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4127 books match the query 'Science' and 980 start with t

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The State Park Movement in America

Ney C. Landrum

University of Missouri Press, 2013

Essentially a phenomenon of the twentieth century, America’s pioneering state park movement has grown rapidly and innovatively to become one of the most important forces in the preservation of open spaces and the provision of public outdoor recreation in the country. During this time, the movement has been influenced and shaped by many factors—social, cultural, and economic—resulting in a wide variety of expressions. While everyone agrees that the state park movement has been a positive and beneficial force on the whole, there seems to be an increasing divergence of thought as to exactly what direction the movement should take in the future.

In The State Park Movement in America, Ney Landrum, recipient of almost two dozen honors and awards for his service to state and national parks, places the movement for state parks in the context of the movements for urban and local parks on one side and for national parks on the other. He traces the evolution of the state park movement from its imprecise and largely unconnected origins to its present status as an essential and firmly established state government responsibility, nationwide in scope. Because the movement has taken a number of separate, but roughly parallel, paths and produced differing schools of thought concerning its purpose and direction, Landrum also analyzes the circumstances and events that have contributed to these disparate results and offers critical commentary based on his long tenure in the system.

As the first study of its kind, The State Park Movement in America will fill a tremendous void in the literature on parks. Given that there are more than five thousand state parks in the United States, compared with fewer than five hundred national parks and historic sites, this history is long overdue. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with federal, state, or local parks, as well as to land resource managers generally.

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The State of Nature

Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought, 1900-1950

Gregg Mitman

University of Chicago Press, 1992

Although science may claim to be "objective," scientists cannot avoid the influence of their own values on their research. In The State of Nature, Gregg Mitman examines the relationship between issues in early twentieth-century American society and the sciences of evolution and ecology to reveal how explicit social and political concerns influenced the scientific agenda of biologists at the University of Chicago and throughout the United States during the first half of this century.

Reacting against the view of nature "red in tooth and claw," ecologists and behavioral biologists such as Warder Clyde Allee, Alfred Emerson, and their colleagues developed research programs they hoped would validate and promote an image of human society as essentially cooperative rather than competitive. Mitman argues that Allee's religious training and pacifist convictions shaped his pioneering studies of animal communities in a way that could be generalized to denounce the view that war is in our genes.

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The Stockholm Paradigm

Climate Change and Emerging Disease

Daniel R. Brooks, Eric P. Hoberg, and Walter A. Boeger

University of Chicago Press, 2019

The contemporary crisis of emerging disease has been a century and a half in the making. Human, veterinary, and crop health practitioners convinced themselves that disease could be controlled by medicating the sick, vaccinating those at risk, and eradicating the parts of the biosphere responsible for disease transmission. Evolutionary biologists assured themselves that coevolution between pathogens and hosts provided a firewall against disease emergence in new hosts. Most climate scientists made no connection between climate changes and disease. None of these traditional perspectives anticipated the onslaught of emerging infectious diseases confronting humanity today.

As this book reveals, a new understanding of the evolution of pathogen-host systems, called the Stockholm Paradigm, explains what is happening. The planet is a minefield of pathogens with preexisting capacities to infect susceptible but unexposed hosts, needing only the opportunity for contact. Climate change has always been the major catalyst for such new opportunities, because it disrupts local ecosystem structure and allows pathogens and hosts to move. Once pathogens expand to new hosts, novel variants may emerge, each with new infection capacities. Mathematical models and real-world examples uniformly support these ideas. Emerging disease is thus one of the greatest climate change–related threats confronting humanity.

Even without deadly global catastrophes on the scale of the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, emerging diseases cost humanity more than a trillion dollars per year in treatment and lost productivity. But while time is short, the danger is great, and we are largely unprepared, the Stockholm Paradigm offers hope for managing the crisis. By using the DAMA (document, assess, monitor, act) protocol, we can “anticipate to mitigate” emerging disease, buying time and saving money while we search for more effective ways to cope with this challenge.

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The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama

Ethel Armes

University of Alabama Press, 2011

“The principal authority for the general treatment of the history of coal, and of iron and steel, in
Alabama is the work of Miss Ethel Armes. The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama is a comprehensive
and scholarly work portraying in attractive style the growth of the mineral industries in its
relation to the development of the state and of the South, in preparation of which the author spent
more than five years.”
—Thomas McAdory Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography

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The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

John Muir

University of Wisconsin Press, 1965

Muir recounts in vivid detail the three worlds of his early life: his first eleven years in Scotland; the years 1849–1860 in the central Wisconsin wilderness; and two-and-a-half most inventive years at the University of Wisconsin during that institution’s infancy.

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The Story of Spin

Sin-itiro Tomonaga

University of Chicago Press, 1998

All atomic particles have a particular "spin," analogous to the earth's rotation on its axis. The quantum mechanical reality underlying spin is complex and still poorly understood. Sin-itiro Tomonaga's The Story of Spin remains the most complete and accessible treatment of spin, and is now available in English translation. Tomonaga tells the tale of the pioneers of physics and their difficult journey toward an understanding of the nature of spin and its relationship to statistics. His clear unfolding of the tale of spin is invaluable to students of physics, chemistry, and astronomy, and his description of the historical development of spin will interest historians and philosophers of science.

"This piece of the history of physics will provide excellent and exciting reading. . . . It also provides the personal touch of an expert in the field that is so often lacking in the physics literature. I recommend it very highly."—Fritz Rohrlich, Physics Today

Sin-itiro Tomonaga was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965.

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The Story of Vermont

A Natural and Cultural History, Second Edition

Christopher McGrory Klyza and Stephen C. Trombulak

University Press of New England, 2015

In this second edition of their classic text, Klyza and Trombulak use the lens of interconnectedness to examine the geological, ecological, and cultural forces that came together to produce contemporary Vermont. They assess the changing landscape and its inhabitants from its pre-human evolution up to the present, with special focus on forests, open terrestrial habitats, and the aquatic environment. This edition features a new chapter covering from 1995 to 2013 and a thoroughly revised chapter on the futures of Vermont, which include discussions of Tropical Storm Irene, climate change, eco-regional planning, and the resurgence of interest in local food and energy production. Integrating key themes of ecological change into a historical narrative, this book imparts specific information about Vermont, speculates on its future, and fosters an appreciation of the complex synergy of forces that shaped this region. This volume will interest scholars, students, and Vermonters intrigued by the state’s long-term natural and human history.

