Thomas Levenson

Already famous throughout Europe for his theories of planetary motion and gravity, Isaac Newton decided to take on the job of running the Royal Mint. And there, Newton became drawn into a battle with William Chaloner, the most skilful of counterfeiters, a man who not only got away with faking His Majestys coins (a crime that the law equated with treason), but was trying to take over the Mint itself.But Chaloner had no idea who he was taking on. Newton pursued his enemy with the cold, implacable logic that he brought to his scientific research.Set against the backdrop of early eighteenth-century London with its sewers running down the middle of the streets, its fetid rivers, its packed houses, smoke and fog, its industries and its great port, this dark tale of obsession and revenge transforms our image of Britains greatest scientist.

Durante la segunda parte de su carrera, Isaac Newton se hizo cargo de la Casa Real de la Moneda y se dedicó a perseguir al falsificador William Chaloner, a quien finalmente consiguió desenmascarar. Un titulo entretenidisimo que nos muestra los años de esplendor de Newton como hombre de ciencia, la reconstruccion del Londres de finales del siglo XVIII, la divulgacion del paradigma cientifico nacido de sus investigaciones y la divulgacion de aspectos politicos y financieros del momento.Una faceta desconocida de la vida del fundador de la ciencia moderna: su labor como intendente de la Real Casa de la Moneda y su aplicacion de los principios de la investigacion empirica a la captura de falsificadores.

In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form of history, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, Albert Einstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the defining years of the twentieth century. Einstein in Berlin In the spring of 1913 two of the giants of modern science traveled to Zurich. Their mission: to offer the most prestigious position in the very center of European scientific life to a man who had just six years before been a mere patent clerk. Albert Einstein accepted, arriving in Berlin in March 1914 to take up his new post. In December 1932 he left Berlin forever. Take a good look, he said to his wife as they walked away from their house. You will never see it again. In between, Einsteins Berlin years capture in microcosm the odyssey of the twentieth century. It is a century that opens with extravagant hopes--and climaxes in unparalleled calamity. These are tumultuous times, seen through the life of one man who is at once witness to and architect of his day--and ours. He is present at the events that will shape the journey from the commencement of the Great War to the rumblings of the next one. We begin with the eminent scientist, already widely recognized for his special theory of relativity. His personal life is in turmoil, with his marriage collapsing, an affair under way. Within two years of his arrival in Berlin he makes one of the landmark discoveries of all time: a new theory of gravity--and before long is transformed into the first international pop star of science. He flourishes during a war he hates, and serves as an instrument of reconciliation in the early months of the peace; he becomes first a symbol of the hope of reason, then a focus for the rage and madness of the right. And throughout these years Berlin is an equal character, with its astonishing eruption of revolutionary pathways in art and architecture, in music, theater, and literature. Its wild street life and sexual excesses are notorious. But with the debacle of the depression and Hitlers growing power, Berlin will be transformed, until by the end of 1932 it is no longer a safe home for Einstein. Once a hero, now vilified not only as the perpetrator of Jewish physics but as the preeminent symbol of all that the Nazis loathe, he knows it is time to leave.

The sweeping story of the worlds first financial crisis:an astounding episode from the early days of financial markets that to this day continues to intrigue and perplex historians . . . narrative history at its best, lively and fresh with new insights (Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Lords of Finance)A Financial Times Economics Book of the Year Longlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award In the heart of the Scientific Revolution, when new theories promised to explain the affairs of the universe, Britain was broke, facing a mountain of debt accumulated in war after war it could not afford. But that same Scientific Revolutionthe kind of thinking that helped Isaac Newton solve the mysteries of the cosmoswould soon lead clever, if not always scrupulous, men to try to figure a way out of Britains financial troubles. Enter the upstart leaders of the South Sea Company. In 1719, they laid out a grand plan to swap citizens shares of the nations debt for company stock, removing the burden from the state and making South Seas directors a fortune in the process. Everybody would win. The kings ministers took the baitand everybody did win. Far too much, far too fast. The following crash came suddenly in a rush of scandal, jail, suicide, and ruin. But thanks to Britains leader, Robert Walpole, the kingdom found its way through to emerge with the first truly modern, reliable, and stable financial exchange. Thomas Levensons Money for Nothing tells the unbelievable story of the South Sea Bubble with all the exuberance, folly, and the catastrophe of an event whose impact can still be felt today.

