The Man Who Invented History

Download or read book The Way of Herodotus written by Justin Marozzi and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2008-12-09 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intriguing travel history exploring and evoking the world of Herodotus, with abundant commentary on the legacy and spirit of the "father of history" and the literary art he created.

Download or read book Alexander Graham Bell written by Edwin S. Grosvenor and published by New Word City. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ". . . rarely have inventor and invention been better served than in this book." – New York Times Book Review Here, Edwin Grosvenor, American Heritage's publisher and Bell's great-grandson, tells the dramatic story of the race to invent the telephone and how Bell's patent for it would become the most valuable ever issued. He also writes of Bell's other extraordinary inventions: the first transmission of sound over light waves, metal detector, first practical phonograph, and early airplanes, including the first to fly in Canada. And he examines Bell's humanitarian efforts, including support for women's suffrage, civil rights, and speeches about what he warned would be a "greenhouse effect" of pollution causing global warming.

Download or read book The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures written by Paul Fischer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the New York Times Best True Crime of 2022 A “spellbinding, thriller-like” (Shelf Awareness) history about the invention of the motion picture and the mysterious, forgotten man behind it—detailing his life, work, disappearance, and legacy. The year is 1888, and Louis Le Prince is finally testing his “taker” or “receiver” device for his family on the front lawn. The device is meant to capture ten to twelve images per second on film, creating a reproduction of reality that can be replayed as many times as desired. In an otherwise separate and detached world, occurrences from one end of the globe could now be viewable with only a few days delay on the other side of the world. No human experience—from the most mundane to the most momentous—would need to be lost to history. In 1890, Le Prince was granted patents in four countries ahead of other inventors who were rushing to accomplish the same task. But just weeks before unveiling his invention to the world, he mysteriously disappeared and was never seen or heard from again. Three and half years later, Thomas Edison, Le Prince’s rival, made the device public, claiming to have invented it himself. And the man who had dedicated his life to preserving memories was himself lost to history—until now. The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures pulls back the curtain and presents a “passionate, detailed defense of Louis Le Prince…unfurled with all the cliffhangers and red herrings of a scripted melodrama” (The New York Times Book Review). This “fascinating, informative, skillfully articulated narrative” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) presents the never-before-told history of the motion picture and sheds light on the unsolved mystery of Le Prince’s disappearance.

Download or read book The Man Who Invented Fiction written by William Egginton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'In 1605 a crippled, greying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. That book, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the most widely read author in human history. Cervantes did more than just publish a bestseller, though. He invented a way of writing.' In Cervantes' time, 'fiction' was synonymous with a lie. Books were either history, and true, or 'poetry' which might be invented, but had to conform to strict principles. Don Quixote tells the story of a poor nobleman, addled from reading too many books on chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off to put the world to rights. The book was hugely entertaining, broke the existing rules, devised a new set and, in the process, created a new, modern hybrid form we know today as the novel. The Man Who Invented Fiction explores Cervantes's life and the world he lived in, showing how his life and influences converged in his work, and how his work – especially Don Quixote – radically changed the nature of literature and created a new way of viewing the world. Finally, it explains how that worldview went on to infiltrate art, politics and science, and how the world today would be unthinkable without it.

Download or read book Invented History, Fabricated Power written by Barry Wood and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2020-11-16 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Invented History, Fabricated Power begins with an examination of prehistoric beliefs (in spirits, souls, mana, orenda) that provided personal explanation and power through ritual and shamanism among tribal peoples. On this foundation, spiritual power evolved into various kinds of divine sanction for kings and emperors (Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indian, Chinese and Japanese). As kingships expanded into empires, fictional histories and millennia-long genealogies developed that portrayed imperial superiority and greatness. Supernatural events and miracles were attached to religious founders (Hebrew, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic). A unique variation developed in the Roman Church which fabricated papal power through forgeries in the first millennium CE and the later “doctrine of discovery” which authorized European domination and conquest around the world during the Age of Exploration. Elaborate fabrications continued with epic histories and literary cycles from the Persians, Ethiopians, Franks, British, Portuguese, and Iroquois Indians. Both Marxists and Nazis created doctrinal texts which passed for economic or political explanations but were in fact self-aggrandizing narratives that eventually collapsed. The book ends with the idealistic goals of the current liberal democratic way of life, pointing to its limitations as a sustaining narrative, along with numerous problems threatening its viability over the long term.

Download or read book The Man Who Invented Vegemite written by Jamie Callister and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today more than 22 million jars of Vegemite are sold each year, but when the salty black paste was first produced in 1923 the public wasn't interested. In fact, it took another fifteen years and a world war before we embraced it. The Man Who Invented Vegemite spans the Gold Rush, the Depression and two world wars and it opens a fascinating window both on the evolution of modern Australia and the quiet achievements, and tragedies, of one man. Jamie Callister sets out to learn more about the grandfather he never met and, along the way, discovers that extraordinary things can happen to (almost) ordinary people.

Download or read book A History of the World in 100 Objects written by Neil MacGregor and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today. Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. Each chapter immerses the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well-informed guide. Seen through this lens, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. An intellectual and visual feast, it is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.