Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750

Average customer rating:

Educational, but a real pain.

Unusual and Engrossing

Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750
Lorraine Daston
Manufacturer: Zone Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books
History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books
History of Ideas | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Studies on the History of Society and Culture , No 20)

To Have and To Hold

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture of Natural History Museums

The Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection

Cabinets of Curiosities

ASIN: 0942299914

Book Description

Wonders and the Order of Nature is about the ways in which European naturalists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonder and wonders, the passion and its objects, to envision themselves and the natural world. Monsters, gems that shone in the dark, petrifying springs, celestial apparitions--these were the marvels that adorned romances, puzzled philosophers, lured collectors, and frightened the devout. Drawing on the histories of art, science, philosophy, and literature, Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park explore and explain how wonder and wonders fortified princely power, rewove the texture of scientific experience, and shaped the sensibility of intellectuals. This is a history of the passions of inquiry, of how wonder sometimes inflamed, sometimes dampened curiosity about nature's best-kept secrets. Refracted through the prism of wonders, the order of nature splinters into a spectrum of orders, a tour of possible worlds.

Customer Reviews:

Educational, but a real pain........2002-11-06

I have been reading this book for school. This book might be for you if: you are very interested in Latin philosophers. you have background in Medieval and Rennisance history. You are well read and have a large vocabulary. you are interested in "wonder".
I've found that this a very boring and difficult book to read because I don't have enough background and I know next to nothing about ancient philosophers. This book is post-college or college level for someone specialyzing in Medieval and Renn history.

Unusual and Engrossing.......2001-05-24

The authors of this study do a magnificent job of looking at a cross-section of the history of Wonder itself, sort of "in the large," as well as the history of wondrous objects, from the slice of time upon which they focus. This book was twenty years in the making, off and on, and it really shows. Every point they make clearly has been carefully weighed, backed up, and illustrated, as often as not, with beautiful selections from poetry, etc. The authors state in the preface that they began with the study of monsters, which in the final, published version of their book is relegated to chapter five. Know, O Reader, that the material in that chapter constituted the starting impetus for this whole study, and you will have a better understanding of various structural oddities in the book.

One of the main themes the authors deal with is not exactly an historical overview of science, but more along the lines of social and cultural history. They write about the relationship of elites, be they religious, social, or academic, to various kinds of wonder. Do the elites embrace wonder? Do they despise it? And what about lone philosophers? Where do they fit in? The answers vary greatly, according to multitudinous factors. For me, one theme to bear in mind while reading this book was my own experience of wonder, or curiosity, and the clashing of that feeling with "The Game" in school... Anyone reading this book will, obviously, have an extremely active, inquisitive mind, to say the least. Think back (or think forward, as the case may be,) to your time in school. Did you tend to keep the topics that provoked genuine wonder in you private? Did you generally avoid mentioning them, lest they should happen to become candidates for impacting "The Game," over which the more sociable people in any classroom preside? These are two very different states of mind, and their interplay can be quite fearfully tumultuous. If you know what I'm talking about, then you already have a feel for the kind of issues that the authors of this book delve into, and deal with on an incredibly grand scale.

By the way, I'd like to recommend a couple of other titles for people looking at this book. For some reason, neither of these are in this book's bibliography. I'm not sure why not -- probably because they are so basic that the authors may have felt that anyone reading their book would already know about them. For people who might NOT know about them, I'd like to recommend "The Great Chain of Being," by Arthur O. Lovejoy, and Rudolph Pfeiffer's two volume study of "The History of Classical Scholarship." These volumes will add whole dimensions to your understanding of the matters that Daston and Park discuss, if anybody out there is interested.

Book Description

For science and nature buffs of all ages, this is a fact-filled compendium with over 1,300 full-color photos of intriguing living creatures and impressive natural spectacles-an ideal way to learn about the Earth above, around, and below us. Packed with amazing facts-from friendly fungi to terrifying tornadoes, it clearly explains the science behind each fact.

