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  Isambard Kingdom Brunel

  Robin Jones

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  A biography of the nineteenth-century Englishman who was “one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history” (Nature).   Civil and mechanical engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s accomplishments were extraordinary—involving the Great Western Railway, the SS Great Britain, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, prefabricated hospital buildings for use during the Crimean War, and more. Born in Portsmouth in 1806, he followed in his French father’s professional footsteps—and went on to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution.   Brunel the great engineer would habitually throw out the rule book of tradition and established practice and start again with a blank sheet of paper, taking the technology of the day to its limits and then going another mile. But there was also Brunel the visionary, who knew that transport technology had the power to change the world, and that he had the ability to deliver those changes. Finally, there was Brunel the artist, who rarely saw technology as just functional, and strove to entwine the fruits of the Industrial Revolution with the elegance and grace of the neoclassical painter. His bridges, tunnels and railway infrastructure have entered a third century of regular use, and the beauty of their design and structure has rarely been equaled.   The three decades from the 1830s to the 1850s saw an explosion of technical excellence, and it was Brunel who in so many cases lit the blue touch paper. He did not always get it right the first time, and it was left to others to reap the fruits of his many labors. Nevertheless, his actions fast-forwarded the march of progress by several decades. This biography tells his impressive story.  Includes color photographs

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  The Sacred Chain - How...

  Jim Stump

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  A thought-provoking and eye-opening work by Jim Stump, Vice President at BioLogos and host of the Language of God podcast, offering a compelling argument about how evolution does not have to be at odds with faith, but can actually enrich and deepen it. 
  In this moving and deeply thoughtful book, Jim Stump takes readers with him on his journey to understanding evolution and reconciling it with his faith. The Sacred Chain draws on philosophy, theology, and the latest scientific research to tackle some of the biggest questions facing humanity and people of faith today, such as:How can we hold the Bible as a sacred text and yet reconcile modern science with it?By condensing noteworthy events in the history of our universe into one calendar week, what can we learn about God’s creative process and priorities, and where humans fit in?If humans are created in the image of God, what does evolution have to teach us about our species and our place in creation?What about the soul? How can we understand our transcendent qualities if the human body is the product of evolution?How does evolutionary science help us understand how God might use pain and suffering for important and good purposes?Does it have to be one or the other—science or religion—or is there a third way, one that not only preserves faith in the face of modern science, but leads to a stronger, more relevant, and more authentic faith? 
   
  Deeply researched and a delight to read, The Sacred Chain provides clarity in our uncertain times, revealing a bigger picture of our world and our place within it. It is a panorama consistent with the scientific findings about who we are and where we come from that can actually bolster our faith as it engages our curiosity about ourselves, our universe, and the nature of existence itself.

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  The Origin of Species

  Charles Darwin

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  The Origin of Species (or, more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life), published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had collected on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream.The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T. H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During the eclipse of Darwinism from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, and it has now become the unifying concept of the life sciences.

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  The Andes and The Amazon

  James Orton

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  This book, with the subtitle "Across the Continent of South America" describes the scientific expedion of 1867 to the equatorial Andes and the Amazon. The route was from Guayaquil to Quito, over the Cordillera, through the forest to Napo, and, finally, on the Rio Napo to Pebas on the Maranon.  Besides this record, the expedition - under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institute - collected samples of rocks and plants, and numerous specimen of animals. The scientists also compiled a vocabulary of local languages and produced a new map of equatorial America. James Orton (1830 - 1877) was Professor in Natural History in Vassar College, and corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. (Summary by Availle, from the Preface)

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  Bringing Back the Beaver - The...

  Derek Gow, Isabella Tree

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  A bold new voice in nature writing, from the front lines of Britain's rewilding movement
   
  Bringing Back the Beaver is farmer-turned-ecologist Derek Gow’s inspirational and often riotously funny firsthand account of how the movement to rewild the British landscape with beavers has become the single most dramatic and subversive nature conservation act of the modern era. Since the early 1990s – in the face of outright opposition from government, landowning elites and even some conservation professionals – Gow has imported, quarantined and assisted the reestablishment of beavers in waterways across England and Scotland. 
   
  In addition to detailing the ups and downs of rewilding beavers, Bringing Back the Beaver makes a passionate case as to why the return of one of nature’s great problem solvers will be critical as part of a sustainable fix for flooding and future drought, whilst ensuring the creation of essential lifescapes that enable the broadest possible spectrum of Britain’s wildlife to thrive. 

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  Plato's Phaedrus

  Plato

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  Plato's dialogues frequently treat several topics and show their connections to each other. Phaedrus is a model of that skill because of its seamless progression from examples of speeches about the nature of love to mythical visions of human nature and destiny to the essence of beauty and, finally, to a penetrating discussion of speaking and writing. It ends with an examination of the love of wisdom as a dialectical activity in the human mind.Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy. It simultaneously embodies the entire process in some of the greatest poetry ever written.© Agora Publications

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