Download or read book Empire of Light written by Sidney Perkowitz and published by Joseph Henry Press. This book was released on 1998-11-23 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Empire of Light, Sidney Perkowitz combines the expertise of a physicist with the vision of an art connoisseur and the skill of an accomplished writer to offer a unique view of the most fundamental feature of the universe: light. Empire of Light discusses the nature of light, how the eye sees, and how our understanding of these phenomena have emerged over the ages, including the role of light in the development of quantum physics. The author examines the making of electrical light and its integration into commerce, telecommunications, entertainment, medicine, warfare, and every other aspect of our daily lives. And he presents the role of light in the search for the beginning and the end of the universe, as astronomers with their instruments penetrate ever deeper into the sky. Visible light spans the spectrum between infrared and ultraviolet, but this book reaches across many other spectra as well--from the cave paintings at Lascaux to Mark Rothko's stark blocks of color in today's art museums, from Plato's speculation that the eye sends out rays to Ramon y Cajal's discovery that vision actually works in the opposite way, from Tycho Brahe's elegant antetelescope measurements of planet positions to the Hubble telescope's exquisite sensitivity to light from billions of light years away. What are the biological and neurological processes of perceiving visible light? How does a person typically scan a scene? Do you see red or blue the same way I do? What are our physiological reactions and emotional responses to light? Perkowitz explores these and many other fascinating questions, drawing together the experiences, achievements, and perspectives of a diverse cast of characters, including Galileo, Einstein, Newton, Van Gogh, and Edison. Empire of Light is written so that lay readers will readily grasp the scientific principles and science professionals will readily appreciate the human experience. It will impart new wonder to the daily experience of light in our world. Sidney Perkowitz is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University. His work has appeared in national publications such as The Sciences, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, and Technology Review.
Download or read book The Secret of the Hittites written by C. W. Ceram and published by Phoenix. This book was released on 2001 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the acclaimed Gods, Graves, and Scholars tells the dramatic tale of the Hittites, an Indo-European people who became a dominant power in the Middle East. Their struggle in Egypt with Ramses II for control of Syria led to one of the greatest battles of the ancient world. The fall of the Hittite empire was sudden, and historical records were scarce--until the discovery of cuneiform tablets yielded a rich store of information on which this work is based. "...a saga richly charged with dramatic twists and with enthralling accounts of scholarly detective work."--The Atlantic.
Download or read book Discovery and Empire written by John West-Sooby and published by . This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French connection with the South Seas stretches back at least as far as the voyage of Binot Paulmier de Gonneville (1503-1505), who believed he had discovered the fabled great south land after being blown off course during a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. The story of his voyage remained largely forgotten for over 150 years, but eventually resurfaced in 1664 thanks to the publication by the Abbe Jean Paulmier of a document in which he argued, on the basis of this supposed discovery, for the establishment of a Christian mission in this "third part" of the world. While historians today contest the authenticity of various aspects of the Abbe Paulmier's Memoires, there is no doubt about the impact it had in France, both on the collective imagination and, more concretely, on French plans for exploration and colonial expansion. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that France began sending mariners to the southern oceans on a regular basis, and by that time a new maritime power had begun to emerge: Great Britain. Together, these two nations would play a decisive role in determining the configuration of these little known parts of the globe, and particularly of the Pacific, which had for so long been the almost exclusive preserve of Spain.' (From the Introduction by John West-Sooby.) DISCOVERY AND EMPIRE is a collection of essays originating out of a symposium that was held at the State Library of South Australia on 8 July 2009. The symposium formed one of the strands of the XVIIth Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association of European Historians (6-9 July 2009), the overall theme for which was 'Europe's Expansions and Contractions'.
Download or read book Exploration Religion and Empire in the Sixteenth Century Ibero Atlantic World written by Mauricio Nieto and published by Maritime Humanities. This book was released on 2021-11 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book offers convincing evidence to incorporate the Catholic world of early modernity into the history of modern science. The research is supported by the analysis of not widely studied primary sources such as the sixteenth century Iberian nautical manuals. Through the use of theoretical frameworks such as the Actor Network Theory, the book sheds light on the need to incorporate the role of heterogeneous human actors and artifacts (ships, navigation tools, sails, cannons), natural and geographical agents (ocean currents, winds, the sun, the moon and the stars), and divine entities (gods, daemons and saints) into the political history of early modernity.