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The Strategy of Life

Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth-Century German Biology

Timothy Lenoir

University of Chicago Press, 1989

In the early nineteenth century, a group of German biologists led by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and Karl Friedrich Kielmeyer initiated a search for laws of biological organization that would explain the phenomena of form and function and establish foundations for a unified theory of life. The tradition spawned by these efforts found its most important spokesman in Karl Ernst von Baer. Timothy Lenoir chronicles the hitherto unexplored achievements of the practitioners of this research tradition as they aimed to place functional morphology at the heart of a new science, which they called "biology."

Strongly influenced by Immanuel Kant, the biologists' approach combined a sophisticated teleology with mechanistic theories and sparked bitter controversies with the rival programs, mechanistic reductionism and Darwinism. Although temporarily eclipsed by these two approaches, the morphological tradition, Lenoir argues, was not vanquished in the field of scientific debate. It contributed to pathbreaking research in areas such as comparative anatomy, embryology, paleontology, and biogeography.

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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas S. Kuhn

University of Chicago Press, 1996

"A landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field. . . . It is written with a combination of depth and clarity that make it an almost unbroken series of aphorisms. . . . Kuhn does not permit truth to be a criterion of scientific theories, he would presumably not claim his own theory to be true. But if causing a revolution is the hallmark of a superior paradigm, [this book] has been a resounding success." —Nicholas Wade, Science

"Perhaps the best explanation of [the] process of discovery." —William Erwin Thompson, New York Times Book Review

"Occasionally there emerges a book which has an influence far beyond its originally intended audience. . . . Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . . . has clearly emerged as just such a work." —Ron Johnston, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Among the most influential academic books in this century." —Choice

One of "The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the Second World War," Times Literary Supplement

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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

50th Anniversary Edition

Thomas S. Kuhn

University of Chicago Press, 2012

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were—and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach.

With The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age.

This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.

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The Structure of Scientific Theories

Edited by Frederick Suppe

University of Illinois Press, 1977

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The Struggle for Maize

Campesinos, Workers, and Transgenic Corn in the Mexican Countryside

Elizabeth Fitting

Duke University Press, 2011

When scientists discovered transgenes in local Mexican corn varieties in 2001, their findings intensified a debate about not only the import of genetically modified (GM) maize into Mexico but also the fate of the peasantry under neoliberal globalization. While the controversy initially focused on the extent to which gene flow from transgenic to local varieties threatens maize biodiversity, anti-GM activists emphasized the cultural significance of the crop in Mexico and demanded that campesinos and consumers have a voice in the creation of GM maize and rural policies. In The Struggle for Maize, Elizabeth Fitting explores the competing claims of the GM corn debate in relation to the livelihood struggles of small-scale maize producers, migrants, and maquiladora workers from the southern Tehuacán Valley. She argues that the region’s biodiversity is affected by state policies that seek to transform campesinos into entrepreneurs and rural residents into transnational migrant laborers. While corn production and a campesino identity remain important to an older generation, younger residents have little knowledge of or interest in maize agriculture; they seek out wage labor in maquiladoras and the United States. Fitting’s ethnography illustrates how agricultural producers and their families respond creatively to economic hardship and Mexico’s “neoliberal corn regime,” which promotes market liberalization, agricultural “efficiency,” and the reduction of state services over domestic maize production and food sovereignty.

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The Sun in Time

Edited by C. P. Sonett, M. S. Giampapa, and M. S. Matthews

University of Arizona Press, 1991

An interdisciplinary approach to solar physics, as eighty-nine contributors trace the evolution of the Sun and provide a review of our current understanding of both its structure and its role in the origin and evolution of the solar system.

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The Tacit Dimension

Michael Polanyi

University of Chicago Press, 2009

A classic work in the philosophy of science that changed how we think about knowledge itself

“I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell,” writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. The Tacit Dimension argues that tacit knowledge—tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments—is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. As relevant today as it was when it was first published, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

"The reissuing of this remarkable book give us a new opportunity to see how far-reaching—and foundational—Michael Polanyi's ideas are, on some of the age-old questions in philosophy."—Amartya Sen, from the Foreword

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The Tartar Moment

Crisis and the Globalization of Chinese Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh

University of Chicago Press, 0

How seventeenth-century Europeans, following Jesuit missionary Martino Martini, saw their continent as historically, environmentally, and culturally intertwined with China.

The Tartar Moment focuses on understanding how the Manchu conquest of the Ming Empire in 1644 transformed European science, technology, and politics for over a century. Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh argues that seventeenth-century European natural philosophers found the nomadic takeover of a seemingly eternal empire deeply relevant for their own concerns. They began to reevaluate how they thought about the roles of astronomy, history-writing, agriculture, and military technologies in ensuring the long-term survival of a state.

The book’s narrative center is the Jesuit missionary Martino Martini, who first grasped the global significance of the Tartar War and its aftermath. Giovannetti-Singh situates Martini as a broker bridging multiple worlds, each grappling with new forms of turbulence. Martini’s writings reinterpreted Chinese knowledge and culture for diverse European audiences urgently seeking order in an age of uncertainty. China ceased to be imagined as a timeless Other and instead appeared as a civilization that, like Europe, confronted recurring disorder and crafted philosophical solutions to maintain stability. During this period, Europeans selectively appropriated Chinese methods of reading the heavens, cultivating the earth, and governing the state.

By tracing how Martini recognized, theorized, and recounted crises in Ming, Manchu, and European contexts, The Tartar Moment shows that the 1640s and 1650s were not simply years of collapse but of intense creativity in interpreting and responding to disorder.