Average customer rating:

1000 Maravillas de la Naturaleza
Reader's Digest Editors
Manufacturer: Readers Digest
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Curiosities & Wonders | Fun Facts | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Este compendio sobre las maravillas que nos rodean es una cautivante fuente de aprendizaje para los amantes de la ciencia de todas las edades. Padres e hijos podrán compartir el placer de descubrir animales maravillosos, las increíbles fuerzas de la naturaleza y los aconteceres misteriosos. Contiene 1300 fotos a todo color de las criaturas vivientes y de los milagrosos espectáculos naturales.

Average customer rating:

1000 WONDERS OF NATURE
Michael (Editor) BRIGHT
Manufacturer: Reader's Digest
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORRAKM

1000 Wonders of Nature: Amazing Facts About the Earth Above, Around, and Below Us

Average customer rating:

1000 Wonders of Nature: Amazing Facts About the Earth Above, Around, and Below Us
Reader's Digest Association (Great Britain)
Manufacturer: Putnam Pub Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NZQU0Q

Customer Reviews:

I just wanna say..........2004-07-27

I am 12 years old, and this book was kind of innapropriate, so i suggest, that yea, while the label says 13 and up, 12 year olds who are obsessed with the series should be able to read it too. Oh, and i just wanna say, MAN!!!THAT LADY CAN DRAW!!!! But anyone under that age shouldnt be able too. I mean, i'm pushin' the bar here, but, if you have a little kid that wants to read it, no acceptions. Besides, it might be hard for them to understand anyways. Now that i've rambled, i want to say, in the series up to this point, the author has created a wonderful storyline, well developed characters, and exquisite art that should be admired by all.....people over 13 that is.....

Great for teens, bad for little kids.......2004-06-03

GAWD this book was one of the best in the series. Kira and Rei! It finally happens! Sucks for Shori from earlier volumems but I digress. This book is great for Mars fans 13 or older, how ever, there are some young budding fan girls (younger that 13) for whom this would probobly be inappropriate. It is, how you say "graphic" inthe nudity depo. Not too much, but just enough that I strongly recommend adhearing to the age lable on the back. For all you appropriate readers however, GO READ IT NOW. DONT DELAY. MAY SOME RABID OTAKU SMACK YOU ON THE NOGGIN IF YOU DELAY ANY FURTHER. Well said my peice. Enjoy.

Great.......2004-04-18

This book has made me fall in love again.Not only is this my favorite book but this has one of the best pictures ,(especially the sex part).I recommend not sharing with this with kids under 13.This book is great and it's so romantic since there getting back together.

Another Hit!.......2004-01-02

Soryo's work keeps you captivated and begging for more! After reading the first book, I not only fell in love with the story but the characters and artwork. Unlike some "manga" books, the artwork is clean and smooth, and not sex obsessed. This is the only book in the series with any sex that may not be appropriate for younger readers (under 12 or 13). At first glance this may seem like the stereotypical bad boy-good girl love story, but the twists and turns and emotions you get are something completly different! This book is more than worth it! I just count the days until I can read the next one!

Mars: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 1: Apogee Books Space Series 10 (Apogee Books Space Series)

Average customer rating:

On to Mars - Take the trip with Apogee Books!
A great reference
Search for Mars
What a great book!
Space history, and a look at what we missed

Mars: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 1: Apogee Books Space Series 10 (Apogee Books Space Series)

Manufacturer: Collector's Guide Publishing Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Aeronautics & Astronautics | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Astrophysics & Space Science | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Comets, Meteors & Asteroids | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Mars | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1896522629

Amazon.com

Baseball fans have the Sporting News Register for getting their stats fix, and farmer-types can turn to the time-honored Almanac. So it's only fair that space-exploration junkies should have Robert Godwin's definitive NASA Mission Reports, providing page after page of official data and diagrams, not to mention CD-ROMs packed with movies, pictures, and searchable NASA documents.

While most of Godwin's NASA books focus on a particular mission (e.g., Apollo 13 and Gemini 6), the Mars book chronologically surveys every single mission that's been mounted to the red planet, from the 1964 launch of Mariner 4 to the more current Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor encounters. And it's this breadth that makes the book a standout even in this excellent series. Not only can you marvel at the 16K flight computer on 1975's Centaur and the much more impressive hardware on the MGS, but you can even see the quality of NASA's press materials evolve. (When's the last time you saw a diagram with a typewritten legend?)

