James Burke Bundle - James Burke

Written by James Burke
Read by James Burke
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Connections:
Booze, dope, metaphysics, and other rhapsodic matters - Scientific American feature columnist James Burke airs a few Renaissance thoughts, making “Connections” between - among others - Leonardo da Vinci, Joseph Black, William Cullen, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Igor Sikorsky.

The Day the Universe Changed:
The Day the Universe Changed presents a sweeping view of the history of science, technology, and human civilization and examines the moments in history when a change in knowledge radically altered man’s understanding of himself and the world around him.
James Burke examines eight periods in history when our view of the world shifted dramatically:
In the eleventh century, when extraordinary discoveries were made by Spanish crusaders.
In fourteenth-century Florence, where perspective in painting emerged.
In the fifteenth century, when the advent of the printing press shook the foundations of an oral society.
In the sixteenth century, when gunnery developments triggered the birth of modern science.
In the early eighteenth century, when hot English summers brought on the Industrial Revolution.
In the battlefield surgery stations of the French revolutionary armies, where people first became statistics.
In the nineteenth century, when the discovery of dinosaur fossils led to the theory of evolution.
In the 1820s, when electrical experiments heralded the end of scientific certainty.
Based on the popular television documentary series, The Day the Universe Changed is a bestselling history that challenges the reader to decide whether there is absolute knowledge to discover-or whether the universe is “ultimately what we say it is.”

The Pinball Effect:
Continuing the journey that began with Connections and continued with The Day the Universe Changed, Burke draws on years of research and his powerful storytelling abilities to illuminate “how sometimes the simplest act will have cosmic repercussions a 100 years later.” Among these extraordinary historical tours, Burke shows how racing cars owe their victories to the development of photography; how weapons, aircraft and medical technology each exist in part because the others exist; and he traces the amazing steps on a journey that begins with the efforts to abolish slavery and leads to the heart of our nuclear reactors. Few can look at human history and see it as an intricate mosaic of neatly interlocking pieces. Fewer still can describe the patterns and explain the parts of the puzzle so that it all not only makes sense, but also excites and entertains. James Burke has done all that and more in his previous books, and now in the The Pinball Effect he does it - and does it marvelously well - again.