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The Technical Image

A History of Styles in Scientific Imagery

Edited by Horst Bredekamp, Vera Dünkel, and Birgit Schneider

University of Chicago Press, 2015

In science and technology, the images used to depict ideas, data, and reactions can be as striking and explosive as the concepts and processes they embody—both works of art and generative forces in their own right. Drawing on a close dialogue between the histories of art, science, and technology, The Technical Image explores these images not as mere illustrations or examples, but as productive agents and distinctive, multilayered elements of the process of generating knowledge. Using beautifully reproduced visuals, this book not only reveals how scientific images play a constructive role in shaping the findings and insights they illustrate, but also—however mechanical or detached from individual researchers’ choices their appearances may be—how they come to embody the styles of a period, a mindset, a research collective, or a device.

Opening with a set of key questions about artistic representation in science, technology, and medicine, The Technical Image then investigates historical case studies focusing on specific images, such as James Watson’s models of genes, drawings of Darwin’s finches, and images of early modern musical automata. These case studies in turn are used to illustrate broad themes ranging from “Digital Images” to “Objectivity and Evidence” and to define and elaborate upon fundamental terms in the field. Taken as a whole, this collection will provide analytical tools for the interpretation and application of scientific and technological imagery.

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The Technique of Thought

Nancy, Laruelle, Malabou, and Stiegler after Naturalism

Ian James

University of Minnesota Press, 2019

Interrogating the work of four contemporary French philosophers to rethink philosophy’s relationship to science and science’s relationship to reality

The Technique of Thought explores the relationship between philosophy and science as articulated in the work of four contemporary French thinkers—Jean-Luc Nancy, François Laruelle, Catherine Malabou, and Bernard Stiegler. Situating their writings within both contemporary scientific debates and the philosophy of science, Ian James elaborates a philosophical naturalism that is notably distinct from the Anglo-American tradition. The naturalism James proposes also diverges decisively from the ways in which continental philosophy has previously engaged with the sciences. He explores the technical procedures and discursive methods used by each of the four thinkers as distinct “techniques of thought” that approach scientific understanding and knowledge experimentally.

Moving beyond debates about the constructed nature of scientific knowledge, The Technique of Thought argues for a strong, variably configured, and entirely novel scientific realism. By bringing together post-phenomenological perspectives concerning individual or collective consciousness and first-person qualitative experience with science’s focus on objective and third-person quantitative knowledge, James tracks the emergence of a new image of the sciences and of scientific practice.

Stripped of aspirations toward total mastery of the universe or a “grand theory of everything,” this renewed scientific worldview, along with the simultaneous reconfiguration of philosophy’s relationship to science, opens up new ways of interrogating immanent reality.

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The Technology of Transition

Science and Technology Policies for Transition Countries

David A. Dyker

Central European University Press, 1997

This book addresses the crucial question of how countries which have suffered losses in productivity levels and innovatory momentum over perhaps twenty-thirty years can rediscover their dynamism. Because the contributors have the immediate experience of tackling such complex problems and possess first-hand knowledge of a wide range of developmental patterns, each is well-placed to advise on the search for comprehensive solutions. The book not only focuses on the problems of innovation and technology transfer as they are reflected in the experience of the transition period to date, but also develops conceptual and strategic approaches to problems which will take a generation or more to resolve.

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The Templeton Science and Religion Reader

J. Wetzel van Huysssteen

Templeton Press, 2012

Our attempts to understand the world around us are greatly advanced by scientific research, which holds nearly unlimited potential to address our questions of what? and how? Some scientific fields, however, seem to take a hands-off approach to the big question of why? Why does the universe work the way it does? Why do our brains make us think certain thoughts or feel certain sensations? Why did we evolve the way we did? Some fundamental scientific understanding is necessary before one can venture too deeply into these types of inquiries, which almost inevitably involve larger philosophical and theological implications. The Templeton Science and Religion Reader invites readers to explore some of these fascinating questions and offers them the kind of knowledge they’ll need in order to seriously consider possible answers.

In the Templeton Science and Religion Series, scientific experts from a wide range of fields have distilled their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. The series was launched in 2008 with the publication of the inaugural volume, Medicine, Religion, and Health. Since that time, the series editors J. Wentzel van Huyssteen and Khalil Chamcham have expanded it to nine titles covering everything from paleontology to neuroscience to technology. Now, in The Templeton Science and Religion Reader, the editors have gathered together the very best chapters from these volumes into a single edited collection.

These chapters presuppose no scientific background and are designed to be accessible to the general reader. Each section may have a different focus—a quantum, a star in a galaxy, a bee, or the seat of human intelligence, which some may call the soul—but the editors have done a great service to the reader by juxtaposing these subjects in a way that suggests how each one relates to other entities, including both its own kind and the wider global environment. The end result is a truly cohesive collection that will both broaden and deepen our understanding of these interconnected relations and, in turn, the world around us.

Contributors include Denis R. Alexander, Justin L. Barrett, R. J. Berry, Warren S. Brown, Noreen Herzfeld, Malcom Jeeves, Harold G. Koenig, Javier Leach, Joseph Silk, and Ian Tattersall.

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The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism

Dimitri Ginev

Ohio University Press, 2011

In The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism, Dimitri Ginev draws on developments in hermeneutic phenomenology and other programs in hermeneutic philosophy to inform an interpretative approach to scientific practices. At stake is the question of whether it is possible to integrate forms of reflection upon the ontological difference in the cognitive structure of scientific research. A positive answer would have implied a proof that (pace Heidegger) “science is able to think.” This book is an extended version of such a proof. Against those who claim that modern science is doomed to be exclusively committed to the nexus of objectivism and instrumental rationality, the interpretative theory of scientific practices reveals science’s potentiality of hermeneutic self-reflection. Scientific research that takes into consideration the ontological difference has resources to enter into a dialogue with Nature.

Ginev offers a critique of postmodern tendencies in the philosophy of science, and sets out arguments for a feminist hermeneutics of scientific research.

