Kategória: Történelem

Science Secrets : The Truth About Darwin’s Finches, Einstein’s Wife, and Other Myths

Was Darwin really inspired by Galápagos finches? Did Einstein’s wife secretly contribute to his theories? Did Franklin fly a kite in a thunderstorm? Did a falling apple lead Newton to universal gravity? Did Galileo drop objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Did Einstein really believe in God? Science Secrets answers these questions and many others. It is a unique study of how myths evolve in the history of science. Some tales are partly true, others are mostly false, yet all illuminate the tension between the need to fairly describe the past and the natural desire to fill in the blanks.

The Luftwaffe : A History

John Killen’s exhaustive work is a study of German air power between 1915 and 1945, from the early days of flying when Immelmann, Boelke, Richtofen and other First World War aces fought and died to give Germany air supremacy, to the nightmare existence of the Luftwaffe as the Third Reich plunged headlong to destruction.

Livia : First Lady of Imperial Rome

Livia (58 B.C. – A.D. 29) the wife of the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, and mother of the second, Tiberius wielded power at the center of Roman politics for most of her long life. Livia has been portrayed as a cunning and sinister schemer, but in this biography (the first in English devoted to her) Livia emerges as a much more complex individual. Achieving influence unprecedented for a woman, she won support and even affection from her contemporaries and was widely revered after her death.

The Flower of Empire : An Amazonian Water Lily, The Quest to Make It Bloom, and the World It Created

In 1837, while charting the Amazonian country of Guiana for Great Britain, German naturalist Robert Schomburgk discovered an astounding’vegetable wonder’–a huge water lily whose leaves were five or six feet across and whose flowers were dazzlingly white. In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway’s colorful narrative captures the sensation stirred by Victoria regia in England, particularly the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom.

Will Eisner: Az összeesküvés

A Cion bölcseinek jegyzőkönyve egy 19. században született írás, ma is az antiszemita csoportok alapkönyve. Nagy kultusz övezi, pedig elég kevéssé hihető történet: a zsidók százévente összegyűlnek egy prágai temetőben és a világ elleni összesküvést tervezgetik. A könyv keletkezését és cáfolatát ma is sokan kutatják, köztük Umberto Eco is.

Jakob Glatz: Egy magyar ember őszinte megjegyzései hazájáról néhány magyar vidéken tett utazása során

Német író könyve, aki az 1700-as évek végén tudósít a magyar helyzetről. Érdekes a régies nyelvezet és a korrajz miatt. 2013-ig indexen is volt a könyv, mert igen lehangoló képet festett a korabeli magyarországi társadalmi és kulturális viszonyokról, és számos ellenséget szerzett magának ezáltal.