The Great Arc

The Great Arc PDF

Author: John Keay

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0006531237

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The graphic story of the measurement of a meridian, or longitudinal, arc extending from the tip of the Indian subcontinent to the mountains of the Himalayas.

Joan of Arc and 'The Great Pity of the Land of France'

Joan of Arc and 'The Great Pity of the Land of France' PDF

Author: Moya Longstaffe

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2017-10-15

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1445673053

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The extraordinary story of the Maid placed in the France of her time, presenting her and her contemporaries in all their humanity to the general reader. Who was this notorious and enigmatic country girl, on trial for her life?

Great Tales from English History

Great Tales from English History PDF

Author: Robert Lacey

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2004-06-03

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 0759511616

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With insight, humor and fascinating detail, Lacey brings brilliantly to life the stories that made England -- from Ethelred the Unready to Richard the Lionheart, the Venerable Bede to Piers the Ploughman. The greatest historians are vivid storytellers, Robert Lacey reminds us, and in Great Tales from English History, he proves his place among them, illuminating in unforgettable detail the characters and events that shaped a nation. In this volume, Lacey limns the most important period in England's past, highlighting the spread of the English language, the rejection of both a religion and a traditional view of kingly authority, and an unstoppable movement toward intellectual and political freedom from 1387 to 1689. Opening with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and culminating in William and Mary's "Glorious Revolution," Lacey revisits some of the truly classic stories of English history: the Battle of Agincourt, where Henry V's skilled archers defeated a French army three times as large; the tragic tale of the two young princes locked in the Tower of London (and almost certainly murdered) by their usurping uncle, Richard III; Henry VIII's schismatic divorce, not just from his wife but from the authority of the Catholic Church; "Bloody Mary" and the burning of religious dissidents; Sir Francis Drake's dramatic, if questionable, part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada; and the terrible and transformative Great Fire of London, to name but a few. Here Anglophiles will find their favorite English kings and queens, villains and victims, authors and architects - from Richard II to Anne Boleyn, the Virgin Queen to Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Pepys to Christopher Wren, and many more. Continuing the "eminently readable, highly enjoyable" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) history he began in volume I of Great Tales from English History, Robert Lacey has drawn on the most up-to-date research to present a taut and riveting narrative, breathing life into the most pivotal characters and exciting landmarks in England's history.

Nexus

Nexus PDF

Author: Ramez Naam

Publisher: Axon Press

Published: 2012-12-18

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 194294800X

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Book 1 of the Nexus Trilogy - Continued in Book 2: Crux In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it. When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he's thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage - for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes. From the halls of academe to the halls of power, from the headquarters of an elite US agency in Washington DC to a secret lab beneath a top university in Shanghai, from the underground parties of San Francisco to the illegal biotech markets of Bangkok, from an international neuroscience conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand - Nexus is a thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion. Shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlisted for the Prometheus Award Shortlisted for the Kitschies Award An NPR Best Book of 2013! "Good. Scary good." - Wired "Provocative... A double-edged vision of the post-human."- The Wall Street Journal "A lightning bolt of a novel, with a sense of awe missing from a lot of current fiction."- Ars Technica "Starred Review. Naam turns in a stellar performance in his debut SF novel... What matters here is the remarkable scope and narrative power of the story."- Booklist "A superbly plotted high-tension technothriller ... full of delicious, thoughtful moral ambiguity ... a hell of a read."- Cory Doctorow "A gripping piece of near future speculation... all the grit and pace of the Bourne films."- Alastair Reynolds, author of Revelation Space "A sharp, chilling look at our likely future."- Charles Stross, author of Singularity Sky and Halting State "The most brilliant hard SF thriller I've read in years. Reminds me of Michael Crichton at his best."- Brenda Cooper, author of The Creative Fire "A rich cast of characters...the action scenes are crisp, the glimpses of future tech and culture are mesmerizing."- Publishers Weekly "Any old writer can take you on a roller coaster ride, but it takes a wizard like Ramez Naam to take you on the same ride while he builds the roller coaster a few feet in front of you."- John Barnes, author of Directive 51 "Michael Crichton-like."- SFX Magazine "An incredibly imaginative, action-packed intellectual romp!"- Dani Kollin, Prometheus Award-winning author of The Unincorporated Man "The only serious successor to Michael Crichton."- Scott Harrison, author of Archangel

