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1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World
Salim T.S. Al-Hassani · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Hide books by the same authorPaper: Paging Through History
Mark Kurlansky · 389 pages
Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art. It has created civilizations, fostering the fomenting of revolutions and the stabilizing of regimes. Witness history's greatest press run, which produ
The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World
Jenny Uglow · 608 pages
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
Simon Winchester · 316 pages
In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"—New York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"—Time) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically adva
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway
Doug Most · 418 pages
"In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers--Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City--pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Yuval Noah Harari · 544 pages
From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing head
Thunderstruck
Erik Larson · 480 pages
A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world's "great hush." In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men--Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication--whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
Simon Singh · 402 pages
In his first book since the bestselling *Fermat's Enigma*, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisit
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes · 886 pages
Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the brig
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of Darpa, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
Annie Jacobsen · 568 pages
Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and sc
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
Steve Sheinkin · 266 pages
In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned 3 continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German
American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms
Chris Kyle, William Doyle · 302 pages
In this book, the author, deadliest sniper in U.S. history tracks down and shoots the ten most important American firearms, from a flintlock rifle to a Colt revolver to the latest high-tech weapon he used as a Navy SEAL. He uses these guns as a window on United States history, making the sweeping argument that the American story has been tied to and shaped by the gun. He revisits turning points in
Colossus: The Turbulent, Thrilling Saga of the Building of Hoover Dam
Michael A. Hiltzik · 496 pages
The definitive account of the epic construction of the Hoover Dam, one of the the 20th century's most consequential public works. "As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America’s most awe-inspiring, if dubious, achievements. This epic story of the dam—from conception to design to construction—by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and Los Angeles Times columnist Mic
Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages
Frances Gies, Joseph Gies · 357 pages
"In this account of Europe's rise to world leadership in technology, Frances and Joseph Gies make use of recent scholarship to destroy two time-honored myths. Myth One: that Europe's leap forward occurred suddenly in the "Renaissance," following centuries of medieval stagnation. Not so, say the Gieses: Early modern technology and experimental science were direct outgrowths of the decisive innovati
Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
Gene Kranz · 539 pages
"Kranz was flight director for both Apollo 11, the mission in which Neil Armstrong fulfilled President Kennedy's pledge, and Apollo 13. He headed the Tiger Team that had to figure out how to bring the three Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth. (In the film Apollo 13, Kranz was played by the actor Ed Harris, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance.)". "In Failure Is Not an
Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World
Steven Johnson · 322 pages
"Explores the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves entertained. Play has always been more important than most people realize. In this vivid examination of the power of play and delight, Steven Johnson offers a surprising history of popular entertainment. Roving from medieval kitchens and ancient taverns to casinos and shopping malls, he locates the cutting edge of innovation
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
Rebecca Solnit · 305 pages
An original telling of the story of Eadweard Muybridge, who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically, thus making movies possible. Solnit uses the story of Muybridge as a lens for a larger story about the transformation of time and space by railroads, telegraphy, photography, and myriad other contributions to the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. She bol
Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda
Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton, Henry R. Schlesinger · 480 pages
From two men who know how espionage really works, an unprecedented history--heavily illustrated with never-before-seen images--of the CIA's most secretive operations and the gadgets that made them possible. What is an invisible photo used for? What does it take to build a quiet helicopter? How does one embed a listening device in a cat? These may sound like challenges for James Bond's fictional ga
The Wright Brothers
David McCullough · 583 pages
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story of the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly. On a winter day in 1903, on the remote Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, changed history. The age of flight had begun with the first heavier-than-air powered machine carrying a pilot. Far more than a coup
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Dava Sobel · 192 pages
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailo
The Ascent of Man
Jacob Bronowski · 448 pages
Traces the development of science and the discoveries that have made man unique among animal species.
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
Marc Levinson · 395 pages
In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in t
Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air
Richard Holmes · 410 pages
Falling Upwards tells the story of the enigmatic group of men and women who first risked their lives to take to the air, and so discovered a new dimension of human experience. Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet in wholly unexpected ways is its subject.