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The Terrestrial Protected Areas of Madagascar

Their History, Description, and Biota

Edited by Steven M. Goodman, Marie Jeanne Raherilalao, and Sébastien Wohlhause

Association Vahatra, 2018

In 1989, a book written by Martin E. Nicoll and Olivier Langrand was published on the protected areas of Madagascar, which heralded in a new era of conservation for this island nation. In the subsequent three decades, there was an important increase in inventories and studies on Madagascar’s terrestrial biota. This work led to significant changes in the systematics of Malagasy plants and animals, a large percentage unique to the island, and a notable augmentation in knowledge on Malagasy biodiversity. In addition, the considerable expansion of the protected area network, reinforcement of legal tools, and the development of new management modes and tools have contributed to a modernization of the protected area network.

The purpose of The Terrestrial Protected Areas of Madagascar is to present a large-scale update of information available from 98 terrestrial protected areas, various analyses to understand general trends in the conservation of these sites, and a synthesis to assess the needs for future scientific programs. Beautifully illustrated throughout with color maps, graphs, and photos, these three volumes will be an important reference for students, researchers, protected area managers, conservationists, and visiting ecotourists. Volume one provides a comprehensive introduction.

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The Terrestrial Protected Areas of Madagascar

Their History, Description, and Biota, Volume 2: Northern and eastern Madagascar

Edited by Steven M. Goodman, Marie Jeanne Raherilalao, and Sébastien Wohlhauser

Association Vahatra, 2020

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The Terrestrial Protected Areas of Madagascar

Their History, Description, and Biota, Volume 3: Western and southwestern Madagascar - Synthesis

Edited by Steven M. Goodman, Marie Jeanne Raherilalao, and Sébastien Wohlhauser

Association Vahatra, 2020

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The Territories of Science and Religion

Peter Harrison

University of Chicago Press, 2015

The conflict between science and religion seems indelible, even eternal. Surely two such divergent views of the universe have always been in fierce opposition? Actually, that’s not the case, says Peter Harrison: our very concepts of science and religion are relatively recent, emerging only in the past three hundred years, and it is those very categories, rather than their underlying concepts, that constrain our understanding of how the formal study of nature relates to the religious life.

In The Territories of Science and Religion, Harrison dismantles what we think we know about the two categories, then puts it all back together again in a provocative, productive new way. By tracing the history of these concepts for the first time in parallel, he illuminates alternative boundaries and little-known relations between them—thereby making it possible for us to learn from their true history, and see other possible ways that scientific study and the religious life might relate to, influence, and mutually enrich each other.
A tour de force by a distinguished scholar working at the height of his powers, The Territories of Science and Religion promises to forever alter the way we think about these fundamental pillars of human life and experience.

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The Textures of Time

Agency and Temporal Experience

Authored by Michael G. Flaherty

Temple University Press, 2010

What do we mean when we say, "I made the time pass more quickly," or, "I’m creating some ‘me’ time"? InThe Textures of Time, Michael Flaherty examines how we alter or customize our experience of time. His detailed analysis reveals different strategies we use to try to manipulate time, further describing and defining those strategies within six discrete time categories: Duration, Frequency, Sequence, Timing, Allocation, and Taking Time.

Using in-depth interviews and analyzing responses through a sociological lens, Flaherty unearths folk theories and practices, which he calls "time work," that construct circumstances in order to provoke desired forms of temporal experience. As such, time is not justinflicted on us; rather, its various textures result from our intervention, and/or from our efforts to create different forms of temporal experience. These first-person accounts also highlight ongoing tensions between agency and determinism in social groups. Ultimately, in keeping with his central thesis, Flaherty's lucid prose make this book a quick read, and the strategies he describes reveal the profound and inventive ways we "manage the clock."

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The Theory of Ecology

Edited by Samuel M. Scheiner and Michael R. Willig

University of Chicago Press, 2011

Despite claims to the contrary, the science of ecology has a long history of building theories. Many ecological theories are mathematical, computational, or statistical, though, and rarely have attempts been made to organize or extrapolate these models into broader theories. The Theory of Ecology brings together some of the most respected and creative theoretical ecologists of this era to advance a comprehensive, conceptual articulation of ecological theories. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, from ecological niche theory to population dynamic theory to island biogeography theory. Collectively, the chapters ably demonstrate how theory in ecology accounts for observations about the natural world and how models provide predictive understandings. It organizes these models into constitutive domains that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of ecological understanding. This book is a milestone in ecological theory and is certain to motivate future empirical and theoretical work in one of the most exciting and active domains of the life sciences.

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The Theory of Evolution

Principles, Concepts, and Assumptions

Edited by Samuel M. Scheiner and David P. Mindell

University of Chicago Press, 2019

Darwin’s nineteenth-century writings laid the foundations for modern studies of evolution, and theoretical developments in the mid-twentieth century fostered the Modern Synthesis. Since that time, a great deal of new biological knowledge has been generated, including details of the genetic code, lateral gene transfer, and developmental constraints. Our improved understanding of these and many other phenomena have been working their way into evolutionary theory, changing it and improving its correspondence with evolution in nature. And while the study of evolution is thriving both as a basic science to understand the world and in its applications in agriculture, medicine, and public health, the broad scope of evolution—operating across genes, whole organisms, clades, and ecosystems—presents a significant challenge for researchers seeking to integrate abundant new data and content into a general theory of evolution.

This book gives us that framework and synthesis for the twenty-first century. The Theory of Evolution presents a series of chapters by experts seeking this integration by addressing the current state of affairs across numerous fields within evolutionary biology, ranging from biogeography to multilevel selection, speciation, and macroevolutionary theory. By presenting current syntheses of evolution’s theoretical foundations and their growth in light of new datasets and analyses, this collection will enhance future research and understanding.

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The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change

Robert Henson

American Meteorological Society, 2014

Everybody can be a thinking person when it comes to climate change, and this book is a perfect roadmap. Start a web search for “climate change” and the first three suggestions are “facts,” “news,” and “hoax.” The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change is rooted in the first, up to date on the second, and anything but the last. Produced by one of the most venerable atmospheric science organizations, it is a must-read for anyone looking for the full story on climate change.

