Download or read book American Alchemy written by Brian Roberts and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-06-19 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California during the gold rush was a place of disputed claims, shoot-outs, gambling halls, and prostitution; a place populated by that rough and rebellious figure, the forty-niner; in short, a place that seems utterly unconnected to middle-class culture. In American Alchemy, however, Brian Roberts offers a surprising challenge to this assumption. Roberts points to a long-neglected truth of the gold rush: many of the northeastern forty-niners who ventured westward were in fact middle-class in origin, status, and values. Tracing the experiences and adventures both of these men and of the "unseen" forty-niners--women who stayed back East while their husbands went out West--he shows that, whatever else the gold seekers abandoned on the road to California, they did not simply turn their backs on middle-class culture. Ultimately, Roberts argues, the story told here reveals an overlooked chapter in the history of the formation of the middle class. While the acquisition of respectability reflects one stage in this history, he says, the gold rush constitutes a second stage--a rebellion against standards of respectability.
Download or read book American Alchemy written by H. Lanier Hickman and published by ForesterPress. This book was released on 2003 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Alchemy of Us written by Ainissa Ramirez and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “timely, informative, and fascinating” study of 8 inventions—and how they shaped our world—with “totally compelling” insights on little-known inventors throughout history (Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction) In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines 8 inventions and reveals how they shaped the human experience: • Clocks • Steel rails • Copper communication cables • Photographic film • Light bulbs • Hard disks • Scientific labware • Silicon chips Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer. She describes how our pursuit of precision in timepieces changed how we sleep; how the railroad helped commercialize Christmas; how the necessary brevity of the telegram influenced Hemingway’s writing style; and how a young chemist exposed the use of Polaroid’s cameras to create passbooks to track black citizens in apartheid South Africa. These fascinating and inspiring stories offer new perspectives on our relationships with technologies. Ramirez shows not only how materials were shaped by inventors but also how those materials shaped culture, chronicling each invention and its consequences—intended and unintended. Filling in the gaps left by other books about technology, Ramirez showcases little-known inventors—particularly people of color and women—who had a significant impact but whose accomplishments have been hidden by mythmaking, bias, and convention. Doing so, she shows us the power of telling inclusive stories about technology. She also shows that innovation is universal—whether it's splicing beats with two turntables and a microphone or splicing genes with two test tubes and CRISPR.
Download or read book Urban Alchemy written by Mindy Thompson Fullilove and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-06-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if divided neighborhoods were causing public health problems? What if a new approach to planning and design could tackle both the built environment and collective well-being at the same time? What if cities could help each other? Dr. Mindy Fullilove, the acclaimed author of Root Shock, uses her unique perspective as a public health psychiatrist to explore ways of healing social and spatial fractures simultaneously. Using the work of French urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart as a guide, Fullilove takes readers on a tour of successful collaborative interventions that repair cities and make communities whole.
Download or read book Gehennical Fire written by William R. Newman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-02-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both the quest for natural knowledge and the aspiration to alchemical wisdom played crucial roles in the Scientific Revolution, as William R. Newman demonstrates in this fascinating book about George Starkey (1628-1665), America's first famous scientist. Beginning with Starkey's unusual education in colonial New England, Newman traces out his many interconnected careers—natural philosopher, alchemist, chemist, medical practitioner, economic projector, and creator of the fabulous adept, "Eirenaeus Philalethes." Newman reveals the profound impact Starkey had on the work of Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Samuel Hartlib, and other key thinkers in the realm of early modern science.
Download or read book We Sell Drugs written by Suzanna Reiss and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-08 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This history of US-led international drug control provides new perspectives on the economic, ideological, and political foundations of a Cold War American empire. US officials assumed the helm of international drug control after World War II at a moment of unprecedented geopolitical influence embodied in the growing economic clout of its pharmaceutical industry. We Sell Drugs is a study grounded in the transnational geography and political economy of the coca-leaf and coca-derived commodities market stretching from Peru and Bolivia into the United States. More than a narrow biography of one famous plant and its equally famous derivative products—Coca-Cola and cocaine—this book situates these commodities within the larger landscape of drug production and consumption. Examining efforts to control the circuits through which coca traveled, Suzanna Reiss provides a geographic and legal basis for considering the historical construction of designations of legality and illegality. The book also argues that the legal status of any given drug is largely premised on who grew, manufactured, distributed, and consumed it and not on the qualities of the drug itself. Drug control is a powerful tool for ordering international trade, national economies, and society’s habits and daily lives. In a historical landscape animated by struggles over political economy, national autonomy, hegemony, and racial equality, We Sell Drugs insists on the socio-historical underpinnings of designations of legality to explore how drug control became a major weapon in asserting control of domestic and international affairs.
Download or read book The Alchemy of Conquest written by Ralph Bauer and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Age of the Discovery of the Americas was concurrent with the Age of Discovery in science. In The Alchemy of Conquest, Ralph Bauer explores the historical relationship between the two, focusing on the connections between religion and science in the Spanish, English, and French literatures about the Americas during the early modern period. As sailors, conquerors, travelers, and missionaries were exploring "new worlds," and claiming ownership of them, early modern men of science redefined what it means to "discover" something. Bauer explores the role that the verbal, conceptual, and visual language of alchemy played in the literature of the discovery of the Americas and in the rise of an early modern paradigm of discovery in both science and international law. The book traces the intellectual and spiritual legacies of late medieval alchemists such as Roger Bacon, Arnald of Villanova, and Ramon Llull in the early modern literature of the conquest of America in texts written by authors such as Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, José de Acosta, Nicolás Monardes, Walter Raleigh, Thomas Harriot, Francis Bacon, and Alexander von Humboldt.