With NASA press kits for all the probes and a choice assortment of the more interesting mission reports, Godwin has assembled an authoritative, blow-by-blow resource for serious space buffs. And good news on the "Windows" CD-ROM that's included: Since the files are primarily mpegs, jpegs, and html, readers can access the CD and its hour and a half of vintage video from just about any platform. --Paul Hughes

Book Description

The exploration of Mars is brought up to date with this collection of the latest results from the Mars Exploration Rovers, and the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions.

Customer Reviews:

On to Mars - Take the trip with Apogee Books!.......2006-06-16

Apogee Books once again strikes gold! This Mars book is one of the best written, because it deals specifically with the spacecraft and missions that went to the Red Planet. Original press kits and fact sheets for the first few Mariner missions (a rare find!) have the orbital calculations for the trans-Earth and trans-Mars trajectories - how many times have you seen estimated times for travel, but wondered "How did they get that?"

The data for the Viking missions are also interesting - they list the 3 main experiments that was going to solidify the "Life on Mars" argument. The data was inconclusive, and I can't quite remember if the press kits covered the results - however, the fact that the experimental procedures and equipment were listed is amazing.

Apogee Books have a high "geek" factor built in and this book does no less than the rest of the series. If you're one of those who needs to know how it works or the 'rest of the story' then Mars: The Nasa Mission Reports, Vol. 1 & 2 are for your library.

A great reference.......2006-06-16

This book pulls together a ton of publicly available information on the unmanned Mars probes from the United States, tracking the changes in our understanding of the Red Planed. The bonus CD has, among other things, a cool short film starring Carl Sagan, showing the experiments on the Viking landers that were to show whether there is life on Mars.

Search for Mars.......2006-06-16

This book is a nice handy reference of robotic exploration of Mars (Mariner IV to Mars Polar Lander). The information is detailed enough to give you an understanding of the mission objectives and the spacecraft design. The level of detail varies for each mission, but in most cases gives the reader a starting point. Before this book was available I spent many hours trying to compile this information myself and was never fully able to obtain a complete collection. So I would recommend this book because of it's completeness (at least to Mars Polar Lander) and for the insight it does provide into each mission. May there be many more volumes to come.

What a great book!.......2005-09-16

We're using this as a textbook for a class on the history of Mars exploration. It makes a great supplement to the science articles we've been reading - it is very easy to read.

Space history, and a look at what we missed.......2001-10-31

It's hard to get more technical, but it's exactly what you need if you want to have a look at the technology that was used to conquer that "final frontier", starting about 40 years ago. It was definitly a time where exploration was risky, and NASA was actually willing to risk it.

Those little probes were so rudimentary compared to what we can do now, and yet, they were state-of-the-art machines that were launched one after another to the planets... with equally deceiving and surprising results. When you think that the Viking data is still being used (and the new results are still controversial), it's hard not to be impressed.

Ironically, this book, which may have been a tribute to NASA creativeness, ends up with the Mars Observer, Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter reports, three probes that failed. The failure is definitly not the problem, because most of the Mars probes failed. But NASA attitude has dramatically changed since the first Mariner. A failure was merely a plausible outcome, but now, it's a catastrophy that invokes a complete Mars programme reeavaluation...

And to kill it completely, this invaluable little book includes the Werner Von Braun infamous roadmap to Mars... envisionned for the 1980's. Another sad hint that NASA failed to its destiny, and will probably never recover.

This book shoudl definitly be read with some other good space history books, that will help put the technical prowess in perspective. I would recommend the following:

- Failure is Not An Option, by Gene Kranz
- Korolev, by James Harford
- Russia In Space, by Brian Harvey
- Moon Hunters, by Jeffrey Kluger

Average customer rating:
Beckett YU-GI-OH Collector (Feb./Mar. 2004, Issue 10, Vol. 3, No. 2, K8247)
n/a
Manufacturer: Beckett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NL5QW8

Average customer rating:
Bodleian Library Record. Vol 9, No 2 (Mar 1974) to Vol 10, No1 (Dec 1978).
(No Author)
Manufacturer: Bodleian / OUP 1974 - 1978.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NKFE7Q