Using global research and written with nonscientists in mind, the Guide breaks down the issues into straightforward categories: “Symptoms” covers signs such as melting ice and extreme weather, while “Science” lays out what we know and how we figured it out. “Debates” tackles the controversy and politics, while “Solutions” and “Actions” discuss what we can do as individuals and communities to create the best possible future. Full-color illustrations offer explanations of everything from how the greenhouse effect traps heat to which activities in everyday life emit the most carbon. Special-feature boxes zoom in on locations across the globe already experiencing the effects of a shifting climate.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change combines years of data with recent research, including conclusions from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This reference provides the most comprehensive, yet accessible, overview of where climate science stands today, acknowledging controversies but standing strong in its stance that the climate is changing— and something needs to be done.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change is a full update and revision of Robert Henson’s The Rough Guide to Climate Change and is now published through the American Meteorological Society, with distribution through University of Chicago Press.

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The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change, Third Edition

Robert Henson

University of Chicago Press, 2027

Updated throughout, the definitive guide for students, practitioners, and anyone interested in where climate science, politics, and policy stand today.

The physics and chemistry that drive human-caused climate change are surprisingly clear-cut. How we think about, talk about, and respond to the situation is dizzyingly complex. Meteorologist and journalist Robert Henson has spent years making climate science approachable and engaging. His internationally recognized book, The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change, provides both specialists and newcomers with the background, insights, and confidence to engage with the paramount environmental issues of our lives (and beyond).

Drawing on a wealth of studies and assessments, this comprehensive yet lively guide brings a fresh eye to topics often buried in rhetoric. Introductory sections bring to life more than a century of painstaking research that tells us what we know and don’t know about human effects on climate. Henson discusses how and where fossil fuel use has been linked to heat waves, melting ice, wildfires, and other extremes. The guide also explores the high-stakes debates that swirl around climate change—including efforts to deny, downplay, or distract from the crisis—and how political, diplomatic, and legal systems are grappling with it. Color illustrations help explain everything from how the greenhouse effect traps heat to which everyday activities emit the most carbon. Special-feature boxes take readers to locations across the globe: small Pacific islands confronting sea level rise, Africa and its major rainfall shifts, California and year-round wildfire threats, and Florida with hurricanes intensifying ever more rapidly.

Thoroughly updated, this third edition has new coverage of the survivability of extreme heat, the use of global temperature thresholds, the challenge of carbon pricing, and other timely topics. It spotlights the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report as well as evolving geopolitics. This book acknowledges controversy, underscores points of agreement, and favors action over apathy and doomism.

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The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change

Second Edition

Robert Henson

American Meteorological Society, 2019

Everybody can be a thinking person when it comes to climate change, and this book is a perfect roadmap. Start a web search for “climate change” and the first three suggestions are “facts,” “news,” and “hoax.” The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change is rooted in the first, up to date on the second, and anything but the last. Produced by one of the most venerable atmospheric science organizations, it is a must-read for anyone looking for the full story on climate change.

Using global research and written with nonscientists in mind, the Guide breaks down the issues into straightforward categories: “Symptoms” covers signs such as melting ice and extreme weather, while “Science” lays out what we know and how we figured it out. “Debates” tackles the controversy and politics, while “Solutions” and “Actions” discuss what we can do as individuals and communities to create the best possible future. Full-color illustrations offer explanations of everything from how the greenhouse effect traps heat to which activities in everyday life emit the most carbon. Special-feature boxes zoom in on locations across the globe already experiencing the effects of a shifting climate.

The new edition of The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change has been thoroughly updated, including content on new global record highs, new research across the spectrum, and the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gases. This reference provides the most comprehensive, yet accessible, overview of where climate science stands today, acknowledging controversies but standing strong in its stance that the climate is changing—and something needs to be done.

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The Third Lens

Metaphor and the Creation of Modern Cell Biology

Andrew S. Reynolds

University of Chicago Press, 2018

Does science aim at providing an account of the world that is literally true or objectively true? Understanding the difference requires paying close attention to metaphor and its role in science. In The Third Lens, Andrew S. Reynolds argues that metaphors, like microscopes and other instruments, are a vital tool in the construction of scientific knowledge and explanations of how the world works. More than just rhetorical devices for conveying difficult ideas, metaphors provide the conceptual means with which scientists interpret and intervene in the world.

Reynolds here investigates the role of metaphors in the creation of scientific concepts, theories, and explanations, using cell theory as his primary case study. He explores the history of key metaphors that have informed the field and the experimental, philosophical, and social circumstances under which they have emerged, risen in popularity, and in some cases faded from view. How we think of cells—as chambers, organisms, or even machines—makes a difference to scientific practice. Consequently, an accurate picture of how scientific knowledge is made requires us to understand how the metaphors scientists use—and the social values that often surreptitiously accompany them—influence our understanding of the world, and, ultimately, of ourselves.

The influence of metaphor isn’t limited to how we think about cells or proteins: in some cases they can even lead to real material change in the very nature of the thing in question, as scientists use technology to alter the reality to fit the metaphor. Drawing out the implications of science’s reliance upon metaphor, The Third Lens will be of interest to anyone working in the areas of history and philosophy of science, science studies, cell and molecular biology, science education and communication, and metaphor in general.

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The Three Axial Ages

Moral, Material, Mental

Torpey, John

Rutgers University Press, 2017

How should we think about the “shape” of human history since the birth of cities, and where are we headed? Sociologist and historian John Torpey proposes that the “Axial Age” of the first millennium BCE, when some of the world’s major religious and intellectual developments first emerged, was only one of three such decisive periods that can be used to directly affect present social problems, from economic inequality to ecological destruction.

Torpey’s argument advances the idea that there are in fact three “Axial Ages,” instead of one original Axial Age and several subsequent, smaller developments. Each of the three ages contributed decisively to how humanity lives, and the difficulties it faces. The earliest, or original, Axial Age was a moral one; the second was material, and revolved around the creation and use of physical objects; and the third is chiefly mental, and focused on the technological. While there are profound risks and challenges, Torpey shows how a worldview that combines the strengths of all three ages has the potential to usher in a period of exceptional human freedom and possibility.

