A Triumph of Genius


Book Description

This major business biography of Polaroid and its founder and inventor Edwin Land, covers how the company grew from the initial Polavision prototypes during World War II, to the 1980s landmark patent infringement trial against Kodak that nearly brought the company to its knees.




The Triumph of Seeds


Book Description

As seen on PBS's American Spring LIVE, the award-winning author of Buzz and Feathers presents a natural and human history of seeds, the marvels of the plant kingdom. "The genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring, and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves." -- Mark Kurlansky, New York Times Book Review We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life: supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and pepper drove the Age of Discovery, coffee beans fueled the Enlightenment and cottonseed sparked the Industrial Revolution. Seeds are fundamental objects of beauty, evolutionary wonders, and simple fascinations. Yet, despite their importance, seeds are often seen as commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. This is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A fascinating scientific adventure, it is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow.




The Triumph of Music


Book Description

Once musicians such as Mozart were little more than court servants; now they are multimillionaire superstars wielding more power than politicians. How did this extraordinary change come about? Tim Blanning's brilliantly enjoyable book examines how everything from the cult of the romantic to technology and travel all fed the inexorable rise of music in the West, making it the most dominant and ubiquitous of the art forms. Encompassing balladeers, the great composers, jazz legends and rock gods, this is an enthralling story of power, patronage, creativity and genius.













An Essay on Genius


Book Description

"This book covers the following topics related to genius: the nature of genius; the province and criterion of genius; to what faculty of mind genius belongs; how genius arrives from the imagination; the influence of judgment upon genius; the dependence of genius on other intellectual powers; the general sources of the varieties of genius; qualities of ideas which produce association; the influence of the passions on association; reflections of the principles of association; ideas suggested, either by sensations, or by other ideas; the combination of associating principles; the predominance of the associating principles; flexibility of imagination; the varieties of memory, and their influence on genius; the varieties of judgment, and their influence on genius; the kinds of genius; genius twofold, for science, or the the arts; the structure of imagination which distinguishes the two kinds of genius; how the two kinds of genius differ in respect of the assistance which they derive from memory; how the two kinds of genius differ in respect of the assistance which they derive from judgment; the two kinds of genius farther compared and distinguished; taste essential to genius for the arts; the power of execution necessary to genius for the arts; and the union of different kinds of genius"--Book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).




Essays


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Essays. 1901


Book Description