Julian Elfer

For decades, proponents of artificial intelligence have argued that computers will soon be doing everything that a human mind can do. Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level, but do they understand the game as we do? Can a computer eventually do everything a human mind can do? In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be...

The final book in the action-packed, military science fiction Lightship Chronicles series. Peter Cochrane and his wife, Karina, have been married less than a year. And although things have been quiet in relation to the old Empire during that time, they're about to get a lot hotter. They find themselves on a diplomatic mission to Korivar, an old ally of Pendax, a new member of the Union. But during their mission, the government of Korivar attacks Peter's...

Celebrated historian John Hirst offers a fascinating exploration of the qualities that made Europe a world-changing civilization. The Shortest History of Europe begins with a rapid overview of European civilization, describing its birth from an unlikely mixture of classical learning and Christianity and German warrior culture. Over the centuries, this unstable blend produced highly distinctive characters-pious knights and belligerent popes, romantics...

This book presents a global history of the biological sciences from ancient times to today, providing needed perspective on the development of biological thought while shedding light on the field's upheavals and key breakthroughs through the ages. Michel Morange brings to life the dynamic interplay of science, society, and biology's many subdisciplines, enabling listeners to better appreciate the interdisciplinary exchanges that have shaped the field...

Scandal, shock, and rivalry all have negative connotations, don't they? They can be catastrophic to businesses and individual careers. A whiff of scandal can turn a politician into a smoking ruin. But these potentially disastrous "negatives" can and have spurred the world of fine art to new heights. A look at the history of art tells us that rivalries have, in fact, not only benefited the course of art, from ancient times to the present, but have...

A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights? Are they laid out definitively in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the US Bill of Rights? Are they items on a checklist—dignity, justice, progress, standard of living, health care, housing? In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights...

A provocative account showing that "China"-and its 5,000 years of unified history-is a national myth, created only a century ago with a political agenda that persists to this day. China's current leadership lays claim to a 5,000-year-old civilization, but "China" as a unified country and people, Bill Hayton argues, was created far more recently by a small group of intellectuals. In this compelling account, Hayton shows how China's present-day geopolitical...

Author of The Great War, as well as celebrated accounts of the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele, Jutland, and Gallipoli, historian Peter Hart now turns to World War One's final months. Much has been made of-and written about-August 1914. There has been comparatively little focus on August 1918 and the lead-up to November. Because of the fixation on the Great War's opening moves, and the great battles that followed over the course of the next four...

This is a history of the King James Version of the Bible (known in Britain as the Authorized Version) over the four hundred years from its remote beginnings to the present day. Gordon Campbell, expert in Renaissance literatures, tells the fascinating and complex story of how this translation came to be commissioned, of who the translators were, and of how the translation was accomplished. The story does not end with the printing of that first edition,...

The iconic Periodic Table of the Elements is now in its most satisfyingly elegant form. This is because all the 'gaps' corresponding to missing elements in the seventh row, or period, have recently been filled and the elements named. But where do these names come from? For some, usually the most recent, the origins are quite obvious, but in others-even well-known elements such as oxygen or nitrogen-the roots are less clear. Here, Peter Wothers explores...