Download or read book The Alchemy of Action written by Doug Robinson and published by Moving Over Stone. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descriptive inquiry into the neurochemistry of extreme sports.
Download or read book Alchemy Tried in the Fire written by William R. Newman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-06 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Newman and Lawrence Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory experiments of a famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and practices characteristic of modern chemistry derive from alchemy.
Download or read book The Alchemist of Souls written by Anne Lyle and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Tudor explorers returned from the New World, they brought back a name out of half-forgotten Viking legend: skraylings. Red-sailed ships followed in the explorers’ wake, bringing Native American goods--and a skrayling ambassador--to London. But what do these seemingly magical beings really want in Elizabeth I’s capital? Mal Catlyn, a down-at-heel swordsman, is seconded to the ambassador's bodyguard, but assassination attempts are the least of his problems. What he learns about the skraylings and their unholy powers could cost England her new ally--and Mal his soul. File Under: Fantasy [ Midsummer Magic | Skraylings | Double Trouble | Comedy of Terrors ] e-book ISBN: 978-0-85766-215-6
Download or read book The Alchemy of Air written by Thomas Hager and published by Crown. This book was released on 2009-08-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of tragic genius, cutting-edge science, and the Haber-Bosch discovery that changed billions of lives—including your own. At the dawn of the twentieth century, humanity was facing global disaster: Mass starvation was about to become a reality. A call went out to the world’ s scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two men who found it: brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, and saved millions of lives. But their epochal triumph came at a price we are still paying. The Haber-Bosch process was also used to make the gunpowder and explosives that killed millions during the two world wars. Both men were vilified during their lives; both, disillusioned and disgraced, died tragically. The Alchemy of Air is the extraordinary, previously untold story of a discovery that changed the way we grow food and the way we make war–and that promises to continue shaping our lives in fundamental and dramatic ways.
Download or read book Making San Francisco American written by Barbara Berglund and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focuses on the 19th-century transformation in San Francisco--from Gold Rush to earthquake--to show how the city's diverse residents created a modern American city through everyday "cultural frontiers," such as restaurants, hotels, and annual fairs and expositions, among others.
Download or read book Sonic Alchemy written by David N. Howard and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2004 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Book). You may not have heard of them, but you have certainly heard their songs! From the lo-fidelity origins of early pioneers to today's dazzling technocrats, the role of the music producer is as murkily undefined as it is wholly essential. Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings is an exploration of the influence of the often colorful, idiosyncratic and visionary music producers through popular music and the fascinatingly crucial role they have played in shaping the way we hear pop music today. Sonic Alchemy is nothing short of the secret history of the music producer.
Download or read book Beeswax Alchemy written by Petra Ahnert and published by . This book was released on 2015-04 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The possibilities for beeswax are endless! With Beeswax Alchemy, learn how to extract and purify beeswax to create your own soap, candles, balms, creams, and salves fresh from the hive.
Download or read book The American Monthly Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 1250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Chemistry of Alchemy written by Cathy Cobb and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique approach to the history of science using do-it-yourself experiments along with brief historical profiles to demonstrate how the ancient alchemists stumbled upon the science of chemistry. Be the alchemist! Explore the legend of alchemy with the science of chemistry. Enjoy over twenty hands-on demonstrations of alchemical reactions. In this exploration of the ancient art of alchemy, three veteran chemists show that the alchemists' quest involved real science and they recount fascinating stories of the sages who performed these strange experiments. Why waste more words on this weird deviation in the evolution of chemistry? As the authors show, the writings of medieval alchemists may seem like the ravings of brain-addled fools, but there is more to the story than that. Recent scholarship has shown that some seemingly nonsensical mysticism is, in fact, decipherable code, and Western European alchemists functioned from a firmer theoretical foundation than previously thought. They had a guiding principle, based on experience: separate and purify materials by fire and reconstitute them into products, including, of course, gold and the universal elixir, the Philosophers' stone. Their efforts were not in vain: by trial, by error, by design, and by persistence, the alchemists discovered acids, alkalis, alcohols, salts, and exquisite, powerful, and vibrant reactions--which can be reproduced using common products, minerals, metals, and salts. So gather your vats and stoke your fires! Get ready to make burning waters, peacocks' tails, Philosophers' stone, and, of course, gold!
Download or read book Silver and Bone written by Oliver Altair and published by Striking Books. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Souls Well. Where magic runs free and the dead never sleep.After an avalanche decimates the population, it's up to sheriff Tiberius Tibbetts to keep his beloved town from falling apart. But it won't be easy. An infamous outlaw is terrorizing the streets. An unwelcome snake oil salesman is charming his way into the townsfolk's pockets. And where are the twelve corpses missing from their graves? When murder comes to town and a mystical power awakens beneath the rumbling mountains, Tiberius will have to race against time to save Souls Well from a terrible cataclysm. His only chance lay in the ancient art of alchemy: an arcane power that can lead him to his victory... Or to his doom.
