Machine History

In his insightful and provocative work, Lennox explores the biblical text in light of the rapidly exploding world of technology, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), and warns modern believers of the implications of Jesus’ final earthly message to his followers, as well as a potential link to the end times leader that the Gospel writer John refers to as the Antichrist.

Tracy Kidder's "riveting" (Washington Post) story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry. Computers have changed since...

More than any other technology, cars have transformed our culture. Cars have created vast wealth as well as novel dreams of freedom and mobility. They have transformed our sense of distance and made the world infinitely more available to our eyes and our imaginations. They have inspired cinema...

Ancient Automation: The First Machines of Civilization Book 2 Long before computers, electricity, or modern factories, humanity was already building machines that could measure, regulate, calculate, and perform work. Ancient Automation: The First Machines of Civilization, Book 2 of The History...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan, read by Billy Howle. Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers...

Books preserve ideas, yes, but they also provoke new ones— they are true tools for thinking. In The Idea Machine, Joel J. Miller shows that books are one of the most important but overlooked factors in the making of our contemporary world.

In a book that will recalibrate our view of this defining feature of our planet, physicist Helen Czerski dives deep to illuminate the murky depths of the ocean engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live in it, travel over it, and survive because of it. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she explains the vast currents, invisible ocean walls and underwater waterfalls that all have their place in the ocean's complex system.

Every Prime Minister of independent India has guided, if not personally overseen, one prized portfolio: technology. If, in the early years, Nehru and his scientist-advisors retained an iron grip on it, subsequent governments created a bureaucracy that managed everything from the country's crown...

A single mechanical invention shattered traditional military history and sparked a brutal era of industrial warfare. Perfect for an educational commute, this intense historical deep dive explores how automatic fire reshaped global power dynamics from the nineteenth century onward. Step into the...

This gripping military history reveals how one industrial invention transformed global warfare and political authority. Perfect for an educational commute, this thought-provoking narrative shifts the focus from calibers to the human cost of mechanized combat. It explores the factory owners...

This book provides young listeners with exciting information on the most modern U.S. military ships.

Discover how a humble household appliance sparked a quiet revolution in domestic labor and women's rights worldwide. Perfect for a thought-provoking commute, this fascinating historical exploration transforms a mundane chore into an epic tale of industrialization and social upheaval. Journey...

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the "smart" in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail - human-level intelligence.

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations, or ems. Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human. Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times; an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace humans in most jobs.

Longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year The "rich and gripping" true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today (Naomi Klein) The most urgent story in modern tech begins...

The extraordinary true story of Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works”—the radical innovation hub that designed the greatest airplanes of the twentieth century—and the visionary who made it all possible "A kerosene-soaked masterclass in what extreme innovation looks, feels, and even smells...

The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cells - assemblies of otherwise "dead" molecules - come to life, and together constitute a living being? In Life’s Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale.

'Riveting and forensic' James O'Brien 'Brimming with intelligence, energy, ethics and impeccable research' Samira Ahmed 'An authoritative guide to improving your media literacy' The Big Issue The modern media is breaking. Now, more than ever, the media is crucial in shaping what we know about...

Alexander Rosenberg was a smart and curious teenager who spoke many languages, and lived a pampered life with his parents in a tranquil Czechoslovakian town. The rise of fascism and Nazi Germany causes his protected existence to collapse, alongside the illusion of secular Jewish assimilation in 1930s Europe. Using their last reserves of wealth and influence to escape extermination, the Rosenbergs go underground to avoid the Gestapo. Eventually exposed, captured, and taken to Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp in Germany, Alexander and his father collaborate to survive one day at a time

See how a desperate technological gamble in the mud of the First World War permanently transformed military history. This gripping audio experience pulls you right into the intense, claustrophobic reality of armored combat. Perfect for a focused commute, the narrative tracks the evolution of...