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An Invitation to Mathematical Logic (Graduate Texts in Mathematics #301)
by David MarkerIn addition to covering the essentials, the author’s intention in writing this text is to entice the reader to further study mathematical logic. There is no current “standard text” for a first graduate course in mathematical logic and this book will fill that gap. While there is more material than could be covered in a traditional one semester course, an instructor can cover the basics and still have the flexibility to choose several weeks’ worth of interesting advanced topics that have been introduced. The text can and will be used by people in various courses with different sorts of perspectives. This versatility is one of the many appealing aspects of this book. A list of suggested portions to be covered in a single course is provided as well as a useful chart which maps chapter dependencies. Additionally, a motivated student will have ample material for further reading. New definitions, formalism, and syntax have been streamlined to engage thereader quickly into the heart of logic and to more sophisticated topics. Part I and Part IV center on foundational questions, while Part III establishes the fundamentals of computability. Part II develops model theory, highlighting the model theory of the fields of real and complex numbers. The interplay between logic and other areas of mathematics, notably algebra, number theory, and combinatorics, are illustrated in Chapters 5, 6, 8, 14, and 16. For most of the text, the only prerequisite is mathematical maturity. The material should be accessible to first year graduate students or advanced undergraduates in mathematics, graduate students in philosophy with a solid math background, or students in computer science who want a mathematical introduction to logic. Prior exposure to logic is helpful but not assumed.
Chemical Food Contaminants Analysis (Methods and Protocols in Food Science)
by Rodrigo Hoff Luciano MolognoniThis volume provides protocols on different combinations of contaminates, matrices, and sample preparation. Chapters are divided into two parts, detailing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon,dioxins, furans, organochlorie pesticides, toxic elements, mycotoxins, mercury in food products, acrylamine, polypeptide antibiotics, tetracyclines, coccidiostats, beta-blockers, sedatives,glucocorticoids, palytoxin-like marine biotoxins in fish, polar drugs and contaminants in animal feed, UV filters, micro and nanoplastics in seafood, tetracyclines in vegetables, MCPDEs, and pharmaceuticals in seafood. Written in the format of the Methods and Protocols in Food Science (MeFS) series, the chapters include an introduction to the respective topic, list necessary materials and reagents, detail well-established and validated methods for readilyreproducible laboratory protocols, and contain notes on how to avoid or solve typical problems. Authoritative and cutting-edge,Chemical Food Contaminants Analysis aims to ensure successful results in the further study of this vital field
Social-Media-Strategien für B2B-Unternehmen: Von der Konzeption bis zur Umsetzung in den verschiedenen Netzwerken (essentials)
by Constanze WolffStark praxisorientiert und mit konkreten Beispielen zeigt dieses Buch auf, wie B2B-Unternehmen von sozialen Netzwerken profitieren können. Die Lesenden erfahren das Wichtigste über die Social-Media-Landschaft in Deutschland und lernen, wie sie eine individuelle Social-Media-Strategie aufsetzen und diese in den verschiedenen Netzwerken umsetzen. Denn die Suche nach neuen Lieferant*innen, Mitarbeitenden und Kund*innen spielt sich auf Social Media ab – und auch im Service, bei der Verbreitung von Fachinformationen und der Generierung von Website-Traffic geht kein Weg mehr an LinkedIn, Instagram, X und Co. vorbei.
Uncertainty Quantification with R: Bayesian Methods (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science #352)
by Eduardo Souza de CursiThis book is a rigorous but practical presentation of the Bayesian techniques of uncertainty quantification, with applications in R. This volume includes mathematical arguments at the level necessary to make the presentation rigorous and the assumptions clearly established, while maintaining a focus on practical applications of Bayesian uncertainty quantification methods. Practical aspects of applied probability are also discussed, making the content accessible to students. The introduction of R allows the reader to solve more complex problems involving a more significant number of variables. Users will be able to use examples laid out in the text to solve medium-sized problems.The list of topics covered in this volume includes basic Bayesian probabilities, entropy, Bayesian estimation and decision, sequential Bayesian estimation, and numerical methods. Blending theoretical rigor and practical applications, this volume will be of interest to professionals, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students interested in the use of Bayesian uncertainty quantification techniques within the framework of operations research and mathematical programming, for applications in management and planning.
