Biography & Autobiography : Science & Technology

100 billion dollars. That is the annual cost of gun violence in America according to the authors of this landmark study, a book destined to change the way Americans view the problem of gun-related violence. Until now researchers have assessed the burden imposed by gunshot injuries and deaths in terms of medical costs and lost productivity. Here, economists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig widen the lens, developing a framework to calculate the full costs borne by Americans in a society where both gun violence and its ever-present threat mandate responses that touch every aspect of our lives. All of us, no matter where we reside or how we live, share the costs of gun violence. Whether waiting in line to pass through airport security or paying taxes for the protection of public officials; whether buying a transparent book bag for our children to meet their school's post-Columbine regulations or subsidizing an urban trauma center, the steps we take are many and the expenditures enormous. Cook and Ludwig reveal that investments in prevention, avoidance, and harm reduction, both public and private, constitute a far greater share of the gun-violence burden than previously recognized. They also employ extensive survey data to measure the subjective costs of living in a society where there is risk of being shot or losing a loved one or neighbor to gunfire. At the same time, they demonstrate that the problem of gun violence is not intractable. Their review of the available evidence suggests that there are both additional gun regulations and targeted law enforcement measures that will help. This urgently needed book documents for the first time how gun violence diminishes the quality of life for everyone in America. In doing so, it will move the debate over gun violence past symbolic politics to a direct engagement with the costs and benefits of policies that hold promise for reducing gun violence and may even pay for themselves. more...

Price: $16.00

Hard Air a book about extraordinary flying—flying under conditions that keep fighters on the carrier deck and rockets on the launch pad—a book about rescue missions and long, lonely flights to gather urgently needed information, about flights to places where no one should be flying: into hurricanes, firestorms, and deep, engine-killing cold. As a pilot himself, W. Scott Olsen brings to these tales a sense of wonder and adventure as well as a genuine, firsthand understanding of the dangers and rigors of such flying. more...

Price: $19.95

Although biography as a genre has increasingly become a topic of scholarly inquiry, the genre of scientific biography; those biographies of scientists, engineers and medical doctors; has largely been overlooked. It is to remedy this situation that this volume has been conceived. Borrowing approaches and methods from cultural studies and the history, philosophy and sociology of science, the contributors to this volume cover a broad range of subjects, periods and locations. By presenting a rich diversity of essays, the volume is able to chart the reoccurring conceptual problems and devices that have influenced scientific biographies from the seventeenth century to the present day. more...

Price: $114.95

Definitive, concise, and very interesting... From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the Very Interesting People series provides authoritative bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures - people whose influence and importance have stood the test of time. Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. - more...

Price: $9.00

Desmond Bernal - or 'Sage', as he was known, was an extraordinary man by any account - a brilliant scientist, a fervent Marxist, and a colourful, bohemian figure. This biography includes previously unpublished material from his diaries, and sheds new light on his international influence during both WWII and the ensuing peace movement. - ;J. D. Bernal, known as 'Sage', was an extraordinary man and multifaceted character. A scientist of dazzling intellectual ability and a leading figure in the development of X-ray crystallography, he was a polymath, a fervent Marxist, and much admired worldwide. Although he himself never won a Nobel Prize, several of his distinguished students went on to do so, including Dorothy Hodgkin, Max Perutz, and Aaron Klug. Andrew Brown has had unprecedented access to Bernal's papers and. diaries, and this biography includes previously unpublished material on Bernal's role during the Second World War. Bernal not only changed the course of science, but was witness to (and often a participant in) historical events (the Easter Rebellion, the Great Strike, the anti-fascist movement and pacifist causes, civil defence, RAF bombing strategy, the planning for D-Day, post-war rebuilding, and nuclear weapons). One of the few men familiar with Downing Street, the White House and the Kremlin, he left fascinating accounts of Churchill, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Louis Mountbatten and Picasso, as well as the. century's greatest scientists. Brown's compelling account covers all aspects of Bernal's brilliant, colourful, and Bohemian life, and introduces this towering figure of early 20th century science to a wide audience. - ;Apart from taking its place as the best existing account of Bernal's life and work, Brown's book provides an inspiring introduction to the academic culture of the 1920s and 1930s, a period which to those living through it seemed to overflow with hope, challenge, and passion. - Richard Barnett, Lancet; more...

Price: $35.00