false 2636 3872 0802715524 9780802715524 199 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165367092m/3872.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165367092s/3872.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3872.A_History_of_the_World_in_6_Glasses 3.64 762 Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.

For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.
</div></div>]]> 2636 3.67 1225 311 2005 52853 0425171698 9780425171691 27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170392910m/52853.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170392910s/52853.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52853.The_Victorian_Internet 3.68 146 USA Today

For many people, the Internet is the epitome of cutting-edge technology. But in the nineteenth century, the first online communications network was already in place--the telegraph. And at the time, it was just as perplexing, controversial, and revolutionary as the Internet is today.

The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. With the invention of the telegraph, the world of communications was forever changed. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over its wires. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought. The saga of the telegraph offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time, and is a remarkable episode in the history of technology.

* Illustrated throughout
* A masterful, lively blend of science and history, in the bestselling tradition of Longitude

"Fascinating...If you've ever hankered for a perspective on media Net hype, this book is for you."--Wired

"Sparkling."--Forbes

"Essential reading for those caught up in our own information revolution."--Christian Science Monitor]]> 2636 3.67 1225 311 1998 158712 0425190390 9780425190395 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172274047m/158712.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172274047s/158712.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/158712.The_Turk_The_Life_and_Times_of_the_Famous_Eighteenth_Century_Chess_Playing_Machine 3.96 81 2636 3.67 1225 311 2002 6306969 0802715885 9780802715883 29 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6306969.An_Edible_History_of_Humanity 3.41 71 The bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses brilliantly charts how foods have transformed human culture through the ages.

Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes—caused, enabled, or influenced by food—has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.

The first civilizations were built on barley and wheat in the Near East, millet and rice in Asia, corn and potatoes in the Americas. Why farming created a strictly ordered social hierarchy in contrast to the loose egalitarianism of hunter-gatherers is, as Tom Standage reveals, as interesting as the details of the complex cultures that emerged, eventually interconnected by commerce. Trade in exotic spices in particular spawned the age of exploration and the colonization of the New World.

Food’s influence over the course of history has been just as prevalent in modern times. In the late eighteenth century, Britain’s solution to food shortages was to industrialize and import food rather than grow it. Food helped to determine the outcome of wars: Napoleon’s rise and fall was intimately connected with his ability to feed his vast armies. In the twentieth century, Communist leaders employed food as an ideological weapon, resulting in the death by starvation of millions in the S oviet Union and China. And today the foods we choose in the supermarket connect us to global debates about trade, development, the environment, and the adoption of new technologies.

Encompassing many fields, from genetics and archaeology to anthropology and economics—and invoking food as a special form of technology—An Edible History of Humanity is a fully satisfying discourse on the sweep of human history.</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>]]> 2636 3.67 1225 311 2009 158714 0425181731 9780425181737 2 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172274048m/158714.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172274048s/158714.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/158714.The_Neptune_File_A_Story_of_Astronomical_Rivalry_and_the_Pioneers_of_Planet_Hunting 3.88 17 Drawing on long-forgotten archives, including a scrapbook by the author of the remark that fired Adams's imagination, science correspondent Tom Standage serves up a fine tale of discovery. His story begins with the earliest scientific descriptions of Uranus, an annoyingly wayward planet whose "position in the sky obstinately refused to match up with the position predicted by theory"--the classical theory, that is, of a regular, clockwork universe, which obtained in Adams's day and would not quite be laid to rest until Einstein's time. Standage's story continues to the present, an era when astronomers are, it seems, discovering new planets at every turn. Thanks to Adams and Le Verrier, Standage writes at the end of this graceful book, "Uranus lit the way to Neptune--and Neptune now points the way to the stars." --Gregory McNamee

]]> 2636 3.67 1225 311 2000 158717 1861979711 9781861979711 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172274048m/158717.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172274048s/158717.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/158717.The_Future_of_Technology 0.0 0 2636 3.67 1225 311 2005