Bring mir bloß keinen Deutschen nach Hause!: Familiengeschichten deutsch-französischer Paare der Nachkriegszeit (1945-1963)
by Sylvie Méron-Minuth Christian MinuthDieses Buch erzählt faszinierende Geschichten von deutsch-französischen Familien in der Nachkriegszeit in einer spannenden historischen Studie. Es basiert auf Zeitzeugenberichten über eine Zeit, in der der Umgang mit einem Vertreter des Erbfeindes schwierig war und vielfach feindselig betrachtet wurde.
Multifunctional Ceramic Filter Systems for Metal Melt Filtration: Towards Zero-Defect Materials (Springer Series in Materials Science #337)
by Horst Biermann Christos G. AnezirisThis open access book covers novel techniques and materials for removing inclusions in metallic melts, resulting in significant improvements to the purity, quality, and materials properties of the cast metal product. It looks at an entirely new generation of intelligent filter materials and filter systems with functionalized surfaces for removing solid and liquid inclusions such as deoxidation products, sulfides, and nitrides carbide from metallic melts. This collection of contributed chapters addresses the overarching goal of the production of lightweight structures and high-demand construction materials within an overall substantially cleaner and more sustainable global supply chain. The chapters cover a diverse array of topics ranging in scope from the development of ceramic foam filters, to in-situ x-ray and optical characterization techniques, as well as advanced modelling of 3D-printed filter structures. Additionally, the book features a number of contributions directly transferable to industrial applications related to the clean metal casting technologies of aluminium and steel alloys.
Polymer Composites: Fundamentals and Applications (Engineering Materials)
by Santosh K. Tiwari Srikanta Moharana Bibhuti B. Sahu Arpan Kumar NayakThis book highlights the fundamentals and recent advances for developing novel polymer composites for various applications, including 3D printing, automotive, textiles, agriculture, nanogenerators, energy storage and biomedical engineering. It presents various facile processing techniques to prepare polymeric composites with attractive properties like mechanical strength, flexibility, thermal & electrical performances for end used applications from bench to field. This in-sight of properties, performances and utility will lead to technological applications of polymer composites. It provides a platform for evolving and expanding technological solutions for challenges in the contemporary world, and presents a concrete path for advancement in this domain of polymer composite for professionals, researchers, material scientists, and students.
Advances in Nonlinear Dynamics, Volume II: Proceedings of the Third International Nonlinear Dynamics Conference (NODYCON 2023) (NODYCON Conference Proceedings Series)
by Walter LacarbonaraThis second of three volumes presents papers from the third series of NODYCON to be held in June of 2023. The conference papers reflect a broad coverage of topics in nonlinear dynamics, both traditionally placed in established streams of research as well as they stand as newly explored and emerging venues of research. These include• Multi-scale dynamics: multiple time/space scales, large system dynamics• Experimental dynamics: benchmark experiments, experimental methods,instrumentation techniques, measurements in harsh environments, experimentalvalidation of nonlinear models• Reduced-order modeling: center manifold reduction, nonlinear normal modes, normalforms• Systems with time and/or space delays• Nonlinear interactions in multi-dof systems: parametric vibrations, multiple external andautoparametric resonances.• Computational techniques: efficient algorithms, use ofsymbolic manipulators, integrationof symbolic manipulation and numerical methods, use of parallel processors.• Nonlinear system identification: parametric/nonparametric identification, data-drivenidentification• Multibody dynamics: rigid and flexible multibody system dynamics, impact and contactmechanics, tire modeling, railroad vehicle dynamics, biomechanics applications,computational multibody dynamics• Fluid/structure interaction• Nonlinear wave propagation in discrete and continuous media
Advances in Nonlinear Dynamics, Volume III: Proceedings of the Third International Nonlinear Dynamics Conference (NODYCON 2023) (NODYCON Conference Proceedings Series)
