Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: Film is considered by some to be the most dominant art form of the twentieth century. It is many things, but it has become above all a means of telling stories through images and sounds. The stories are often offered to us as quite false, frankly and beautifully fantastic, and they are sometimes insistently said to be true. But they are stories in both cases, and there are very few films, even in…
Скачать книгу (размер 687 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 136) Аннотация: Every atom of our bodies has been part of a star. Our very own star, the Sun, is crucial to the development and sustainability of life on Earth. This Very Short Introduction presents a modern, authoritative examination of how stars live, producing all the chemical elements beyond helium, and how they die, sometimes spectacularly, to end as remnants such as black holes. Andrew King shows how…
Скачать книгу (размер 850 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 168) Аннотация: Robotics is a key technology in the modern world. Robots are a well-established part of manufacturing and warehouse automation, assembling cars or washing machines, and, for example, moving goods to and from storage racks for Internet mail order. More recently robots have taken their first steps into homes and hospitals, and seen spectacular success in planetary exploration. Yet, despite these…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: Plants form a fundamental element of the biosphere, and the evolution of plants has directly affected the evolution of animal life and the evolution of the Earth's climate. Plants have also become essential to humans not only in the form of cereal crops, fruit, and vegetables, but in their many other uses in wood and paper, and in providing medicines. Their aesthetic importance too in our parks…
Скачать книгу (размер 809 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 160) Аннотация: Magnetism is a strange force, mysteriously attracting one object to another apparently through empty space. It has been claimed as a great healer, with magnetic therapies being proposed over the centuries and still popular today. Why are its mysterious important to solve? In this Very Short Introduction, Stephen J. Blundell explains why. For centuries magnetism has been used for various exploits;…
Скачать книгу (размер 728 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 144) Аннотация: Mathematics is a fundamental human activity that can be practised and understood in a multitude of ways; indeed, mathematical ideas themselves are far from being fixed, but are adapted and changed by their passage across periods and cultures. In this Very Short Introduction, Jacqueline Stedall explores the rich historical and cultural diversity of mathematical endeavour from the distant past to…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: Engineering is part of almost everything we do — from the water we drink and the food we eat, to the buildings we live in and the roads and railways we travel on. In this Very Short Introduction, David Blockley explores the nature and practice of engineering, its history, its scope, and its relationship with art, craft, science, and technology. He considers the role of engineering in the modern…
Скачать книгу (размер 809 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 160) Аннотация: Civil engineering produces the structures of all human settlements worldwide and is a vital discipline for many aspects modern life, underlying housing, transport, and our major areas and buildings related to work, study, and leisure. In this Very Short Introduction, David Muir Wood demonstrates the nature and importance of civil engineering not only in the history of civilization and…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: It is a striking aspect of contemporary western culture that, alongside a decline in traditional religious affiliations, there has been a growing interest in spirituality and the use of the word in a variety of contexts. Indeed, spirituality is sometimes contrasted favorably with religion, which many people see (for good or ill) as an off-putting amalgam of dogma, moralism, institutions,…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: China's decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution shook the politics of China and the world. Even as we approach its fiftieth anniversary, the movement remains so contentious that the Chinese Communist Party still forbids fully open investigation of its origins, development, and conclusion. Drawing upon a vital trove of scholarship, memoirs, and popular culture, this Very Short…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: Defining 'magic' is a maddening task. Over the last century numerous philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and theologians have attempted to pin down its essential meaning, sometimes analysing it in such complex and abstruse depth that it all but loses its sense altogether. For this reason, many people often shy away from providing a detailed definition, assuming it is generally understood…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: Throughout history plague has been the cause of many major catastrophes. It was responsible for the Black Death of 1348 and the Great Plague of London in 1665, and for devastating epidemics much earlier and much later, in the Mediterranean in the sixth century, and in China and India between the 1890s and 1920s. Today, it has become a metaphor for other epidemic disasters which appear to threaten…
Скачать книгу (размер 850 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 168) Аннотация: The rise and fall of the Roman Republic occupies a special place in the history of Western civilization. From humble beginnings on the seven hills beside the Tiber, the city of Rome grew to dominate the ancient Mediterranean. Led by her senatorial aristocracy, Republican armies defeated Carthage and the successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great, and brought the surrounding peoples to east and…
Скачать книгу (размер 646 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 128) Аннотация: Metaphysics is one of the traditional four main branches of philosophy, alongside ethics, logic and epistemology. It is also an area that continues to attract and hold a fascination for many people yet it is associated with being complex and abstract. For some it is associated with the mystical or religious. For others it is known through the metaphysical poets who talk of love and spirituality.…
Скачать книгу (размер 687 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 136) Аннотация: What is real? has been one of the key questions of philosophy since its beginning in antiquity. It is a question that, due to such films as The Matrix, has also made its way into popular culture. But it is not just a question philosophers ask. It is also asked by scientists when they investigate whether the fundamental constituents of matter are actually 'out there' or just a mere abstraction…
Скачать книгу (размер 728 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 144) Аннотация: Trust is indispensable, yet it can be dangerous. Without trusting others, we cannot function in society, or even stay alive for very long, but being overly-trustful can be a bad strategy too. Trust is pragmatic, but it also has a moral dimension: trustworthiness is a virtue, and well-placed trust benefits us all. In this Very Short Introduction, Katherine Hawley explores the key ideas about trust…
Скачать книгу (размер 769 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 152) Аннотация: Compelling and accessible, this Very Short Introduction challenges the perception of borders as passive lines on a map, revealing them instead to be integral forces in the economic, social, political, and environmental processes that shape our lives. Highlighting the historical development and continued relevance of borders, Alexander C. Diener and Joshua Hagen offer a powerful counterpoint to…
Скачать книгу (размер 157 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 32) Аннотация: Miss Cluck has some exciting news for her class. There is going to be an end-of-term show! All the animals rehearse tirelessly and soon the day of the show arrives. But then — disaster! — Miss Webb and her nursery class who should be coming to watch the show are stuck in the mud. How will the show go on? Boris has an idea. He dashes out (in his superhero costume), finds the stricken tractor, and…
Скачать книгу (размер 565 Kb , формат fb2) Аннотация: Gatsby's mansion on Long Island blazes with light, and the beautiful, the wealthy, and the famous drive out from New York to drink Gatsby's champagne and to party all night long. But Jay Gatsby, the owner of all this wealth, wants only one thing — to find again the woman of his dreams, the woman he has held in his heart and his memory for five long years. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's…
Скачать книгу (размер 279 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 56) Аннотация: In Sweden, nobody wants a troll to come into their garden, but how do you stop them? On a lonely road at night in Oman, Abdul's car breaks down and he takes a ride with a stranger, but perhaps it is safer to walk. In England some young people play a scary game, and in Asia, a soldier returns home — at last. Every country in the world has stories about ghosts and spirits and monsters of one kind…