Average customer rating:
The Chautauquan: a Monthly Magazine: Oct. 1889-Mar. 1890 (Vol. 10)
Theodore (Editor) Flood
Manufacturer: The T. L. Flood Publishing House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N7A5FK

Average customer rating:
IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 10, No. 3, Mar. 1998
Jefferey (Editor) Cichocki
Manufacturer: IEEE Society Lasers and Electro-Optics Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KEXJM2

Average customer rating:
Â“Infrared Spectral Emission and its Application to the Detection of Organic Matter on Mars.Â” Offprint from: Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 70, no. 10, 1965.
Graham R. HUNT
Manufacturer: Journal of Geophysical Research
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000TOXOIW

Average customer rating:
JMB : Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 246, No. 5, Mar. 10 1995
Peter Wright
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KFR31E

Average customer rating:
JMB : Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 247, No. 1, Mar. 10 1995
Peter Wright
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KFVTBY

Average customer rating:
JMB : Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 296 , No. 10, Mar. 10 2000
Peter Wright
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KFVYH8

Book Description

What role does an animal play in a child's developing sense of self? This book addresses these and other intriguing questions by revealing the interconnected lives of the inhabitants of the preschool classroom with birds, turtles, bugs, and other creatures. This book will be delightful and rewarding for parents, educators, and students of early childhood social development, as well as scholars of the intersection of human experience and the natural environment.

Animal Species for Developmental Studies

Average customer rating:

Animal Species for Developmental Studies

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Animal Species for Developmental Studies: Volume 2: Vertebrates (Animal Species for Developmental Studies)

Average customer rating:

Animal Species for Developmental Studies: Volume 2: Vertebrates (Animal Species for Developmental Studies)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Animal Species For Developmental Studies. Vol. 1.

Average customer rating:

Animal Species For Developmental Studies. Vol. 1.
T.A. DETTLAFF
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSOJAU

Animal Species For Developmental Studies. Vol. 2.

Average customer rating:

Animal Species For Developmental Studies. Vol. 2.
T.A. DETTLAFF
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSPKLM

Average customer rating:
Flame Photometry a Manual of Methods and Applications
F. Burriel-Marti & J. Ramirez - Munoz
Manufacturer: Elsevier Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R7Z2XG

Average customer rating:
Flame photometry,: A manual of methods and applications,
F Burriel-Marti
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Analytic | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books
General & Reference | Chemistry | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006AV49K

Book Description

This monograph focuses on how to achieve more robot autonomy by means of reliable processing skills. "Nonlinear Kalman Filtering for Force-Controlled Robot Tasks " discusses the latest developments in the areas of contact modeling, nonlinear parameter estimation and task plan optimization for improved estimation accuracy. Kalman filtering techniques are applied to identify the contact state based on force sensing between a grasped object and the environment. The potential of this work is to be found not only for industrial robot operation in space, sub-sea or nuclear scenarios, but also for service robots operating in unstructured environments co-habited by humans where autonomous compliant tasks require active sensing.

Book Description

Even now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, when science has largely replaced superstition as our way of viewing the world, who among us does not hesitate, however briefly, before entering a darkened room? Who does not feel an involuntary shiver at the sound of footfalls somewhere back there? Who does not wonder, even fleetingly, if the spirits of the dead might still wander the earth? Who does not feel a jolt of primal fear at things that go bump in the night?

For all these reasons and more, stories of ghosts, unexplained happenings, and the supernatural remain among the most popular and enduring tales in all of world literature. Now The Lyons Press presents CLASSIC GHOST STORIES, a chilling collection of some of the very best tales of mystery and imagination ever penned, by some of the finest writers the world has ever produced. So curl up in a comfortable chair, turn on a few more lights to chase away the shadows, and prepare to be scared silly. These are delightfully creepy tales that have stood the test of time, from such stellar authors as:
Ambrose Bierce
Edgar Allan Poe
Edith Wharton
E.F. Benson
Guy de Maupassant
William Fryer Harvey
Charles Dickens
Amelia B. Edwards
M.R. James
Algernon Blackwood
Rudyard Kipling
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Mary E. Wilkins
...and many more

Customer Reviews:

Excellent collection!.......2003-10-04

This is a really great collection of excellent old ghost stories. My favorites are The Screaming Skull and The Body-Snatcher. Highly recommended.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books