The Residue of Dreams is the first English-language publication of the classical-style poems of Jao Tsung-i (b. 1917), a prominent artist-calligrapher, scholar-poet, and polymath living in Hong Kong.
Lectures, many never before published, that offer insights into the early thinking of the mathematician and polymath George Boole.George Boole (1815--1864), remembered by history as the developer of a
Polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a self-described 'scientific traveller', was one of the most respected scientists of his time. Humboldt's wanderlust led him across Europe and to South America, Mexico, the U.S., and Russia, and his voyages and observations resulted in the discovery of many species previously unknown to Europeans. Originating as lectures delivered in Berlin and Paris (1827–1828), his multi-volume Cosmos: Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1845–1860) represented the culmination of his lifelong interest in understanding the physical world. As Humboldt writes, 'I ever desired to discern physical phenomena in their widest mutual connection, and to comprehend Nature as a whole, animated and moved by inward forces.' Volume 1 (1846) investigates celestial and terrestrial phenomena, from nebulae to the temperature of the earth, as well as 'organic life'. Throughout, he stresses the method of, and limits to, describing the universe's physical nature.
Polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a self-described 'scientific traveller', was one of the most respected scientists of his time. Humboldt's wanderlust led him across Europe and to South America, Mexico, the U.S. and Russia, and his voyages and observations resulted in the discovery of many species previously unknown to Europeans. Originating as lectures delivered in Berlin and Paris (1827–1828), his two-volume Cosmos: Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1845–1860) represented the culmination of his lifelong interest in understanding the physical world. As Humboldt writes, 'I ever desired to discern physical phenomena in their widest mutual connection, and to comprehend Nature as a whole, animated and moved by inward forces'. Volume 2 (1848) reviews poetic descriptions of nature as well as landscape painting from antiquity through to modernity, before using the same time-span to examine a 'History of the Physical Contemplation of the Universe'.
How the nature illustrations of a Renaissance polymath reflect his turbulent ageThis pathbreaking and stunningly illustrated book recovers the intersections between natural history, politics, art, and
The Works of Ibn Wa?i? al-Ya?qubi (3 vols.) contains a translation of the writings of Abu al-`Abbas al-Ya`qubi, a Muslim polymath of the third/ninth century. The works include the History (Ta’rikh); t
The Works of Ibn Wa?i? al-Ya?qubi contains a translation of the writings of Abu al-`Abbas al-Ya`qubi, a Muslim polymath of the third/ninth century. The works include the History (Ta’rikh); the Geograp
After 20 years of scholastic labor, Buchanan (archive studies, University of Liverpool) delivers the definitive and richly illustrated intellectual biography of the polymath, Robert Willis (1800-75),
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was a polymath of dazzling intellectual range and energy. Renowned for his co-discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and his invention of the ophthalmoscope, H
The Victorian polymath William Stanley Jevons (1835–82) is generally and rightly venerated as one of the great innovators of economic theory and method in what came to be known as the 'marginalist revolution'. This book is an investigation into the cultural and intellectual resources that Jevons drew upon to revolutionize research methods in economics. Jevons's uniform approach to the sciences was based on a firm belief in the mechanical constitution of the universe and a firm conviction that all scientific knowledge was limited and therefore hypothetical in character. Jevons's mechanical beliefs found their way into his early meteorological studies, his formal logic, and his economic pursuits. By using mechanical analogies as instruments of discovery, Jevons was able to bridge the divide between theory and statistics that had become more or less institutionalized in mid nineteenth-century Britain.
The Victorian polymath William Stanley Jevons (1835–82) is generally and rightly venerated as one of the great innovators of economic theory and method in what came to be known as the 'marginalist revolution'. This book is an investigation into the cultural and intellectual resources that Jevons drew upon to revolutionize research methods in economics. Jevons's uniform approach to the sciences was based on a firm belief in the mechanical constitution of the universe and a firm conviction that all scientific knowledge was limited and therefore hypothetical in character. Jevons's mechanical beliefs found their way into his early meteorological studies, his formal logic, and his economic pursuits. By using mechanical analogies as instruments of discovery, Jevons was able to bridge the divide between theory and statistics that had become more or less institutionalized in mid nineteenth-century Britain.
A polymath and author of dozens of books including The Death of Tragedy, After Babel and In Bluebeard's Castle examines two thousand years of Western culture, philosophy and literature and discusses h
Ernest Gellner (1925–95) has been described as 'one of the last great central European polymath intellectuals'. His last book, first published in 1998, throws light on two leading thinkers of their time. Wittgenstein, arguably the most influential and the most cited philosopher of the twentieth century, is famous for having propounded two radically different philosophical positions. Malinowski, the founder of modern British social anthropology, is usually credited with being the inventor of ethnographic fieldwork, a fundamental research method throughout the social sciences. In a highly original way, Gellner shows how the thought of both men grew from a common background of assumptions - widely shared in the Habsburg Empire of their youth - about human nature, society, and language. Tying together themes which preoccupied him throughout his working life, Gellner epitomizes his belief that philosophy - far from 'leaving everything as it is' - is about important historical, social and pe
Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) ? German Jesuit, occultist, polymath - was one of most curious figures in the history of science. He dabbled in all the mysteries of his time: the heavenly bodies, sou
English physician William George Maton (1774–1835) was a polymath who had a special interest in botany: a shell and a parrot were among species named in his honour. His writings on natural history included a catalogue of the plant and animal life around Salisbury, Wiltshire, which was published posthumously in 1843 and is reissued as the second part of this composite work. The first part contains a sketch of Maton's life and work by fellow physician and writer John Ayrton Paris (c. 1785–1856), first presented to the Royal College of Physicians, and subsequently published in 1838. Paris discusses Maton's early life, his contributions to the growing field of botany, his other scientific and antiquarian interests, and his distinguished medical career, during which he was appointed physician-extraordinary to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and later physician-in-ordinary to the duchess of Kent and the young Princess (later Queen) Victoria.
This is a modern annotated translation of medical section of the Book of the Two Pieces of Advice (or Kitab al-Nasihatayn) by Arab polymath `Abd al-Latif ibn Yusuf al-Baghdadi (1162-1231). The volume
Jami in Regional Contexts is a study of the reception of the polymath ?Abd al-Ra?man Jami (d. 898/1492)'s works in various regional traditions throughout the Islamicate world.
This highly original book is the first in-depth study of a footsoldier of the seventeenth-century German Republic of Letters. Its subject, the German polymath and schoolteacher Christian Daum, is toda
The great poet and polymath Friedrich von Hardenberg, known as Novalis, was long seen as representing a particular brand of German Romanticism, embodying a predilection for the mystical and the irrat