by Walter LacarbonaraThis third of three volumes presents papers from the third series of NODYCON to be held in June of 2023. The conference papers reflect a broad coverage of topics in nonlinear dynamics, both traditionally placed in established streams of research as well as they stand as newly explored and emerging venues of research. These include• Multi-scale dynamics: multiple time/space scales, large system dynamics• Experimental dynamics: benchmark experiments, experimental methods,instrumentation techniques, measurements in harsh environments, experimentalvalidation of nonlinear models• Reduced-order modeling: center manifold reduction, nonlinear normal modes, normalforms• Systems with time and/or space delays• Nonlinear interactions in multi-dof systems: parametric vibrations, multiple external andautoparametric resonances.• Computational techniques: efficient algorithms, use ofsymbolic manipulators, integrationof symbolic manipulation and numerical methods, use of parallel processors.• Nonlinear system identification: parametric/nonparametric identification, data-drivenidentification• Multibody dynamics: rigid and flexible multibody system dynamics, impact and contactmechanics, tire modeling, railroad vehicle dynamics, biomechanics applications,computational multibody dynamics• Fluid/structure interaction• Nonlinear wave propagation in discrete and continuous media
Proceedings of the Indian Geotechnical Conference 2022 Volume 2: Geotechnics: Learning, Evaluation, Analysis and Practice (GEOLEAP) (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering #477)
by Deepankar Choudhury Anil Joseph Babu T. Jose Dipak Kumar Sahoo Eun Chul Shin Rahul R. PaiThis book comprises the select proceedings of the Indian Geotechnical Conference (IGC) 2022. The contents focus on recent developments in geotechnical engineering for a sustainable world. The book covers behaviour of soils and soil–structure interaction, soil stabilization, ground improvement and land reclamation, shallow and deep foundations, geotechnical, geological and geophysical investigation, rock engineering, tunnelling and underground structures, slope stability, landslides and liquefaction, earth retaining structures and deep excavations, geosynthetics engineering, geo-environmental engineering, sustainable geotechnics and landfill design, geo-hydrology, dam and embankment engineering, earthquake geotechnical engineering, transportation geotechnics, forensic geotechnical engineering and retrofitting of geotechnical structures, offshore geotechnics, marine geology and sub-sea site investigation, computational, analytical and numerical modelling, reliability in geotechnical engineering. The contents of this book are useful to researchers and professionals alike.
Orfeo: A Novel
by Richard PowersFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory, an emotionally charged novel inspired by the myth of Orpheus. "Bravo, Richard Powers, for hitting so many high notes with Orfeo and contributing to the fraction of books that really matter." —Heller McAlpin, NPR In Orfeo, composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police on his doorstep. His home microbiology lab—the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to find music in surprising patterns—has aroused the suspicions of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid, Els turns fugitive and hatches a plan to transform this disastrous collision with the security state into an unforgettable work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around it.
The Montevideo Brief: A Thomas Grey Novel (A Thomas Grey Novel #0)
by J. H. Gelernter“A swashbuckling tale of adventure, piracy, and international intrigue.… A treat for spy novel junkies and devotees of British history alike.” —Kirkus Reviews A secret treaty will determine whether England can survive against Napoleon, and Captain Grey races across the Atlantic to intercept a treasure fleet. Vienna—June 1804. At the glittering debut of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, a Spanish diplomat meets with Captain Thomas Grey, agent of His Majesty’s Secret Service. In exchange for a gigantic bribe, the Spaniard discloses Spain’s darkest secret the actual terms of the Treaty of San Ildefonso with France. Spain’s neutrality in Napoleon’s war on Britain is only a ruse to keep the British navy from attacking the great treasure-armada now gathering in South America. Spanish warships will depart Montevideo, Uruguay, carrying 2,000 tons of gold; when the gold is safely in Madrid, Spain will declare war on Britain and ally with France to divide the British Empire between them. Britain’s only hope is to sink or capture the treasure fleet, and the responsibility of delivering that blow falls to Grey. As Jack Aubrey would have said in such a crisis, "There is not a moment to be lost!"
