a significant personal dimension to an extraordinary scientist and will give the public a deeper understanding of the man behind the legend.

Praise for "The Lobotomist"

"Written with such clarity and engaging detail that a reader has difficulty in putting it down."
--"The New York Review of Books"

"One of the many virtues of El-Hai's text is the rich detail he provides about Freeman's life and ideas."
--"Los Angeles Times"

"Fascinating . . . an important and disturbing contribution to the history of psychiatry."
--"New Statesman"

"Captivating. . . . No history of modern psychiatry is complete without this story."
--Andrew Solomon, author of "The Noonday Demon"

"The Lobotomist" explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better.

Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.

As command module pilot of Apollo 17, the last crewed flight to the moon, Ron Evans combined precision flying and painstaking geological observation with moments of delight and enthusiasm. On his way to the launchpad, he literally jumped for joy in his spacesuit. Emerging from the command module to conduct his crucial spacewalk, he exclaimed, "Hot diggity dog!" and waved a greeting to his family. As a patriotic American in charge of command module America, Evans was nicknamed "Captain America" by his fellow crew members. Born in 1933 in St. Francis, Kansas, Evans distinguished himself academically and athletically in school, earned degrees in electrical engineering and aeronautical engineering, and became a naval aviator and a combat flight instructor. He was one of the few astronauts who served in combat during the Vietnam War, flying more than a hundred missions off the deck of the USS Ticonderoga, the same aircraft carrier that would recover him and his fellow astronauts after the splashdown of Apollo 17. Evans's astronaut career spans the Apollo missions and beyond. He served on the support crews for 1, 7, and 11 and on the Apollo 14 backup crew before being selected for Apollo 17 and flying on the final moon mission in 1972. He next trained with Soviet cosmonauts as backup command module pilot for the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission and carried out early work on the space shuttle program. Evans then left NASA to pursue a business career. He died suddenly in 1990 at the age of fifty-six.

This is a street level view of Syria from 1965 that is far more nuanced than most reports in the US media. Tarif Bakdash, MD, was born and raised in Syria. He went to school with Bashar al-Assad, worked with Bashars wife Asma, butted heads with Baath Party bureaucrats, lost friends to anti-Islamic purges. Tarif tells his story: a nurturing childhood in a warm family -- against fear of war, the maiming of his mother, jailing of a schoolmate for no reason, the blood-soaked ground of Hama in 1982, omnipresent security services, Soviet-style thinking, old-fashioned graft, and official doubletalk. Tarif Bakdash shows us history from the inside -- in the life of a child, a student -- a young man struggling to create a life for himself. And then he shows it to us again, in the eyes of a middle-aged MD who, after many years in the US, returns to the city of his birth as an impatient American intent on reforming the Syrian system from within.