This title tells the story of the Turk, the infamous 18th-century automation. The story links a cast of historical characters, from Napoleon, Beethoven and Poe to the pioneers of the computer age, and provides an accessible way of examining the relationship between magic, man, mind and machine.

Mechanical Turk: The True Story of the Chess Playing Machine That Fooled the World

Standage, Tom

Humor & Entertainment

Penguin Group USA

Victorian Internet : The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line pioneers

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Walker Co

Whatever your favourite tipple, when you pour yourself a drink, you have the past in a glass. You can likely find them all in your own kitchen — beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, cola. Line them up on the counter, and there you have it: thousands of years of human history in six drinks. Tom Standage opens a window onto the past in this tour of six beverages that remain essentials today. En route he makes fascinating forays into the byways of western culture: Why were ancient Egyptians buried with beer? Why was wine considered a “classier” drink than beer by the Romans? How did rum grog help the British navy defeat Napoleon? What is the relationship between coffee and revolution? And how did Coca-Cola become the number one poster-product for globalization decades before the term was even coined?

A History of the World in Six Glasses

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Cooking Education & Reference

Doubleday, Canada

From beer to Coca-Cola, the six drinks that have helped shape human historyThroughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.

Anchor Canada

Offers a historical review of the telegraph network, from its invention by Samuel Morse in the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring the social and political effects it has had on the world throughout its existence

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers

Computers & Technology

Networking & Cloud Computing

Berkley Trade

Describes the dramatic events surrounding the discovery of Neptune, the eighth planet in the solar system, and profiles the two men, British mathematician John Couch Adams and French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier who predicted where the planet would be based on mathematical calculations rather than on observation. Reprint.

The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting

Science & Math

History & Philosophy

Berkley_Pub Group

The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine

Describes the eighteenth-century invention by Wolfgang von Kempeden of the Turk, a mechanical man fashioned of wood, powered by clockwork, and capable of playing chess, examining the machine's remarkable career in light of the industrial revolution and the impact of the invention on the history of technology. Reprint.

Puzzles & Games

The Mechanical Turk: The True Story of the Chess-playing Machine That Fooled the World

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Allen Lane.

Offers a historical review of the telegraph network, from its invention by Samuel Morse in the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring the social and political effects it has had on the world throughout its existence.

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers

World

The Neptune File is the first full account of the dramatic events surrounding the eighth planet's discovery, and the story of two remarkable men who were able to "see" on paper what astronomers looking through telescopes for more than 200 years had overlooked.
On June 26, 1841, John Couch Adams, a brilliant young mathematician at Cambridge University, chanced upon a report by England's Astronomer Royal, George Airy, describing unsuccessful attempts to explain the mystifying orbital behavior of the planet Uranus, discovered 65 years earlier. Adams theorized that Uranus's orbit was being affected by the gravitational pull of another, as-yet-unseen planet. Furthermore, he believed that he did not need to see the planet to know where it was. Four years later, his daring mathematical calculations pinpointed the planet's location, but Airy failed to act on them―a controversial lapse that would have international repercussions.
Soon after Adams's "proof," a rival French astronomer, Urbain Le Verrier, also calculated the planet's position, and the race was on to actually view it. Found just where Adams and Le Verrier had predicted, the planet was named Neptune―and as the first celestial object located through calculation rather than observation, its discovery pioneered a new method for planet hunting.
Drawing on long-lost documents in George Airy's Neptune scrapbook, which resurfaced mysteriously at an observatory in Chile in 1999, The Neptune File is a crackling good human drama and a fascinating exploration of the science that underpins planetary astronomy. And the tale continues to unfold, as Tom Standage relates: Since 1995, astronomers have discovered more than 40 planets outside our solar system, opening an intriguing window on the universe. Yet none of these planets have ever been seen. Their discovery―and the history of science―owes much to the two men who unlocked the secret to locating unseen new worlds.

Astronomy & Space Science

Walker Books

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