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The Three Ethologies

A Positive Vision for Rebuilding Human-Animal Relationships

Matthew Calarco

University of Chicago Press, 2024

A transformative vision for human-animal relations on personal, social, and environmental levels.

The Three Ethologies offers a fresh, affirmative vision for rebuilding human-animal relations. Venturing beyond the usual scholarly and activist emphasis on restricting harm, Matthew Calarco develops a new philosophy for understanding animal behavior—a practice known as ethology—through three distinct but interrelated lenses: mental ethology, which rebuilds individual subjectivity; social ethology, which rethinks our communal relations; and environmental ethology, which reconfigures our relationship to the land we co-inhabit with our animal kin. Drawing on developments in philosophy, (eco)feminist theory, critical geography, Indigenous studies, and the environmental humanities, Calarco casts an inspiring vision of how ethological living can help us to reimagine our ideas about goodness, truth, and beauty.

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The Tragic Sense of Life

Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought

Robert J. Richards

University of Chicago Press, 2008

Prior to the First World War, more people learned of evolutionary theory from the voluminous writings of Charles Darwin’s foremost champion in Germany, Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), than from any other source, including the writings of Darwin himself. But, with detractors ranging from paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould to modern-day creationists and advocates of intelligent design, Haeckel is better known as a divisive figure than as a pioneering biologist. Robert J. Richards’s intellectual biography rehabilitates Haeckel, providing the most accurate measure of his science and art yet written, as well as a moving account of Haeckel’s eventful life.

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The Transmutations of Chymistry

Wilhelm Homberg and the Académie Royale des Sciences

Lawrence M. Principe

University of Chicago Press, 2020

This book reevaluates the changes to chymistry that took place from 1660 to 1730 through a close study of the chymist Wilhelm Homberg (1653–1715) and the changing fortunes of his discipline at the Académie Royale des Sciences, France’s official scientific body. By charting Homberg’s remarkable life from Java to France’s royal court, and his endeavor to create a comprehensive theory of chymistry (including alchemical transmutation), Lawrence M. Principe reveals the period’s significance and reassesses its place in the broader sweep of the history of science.

Principe, the leading authority on the subject, recounts how Homberg’s radical vision promoted chymistry as the most powerful and reliable means of understanding the natural world. Homberg’s work at the Académie and in collaboration with the future regent, Philippe II d’Orléans, as revealed by a wealth of newly uncovered documents, provides surprising new insights into the broader changes chymistry underwent during, and immediately after, Homberg. A human, disciplinary, and institutional biography, The Transmutations of Chymistry significantly revises what was previously known about the contours of chymistry and scientific institutions in the early eighteenth century.

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The Traveling Anatomist

Nicolaus Steno and the Intersection of Disciplines in Early Modern Science

Nuno Castel-Branco

University of Chicago Press, 2025

Reevaluates Nicolaus Steno’s contributions to anatomy and early modern science, examining his interdisciplinary interests in their historical context.

Nicolaus Steno (1638–1686) was a renowned anatomist in his lifetime. He reformed the anatomical understanding of glands, argued that the heart was a muscle, renamed the so-called female testicles as ovaries, and developed a mathematical model for understanding muscle contraction—discoveries that were fundamental to the fields of anatomy and physiology. However, other aspects of Steno’s life have come to define him: his claim that mountains’ strata reveal the history of the Earth and his conversion to Catholicism as a practicing scientist. This excessive attention to his geological discoveries and to asking whether science and religion are compatible, Nuno Castel-Branco argues, has obscured his significant accomplishments as an anatomist. The Traveling Anatomist thus restores Steno to his rightful place as a crucial figure in early modern science.

Using Steno’s extensive travels as a framework, this book depicts him as an active participant in the Republic of Letters. Castel-Branco traverses Leiden, Paris, Copenhagen, Florence, and Rome as he follows Steno in his sojourns through different scientific academies, courts, and artisanal workshops. There he developed new friends, some of whom were women, with whom he researched and exchanged ideas. Drawing on Steno’s books, correspondence, and novel archival material, Castel-Branco invites us to approach Steno and his accomplishments in anatomy, mathematics, and geology through the eyes of his contemporaries. Doing so, Castel-Branco reconstructs the rich and overlapping worlds of scientific disciplines that shaped Steno’s work, revealing the richness of interdisciplinary research in early modern intellectual life. And through Steno, he illustrates larger developments and new networks of significance in mid-seventeenth-century science. By focusing on ideas, scientific genres, institutions, and friendships, Castel-Branco offers a way others might also productively study science from the early modern period until today.

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The Trilobite Book

A Visual Journey

Riccardo Levi-Setti

University of Chicago Press, 2014

Distant relatives of modern lobsters, horseshoe crabs, and spiders, trilobites swam the planet’s prehistoric seas for 300 million years, from the Lower Cambrian to the end of the Permian eras—and they did so very capably. Trilobite fossils have been unearthed on every continent, with more than 20,000 species identified by science. One of the most arresting animals of our pre-dinosaur world, trilobites are also favorites among the fossil collectors of today, their crystalline eyes often the catalyst for a lifetime of paleontological devotion. And there is no collector more devoted—or more venerated—than Riccardo Levi-Setti. With The Trilobite Book, a much anticipated follow-up to his classic Trilobites, Levi-Setti brings us a glorious and revealing guide to these surreal arthropods of ancient Earth.

Featuring specimens from Bohemia to Newfoundland, California to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, and Wales to the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Levi-Setti’s magnificent book reanimates these “butterflies of the seas” in 235 astonishing full-color photographs. All original, Levi-Setti’s images serve as the jumping-off point for tales of his global quests in search of these highly sought-after fossils; for discussions of their mineralogical origins, as revealed by their color; and for unraveling the role of the now-extinct trilobites in our planetary history.

