Circles
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Circles: Fifty Round Trips Through History Technology Science Culture for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Bill Gates James Burke is a favorite author of mine.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
From the bestselling author of "The Knowledge Web" come fifty mesmerizing journeys into the history of technology, each following a chain of consequential events that ends precisely where it began. Whether exploring electromagnetic fields, the origin of hot chocolate, or DNA fingerprinting, these essays -- which originally appeared in James Burke's popular "Scientific American" column -- all illustrate the serendipitous and surprisingly circular nature of change.
In "Room with (Half) a View," for instance, Burke muses about the partly obscured railway bridge outside his home on the Thames. Thinking of the bridge engineer, who also built the steamship that laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable, causes him to recall Samuel Morse; which, in turn, conjures up Morse's neighbor, firearms inventor Sam Colt, and his rival, Remington. One dizzying connection after another leads to Karl Marx's daughter, who attended Socialist meetings with a trombonist named Gustav Holst, who once lived in the very house that blocks Burke's view of the bridge on the Thames. Burke's essays all evolve in this organic manner, highlighting the interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated events and innovations. Romantic poetry leads to brandy distillation; tonic water connects through Leibniz to the first explorers to reach the North Pole.
Witty, instructive, and endlessly entertaining, Circles expands on the trademark style that has captivated James Burke fans for years. This unique collection is sure to stimulate and delight history buffs, technophiles, and anyone else with a healthy intellectual curiosity. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
"I SUPPOSE MY view of history tends away from the orderly and toward the chaotic, in the sense of that much overused phrase from chaos theory about the movement of a butterfly's wing in China causing storms on the other side" Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
"I SUPPOSE MY view of history tends away from the orderly and toward the chaotic, in the sense of that much overused phrase from chaos theory about the movement of a butterfly's wing in China causing storms on the other side" Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I only recently became aware of James Burke's 'Connections' programme on Discovery Sci Trek here in the UK. The book is essentially a collection of 50 such shows taking a particular idea or invention, ranging from Cornflakes, headaches, hot choclate drinks, and silk then taking the reader on a circular journey of linked events and people back to the start point. Some individuals and their place in history keep cropping up, although they are not generally thought of as the 'movers and shakers' of the world. The book is well written, humourous and is read or easily dipped into when you have a spare 5 minutes. If you want a dry recitation of facts and people this probably isn't for you. If you are looking for a sideways look at the impact of science, discovery and technology on history then I can recommend this.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I teach a course in the History of Technology at my local community college, and use James Burke's book `Circles' as an interesting and engaging means of showing the connections different ideas of technology have to each other, and to history, often in most unexpected ways. This book has fifty short circular stories, trips through science and technology, each of which introduces connections that are fascinating, sometimes bewildering. How do wigs and fruit preservation technologies relate to each other. Why would one ever think that bologna and Gothic revival architecture are related? How is it that the Star-Spangled Banner is related to a calendar revision so complex that even Burke claims not to understand it?
Burke presents his tales in short order - they can each be devoured as a bite-sized morsel in one sitting, and yet, to do so and move on quickly is to miss the depths of what is there - as these circular connections show, there is always more than meets the eye. My students upon reading are often intrigued enough to go on the internet or visit the library to investigate further. Burke introduces history almost on the sly - readers often think they are reading a story, not history. Well, they are reading stories, cleverly developed, with a good deal of wit and subtlety. One doesn't necessarily need to know all the dates and places, but the span of the connections helps to prove that long before the era and phenomenon of globalisation, we were already interconnected and learning from each other.
The essays here originally appeared as columns in the journal Scientific American - hence, each chapter is the length of a magazine article for good reason, and the near-uniformity of the length of each is no accident. These are written for people with an interest in science and technology without being experts in science or technology, but they aren't written in a dumbed-down version either. Regardless of whether or not you can program your VCR or you can program the Shuttle to rendevous with the Hubble Telescope, this book is for you.
Burke presents his tales in short order - they can each be devoured as a bite-sized morsel in one sitting, and yet, to do so and move on quickly is to miss the depths of what is there - as these circular connections show, there is always more than meets the eye. My students upon reading are often intrigued enough to go on the internet or visit the library to investigate further. Burke introduces history almost on the sly - readers often think they are reading a story, not history. Well, they are reading stories, cleverly developed, with a good deal of wit and subtlety. One doesn't necessarily need to know all the dates and places, but the span of the connections helps to prove that long before the era and phenomenon of globalisation, we were already interconnected and learning from each other.
The essays here originally appeared as columns in the journal Scientific American - hence, each chapter is the length of a magazine article for good reason, and the near-uniformity of the length of each is no accident. These are written for people with an interest in science and technology without being experts in science or technology, but they aren't written in a dumbed-down version either. Regardless of whether or not you can program your VCR or you can program the Shuttle to rendevous with the Hubble Telescope, this book is for you.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
19 reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
The Delights of Reading James Burke
16 Jan 2001
Format:Hardcover
James Burke strikes again. The author of such compelling books as Connections, The Day the Universe Changed, the Pinball Effect and the Knowledge Web has come up with yet another catchy title to describe his latest effort. And on no level does he disappoint here, using the metaphor of a circle to begin his journey, describe the improvements and sidebars during the trip, and take us back to almost right where we began.
Tne book is also full of the sort of hooks and traps we have grown to enjoy in his writing over the years. Consider this passage at the beginning of one chapter: "Thanks to mass production and distribution, I can go back to the shop and get a free replacement copy for a cup that I found a flaw in last week. It weas one of those willow-pattern things. Genuine Wedgwood. An ironic term, really, because Wedgwood's original stuff was fake." Just when you think you can get out, he pulls you back in again. And don't think you can skim your way through. The facts in this book are so well interwoven that to skim a sentence may mean losing your place in the chapter.
An excellent book for that rainy day or suuny day in the park, or on the train, or anywhere, for that matter.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Light and fun, but far from his best
21 July 2003
Format:Hardcover
I've been a big fan of Burke for many years, and his web theory of history is a fascinating way to look at the past. But that said, I think that Burke may just have explored all the really good paths through the knowledge web already, and is starting to get stuck for connections. 'Connections' and 'The Day The Universe Changed' really give you a sense of cause-and-effect links through history. In the former, we see a natural and logical progression toward modern technologies, and in the latter, toward aspects of modern society. In 'Circles', though, what we have is just a narrative of a series of coincidences. The things he tries to relate aren't really related -- at least not the way he relates them. Whereas in 'Connections', most of the connections were of the form "In solving problem X, they created problem Y", in 'Circles', the connections tend to be less sound: "One of the guys who was working on problem X knew a guy who was working on problem Y." Unfortunately, this is symptomatic of a lot of Burke's later work, and Circles is more reminscent of Connections 3 than of the early work. It is a fun read, and while Burke's supply of historical connections may be running thin, his supply of wit and literary competance hasn't. But if you're looking for something closer to serious history, stick to his older stuff.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Not as Good as previous works
11 April 2004
Format:Paperback
I've loved most of James Burke's Works, but found this one to no be quite up to the standard of his other works. Still a good read.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