Beethoven: Studies In The Creative Processes
by Lewis LockwoodAn authoritative work offering a fresh look at Beethoven’s life, career, and milieu. “Magisterial” —New York Review of Books. This brilliant portrayal weaves Beethoven's musical and biographical stories into their historical and artistic contexts. Lewis Lockwood sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and examines their effects on his music. "The result is that rarest of achievements, a profoundly humane work of scholarship that will—or at least should—appeal to specialists and generalists in equal measure" (Terry Teachout, Commentary). Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. "Lewis Lockwood has written a biography of Beethoven in which the hours that Beethoven spent writing music—that is, his methods of working, his interest in contemporary and past composers, the development of his musical intentions and ideals, his inner musical life, in short—have been properly integrated with the external events of his career. The book is invaluable." —Charles Rosen "Lockwood writes with poetry and clarity—a rare combination. I especially enjoyed the connection that he makes between the works of Beethoven and the social and political context of their creation—we feel closer to Beethoven the man without losing our wonder at his genius." —Emanuel Ax "The magnum opus of an illustrious Beethoven scholar. From now on, we will all turn to Lockwood's Beethoven: The Music and the Life for insight and instruction." —Maynard Solomon "This is truly the Beethoven biography for the intelligent reader. Lewis Lockwood speaks in his preface of writing on Beethoven's works at 'a highly accessible descriptive level.' But he goes beyond that. His discussion of the music, based on a deep knowledge of its context and the composition processes behind it, explains, elucidates, and is not afraid to evaluate; while the biographical chapters, clearly and unfussily written, and taking full account of the newest thinking on Beethoven, align closely with the musical discussion. The result is a deeply perceptive book that comes as close as can be to presenting the man and the music as a unity."—Stanley Sadie, editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians "Impressive for both its scholarship and its fresh insights, this landmark work—fully accessible to the interested amateur—immediately takes its place among the essential references on this composer and his music."—Bob Goldfarb, KUSC-FM 91.5 "Lockwood writes like an angel: lucid, enthusiastic, stirring and enlightening. Beethoven has found his ablest interpreter."—Jonathan Keates, The Spectator "There is no better survey of Beethoven's compositions for a wide audience."—Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times Book Review
Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds And How To Build Immunity
by Sander van der LindenWinner of the 2024 Harvard Goldsmith Book Prize • Winner of the 2024 Nautilus Book Award • A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read • A Financial Times Best Book of the Year • One of Nature’s best science picks • One of Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Books of 2023 Informed by decades of research and on-the-ground experience advising governments and tech companies, Foolproof is the definitive guide to navigating the misinformation age. From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being—yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. In Foolproof, one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it’s very hard to cure. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold. But we aren’t helpless. As van der Linden shows based on award-winning original research, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of “prebunking”: inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, van der Linden gives readers practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion—whether at scale or around their own dinner table.
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
by Michael LewisNew York Times Bestseller For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19. The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work. Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.
