Simon Winchester es un escritor y periodista británico cuya extensa carrera ha abarcado la cobertura de eventos históricos cruciales y la exploración de temas profundos, desde la lingüística hasta la geología. Su enfoque se caracteriza por una investigación meticulosa y una narrativa cautivadora, que a menudo desentierra historias fascinantes de los reinos de la ciencia y la historia. Winchester se destaca por tejer elementos aparentemente dispares en obras coherentes y legibles, haciendo accesibles a los lectores conceptos complejos y figuras pasadas por alto. Sus contribuciones son valoradas por su erudición, pero sobre todo por su capacidad para dar vida al pasado e inspirar la contemplación del mundo.
The author embarks on a journey from the mouth to the source of the Yangtze River, exploring its cities and people. This narrative reflects the author's quest to understand the essence of China, with the Yangtze representing its soul and center.
Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Winchester illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings and ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree
The New York Times bestselling author examines the evolution of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age, focusing on the essential role of precision in advancement. Beginning in eighteenth-century England during the Industrial Revolution, the establishment of measurement standards led to the creation of machine tools, enabling the mass production of various items, including firearms and optical devices. This precision ultimately paved the way for groundbreaking innovations like gene splicing and microchips. The narrative introduces key figures such as John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, and Thomas Jefferson, who played pivotal roles in shaping modern production and exporting these advancements to the United States, which emerged as a manufacturing powerhouse. Winchester then shifts to contemporary innovations across the globe, exploring the minds and methods that have transformed our world. He poses critical questions about the significance of precision, the tools we use to measure it, and the potential consequences of prioritizing precision over traditional craftsmanship, art, and culture. Ultimately, he challenges readers to consider whether the pursuit of precision has obscured other valuable aspects of life and whether precision and nature can coexist harmoniously in society.
Based on three days of teaching in London in May 1999, this text is an edited version of the Dalai Lama's discourse on one of the most profound and sacred texts in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Eight Verses on Generating Compassion are known in Tibetan as lojong - literally, transforming your mind. In this commentary on these teachings, the Dalai Lama shows us how to transform difficult situations into opportunities for spiritual growth. He also offers practical methods as to how to develop positive ways of thinking and compassion.
A collection of inspiring stories, this work explores the unexpected human connections that so often transform the experience of travel, and the gift of kindess wround the world.
"We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium -- the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it -- and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W.C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption. The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project -- a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivaled uber-dictionary. Book jacket."--Jacket.
The making of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the OED's editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him. What he found was incredible - Minor was a millionaire American civil war surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder and yet who dedicated his entire cell-bound life to work on the English language.
A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time
Offering a captivating exploration of China, the book delves into the rich tapestry of its culture, history, and the diverse lives of its people. Recognized as one of the top travel books of 1996 by the New York Times Book Review, it combines insightful observations with vivid storytelling, making it a remarkable guide for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of this vast nation.
Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa, which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all -- in view of today's new political climate -- the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims, one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings anywhere. Krakatoa gives us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham—the brilliant Cambridge scientist, freethinking intellectual, and practicing nudist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, once the world's most technologically advanced country.
