- The Annotated Origin
- Hardcover 2009
- Blackett
- This is a lively and compact biography of P. M. S. Blackett, one of the most brilliant and controversial physicists of the twentieth century. Nobel laureate, leader of operational research during the Second World War, scientific advisor to the British government, President of the Royal Society, member of the House of Lords, Blackett was also denounced as a Stalinist apologist for opposing American and British development of atomic weapons, subjected to FBI surveillance, and named as a fellow traveler on George Orwell's infamous list.
- Hardcover 2004
- The Dilemmas of an Upright Man
- In this moving and eloquent portrait, Heilbron describes how the founder of quantum theory rose to the pinnacle of German science. With great understanding, he shows how Max Planck suffered morally and intellectually as his lifelong habit of service to his country and to physics was confronted by the realities of World War I and the brutalities of the Third Reich.
- Paperback 2000
- Edward Teller
- In the story of the man dubbed "the father of the H-bomb," told here in greater depth and detail than ever before, Goodchild unravels the complex web of harsh early experiences, character flaws, and personal and professional frustrations that lay behind the paradox of "the real Dr. Strangelove."
- Hardcover 2004
- Einstein and Oppenheimer
- Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, two iconic scientists of the twentieth century, belonged to different generations, with the boundary marked by the advent of quantum mechanics. By exploring how these men differed—in their worldview, in their work, and in their day—this book provides powerful insights into the lives of two critical figures and into the scientific culture of their times.
- Hardcover 2008
- Francis Parkman
Best known as author of The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman is now increasingly recognized as one of the greatest nineteenth&ndashcentury American historians. Parkman, more than anyone else, first grasped the tragic element implicit in our pioneer heritage and placed the opening up of the great North American wilderness in broad historical perspective.
- Paperback
- Journey to the Ants
- Richly illustrated and delightfully written, Journey to the Ants combines autobiography and scientific lore to convey the excitement and pleasure the study of ants can offer. The authors interweave their personal adventures with the social lives of ants, building a remarkable account of these abundant insects' evolutionary achievement.
- Hardcover 1994 / Paperback 1998
- Klaus Fuchs, Atom Spy
- Hardcover 1987 / Paperback
- Making Genes, Making Waves
- A thoroughly engrossing memoir that recounts Beckwith's halting steps toward scientific triumphs--among them, the discovery of the genetic element that turns genes on--as well as his emergence as a world-class political activist, Making Genes, Making Waves is also a compelling history of the major controversies in genetics over the last thirty years.
- Hardcover 2002
- The Man Who Invented the Chromosome
- Harman follows Darlington's path from bleak prospects to world fame, showing how, within the most miniscule of worlds, he sought answers to the biggest questions--how species originate, how variation occurs, how Nature makes her way from deep past to unknown future. But Darlington did not stop there: Chromosomes held within their tiny confines untold, dark truths about man and his culture. This passionate conviction led the once famed Darlington down a path of rebuke, isolation, and finally obscurity.
- Hardcover 2004
- Mean and Lowly Things
- In 2005 Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. This book is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest.
- Hardcover 2008
- Percival Lowell
- This engaging and wide-ranging biography casts new light on the life and careers of Percival Lowell. Scion of a wealthy Boston family, elder brother of Harvard President Lawrence and poet Amy, Percival Lowell is best remembered as the astronomer who claimed that intelligent beings had built a network of canals on Mars. But the Lowell who emerges in David Strauss's finely textured portrait was a polymath: not just a self-taught astronomer, but a shrewd investor, skilled photographer, inspired public speaker, and adventure-travel writer whose popular books contributed to an awakening American interest in Japan.
- Hardcover 2001
- Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827
- Often referred to as the Newton of France, Pierre Simon Laplace has been called the greatest scientist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In this compact biography, Hahn illuminates the man in his historical setting. Elegantly written, Pierre Simon Laplace reflects a lifetime of thinking and research by a distinguished historian of science on the fortunes of a singularly important figure in the annals of Enlightenment science.
- Hardcover 2005
- Rabi, Scientist and Citizen
- This is a welcome reissue with a new Preface of Rigden's stellar biography of I. I. Rabi, one the most influential physicists of the twentieth century. Rabi's discovery of the magnetic resonance method won him the Nobel Prize in 1944 and stimulated research leading to, among other things, refinements in quantum electrodynamics, refined molecular beam methods, radio astronomy with the hydrogen 21-cm line, atomic clocks, and solid state masers.
- Paperback 2000
- Suppressing the Diseases of Animals and Man
- Theobald Smith (1859-1934) is widely considered to be America's first significant medical scientist and the world's leading comparative pathologist. Entering the new field of infectious diseases as a young medical graduate, his research in bacteriology, immunology, and parasitology produced many important and basic discoveries. Suppressing the Diseases of Animals and Man, the first book-length biography of Smith to appear in print, is based primarily on personal papers and correspondence that have remained in the possession of his family until now.
- Hardcover 2003
- Walter B. Cannon, Science and Society
- This second volume completes the story begun in Walter B. Cannon: The Life and Times of a Young Scientist, tracing the middle and late years of one of America's most distinguished medical scientists. This volume also recounts Cannon's work with society on a broader scale, including defending the practice of animal experimentation, the rescue of European medical émigrés fleeing the Nazis and Fascists, and providing medical aid to the Spanish Loyalists and to China. Moreover, as a senior statesman of science, Cannon helped guide policies and programs that shaped the future of medical research, practice, and education.
- Hardcover 2000
- The Worlds of Herman Kahn
- Herman Kahn was the only nuclear strategist in America who might have made a living as a standup comedian. In telling his story, Ghamari-Tabrizi captures an era that is still very much with us--a time whose innocence, gruesome nuclear humor, and outrageous but deadly serious visions of annihilation have their echoes in the "known unknowns and unknown unknowns" that guide policymakers in our own embattled world.
- Hardcover 2005