Crux

Crux PDF

Author: Ramez Naam

Publisher: Axon Press

Published: 2013-08-20

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 1942948018

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The stunning sequel to NEXUS Six months have passed since the release of Nexus 5. The world is a different, more dangerous place. In the United States, the terrorists - or freedom fighters - of the Post-Human Liberation Front use Nexus to turn men and women into human time bombs aimed at the President and his allies. In Washington DC, a government scientist, secretly addicted to Nexus, uncovers more than he wants to know about the forces behind the assassinations, and finds himself in a maze with no way out. In Thailand, Samantha Cataranes has found peace and contentment with a group of children born with Nexus in their brains. But when forces threaten to tear her new family apart, Sam will stop at absolutely nothing to protect the ones she holds dear. In Vietnam, Kade and Feng are on the run from bounty hunters seeking the price on Kade's head, from the CIA, and from forces that want to use the back door Kade has built into Nexus 5. Kade knows he must stop the terrorists misusing Nexus before they ignite a global war between human and posthuman. But to do so, he'll need to stay alive and ahead of his pursuers. And in Shanghai, a posthuman child named Ling Shu will go to dangerous and explosive lengths to free her uploaded mother from the grip of Chinese authorities. The first blows in the war between human and posthuman have been struck. The world will never be the same. File Under: Science Fiction [ Upgraded | Closer Than You Think | Upload | Civil War ] Praise for Book 1: NEXUS:"The only serious successor to Michael Crichton." - Scott Harrison, author of Archangel "Good. Scary Good." - Wired "One of the Best Books of 2013"- NPR "Provocative. A double-edged vision of the post-human." - The Wall Street Journal "Starred Review. Naam turns in a stellar performance in his debut SF novel. What matters here is the remarkable scope and narrative power of the story." - Booklist "A gripping piece of near future speculation... all the grit and pace of the Bourne films." - Alastair Reynolds, author of Revelation Space "A lightning bolt of a novel, with a sense of awe missing from a lot of current fiction." -Ars Technica "A rich cast of characters...the action scenes are crisp, the glimpses of future tech and culture are mesmerizing." - Publishers Weekly "Read it before everyone's talking about it." - John Barnes Praise for Book 2: CRUX: "A blisteringly paced technothriller that dives deeper and even better into the chunky questions raised by Nexus. This is a fabulous book, and it ends in a way that promises at least one more. Count me in." - Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother "Nexus and Crux are a devastating look into the political consequences of transhumanism; a sharp, chilling look at our likely future." - Charles Stross "Smart, thoughtful, and hard to drop, this richly nuanced sequel outshines its predecessor." - Publishers Weekly "A heady cocktail of ideas and page-turning prose. It left my brain buzzing for days afterwards." - Hannu Rajaniemi, author of The Quantum Thief "Highly recommended for preparation of the future revolution." - Harper Reed, Former CTO, Obama for America

Arc of Justice

Arc of Justice PDF

Author: Kevin Boyle

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1429900164

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An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes. And so it began-a chain of events that brought America's greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet's murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family's journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet's story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times. Arc of Justice is the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

The Great Arc

The Great Arc PDF

Author: John Keay

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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A vivid description of one of the most ambitious scientific projects undertaken in the 19th century, and the men who undertook the measurement of the Himalayas and the mapping of the Indian subcontinent: William Lambton and George Everest.

The Moral Arc

The Moral Arc PDF

Author: Michael Shermer

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2015-01-20

Total Pages: 675

ISBN-13: 0805096930

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Bestselling author Michael Shermer's exploration of science and morality that demonstrates how the scientific way of thinking has made people, and society as a whole, more moral From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see what was there; instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves through travel and exploration; instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the right of democracy. In The Moral Arc, Shermer will explain how abstract reasoning, rationality, empiricism, skepticism--scientific ways of thinking--have profoundly changed the way we perceive morality and, indeed, move us ever closer to a more just world.

Gravity's Arc

Gravity's Arc PDF

Author: David Darling

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

Published: 2007-07-27

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0470238569

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Advance Praise for Gravity's Arc "A beautifully written exposition of the still mysterious force that holds our universe together--and the even more mysterious dark twin that may blow it apart." --Joshua Gilder, coauthor of Heavenly Intrigue "A lucid book as up-to-date as the effect of gravity on the bones of astronauts." --Denis Brian, author of The Unexpected Einstein How did they do it? How did one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived retard the study of gravity for 2,000 years? How did a gluttonous tyrant with a gold nose revolutionize our view of the solar system? How could an eccentric professor shake the foundations of an entire belief system by dropping two objects from a tower? How did a falling apple turn the thoughts of a reclusive genius toward the moon? And how could a simple patent clerk change our entire view of the universe by imagining himself riding on a beam of light? In Gravity's Arc, you'll discover how some of the most colorful, eccentric, and brilliant people in history first locked, then unlocked the door to understanding one of nature's most essential forces. You'll find out why Aristotle's misguided conclusions about gravity became an unassailable part of Christian dogma, how Galileo slowed down time to determine how fast objects fall, and why Isaac Newton erased every mention of one man's name from his magnum opus Principia. You'll also figure out what Einstein meant when he insisted that space is curved, whether there is really such a thing as antigravity, and why some scientists think that the best way to get to outer space is by taking an elevator.