The Overstory: A Novel
by Richard PowersWinner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year "The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period." —Ann Patchett The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
Let them Eat Tweets: How The Right Rules In An Age Of Extreme Inequality
by Jacob S. Hacker Paul PiersonA New York Times Editors’ Choice An “essential” (Jane Mayer) account of the dangerous marriage of plutocratic economic priorities and right-wing populist appeals — and how it threatens the pillars of American democracy. In Let Them Eat Tweets, best-selling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that despite the rhetoric of Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, and other right-wing “populists,” the Republican Party came to serve its plutocratic masters to a degree without precedent in modern global history. To maintain power while serving the 0.1 percent, the GOP has relied on increasingly incendiary racial and cultural appeals to its almost entirely white base. Calling this dangerous hybrid “plutocratic populism,” Hacker and Pierson show how, over the last forty years, reactionary plutocrats and right-wing populists have become the two faces of a party that now actively undermines democracy to achieve its goals against the will of the majority of Americans. Based on decades of research and featuring a new epilogue about the intensification of GOP radicalism after the 2020 election, Let Them Eat Tweets authoritatively explains the doom loop of tax cutting and fearmongering that defines the Republican Party—and reveals how the rest of us can fight back.
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems
by Joy HarjoA musical, magical, resilient volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In these poems, the joys and struggles of the everyday are played against the grinding politics of being human. Beginning in a hotel room in the dark of a distant city, we travel through history and follow the memory of the Trail of Tears from the bend in the Tallapoosa River to a place near the Arkansas River. Stomp dance songs, blues, and jazz ballads echo throughout. Lost ancestors are recalled. Resilient songs are born, even as they grieve the loss of their country. Called a "magician and a master" (San Francisco Chronicle), Joy Harjo is at the top of her form in Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings. Finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize
The Diaspora Sonnets
by Oliver de la PazLONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY For fans of Diane Seuss and Victoria Chang, a coruscating collection that eloquently invokes the perseverance and myth of the Filipino diaspora in America. In 1972, after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, Oliver de la Paz’s father, in a last fit of desperation to leave the Philippines, threw his papers at an immigration clerk, hoping to get them stamped. He was prepared to leave, having already quit his job and having exchanged pesos for dollars; but he couldn’t anticipate the challenges of the migratory lifestyle he and his family would soon adopt in America. Their search for a sense of “home” and boundless feelings of deracination are evocatively explored by award-winning poet de la Paz in this formally inventive collection of sonnets. Broken into three parts—“The Implacable West,” “Landscape with Work, Rest, and Silence,” and “Dwelling Music”—The Diaspora Sonnets eloquently invokes the perseverance and bold possibilities of de la Paz’s displaced family as they strove for stability and belonging. In order to establish her medical practice, de la Paz’s mother had to relocate often for residencies. As they moved from state to state his father worked to support the family. Sonnets thus flit from coast to coast, across prairies and deserts, along the way musing on shadowy dreams of a faraway country. The sonnet proves formally malleable as de la Paz breaks and rejoins its tradition throughout this collection, embarking on a broader conversation about what fits and how one adapts—from the restrained use of rhyme in “Diaspora Sonnet in the Summer with the River Water Low” and carefully metered “Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else” to the hybridized “Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze.” A series of “Chain Migration” poems viscerally punctuate the sonnets, giving witness to the labor and sacrifice of the immigrant experience, as do a series of hauntingly beautiful pantoums. Written with the deft touch of a virtuoso and the compassion of a loving son, The Diaspora Sonnets powerfully captures the peculiar pangs of a diaspora “that has left and is forever leaving.”
Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders And The Battle For The United Mine Workers Of America
by Mark A. BradleyA vivid account of “one of the most shocking episodes in organized labor’s blood-soaked history” (Steve Halvonik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the early hours of New Year’s Eve 1969, in the small soft coal mining borough of Clarksville, Pennsylvania, longtime trade union insider Joseph “Jock” Yablonski and his wife and daughter were brutally murdered in their old stone farmhouse. Behind the assassination was the corrupt president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), Tony Boyle, who had long embezzled UMWA funds, silenced intra-union dissent, and served the interests of Big Coal companies—and would do anything to maintain power. The most infamous crimes in the history of American labor unions, the Yablonski murders catalyzed the first successful rank-and-file takeover of a major labor union in modern US history. Blood Runs Coal is an extraordinary portrait of one of the nation’s major unions on the brink of historical change.