Sure to enthrall paleontologists with its scientific insights and amateur enthusiasts with its beautiful and informative images, The Trilobite Book combines the best of science, technology, aesthetics, and personal adventure. It will inspire new collectors for eras to come.

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The Triumph of Human Empire

Verne, Morris, and Stevenson at the End of the World

Rosalind Williams

University of Chicago Press, 2013

In the early 1600s, in a haunting tale titled New Atlantis, Sir Francis Bacon imagined the discovery of an uncharted island. This island was home to the descendants of the lost realm of Atlantis, who had organized themselves to seek “the knowledge of Causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.” Bacon’s make-believe island was not an empire in the usual sense, marked by territorial control; instead, it was the center of a vast general expansion of human knowledge and power.

Rosalind Williams uses Bacon’s island as a jumping-off point to explore the overarching historical event of our time: the rise and triumph of human empire, the apotheosis of the modern ambition to increase knowledge and power in order to achieve world domination. Confronting an intensely humanized world was a singular event of consciousness, which Williams explores through the lives and works of three writers of the late nineteenth century: Jules Verne, William Morris, and Robert Louis Stevenson. As the century drew to a close, these writers were unhappy with the direction in which their world seemed to be headed and worried that organized humanity would use knowledge and power for unworthy ends. In response, Williams shows, each engaged in a lifelong quest to make a home in the midst of human empire, to transcend it, and most of all to understand it. They accomplished this first by taking to the water: in life and in art, the transition from land to water offered them release from the condition of human domination. At the same time, each writer transformed his world by exploring the literary boundary between realism and romance. Williams shows how Verne, Morris, and Stevenson experimented with romance and fantasy and how these traditions allowed them to express their growing awareness of the need for a new relationship between humans and Earth.

The Triumph of Human Empire shows that for these writers and their readers romance was an exceptionally powerful way of grappling with the political, technical, and environmental situations of modernity. As environmental consciousness rises in our time, along with evidence that our seeming control over nature is pathological and unpredictable, Williams’s history is one that speaks very much to the present.

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The Triumph of Uncertainty

Science and Self in the Postmodern Age

Alfred I. Tauber

Central European University Press, 2022

Tauber, a leading figure in history and philosophy of science, offers a unique autobiographical overview of how science as a discipline of thought has been characterized by philosophers and historians over the past century. He frames his account through science’s – and his own personal – quest for explanatory certainty.

During the 20th century, that goal was displaced by the probabilistic epistemologies required to characterize complex systems, whether in physics, biology, economics, or the social sciences. This “triumph of uncertainty” is the inevitable outcome of irreducible chance and indeterminate causality. And beyond these epistemological limits, the interpretative faculties of the individual scientist (what Michael Polanyi called the “personal” and the “tacit”) invariably affects how data are understood. Whereas positivism had claimed radical objectivity, post-positivists have identified how a web of non-epistemic values and social forces profoundly influence the production of knowledge.

Tauber presents a case study of these claims by showing how immunology has incorporated extra-curricular social elements in its theoretical development and how these in turn have influenced interpretive problems swirling around biological identity, individuality, and cognition. The correspondence between contemporary immunology and cultural notions of selfhood are strong and striking. Just as uncertainty haunts science, so too does it hover over current constructions of personal identity, self knowledge, and moral agency. Across the chasm of uncertainty, science and selfhood speak.

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The Tropical Deciduous Forest of Alamos

Biodiversity of a Threatened Ecosystem in Mexico

Edited by Robert H. Robichaux and David A. Yetman

University of Arizona Press, 2000

Only a day's drive south of the U.S.-Mexico border, a tropical deciduous forest opens up a world of exotic trees and birds that most people associate with tropical forests of more southerly latitudes. Like many such forests around the world, this diverse ecosystem is highly threatened, especially by large-scale agricultural interests that are razing it in order to plant grass for cattle.

This book introduces the tropical deciduous forest of the Alamos region of Sonora, describing its biodiversity and the current threats to its existence. The book's contributors present the most up-to-date scientific knowledge of this threatened ecosystem. They review the natural history and ecology of its flora and fauna and explore how native peoples use the forest's many resources.

Included in the book's coverage is a comprehensive plant list for the Río Cuchujaqui area that well illustrates the diversity of the forest. Other contributions examine tree species used by Mayo Indians and the numerous varieties of domesticated plants that have been developed over the centuries by the Mayos and other indigenous peoples. Also examined are the diversity and distribution of reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds in the region.

The Tropical Deciduous Forest of Alamos provides critical information about a globally important biome. It complements other studies of similar forests and allows a better understanding of a diverse but vanishing ecosystem.

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The Trouble with Ancient DNA

Telling Stories of the Past with Genomic Science

Anna Källén

University of Chicago Press, 2025

A thoughtful consideration of the storytelling and science behind ancient DNA discoveries.

In recent years, discoveries brought to light through analysis of ancient DNA—or aDNA—have made headlines around the world. While ancient DNA studies may appear to focus on laboratory science and objective results, the findings have also relied heavily on storytelling and can be influenced by political interests.

In The Trouble with Ancient DNA, Anna Källén explores how the parameters of genetic science influence the stories we tell about our ancient ancestors, questioning what narratives we can and should take at face value. Through accounts of migrations, warriors, and figures like Cheddar Man, we see enticing and potent narratives that reach far beyond what can be gathered from the scientific study of molecules alone. Rather, by privileging certain narratives and questions—like those about sex or eye and skin color—our stories of ancient DNA are spun around the structure of today’s methodologies, technologies, and popular and political interests. Källén considers how DNA is used to sensationalize stories, how its use poses questions of ethics and care, and who is responsible if stories of ancient DNA are adopted for dangerous political projects.

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The Truth about Language

What It Is and Where It Came From

Michael C. Corballis

University of Chicago Press, 2017

Evolutionary science has long viewed language as, basically, a fortunate accident—a crossing of wires that happened to be extraordinarily useful, setting humans apart from other animals and onto a trajectory that would see their brains (and the products of those brains) become increasingly complex.

