A Pirate of Exquisite Mind

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind PDF Author: Diana Preston
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0552772100
Category : Explorers
Languages : en
Pages : 516

Book Description
The authors reveal the life of William Dampier, explorer, naturalist, and pirate-genius who inspired Darwin, Defoe, and Cook.

Memoirs of a Buccaneer

Memoirs of a Buccaneer PDF Author: William Dampier
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486145735
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
This fascinating travel and adventure book tells of pirate life and offers a rare look at the 17th-century botany and anthropology of Central and South America and the East Indies. 7 illustrations.

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind PDF Author: Diana Preston
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802718132
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
Darwin took his books aboard the Beagle. Swift and Defoe used his experiences as inspiration in writing Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. Captain Cook relied on his observations while voyaging around the world. Coleridge called him a genius and "a man of exquisite mind." In the history of exploration, nobody has ventured further than Englishman William Dampier. Yet while the exploits of Cook, Shackleton, and a host of legendary explorers have been widely chronicled, those of perhaps the greatest are virtually invisible today-an omission that Diana and Michael Preston have redressed in this vivid, compelling biography. As a young man Dampier spent several years in the swashbuckling company of buccaneers in the Caribbean. At a time when surviving one voyage across the Pacific was cause for celebration, Dampier ultimately journeyed three times around the world; his bestselling books about his experiences were a sensation, influencing generations of scientists, explorers, and writers. He was the first to deduce that winds cause currents and the first to produce wind maps across the world, surpassing even the work of Edmund Halley. He introduced the concept of the "sub-species" that Darwin later built into his theory of evolution, and his description of the breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh's voyage on the Bounty. Dampier reached Australia 80 years before Cook, and he later led the first formal expedition of science and discovery there. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind restores William Dampier to his rightful place in history-one of the pioneers on whose insights our understanding of the natural world was built.

Before the Fall-Out

Before the Fall-Out PDF Author: Diana Preston
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0552770868
Category : Atomic bomb
Languages : en
Pages : 612

Book Description
Spanning fifty years, Before the Fall-Out tells the full story of how an exhilarating quest to unravel the secrets of the material world produced the knowledge of how to destroy it.And of how a scientific adventure shared openly between nuclear physicists from many different nations transmuted into a secretive wartime race for the ultimate weapon of mass destruction - the atom bomb. As much as on the science, Before the Fall-Out focuses on the 'human chain reaction' - the intertwined lives of the many scientists of many nations whose compulsive curiosity led, however unwittingly, ultimately to Hiroshima. In her page-turning account Diana Preston reveals how individuals responded to events - from Allied scientists debating the morality of deploying the bomb, to Japanese civilians who became its first victims, and to a German chemist working on the Nazi bomb project while concealing a Jewish pianist in his Berlin apartment. Diana Preston draws on fresh material including interviews with the last living scientist to have worked with Marie Curie, the only senior scientist to have walked out on the Manhattan Project on moral grounds, and the German scientist who accompanied Werner Heisenberg on his controversial wartime visit to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. A Manhattan Project scientist said that the only secret of the bomb was that it could be made: once this was known, any nation could replicate it. Before the Fall-Out helps us make better sense of our own, dangerous world and of the threats and moral dilemmas that face our society today.

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal PDF Author: Diana Preston
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802718981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
While Galileo suffered under house arrest at the hands of Pope Urban VIII, the Thirty Years War ruined Europe, and the Pilgrims struggled to survive in the New World, work began on what would become one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the Taj Mahal. Built by the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, its flawless symmetry and gleaming presence have for centuries dazzled everyone who has seen it, and the story of its creation is a fascinating blend of cultural and architectural heritage. Yet, as Diana & Michael Preston vividly convey in the first narrative history of the Taj, it also reflects the magnificent history of the Moghul Empire itself, for it turned out to mark the high point of the Empire's glory at the same time as it became a tipping point in Moghul fortunes. The roots of the Moghul Empire lie with the legendary warriors Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine; at its height it contained 100 million people, from Afghanistan in the north and present-day Pakistan in the west, to Bengal in the east and southwards deep into central India.. With the storytelling skills that characterize their previous books, Diana & Michael Preston bring alive both the grand sweep of Moghul history and the details that make it memorable: the battles and dynastic rivalries that forged the Empire alongside an intimate chronicle of daily life within the imperial palace. A tale of overwhelming passion, the story of the Taj has the cadences of Greek tragedy and the ripe emotion of grand opera, and puts a memorable human face on the marble masterpiece.

A Voyage to New Holland

A Voyage to New Holland PDF Author: William Dampier
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781016060134
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure PDF Author: National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763651494
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Twins Joe and Nancy were raised in a circus but on their eleventh birthday they learn their parents are still alive and need their help, so they set out on an quest filled with many extraordinary beings and adventures. Consists of twenty-seven episodes by nineteen authors and pictures by five illustrators.

Viewing the Islamic Orient

Viewing the Islamic Orient PDF Author: Pallavi Pandit Laisram
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317809297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
The Islamic Orient studies the travel accounts of four British travelers during the nineteenth century. Through a critical analysis of these works, the author examines and questions Edward Said’s concept of "Orientalism" and "Orientalist" discourse: his argument that the orientalist view had such a strong influence on westerners that they invariably perceived the orient through the lens of orientalism. On the contrary, the author argues, no single factor had an overwhelming influence on them. She shows that westerners often struggled with their own conceptions of the orient, and being away for long periods from their homelands, were in fact able to stand between cultures and view them both as insiders and outsiders. The literary devices used to examine these writings are structure, characterization, satire, landscape description, and word choice, as also the social and political milieu of the writers. The major influences in the author’s analysis are Said, Foucault, Abdel-Malek and Marie Louise Pratt.

Set to Sea

Set to Sea PDF Author: Drew Weing
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
ISBN: 1606997718
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
After fantasizing about a life at sea, the oafish main character gets shanghaied aboard a clipper bound for Hong Kong and spends the rest of his life on the ship, fighting pirates, writing poetry, and ultimately finding meaning in his life.

The Great Naturalists

The Great Naturalists PDF Author: Robert Huxley
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500774862
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
From Classical times to the 19th century, the great quest to discover and define the intoxicating diversity of the natural world attracted a host of intrepid thinkers and explorers. Aristotle and Linnaeus set out to classify nature; Joseph Banks and von Humboldt made perilous journeys to collect and record it. Antony van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria with a homemade microscope and James Hutton revealed the immense age of the Earth. Mary Anning hunted fossils; others insects, birds and plants. Georges Cuvier pondered extinction, and Charles Darwin proclaimed the origin of species. With their radical thinking and commitment to close observation, these pioneers laid foundations for the specialist scientists of today. Here thirty-nine of them are brought vividly to life by an array of experts, with illustrations from the unmatched archive of the Natural History Museum, London.
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