Crazy Brave: A Memoir
by Joy HarjoA “raw and honest” (Los Angeles Review of Books) memoir from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.
Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study Of Sex, Power, And Assault On Campus
by Jennifer S. Hirsch Shamus Khan“Profoundly eye-opening.… Hirsch and Khan present a novel model for explaining and responding to campus sexual assault.” —Claire M. Renzetti, Science Research has shown that by the time they graduate, as many as one in three women and almost one in six men will have been sexually assaulted. But why is sexual assault such a common feature of college life, and what can be done to prevent it? Drawing on the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) at Columbia University, the most comprehensive study to date of sexual assault on a campus, Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan present an entirely new framework that emphasizes sexual assault’s social roots, based on the powerful concepts of “sexual projects,” “sexual citizenship,” and “sexual geographies.” Empathic, insightful, and far-ranging, Sexual Citizens transforms our understanding of sexual assault and offers a roadmap for how to address it.
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
by Neil deGrasse Tyson"[Tyson] tackles a great range of subjects…with great humor, humility, and—most important—humanity." —Entertainment Weekly Loyal readers of the monthly "Universe" essays in Natural History magazine have long recognized Neil deGrasse Tyson's talent for guiding them through the mysteries of the cosmos with clarity and enthusiasm. Bringing together more than forty of Tyson's favorite essays, Death by Black Hole explores a myriad of cosmic topics, from what it would be like to be inside a black hole to the movie industry's feeble efforts to get its night skies right. One of America's best-known astrophysicists, Tyson is a natural teacher who simplifies the complexities of astrophysics while sharing his infectious fascination for our universe.
Mad at the World: A Life Of John Steinbeck
by William SouderWinner of the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2020 in Nonfiction A resonant biography of America’s most celebrated novelist of the Great Depression. The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Pulitzer Prize finalist William Souder explores Steinbeck’s long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California’s limitless bounty, fascinated by the guileless decency of the downtrodden denizens of Cannery Row, and appalled by the country’s refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice—paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy—setting him apart from the writers of the so-called "lost generation." A man by turns quick-tempered, compassionate, and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck could be a difficult person to like. Obsessed with privacy, he was mistrustful of people. Next to writing, his favorite things were drinking and womanizing and getting married, which he did three times. And while he claimed indifference about success, his mid-career books and movie deals made him a lot of money—which passed through his hands as quickly as it came in. And yet Steinbeck also took aim at the corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality, and the urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive public debate to this day. Steinbeck remains our great social realist novelist, the writer who gave the dispossessed and the disenfranchised a voice in American life and letters. Eloquent, nuanced, and deeply researched, Mad at the World captures the full measure of the man and his work.
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, And How We Live
by Marlene Zuk“With…evidence from recent genetic and anthropological research, [Zuk] offers a dose of paleoreality.” —Erin Wayman, Science News We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence. Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized, meaning that we are not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors. Contrary to what the glossy magazines would have us believe, we do not enjoy potato chips because they crunch just like the insects our forebears snacked on. And women don’t go into shoe-shopping frenzies because their prehistoric foremothers gathered resources for their clans. As Zuk compellingly argues, such beliefs incorrectly assume that we’re stuck—finished evolving—and have been for tens of thousands of years. She draws on fascinating evidence that examines everything from adults’ ability to drink milk to the texture of our ear wax to show that we’ve actually never stopped evolving. Our nostalgic visions of an ideal evolutionary past in which we ate, lived, and reproduced as we were “meant to” fail to recognize that we were never perfectly suited to our environment. Evolution is about change, and every organism is full of trade-offs. From debunking the caveman diet to unraveling gender stereotypes, Zuk delivers an engrossing analysis of widespread paleofantasies and the scientific evidence that undermines them, all the while broadening our understanding of our origins and what they can really tell us about our present and our future.