Impact of science and technology on society Books

Has society ceded its self-governance to technogovernance?The Prison House of the Circuit presents a history of digital media using circuits and circuitry to understand how power operates in the contemporary era. Through the conceptual vocabulary of the...

An unparalleled how-to guide to citizen-sensing practices that monitor air pollutionModern environments are awash with pollutants churning through the air, from toxic gases and intensifying carbon to carcinogenic particles and novel viruses. The effects...

Rethinking our relationship with Earth in a time of environmental emergencyThe world is changing. Progress no longer has a future but any earlier sense of Earth as "providential" seems of merely historical interest. The apparent absence of Earthly...

How afforestation reveals the often-concealed politics between humans and plantsIn Plant Life, Rosetta S. Elkin explores the procedures of afforestation, the large-scale planting of trees in otherwise treeless environments, including grasslands,...

A groundbreaking reflection on the process by which one arrives at an ethological theoryHow do humans study the complex worlds of animals without imposing their own societal and scientific gaze upon them? The biologist Amotz Zahavi stakes the...

A radical proposal for how a tiny organism can transform our understanding of human relationsServing as both a guide and companion publication to the conceptual art project of the same name, The Lichen Museum explores how the physiological...

Presents thirty novel terms that do not yet exist in English to envision ways of responding to the environmental challenges of our generation As the scale and gravity of climate change becomes undeniable, a cultural revolution must ultimately match...

Living on a damaged planet challenges who we are and where we live. This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalise curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth.As human-induced...

Veer Ecology is a groundbreaking guide for the twenty-first century, with theeditors asking thirty brilliant thinkers to each propose one verb that stressesthe forceful potential of inquiry, weather, biomes, apprehensions, and desiresto swerve...

A Story of Big Tech Censorship and Bias and the Fight to Save Our CountryThe madness of Google's attempt to mold our reality into a version dictated by their corporate values has never been portrayed better than in this chilling account by Google...

With an experienced CIA officer as your teacher, you'll gain the knowledge and necessary tools to protect yourself and the ones you love.No matter where we go, we leave tracks and clues of our existence without even knowing. Our electronic footprint...

Smartphones have to be made someplace, and that place is China. In just five years, a company names Xiaomi (which means "little rice" in Mandarin) has grown into the most valuable startup ever, becoming the third largest manufacturer of smartphones,...

Essays on the history of psychedelics, the present renaissance, and visions for an inclusive and equitable future. As psychedelics and psychedelic-assisted therapies explode into the popular consciousness, what does it mean to cultivate and embody a...

The Polish writer Stanisław Lem is best known to English-speaking readers as the author of the 1961 science fiction novelSolaris, adapted into a meditative film by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and remade in 2002 by Steven Soderbergh. In Summa...

A century ago, thoughtful people questioned how reality could agree with physical theories that keep changing, from a mechanical model of the ether to electric and magnetic fields, and from homogeneous matter to electrons and atoms. Today, concepts like...

A new model for the relationship between science and democracy that spans policymaking, the funding and conduct of research, and our approach to new technologiesOur ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and...

Today's world is unpredictable and full of contradictions, and navigating its complexities while trying to make the best decisions is far from easy. The Joy of Science presents 8 short lessons on how to unlock the clarity, empowerment, and joy of...

Leading technologists, historians, and journalists reveal the stories behind the computer coding that touches all aspects of life - for better or worse.Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word...

Longlisted for thePEN America Literary Awards 2021:PEN/E.O Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardWaterstone's Best Books of 2020: Popular ScienceAmerican Scientist's 2020 Science Book Gift GuideWhy is the world the way it is? How did we...

An entertaining mathematical exploration of the heat equation and its role in the triumphant development of the trans-Atlantic telegraph cableHeat, like gravity, shapes nearly every aspect of our world and universe, from how milk dissolves in coffee to...

The classic case for why government must support science - with a new essay by physicist and former congressman Rush Holt on what democracy needs from science today Science, the Endless Frontier is recognised as the landmark argument for the...

New perspectives on the iconic physicist's scientific and philosophical formationAt the end of World War II, Albert Einstein was invited to write his intellectual autobiography for the Library of Living Philosophers. The resulting book was his uniquely...

Financial Times Best Books of 2020: ScienceWaterstones Best Books of 2020: Popular ScienceSymmetry Magazine Top Physics Books of 2020Shining a light on the most profound insights revealed by modern physics, Jim Al-Khalili invites us all to understand...

A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential...

The Greco-Roman mathematician Claudius Ptolemy is one of the most significant figures in the history of science. He is remembered today for his astronomy, but his philosophy is almost entirely lost to history. This groundbreaking book is the first to...

Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global...

More than fifty years after his death, Albert Einstein's vital engagement with the world continues to inspire others, spurring conversations, projects, and research, in the sciences as well as the humanities. Einstein for the 21st Century shows us why he...

Until a few decades ago, the ocean depths were almost as mysterious and inaccessible as outer space. Oceans cover two-thirds of the earth's surface with an average depth of more than two miles--yet humans had never ventured more than a few hundred feet...

How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities - demons - to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible.Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern...

A book that finally demystifies Newton's experiments in alchemyWhen Isaac Newton's alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment...

A fundamentally new approach to the history of science and technologyThis book presents a new way of thinking about the history of science and technology, one that offers a grand narrative of human history in which knowledge serves as a critical factor...

Things in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Personal items deteriorate. Yet today's researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and...

In the age of search, keywords increasingly organize research, teaching, and even thought itself. Inspired by Raymond Williams's 1976 classic Keywords, the timely collection Digital Keywords gathers pointed, provocative short essays on more than two...

Can secularism offer us moral, aesthetic, and spiritual satisfaction? Or does the secular view simply affirm a dog-eat-dog universe? At a time when the issues of religion, evolution, atheism, fundamentalism, Darwin, and science fill headlines and invoke...

In our scientific age an understanding of physics is part of a liberal education. Lawyers, bankers, governors, business heads, administrators, all wise educated people need a lasting understanding of physics so that they can enjoy those contacts with...

As far back as we know, there have been individuals incapacitated by memories that have filled them with sadness and remorse, fright and horror, or a sense of irreparable loss. Only recently, however, have people tormented with such recollections been...

Appeals to "human dignity" are at the core of many of the most contentious social and political issues of our time. But these appeals suggest different and at times even contradictory ways of understanding the term. Is dignity something we all share...

A prescient analysis of what makes artificial intelligence so ... artificial The brave new world of faking it ... Artificial intelligence is, as the name suggests, artificial and fundamentally different to human intelligence. Yet often the goal of AI...