Mike Cooper
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"By early morning of June 30, 1860, a large crowd began to congregate in front of Oxford University's brand-new Museum of Natural History. The occasion was the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the subject of discussion was Charles Darwin's new treatise: fact or fiction? Darwin, a simultaneously reclusive and intellectually audacious squire from Kent, claimed to have solved 'that mystery of mysteries,' introducing...
Author
Series
Very short introductions volume 693
Language
English
Formats
Description
Not long ago, the Solar System was the only example of a planetary system - a star and the bodies orbiting it - that we knew. Now, we know thousands of planetary systems, and have even been able to observe planetary systems at the moment of their birth. This Very Short Introduction explores this new frontier, incorporating the latest research. The book takes the reader on a journey through the grand sweep of time, from the moment galaxies begin to...
Author
Series
Very short introductions volume 39
Language
English
Formats
Description
For people with little or no knowledge of the science of human intelligence, this volume takes readers to a stage where they are able to make judgments for themselves about the key questions of human mental ability. Each chapter addresses a central scientific issue but does so in a way that is lively and completely accessible. Issues discussed include whether there are several different types of intelligence, whether intelligence differences are caused...
Author
Series
Very short introductions volume 739
Language
English
Formats
Description
The Victorian period may have come to an end over 120 years ago, but the Victorians continue to be a vital presence in the modern world. In this book Martin Hewitt offers a guide through the thickets of judgement and debate which have grown around the period and its people, to offer a historical overview of the Victorians and their legacies.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The first full history of the highly trained and ruthless civilian volunteers secretly trained across Britain to be deployed in the case of a German invasion.
The narrative surrounding Britain's anti-invasion forces has often centered on 'Dad's Army'-like characters running around with pitchforks, on unpreparedness and sense of inevitability of invasion and defeat. The truth, however, is very different. Top-secret, highly trained and ruthless civilian...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In Regency England the eldest son usually inherited almost everything-while his younger brothers, left with little inheritance, had to make a crucial decision: What should they do to make an independent living?
Historian Rory Muir weaves together the stories of many obscure and well-known young men of good family but small fortune, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Regency society. This is the first scholarly yet accessible exploration of...
27) Christmas Tales
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
SYNOPSIS CHRISTMAS TALES are a variety of short stories, with a Christmas theme, for those who enjoy a short read as opposed to a full length novel and is suitable for all ages from one to ninety two (as in MEL TORMES song. ) Jinty the Chuffer would appeal to model Railway enthusiasts. Nelly Dean to those interested in wild birds Carriers and Carrier Bags for those who horde items in black or plastic carrier bags. Tenpence might well appeal to the...
Author
Language
English
Description
When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period has conventionally been dubbed "postwar," it was punctuated by a succession of hard-fought, long-running conflicts that were geographically diffuse, morally ambiguous, and impervious to neat endings or declarations of victory.
Age of Emergency traces facts and feelings about violence as torture, summary...
Author
Language
English
Description
A spine-tingling exploration of a venture as ancient as the pyramids themselves.
To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that generated staggering quantities of artifacts over the course of many millennia-and also one that has drawn thieves and tomb-raiders to Egypt since antiquity. Drawing on modern scholarship, reportage, and period sources, this book tracks...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, whilst revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations.
In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds....
Author
Language
English
Description
The twentieth century saw a remarkable upsurge of research on drugs, with major advances in the treatment of bacterial and viral infections, heart disease, stomach ulcers, cancer, and metal illnesses. These, along with the introduction of the oral contraceptive, have altered all of our lives.
There has also been an increase in the recreational use and abuse of drugs in the Western world.
This Very Short Introduction, in its second edition, gives...
Author
Language
English
Description
The existence of German-speaking units fighting for the Allied cause during WW2 has remained largely a well-kept secret. But seventy-five years on these units' contribution to victory needs to be fully acknowledged.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill had no qualms about using native German speakers from Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany itself. The majority were Jews who had fled persecution.
Two examples of these secret units were X Troop...
Author
Language
English
Description
The Romantic myth of Bohemia originated in the early nineteenth century as a way of describing the new conditions faced by artists and writers when the previous system of aristocratic patronage collapsed in the wake of the Age of Revolution. Without the patron system, the artist was free to move around, to seek an audience wherever fortune beckoned. This marketing model likening the artist's vagabond career to the "gypsy" life helps to explain part...
Author
Language
English
Description
In today's society, work takes up a vast proportion of the time and energy of ordinary people. Although use of the phrase 'work-life balance' is now commonplace in the media and ordinary conversation, people work longer hours than ever before. However, rather than purely a means to an end in terms of supporting oneself financially, the workplace is a place to develop skills and talents and build lasting friendships. For these reasons, people want...
Author
Language
English
Description
Life histories can be defined as the means by which individuals (or more precisely genotypes) vary their age-or stage-specific expenditures of reproductive effort in response to genetic, phenotypic, and environmental correlates of survival and fecundity. Life histories reflect the expression of traits most closely related to individual fitness, such as age and size at maturity, number and size of offspring, and the timing of the expression of those...
Author
Language
English
Description
Before the discovery of insulin, a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. One hundred years after a milestone medical discovery, Insulin - The Crooked Timber tells the story of how insulin was transformed from what one clinician called "thick brown muck" into the very first drug
to be produced using genetic engineering, one which would earn the founders of the US biotech company Genentech a small fortune.
Yet when Canadian doctor Frederick...
Author
Language
English
Description
Matt Jardine, martial arts teacher and entrepreneur, has spent twenty years seeking the answer to one of life's ultimate conundrums: How can we lead an authentic, spiritual, and creative life in a relentlessly money-centric world?
In this insightful book, he brings together Buddhist teachings, spiritual lessons, and the advice and experience of a variety of experts and professionals from a Paralympic athlete, to a West End musical star, to a city...
Author
Language
English
Description
Chronicles the experiences of Sigmund Weiss as a teenager trying to survive during the turbulence of Hitler's mad aggression on Poland and the Jews. A story about an escape that was almost impossible, and totally unlikely without luck, courage and miracles happening together.
Author
Language
English
Description
Psychedelic Experience presents a philosophical account of psychedelic experience.
A central premise of the book is that such experiences are mind-revealing experiences and that they can be induced by means other than psychedelics. In particular, the book argues that psychedelic experiences can also be had as the result of meditation. Aidan Lyon presents a unified conceptual framework for thinking about the different kinds of psychedelic experiences...
Author
Language
English
Description
An actionable blueprint for transformational business journeys
Leading transformation in teams, businesses, and organizations is complex, and leaders are expected to know how to do it. This book provides the clear thinking required to navigate this challenge.
In Navigate the Swirl: 7 Crucial Conversations for Business Transformation renowned growth and strategy leader Richard Hawkes delivers a simple and powerful framework that any team can apply...
Search Tools Get RSS Feed Email this Search