'An utterly dazzling book, the best piece of history I have read for a long time' Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps'Not merely an horologist's delight, but an ingenious meditation on the nature and symbolism of time-keeping itself' Richard HolmesThe measurement of time has always been essential to human civilization, from early Roman sundials to the advent of GPS.
Explore the lives and achievements of more than 85 of the world's most inspirational and influential scientists with this innovative and boldly graphic biography-led book.
A FINANCIAL TIMES AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEARAn exhilarating new biography of John von Neumann: the lost genius who invented our world'A sparkling book, with an intoxicating mix of pen-portraits and grand historical narrative.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERBest Books of the Year, GuardianThe poignant story of the visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War's injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgeryFrom the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind's military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities.
Chosen as a Book of the Year by The Times, Daily Telegraph, TLS, BBC History Magazine and Tablet'Compulsive, brilliantly clear and superbly well-written, it's a charismatic evocation of another world' Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval EnglandThe Middle Ages were a time of wonder.
A young theoretical physicist's guide to how the radical new science of counterfactuals can reveal the full scope of our universeThere is a vast class of properties that science has so far almost entirely neglected.
One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the ten profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical worldIn Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science.
The definitive history of the modern climate change era, from an award-winning writer who has been at the centre of the fight for more than thirty yearsIn 1979, President Jimmy Carter was presented with the findings of scientists who had been investigating whether human activities might change the climate in harmful ways.
'A majestic story' David Bodanis, Financial Times From the international bestselling author of Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the FutureThis is the story of a quest: to find a Theory of Everything.
For six centuries the Republic of Venice was a maritime empire, its sovereign power extending throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean an empire of coasts, islands and isolated fortresses by which, as Wordsworth wrote, the mercantile Venetians 'held the gorgeous east in fee'.
How two charismatic, exceptionally talented physicists came to terms with the nuclear weapons they helped to createIn 1945, the United States dropped the bomb, and physicists were forced to contemplate disquieting questions about their roles and responsibilities.
Through Euclid's Window, Leonard Mlondinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace.
'Bracingly apocalyptic stuff: atmospheric, chock-full of information and with a constantly escalating sense of pace and tension' Sunday TelegraphSimon Winchester's brilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883 charts the birth of our modern world.
How Cold War America came to attribute human evolutionary success to our species' unique capacity for murderAfter World War II, the question of how to define a universal human nature took on new urgency.
'The best book ever written' Nicholas Lezard, GuardianRobert Burton's labyrinthine, beguiling, playful masterpiece is his attempt to 'anatomize and cut up' every aspect of the condition of melancholy, from which he had suffered throughout his life.
A scientific adventure story that dramatizes how profoundly our oceans have changed over the past 150 yearsIn December 1872, HMS Challenger embarked on the first round-the-world oceanographic expedition.
This book offers the first in-depth study of the masculine self-fashioning of scientific practitioners in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain.