Reading more books
I haven't made much time for reading these past two months, but I have made my way through a few good books.
The currently extant Temeraire books, His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War. In brief, they posit a world in which dragons are real, but which is otherwise the same as ours. The protagonist is Captain William Laurence of the Royal Navy during the wars with Napoleon. After his frigate captures a French ship with a dragon egg aboard, he winds up becoming a dragon rider, and having many interesting adventures. These books are fun, quick reads. Author Naomi Novik has a good feel for the period, and creates characters who are, as best as I can tell, true to the 18th century in thoughts, customs and manners, and yet sympathetic to modern readers and differ logically from the actual period because of their fantastical circumstances. I would recommend them to anyone.
The Measure of All Things, by Ken Alder. This book won the 2003 Davis Award from the History of Science Society for books directed to a general readership. It's not as prestigious as the Sarton medal, but it's still a big deal, and a great start if one is looking for good books in the history of science. This book is focuses on Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre and Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechain, two astronomers from the French Academie des Sciences who, in 1789, embarked on an expedition to measure very precisely the distance along the meridian through Paris to allow the Academy to establish the proper length for the meter, which was to be the basis for the new metric system. It's a very well written book. Alder explains complicated things simply and clearly, paces his story well, and breaks out from a well-researched history of a few particular people at a particular time (Delambre went north, Mechain south, and it took them seven years to finish their task, only partly because of the Revolution.) Alder also considers more general issues of measurement, such as: why we measure things in the way that we do, the ways that measurements not only subdivide our world, but embody our social contracts and our sense of justice; how do we understand error--what it is, how we deal with it and what our response to it says about who we are; and also, some insight on the way the savants of ancien regime became the professional scientists of our own era. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who thinks they would enjoy it, but, in particular, gfishshould read this book, and professor Hanson should use it if she ever again teaches her class on history and money.
The currently extant Temeraire books, His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War. In brief, they posit a world in which dragons are real, but which is otherwise the same as ours. The protagonist is Captain William Laurence of the Royal Navy during the wars with Napoleon. After his frigate captures a French ship with a dragon egg aboard, he winds up becoming a dragon rider, and having many interesting adventures. These books are fun, quick reads. Author Naomi Novik has a good feel for the period, and creates characters who are, as best as I can tell, true to the 18th century in thoughts, customs and manners, and yet sympathetic to modern readers and differ logically from the actual period because of their fantastical circumstances. I would recommend them to anyone.
The Measure of All Things, by Ken Alder. This book won the 2003 Davis Award from the History of Science Society for books directed to a general readership. It's not as prestigious as the Sarton medal, but it's still a big deal, and a great start if one is looking for good books in the history of science. This book is focuses on Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre and Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechain, two astronomers from the French Academie des Sciences who, in 1789, embarked on an expedition to measure very precisely the distance along the meridian through Paris to allow the Academy to establish the proper length for the meter, which was to be the basis for the new metric system. It's a very well written book. Alder explains complicated things simply and clearly, paces his story well, and breaks out from a well-researched history of a few particular people at a particular time (Delambre went north, Mechain south, and it took them seven years to finish their task, only partly because of the Revolution.) Alder also considers more general issues of measurement, such as: why we measure things in the way that we do, the ways that measurements not only subdivide our world, but embody our social contracts and our sense of justice; how do we understand error--what it is, how we deal with it and what our response to it says about who we are; and also, some insight on the way the savants of ancien regime became the professional scientists of our own era. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who thinks they would enjoy it, but, in particular, gfishshould read this book, and professor Hanson should use it if she ever again teaches her class on history and money.