Academic Life

Scientists often challenge conventional wisdom and spark debates that last for generations. But no scientist has fuelled more debate than Charles Darwin. To some he is the revolutionary 'father' of evolution. To others he is the perverse 'originator' of modern eugenics. In The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin, author Benjamin Wiker brings these conflicting identities to light.

As a young man, Albert Schweitzer seemed destined for greatness. His immense talent and fortitude propelled him to a place as one of Europe's most renowned philosophers, theologians, and musicians in the early 20th century. Yet Schweitzer shocked his contemporaries by forsaking worldly success and embarking on an epic journey into the wilds of French Equatorial Africa, vowing to serve as a lifelong physician to "the least of these" in a mysterious land rife with famine, sickness, and superstition.

Una presencia de relieve en las letras castellanas. José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 9 de mayo de 1883 - Madrid, 18 de octubre de 1955) fue un filósofo y ensayista español, exponente principal de la teoría del perspectivismo y de la razón vital e histórica, situado en el movimiento del Novecentismo.

The early years of venture capital were a far cry from today’s very public dealings. Alan Patricof, one of the pioneers of the venture arena, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the past 50 years of the industry. From buying stock in Apple when its market valuation was only $60 million to founding New York Magazine to investing in AOL, Audible, and more recently, Axios, his discerning approach to finding companies is almost peerless.

Author Jeremy Gray provides a comprehensive and intellectually stimulating introduction to Bernhard Riemann’s life and paradigm-defining work. Beginning with his early influences - in particular, his relationship with his renowned predecessor Carl Friedrich Gauss - Gray goes on to explore Riemann’s specific contributions to geometry, functions of a complex variable, prime numbers, and functions of a real variable, which opened the way to discovering the limits of the calculus.

Serve 2 Win, the first in a series of business guidebooks by entrepreneur coach and serial business owner, Mitch Durfee, offers an unusual approach to launching a small business. The single most successful basis for any entrepreneurial endeavor is that of being of service. Not only does a service-to-others approach attract customers and clients, it rewards business practitioners with an unshakeable sense of purpose, undergirded by the inherent happiness of using their expertise to assist others in need of help.

All In My Head is a memoir by a woman who in her early 50s received a life-shattering diagnosis. It is about her determined search for effective treatment, the birth of a campaign to get proper data and funding for research into glioblastoma (GBM), and finally her coming to terms with the knowledge that she has reached the end of the road.

A century ago, if one were to come across a manual laborer from the early 20th century or the Roaring Twenties and relayed to them the possibility of one day sticking it to the man, one would probably be laughed out of the century. However, this was exactly what one man with solid-gold aspirations and audacity set out to achieve. Jimmy Hoffa, once described by Bobby Kennedy as the second most powerful man in America, was a union boss who evoked both respect and fear.

As Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield captivated the world with stunning photos and commentary from space. Now, reading from his first book, Chris takes listeners deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible.

One More Light takes you on a journey with veteran firefighter and paramedic James Geering. As each chapter unfolds, the heart-wrenching stories are coupled with a unique physical and mental health perspective about preventing tragedy and unnecessary suffering. It’s about maximizing the wellness and fulfillment of one another. But most of all, this is a book that ultimately leaves you with the hope that, with us at our best, we have a fighting chance to thrive in an uncertain world.

Richard A. Stone MD is the former Deputy Surgeon General of the United States Army. He returned to government service to lead the Veterans Health Administration at the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2018. Brought on as a proven changemaker and experienced leader in an inflection point for the agency. He had no idea his tenure would be defined by the public health challenge of our lifetime.

Armed with unprecedented access to Edison's workshop diaries, notebooks, and letters, Israel brings fresh insights into how the inventor's creative mind worked. For the first time, much attention is devoted to his early family life in Ohio and Michigan, where the young Edison honed his entrepreneurial sense and eye for innovation as a newsstand owner and editor of a weekly newspaper. These experiences underscore the inventor's later successes with new resonance and pathos.

Since the beginning of time, money and trading have shaped the economy of civilization. Among all of the day traders, the one who was most praised in his time was Jesse Livermore, who is regularly hailed as the greatest and most influential pioneer to have ever played the game. The illustrious Livermore's impressive career was marked by glittering, unparalleled highs, made possible by his trademark methods, which were listed in a bible that continues to be religiously referenced by day traders to this day.

After losing four pregnancies with no obvious cause, Jennie Agg set out to understand why miscarriage remains such a profoundly misunderstood, under-researched and under-acknowledged experience. Part-memoir, part-scientific investigation, Life, Almost documents Agg's path to motherhood and her search for answers. Tracing each tentative step of her fifth pregnancy—as her body becomes a creature she does not wish to spook—Agg dismantles the myths that we unquestioningly accept about our reproductive lives.

As command module pilot of Apollo 17, the last crewed flight to the moon, Ron Evans combined precision flying and painstaking geological observation with moments of delight and enthusiasm. As a patriotic American in charge of command module America, Evans was nicknamed “Captain America” by his fellow crew members.

In 1989, Brad Schaeffer was working as an artist when his trader brother invited him to visit the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Schaeffer promptly quit his job and became a clerk in that most iconic arena of raw capitalism. During the next six years, Schaeffer rose from clerk to trader, making markets on Eurodollar options in Chicago and heating oil options in New York. In that time, jammed literally shoulder-to-shoulder, he screamed, flailed his arms, hurled expletives, and pushed and shoved his way through his day.

Before Mary Kay, Martha Stewart, and Joy Mangano, there was Brownie Wise, the charismatic Tupperware executive who converted postwar optimism into a record-breaking sales engine powered by American housewives. In Life of the Party, Bob Kealing offers the definitive portrait of Wise, a plucky businesswoman who divorced her alcoholic husband, started her own successful business, and eventually caught the eye of Tupperware inventor Earl Tupper, whose plastic containers were collecting dust on store shelves.

Born and raised in Turkey, Osman moved to the United States in 1982, earned a PhD in physical organic chemistry, and built a successful life, with a stellar scientific career, cerebral hobbies, and two wonderful children. However, a sudden layoff at age 50 and a dysfunctional marriage caused him to question both his professional trajectory and his personal lifestyle. The resulting gradual awakening caused him to change his attitude and approach to life as he navigated the next stages of his life after 50.

When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that Jonas Salk had successfully created a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, he became a hero overnight. Born in a New York tenement, humble in manner, Salk had all the makings of a 20th-century icon - a knight in a white coat. In the wake of his achievement, he received a staggering number of awards and honors; for years his name ranked with Gandhi and Churchill on lists of the most revered people.

Born to a family of modest means in Kentucky, Jim Glidewell overcame insurmountable odds to create a business of staggering success. In January of 1970, he opened Glidewell Laboratories - one of the largest and most successful dental laboratories in the world with multiple locations worldwide. Jim Glidewell’s story is one of the great American success stories of our times and offers valuable wisdom on topics ranging from relationships to investing and ways to navigate insurmountable obstacles in a changing world.