Showing titles in History

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Enlightenment Now, and Sapiens, Michael Magoon shows us that by learning from the past, we can let go of our negative attitudes about the present, and change our world for the better. For virtually all of history, humanity was trapped in poverty by geographical constraints. Fortunately for us, a few societies invented the five keys to progress (productive agriculture, cities, decentralization of power, export industries, and fossil fuels), laying the foundations for our current progress.

Once we step on the treadmill of progress, it's hard to step off. Yet Edward Tenner shows that human ingenuity can be applied in self-preservation as well, and he sheds light on the ways in which the users of commonplace technology surprise designers and engineers, as when early typists developed the touch method still employed on today's keyboards. And he offers concrete advice for reaping benefits from the devices that we no longer seem able to live without. Although dependent on these objects, we can also use them to liberate ourselves.

Desde su invención en los años cincuenta del pasado siglo, los videojuegos se han convertido progresivamente y de manera imparable en uno de los mayores fenómenos culturales, artísticos y sociales contemporáneos.

In 1977 a group of scientists, artists and writers gathered in a house in Ithaca, New York to work on the most important mixtape ever conceived. It wasn’t from one person to another - it was from Earth to the cosmos. When NASA sent Voyagers 1 and 2 on a grand tour of the outer planets, they knew the ultimate fate of these plucky probes would be to drift forever in the unimaginable void of interstellar space.

Many of us learn about the major inventions that shape our world. But we too often overlook the objects we use every day. In The Story Behind, Emily Prokop, creator of the Webby Award nominated podcast, explores the who, how, and huh? of everything from Band-Aids to bubble gum; hypnosis to Hula Hoops; and lullabies to lead pipes. Along the way, she demonstrates how the major events of history - from wars, plagues and revolutions to historic achievements and discoveries - have influenced some of the world’s most pervasive inventions.

The summer of 1969 saw astronauts land on the moon for the first time and hippie hordes descend on Woodstock for a legendary music festival. For Neil M. Maher, the conjunction of these two era-defining events is not entirely coincidental. With its lavishly funded mandate to send a man to the moon, Apollo became a litmus test in the 1960s culture wars.

Rockets and Revolution offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight.

A possible genius, a smidgen of madness, a twist of science, and an invention that very nearly changed the world - all collide in a giddy, unbelievably true mystery set in turn-of-the-century Paris.

Brilliant offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history - from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. Jane Brox plumbs the class implications of light - who had it, who didn't - through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. Brillant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and - only a few years before it becomes illegal to sell most incandescent light bulbs in the United States - timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light.

Oil has made fortunes, caused wars, and shaped nations. Accordingly, no one questions the idea that the quest for oil is a quest for power. The question we should ask, Finding Oil suggests, is what kind of power prospectors have wanted. This book revises oil's early history by exploring the incredibly varied stories of the men who pitted themselves against nature to unleash the power of oil.

The Well was conceived during the Orwellian year of 1984, yet instead of heralding Big Brother, it became a boundary-breaking cultural invention that helped change our world.

In recent decades, most innovation has come from a single sector (information technology) and a single place (Silicon Valley). Walter Isaacson's The Innovators and Peter Thiel's Zero to One shed light on how that happened and what drives innovation more generally.

The history of the American gun is intricately entwined with the history of America itself, and the potential future developments in gun technology could change the world. However, the radical anti-gun lobby stands between innovation and the American people. Bestselling author Frank Miniter describes amazing breakthroughs waiting to happen in gun technology - and how gun grabbers threaten to stop progress in its tracks.

Dan Schiller, who has conducted archival research on United States telecommunications for more than forty years, recovers the extraordinary social history of the major network systems of the United States. Drawing on arrays of archival documents and secondary sources, Schiller reveals that this history has been shaped by sharp social and political conflict and is embedded in the larger history of an expansionary United States political economy.

In 221 BCE, the Qin state conquered its neighbours and created the first unified Chinese empire in history. So began the imperial era, where dynasties claiming divine assent ruled for more than 2000 years. Borders shifted, and emperors struggled to exert control over every region of their territories. Elites held that they were inheritors of a rich, pre-imperial culture, while their society produced world-changing inventions such as the compass, printing, gunpowder and the gun. Imperial China itself was altered as it came into contact with others through trade, exploration and war.

As NASA prepared for the launch of Apollo 11 in July 1969, many African American leaders protested the billions of dollars used to fund "space joyrides" rather than help tackle poverty, inequality, and discrimination at home. This volume examines such tensions as well as the ways in which NASA's goal of space exploration aligned with the cause of racial equality. It provides new insights into the complex relationship between the space program and the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow South and abroad.

L’hacking non nasce con i computer. Già agli inizi del Novecento dei giovani appassionati modificavano i propri apparecchi radio per ottenere prestazioni non previste dal loro produttore. Alcuni decenni dopo, negli anni ’60, si diffondono i "phone phreaks", degli "hacker dei telefoni" che prefigurano molte caratteristiche della odierna cultura digitale. Con la diffusione dei PC i gruppi hacker diventano un fenomeno mediatico e di massa. Alla metà degli anni ’80, quello che fino ad allora era stato considerato come un "ragazzo prodigio" si trasforma in una potenziale minaccia come autore di clamorose truffe o altre pratiche criminali.

What is artificial intelligence (AI)? What can it do and how is it created? In this highly accessible guide to the subject, Richard Urwin explains how AI came about and how it has developed over the years through the construction of ever more sophisticated computer programs. Along the way, you will discover numerous intriguing examples of how scientists have progressed the development of AI, as well as finding out how research into brain function is continually influencing this dynamic field.

Metaverso es un acrónimo compuesto por meta, un término griego que significa “más allá” y verso que hace referencia a “universo”, por lo cual significa “el universo que está más allá”, entendiendo que se refiere a entornos donde los humanos interactúan social y económicamente como avatares en un ciberespacio sin las limitaciones del mundo físico y compuesto por múltiples espacios virtuales tridimensionales compartidos.

Nel 1990, il telescopio spaziale più avanzato mai messo a punto venne lanciato con un inglorioso difetto di fabbricazione, grazie al quale anni dopo si riuscì a fare diagnosi più precoci di cancro al seno. Percival Lowell sbagliò alcuni calcoli sull'orbita di Urano, che però portarono alla scoperta di Plutone. Albert Michelson ed Edward Morley lavorarono anni per realizzare un apparato sperimentale che dimostrasse l'esistenza dell'etere luminifero: non lo trovarono, ma il loro esperimento pose le basi per la nascita della relatività.