An urgent and profound history of vaccine skepticism, seeking to understand how our three most common fears about vaccines hardened into a lethal ideologyfrom a leading science writerBrimming with righteous anger, this book should infuriate you for all the right reasons, and arm you to take on the grifters and their war against science.Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our GenesSince the advent of smallpox inoculation in the eighteenth century, the idea that a disease introduced to the body in some lesser, weakened form might prevent full-blown infection has been one of the greatest public health insights of the modern era, inspiring the invention of numerous vaccines and saving countless human lives. But, just as humanity acquired the god-like power to stop infectious disease in its tracks, some feared we had gone too far, leading to the skepticism that has hijacked public health discourse today.In three sweeping essays written for our current moment of scientific mistrust, Thomas Levenson searches for the origins of the most common arguments against vaccines: that they are unnatural; that they are more dangerous than the illnesses they claim to prevent; and that they are an affront to freedom. Each arose from the earliest development of particular vaccines and the campaigns to distribute them. Even as the pattern repeats, Levenson reveals how innocent that skepticism initially was and, in each case, how very human fears and questions ultimately turned into something darker, where no truth would be enough to overcome the doubt.Searing but ultimately empathetic, A Pox on Fools explores the human impulse to question and wondersometimes past the point at which the very act of questioning turns deadly.

In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form of history, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, Albert Einstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the defining years of the twentieth century. Einstein in BerlinIn the spring of 1913 two of the giants of modern science traveled to Zurich. Their mission: to offer the most prestigious position in the very center of European scientific life to a man who had just six years before been a mere patent clerk. Albert Einstein accepted, arriving in Berlin in March 1914 to take up his new post. In December 1932 he left Berlin forever. Take a good look, he said to his wife as they walked away from their house. You will never see it again.In between, Einsteins Berlin years capture in microcosm the odyssey of the twentieth century. It is a century that opens with extravagant hopes--and climaxes in unparalleled calamity. These are tumultuous times, seen through the life of one man who is at once witness to and architect of his day--and ours. He is present at the events that will shape the journey from the commencement of the Great War to the rumblings of the next one. We begin with the eminent scientist, already widely recognized for his special theory of relativity. His personal life is in turmoil, with his marriage collapsing, an affair under way. Within two years of his arrival in Berlin he makes one of the landmark discoveries of all time: a new theory of gravity--and before long is transformed into the first international pop star of science. He flourishes during a war he hates, and serves as an instrument of reconciliation in the early months of the peace; he becomes first a symbol of the hope of reason, then a focus for the rage and madness of the right. And throughout these years Berlin is an equal character, with its astonishing eruption of revolutionary pathways in art and architecture, in music, theater, and literature. Its wild street life and sexual excesses are notorious. But with the debacle of the depression and Hitlers growing power, Berlin will be transformed, until by the end of 1932 it is no longer a safe home for Einstein. Once a hero, now vilified not only as the perpetrator of Jewish physics but as the preeminent symbol of all that the Nazis loathe, he knows it is time to leave.

An elegant, wide-ranging history (The New York Review of Books) of the centuries-long quest to discover the critical role of germs in disease thatreveals as much about human reasoningand the pitfalls of egoas it does about microbes.Levenson takes readers through an entertaining . . . journey of missed opportunities in microbiology and the eventual advances that arose in this field.ScienceScientists and enthusiastic amateurs first confirmed the existence of living things invisible to the human eye in the late seventeenth century. So why did it take two centuries to connect microbes to disease? As late as the Civil War in the 1860s, most soldiers who perished died not on the battlefield but of infected wounds, typhoid, and other diseases. Twenty years later, the outcome might have been different, following one of the most radical intellectual transformations in history: germ theory, the recognition that the tiniest forms of life have been humankinds greatest killers. It was a discovery centuries in the making, and it transformed modern life and public health.As Thomas Levenson reveals in this globe-spanning history, it has everything to do with how we see ourselves. For centuries, people in the West, believing themselves to hold God-given dominion over nature, thought too much of humanity and too little of microbes to believe they could take us down. When nineteenth-century scientists finally made the connection, life-saving methods to control infections and contain outbreaks soon followed. The next big break came with the birth of the antibiotic era in the 1930s. And yet, less than a century later, the promise of the antibiotic revolution is already receding due to years of overuse. Is our self-confidence getting the better of us again?So Very Small follows the thread of human ingenuity and hubris across centuriesalong the way peering into microscopes, spelunking down sewers, visiting army hospitals, traipsing across sheep fields, and moreto show how we came to understand the microbial environment and how little we understand ourselves. Levenson traces how and why ideas are pursued, accepted, or ignoredand hence how human habits of mind can, so often, make it terribly hard to ask the right questions.