But as Michael C. Corballis shows in The Truth about Language, it’s time to reconsider those assumptions. Language, he argues, is not the product of some “big bang” 60,000 years ago, but rather the result of a typically slow process of evolution with roots in elements of grammatical language found much farther back in our evolutionary history. Language, Corballis explains, evolved as a way to share thoughts—and, crucially for human development, to connect our own “mental time travel,” our imagining of events and people that are not right in front of us, to that of other people. We share that ability with other animals, but it was the development of language that made it powerful: it led to our ability to imagine other perspectives, to imagine ourselves in the minds of others, a development that, by easing social interaction, proved to be an extraordinary evolutionary advantage.

Even as his thesis challenges such giants as Chomsky and Stephen Jay Gould, Corballis writes accessibly and wittily, filling his account with unforgettable anecdotes and fascinating historical examples. The result is a book that’s perfect both for deep engagement and as brilliant fodder for that lightest of all forms of language, cocktail party chatter.

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The Truth of Uncertainty

Beyond Ideology in Science and Literature

Edward L. Galligan

University of Missouri Press, 1998

In the last chapter of Walden, Henry David Thoreau proclaims a simple yet profound conviction: "Any truth is better than make- believe." Edward Galligan shares this conviction. In The Truth of Uncertainty: Beyond Ideology in Science and Literature, he argues that contemporary American critics should embrace literary truths with all of their ardent uncertainties rather than cling to the make-believe certainties of ideologies.

Postmodern critics fail to ask the truth-seeker's essential question, What does the evidence prove? and instead trust the generalizations and slogans of ideologies to guide their interpretations. Attempting to be up-to-date and profound, these critics lose sight of the literature they are supposed to explore.

The Truth of Uncertainty celebrates values commonly associated with modern, not postmodern criticism, applying them to contemporary works in a series of fresh and unusual inquiries. Galligan finds important implications for criticism in work from the physical sciences that are rarely touched on by American intellectuals, such as Gerald M. Edelman's Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind and Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. Likewise, he finds illumination in the works of novelists that American critics have largely ignored—Josef Skvorecky, George V. Higgins, Mary Lee Settle, Robertson Davies.

As a consequence of dealing with these "unusual" texts, Galligan presents a refreshing interpretation of a number of important concepts: language is grounded in talk; all literary criticism is subjective and tentative because reading is a highly subjective enterprise; and, most important, the world is real and any truth is indeed better than make-believe. He moves from a rejection of criticism in the service of ideology to an affirmation of criticism in the service of truthfulness.

The ideas celebrated in The Truth of Uncertainty are timeless and valuable. Galligan returns to the text and provides a penetrating critique of the state of contemporary criticism, which has abandoned truth for ideology. The result is an eloquent salute to literature itself.

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The Underharbor

Submerged Histories of Sydney

Ann Elias

University of Chicago Press, 2026

An underwater look at Sydney that surfaces new and unfamiliar histories of people, objects, spaces, and environmental and social change.

The Underharbor places the ocean at the center of a cultural history of Sydney, Australia, a place built on and around seawater, where the community is linked historically, emotionally, and psychologically to the water. Drawing on a series of vignettes that focus on Sydney’s underwater dimensions—including the harbor’s relationship to technological modernity, Indigenous ideas and practices, artistic experimentation, and scientific inquiry—Ann Elias creates a unique portrait of a city and its past. By shifting the terrestrial perspective to the subaquatic, Elias uncovers an area filled with political meaning, poetic significance, and ideological struggles.

Few harbors are as researched as Sydney’s, where fishing, exploration, colonialism, warfare, science, and industry all shaped cultural ideas about underwater space. Between 1850 to 1950, only a few groups of people had access to the remote underharbor: Indigenous divers and First Nations peoples, who were dispossessed by colonizers; divers working primarily to further the maritime industrialization of the growing city and to salvage objects from the harbor floor; researchers in the emerging field of marine science who dove for first-hand observation; and beachcombers, naturalists, and dredgers who got to know the underharbor by bringing it to the surface. Through press stories, models, illustrations, maps, and photographic and cinematic representations, The Underharbor reveals how these watery visions of Sydney shifted over the course of a century.

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The Unheeded Cry

Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science

Bernard Rollin

University of Missouri Press, 2017

How can science teach us that animals feel no pain when our common sense observations tell us otherwise?

Bernard Rollin offers welcome insight into questions like this in his ground-breaking account of the difficult and controversial issues surrounding the use of animals. He demonstrates that the denial of animal consciousness and animal suffering is not an essential feature of a scientific approach, but rather a contingent, historical aberration that can and must be changed if science is to be both coherent and morally responsible. Widely hailed by advocates of animal welfare and scientists alike on its first appearance, the book now includes an epilogue by the author describing what has changed, and what hasn’t, in this use of animals in scientific research and food production.

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The Universe in Thirteen Graphs

Charting Cosmic Discoveries Across Space and Time

Chris Lintott, Jeffrey Grube, and Daina Bouquin

University of Chicago Press, 2027

See the Universe as astronomers do: These thirteen graphs distill the cutting-edge discoveries of the cosmos—from planets and stars to galaxies, to ripples in spacetime itself.

From the front page of newspapers to your favorite t-shirt, the visual language of the cosmos is pervasive. Yet while you may have seen stunning images of planets, nebulae, and even the shadow of a black hole, pretty pictures alone cannot reveal the universe. Whether you’re looking for planets outside our solar system, searching for dark matter, listening for ripples in spacetime, or looking back to very early times, to truly understand the cosmos you need graphs.

In this fully illustrated and engaging book, astronomers Chris Lintott and Jeffrey Grube and data scientist Daina Bouquin focus on thirteen graphs to offer a tour of the major astronomical discoveries of the last century. Meet the HR diagram, which tells us about stellar lives; marvel at the Hubble diagram’s evidence for the expansion of the Universe; understand special relativity through Minkowski spacetime; and turn back time to the earliest visible light of the cosmic microwave background. With fascinating stories of discovery and accessible science for understanding ongoing debates, this book proves that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, a graph can show you the universe.

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