Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Winchester returns with a thought-provoking history of the wind, written in his edifying and entertaining style.
What is going on with our atmosphere? The headlines are filled with news of devastating hurricanes, murderous tornadoes, and cataclysmic fires. Gale force advisories are issued on a regular basis by weather services around the world.
Atmospheric scientists are warning that winds - the force at the centre of all these dangerous natural events - are expected to steadily increase in the years ahead, strengthening in power, speed, and frequency. While this prediction worried the insurance industry, governmental leaders, scientists, and conscientious citizens, one particular segment of society received it with unbridled enthusiasm. To the energy industry, rising wind strength and speeds as an unalloyed boon for humankind - a vital source of clean and 'safe' power.
Between these two poles - wind as a malevolent force, and wind as saviour of our planet - lies a world of fascination, history, literature, science, poetry, and engineering which Simon Winchester explores with the curiosity and Vigor that are the hallmarks of his bestselling works. In The Breath of the Gods, he explains how wind plays a part in our everyday lives, from airplane or car travel to the 'natural disasters' that are becoming more frequent and regular.
The Breath of the Gods is an urgently-needed portrait across time of that unseen force - unseen but not unfelt - that respects no national borders and no vessel or structure in its path. Wind, the movement of the air, is seen by so many as a heavenly creation and generally a thing of essential goodness. But when it flexes its invisible muscles, all should take care and be very afraid.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
PRAISE FOR KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW:
'An ebullient, irrepressible spirit invests this book. It is erudite and sprightly in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has read Winchester's wonderful histories of the Krakatoa eruption, the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Atlantic (among others)' Sunday Times
'A book about transmitting knowledge by someone who has made his name by doing just that in the most erudite and entertaining way possible ... a delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter ... Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history ... as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished British Empire and reported what they found to an astonished world' New York Times
'From schoolhouses in ancient Sumeria and Aboriginal "songlines" to GPS, Wikipedia, Google and beyond, Winchester traverses the human history of information storage and transmission in a pageant of colourful, eloquent tableaux... Don't pigeonhole Knowing What We Know as "information science". Rather, think of it as an intellectual autobiography: one richly stocked, ever-curious mind's account of the multiple ways in which stored knowledge may open the road to understanding' Financial Times
'Winchester is a knowledge keeper for our times, and he does us all a service by writing it down' Wall Street Journal
'[Winchester] might be appropriately dubbed the One-Man Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge of our own era. Whatever his subject, Winchester leavens deep research and the crisp factual writing of a reporter ... with an abundance of curious anecdotes, footnotes and digressions. His prose is always clear, but it is also invigorated with pleasingly elegant diction ... Informative and entertaining throughout' Washington Post
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Maße
Höhe: 240 mm
Breite: 159 mm
Dicke: 29 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-00-867949-1 (9780008679491)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.
