Henry Louis (‘H.L.’) Mencken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencken) was inspired by ‘the argot of the coloured waiters’ in Washington, as well as one of his favourite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, he remarked on the ‘queer words which go into the making of ‘United States’. The American Language (1919) was preceded by several columns […]
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Brian Greene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Greene), one of the world’s leading string theorists, peels away layers of mystery to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter — from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas — is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny
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Fr. Bernard J.F. Lonergan, CC, SJ (1904-1984) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonergan and http://www.bernardlonergan.com/) was a Canadian Jesuit Priest and a philosopher-theologian in the Thomist tradition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomism). In this landmark work of 1957 he offers a general account of knowledge in the natural sciences, humanities, philosophy and common sense. He presents a Transcendental Deduction with a Kantian flavour, a position on objectivity, the outline
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What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century? Malcolm Gladwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell) has written three books that have
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Simon Winchester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Winchester) examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa), which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar.
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The Age of Reform (1955) by Richard Hofstadter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter) is a landmark in American political thought. It examines the passion for progress and reform that coloured the entire period from 1890 to 1940 – with startling and stimulating results. It searches out the moral and emotional motives of the reformers, the myths and dreams in which they
The history of the 20th century is marked by two great narratives: nations locked in savage wars over ideology and territory, and scientists overturning the received wisdom of preceding generations. According to Paul Johnson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Johnson_(writer) and http://pauljohnsonarchives.org/), the modern era begins with one of the second types of revolutions, in 1919, when English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington
The Story of Art, by Ernst Gombrich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Gombrich), is a survey of the history of art from ancient times to the modern era. First published in 1950, the book is widely regarded both as a seminal work of criticism, and as one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts. It was originally intended
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This book (published 2013) about nothing sounds like a plain oxymoron. However, there are fascinating possibilities in the concepts of emptiness and non-existence. Scientists have suspected for centuries that ‘nothing’ may be the key to understanding absolutely everything, from why particles have mass to the expansion of the universe – so without nothing we’d be precisely nowhere. Absolute zero (the coldest
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