Download or read book The Discovery of Guiana and the Journal of the Second Voyage Thereto written by Sir Walter Raleigh and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Empire of the Stars written by Arthur I. Miller and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2005 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the idea of "black holes" explores the tumultuous debate over the existence of this now well-accepted phenomenon, focusing particular attention on Indian scientist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
Download or read book The History of the Discovery and Conquest of America written by William Robertson and published by . This book was released on 1835 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1777, this work examines the history of the Americas and the expansion of Europe and the growth of their colonial empires in the New World.
Download or read book How to Hide an Empire written by Daniel Immerwahr and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.
Download or read book Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Age of Reconnaissance written by John Horace Parry and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the period during which Europe discovered the rest of the world, beginning with the mid-fifteenth century and ending 250 years later when the "Reconnaissance" was all but complete. The author examines the inducements--political, economic, religious--to overseas enterprise at the time, and analyzes the nature and problems of the various European settlements in the new lands.
Download or read book The Empire of Reason written by Henry Steele Commager and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2000 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with a survey of the origins and growth of 18th century rationalism, the author explains how the realization of the great philosophers' ideals in Europe was inevitably frustrated by the counterweight of tradition and privilege. He points out that in America there were no such barriers. The principles of the Enlightenment were written into law, crystallised into institutions, and sanctified by use. Although democracy was not absolute (the existence of slavery remained unquestioned), in comparison with Europe, America could justifiably claim to be incorporating the ideals of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' into the daily lives of her people. The result was the start of an American revolution as significant as the winning of independence and the creation of a nation. This book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of America's past - essential both for a true appreciation of America's European origins and for her subsequent development into the 20th century."Learning and reason are at the service of a mind whose understanding of democracy gains brilliance and power from a passion for democratic freedom." Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Download or read book Pulp Empire written by Paul S. Hirsch and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024-06-05 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Popular Culture Association's Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Book in Popular or American Culture In the 1940s and ’50s, comic books were some of the most popular—and most unfiltered—entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages until a 1954 Senate investigation led to a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics—it was simply the most dramatic manifestation of a long, strange relationship between high-level policy makers and a medium that even artists and writers often dismissed as a creative sewer. In Pulp Empire, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official—and clandestine—foreign policy and deflect global critiques of American racism. As Hirsch details, during World War II—and the concurrent golden age of comic books—government agencies worked directly with comic book publishers to stoke hatred for the Axis powers while simultaneously attempting to dispel racial tensions at home. Later, as the Cold War defense industry ballooned—and as comic book sales reached historic heights—the government again turned to the medium, this time trying to win hearts and minds in the decolonizing world through cartoon propaganda. Hirsch’s groundbreaking research weaves together a wealth of previously classified material, including secret wartime records, official legislative documents, and caches of personal papers. His book explores the uneasy contradiction of how comics were both vital expressions of American freedom and unsettling glimpses into the national id—scourged and repressed on the one hand and deployed as official propaganda on the other. Pulp Empire is a riveting illumination of underexplored chapters in the histories of comic books, foreign policy, and race.
Download or read book The American Discovery of Europe written by Jack D. Forbes and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Discovery of Europe investigates the voyages of America's Native peoples to the European continent before Columbus's 1492 arrival in the "New World." The product of over twenty years of exhaustive research in libraries throughout Europe and the United States, the book paints a clear picture of the diverse and complex societies that constituted the Americas before 1492 and reveals the surprising Native American involvements in maritime trade and exploration. Starting with an encounter by Columbus himself with mysterious people who had apparently been carried across the Atlantic on favorable currents, Jack D. Forbes proceeds to explore the seagoing expertise of early Americans, theories of ancient migrations, the evidence for human origins in the Americas, and other early visitors coming from Europe to America, including the Norse. The provocative, extensively documented, and heartfelt conclusions of The American Discovery of Europe present an open challenge to received historical wisdom.
Download or read book The History of the Discovery and Settlement of America written by William Robertson and published by London : Jones & Company. This book was released on 1826 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The History of the Discovery and Settlement of America written by William Robertson and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2024-04-28 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1845.
Download or read book The Secret of the Hittites written by C. W. Ceram and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Age of Discovery 1400 1600 written by David Arnold and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Age of Discovery explores one of the most dramatic features of the late medieval and early modern period: when voyagers from Western Europe led by Spain and Portugal set out across the world and established links with the New World.
