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18 General Interest
The Power of Knowledge
How Information and Technology Made the Modern World
Jeremy Black
Information is power. For more than five hundred years the success or
failure of nations has been determined by a country’s ability to acquire
knowledge and technical skill and transform them into strength and
prosperity. Leading historian Jeremy Black approaches global history
from a distinctive perspective, focusing on the relationship between
information and society and demonstrating how the understanding and
use of information have been the primary factors in the development
and character of the modern age.
Black suggests that the West’s ascension was a direct result of its
institutions and social practices for acquiring, employing, and retaining
information and the technology that was ultimately produced.
His cogent and well-reasoned analysis looks at cartography and the
hardware of communication, armaments and sea power, mercantilism
and imperialism, science and astronomy, as well as bureaucracy and the
management of information, linking the history of technology with the
history of global power while providing important indicators for the
future of our world.
October
448 pp. 234x156mm.
HB ISBN 978-0-300-16795-5 £30.00*
Jeremy Black is professor of history at the University of Exeter.
A writer, lecturer and broadcaster, he is the author of six books
published by Yale, among them Maps and History and George III.
Shaping Humanity
How Science, Art, and Imagination Help Us Understand
Our Origins
John Gurche
What did earlier humans really look like? What was life like for them,
millions of years ago? How do we know? In this book, internationallyrenowned
paleo-artist John Gurche describes the extraordinary process
by which he creates forensically accurate and hauntingly realistic
representations of our ancient humans ancestors.
January
320 pp. 254x216mm.
163 colour illus.
HB ISBN 978-0-300-18202-6 £30.00*
Inspired by a lifelong fascination with all things pre-historic and gifted
with a unique artistic vision, Gurche has studied fossil remains,
comparative ape and human anatomy and forensic reconstruction for
over three decades. His artworks appear in world class museums and
publications ranging from National Geographic to the journal Science,
and he is widely known for his contributions to Steven Speilberg’s
Jurassic Park and a number of acclaimed television specials. For the
Smithsonian Institution’s groundbreaking David H. Koch Hall of
Human Origins, opened in 2010, Gurche created fifteen sculptures
representing six million years of human history. In Shaping Humanity
he relates how he used sculpture to depict human evolution in the new
hall. He reveals the debates and brainstorming that surrounds these
often controversial depictions, and along the way he enriches our
awareness of the various paths of human evolution and humanity’s
stunning uniqueness in the history of life on Earth.
Award-winning paleo-artist John Gurche is artist-in-residence, Museum
of the Earth, Paleontological Research Institute, Ithaca, NY.