Showing titles in History

In the Shadow of the Moon tells the story of the most exciting and challenging years in spaceflight, with two superpowers engaged in a titanic struggle to land one of their own people on the moon. Drawing on interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, their families, technicians, and scientists, as well as rarely seen Soviet and American government documents, the authors craft a remarkable story of the golden age of spaceflight as both an intimate human experience and a rollicking global adventure.

The Eudaemonic Pie is the bizarre true story of how a band of physicists and computer wizards took on Las Vegas. It chronicles the origins of personal computers, the history of gambling, and the comedy of living a good life governed according to reason (eudaemonia).

As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day - but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history. 

The global history of high speed rail, from the railways' "wisest, most detailed historian" (The Observer) Sleek, comfortable, accessible, and sustainable, high-speed rail is the future. Since Japan’s Bullet Train first sped down the track in the sixties, it has become a global icon, as famous...

A concise history of GPS, from its military origins to its commercial applications and ubiquity in everyday life.   

This is the story of how a handful of geeks and mavericks dragged the computer out of corporate back rooms and laboratories and into our living rooms and offices. It is a tale not only of extraordinary innovation and vision but also of cunning business deals, boardroom tantrums and acrimonious lawsuits.

We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages - of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today.

Alan Turing can be regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. But who was Turing, and what did he achieve during his tragically short life of 41 years? Best known as the genius who broke Germany's most secret codes during the war of 1939-45, Turing was also the father of the modern computer. Today, all who 'click-to-open' are familiar with the impact of Turing's ideas. Here, B. Jack Copeland provides an account of Turing's life and work, exploring the key elements of his life-story in tandem with his leading ideas and contributions.

The fascinating story of how NASA sent humans to explore outer space, told through a treasure trove of historical documents--publishing in celebration of NASA's 60th anniversary and with a foreword by Bill Nye "An extremely useful and thought provoking documentary journey through the maze of...

Engineering is everywhere, from the Large Hadron Collider to invisibly small circuits on silicon chips. The 50 Greatest Engineers celebrates the great achievements that have been made through the ages, containing profiles of the best-known and most innovative engineers of all time.

Bitcoin was promised to be a liberating technology, a free market alternative to state-controlled money. But that promise was broken after a small group of insiders took over the project and fundamentally changed Bitcoin's design.

Infinity Beckoned illuminates a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own.

The flight of Apollo 11 was a triumph of human endeavor, persistence, and technology, one of the greatest achievements in human history. This book begins with the mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to the moon, then follows American spaceflight through the harrowing rescue of Apollo 13 before moving on to the successful joint Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975.

In 1979, Elizabeth Eisenstein provided the first full-scale treatment of the 15th-century printing revolution in the West in her monumental two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. This abridged edition, after summarizing the initial changes introduced by the establishment of printing shops, goes on to discuss how printing challenged traditional institutions and affected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.

James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story...

Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word “code” makes it sound immutable or even inevitable. “You Are Not Expected to Understand This” demonstrates that, far from being preordained, computer code is the result of very human decisions, ones we all live with when we use social media, take photos, drive our cars, and engage in a host of other activities.

The dramatic, untold story of the brilliant team whose feats of innovation and engineering created the world’s first digital electronic computer—decrypting the Nazis’ toughest code, helping bring an end to WWII, and ushering in the information age. Winner, Institute of Electrical and...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An “irresistible” (The Washington Post) true story of love, murder, and the last moments of the “great hush” before wireless radio connected the world, from the renowned author of The Devil in the White City and The Demon of Unrest “Gripping . . . an...

Packed with never-before-heard stories and timeless wisdom on the art of computer science, the business of technology, and the durable power of relationships, The Bleeding Edge provides a rare history of how and why the internet looks and feels the way it does today.

2015 Audie Award Finalist for Nonfiction Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed The Innovators is a “riveting, propulsive, and at times deeply moving” (The Atlantic) story of the people who created the...