Knowledge History

Although it is among the oldest of market institutions, the auction is ubiquitous in today's economy, used for everything from government procurement to selling advertising on the Internet to course assignment at MIT's Sloan School. Yet beyond the small number of economists who specialize in the subject, few people understand how auctions really work. This concise, accessible, and engaging book explains both the theory and the practice of auctions.

Buttons, credit cards, umbrellas, high heels, blood transfusions and toasters. Once, perhaps not so long ago, they didn't exist. Find out the fascinating origins of things we take for granted in this little book of facts.

Big Message Big Mission is part of the Women Innovators series published by Women Innovators Publishing and features 9 unique and diverse stories from women who have created a life and career based on a big message and bigger mission. Through an interview process, each woman was asked to define why she started her mission and how she can expand her message through this book.

How much water do the Great Lakes contain? Who were the first and last men killed in the Civil War? How long is a New York minute? What are the lost plays of Shakespeare? What building did Elvis leave last? Get the answers to these and countless other vexing questions in All Facts Considered. Guaranteed to enlighten even the most seasoned trivia buff, this treasure trove of "who knew?" factoids spans a wide range of intriguing subjects.

A concise introduction to the history and methods of espionage, illustrated by spy stories from antiquity to today's high-tech world.

Over the span of two hundred years, Great Britain established, governed, lost, and reconstructed an empire that embraced three continents and two oceanic worlds. The British ruled this empire by correlating incoming information about the conduct of subjects and aliens in imperial spaces with norms of good governance developed in London. Officials derived these norms by studying the histories of government contained in the official records of both the state and corporations and located in repositories known as archives.

When Columbus first returned to Spain from the Caribbean, he dazzled King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella with exotic parrots, tropical flowers, and bits of gold. Inspired by the promise of riches, countless seafarers poured out of the Iberian Peninsula and wider Europe in search of spices, treasure, and land. Many returned with strange tales of the New World. Curiosity began to percolate through Europe as the New World’s people, animals, and plants ruptured prior assumptions about the biblical description of creation.

What strange household appliance inspired one of the first pairs of Nike sneakers? The co-founder of Nike, Bill Bowerman, was not only a legendary track and field coach, but also a great inventor. While looking for a way to make shoes faster, he was inspired by a particular household appliance....

Maybe it was a viral pandemic or an asteroid strike or perhaps nuclear war. Whatever the cause, the world as we know it has ended, and you and the other survivors must start again. What key knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch? Once you’ve scavenged what you can, how do you begin producing the essentials? How do you grow food, generate power, prepare medicines, or get metal out of rocks? Could you avert another Dark Ages or take shortcuts to accelerate redevelopment?

Unlock the Wonders of Curiosity! Imagine you're sitting around a campfire, and out of nowhere, someone shares a hilarious fact about talking plants and male seahorses carrying babies in their wombs. You can't help but chuckle. At first, you think that those things can't be true, but soon you realize that the world is filled with astonishing secrets. These facts spark the kind of curiosity that pushes you to learn more, share more, and laugh more. Dive into a world of wonder and excitement of a book where every page brims with surprising discoveries and quirky tidbits that will light up your...

Michel Foucault had already written extensively about medicine, madness, and prisons. But in the latter days of his career, he turned to the subject of sexuality, planning six volumes on the subject. He completed three before dying of an AIDS-related illness in 1984. Foucault's History of Sexuality Vol. 1 is a study of the evolution of cultural ideas about sex in the West since the end of the 17th century. Volume two looked at attitudes toward sex in ancient Greece; volume three investigated sex in ancient Rome.

In Volume 2 of Women Innovators: Leaders, Makers and Givers Tamara Patzer has conversations with: Marlene Stokes, Dr. Amber Robins, MD, Jennifer Jane Clark, Cindy Marvin, Kate Bourland, Anna Vanlandingham, Win Kelly Charles and Que Jackson. Look for new volumes of the Women Innovators series soon.

In the thought-provoking book "Reasoning and Rationale - Unraveling Flat Earth Myths with AI Insights," readers embark on an intellectual odyssey that melds the power of Artificial Intelligence with scientific rigor. This meticulously curated volume delves deep into the history of Flat Earth beliefs while employing the analytical might of AI to meticulously dismantle these misconceptions. The book meticulously details the scientific evidence that undeniably refutes Flat Earth claims, presenting a comprehensive, data-driven exploration that leaves no room for doubt. This fusion of human ...

For thousands of years, whispers of an ancient past have echoed through forbidden texts, revealing glimpses of a world before the Great Flood—a time when gods walked among men, giants ruled the earth, and knowledge was hidden away for future generations.

Details of nearly 700 One Hit Wonders. From the birth of Rock 'n' Roll , and the Billboard Charts, (in 1955) to the swinging sixties, we bring the most detailed list of one hit wonders ever! Why settle for the Top 100 of all time, when we go much further... Each entry has details of chart positions, artists and the craziest trivia. Taken from The Billboard and UK Chart, with references to Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, we bring those memories back to you. "Who Wrote the Book of Love?" We tell you! Are you going to "San Francisco?" We'll tell you what to wear in your hair! ...

Corn. Chocolate. Fishing hooks. Boats that float. Insulated double-walled construction. Recorded history and folklore. Life-saving disinfectant. Forest fire management. Our lives would be unrecognizable without these, and countless other, scientific discoveries and technological inventions from Indigenous North Americans. Spanning topics from transportation to civil engineering, hunting technologies, astronomy, brain surgery, architecture, and agriculture, Indigenous Ingenuity is a wide-ranging STEM offering that answers the call for Indigenous nonfiction by reappropriating hidden history.

Celebrated GP Dr Nighat Arif brings women's health to the forefront in this extensive guidebook designed to help everyone better understand each of the three key stages of a woman's life: the puberty years, the fertility years and the peri/menopausal years. Every step of the way, Dr Nighat will help you get to know the female body by explaining what is normal, what to expect, how to care for yourself and when to seek help.

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Donna Drucker traces the history of modern contraception, outlining the development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the opening of Dr. Jacobs' clinic to the present.

Religion and America in the 17th century through today, with 139 things to learn and more!

Memory is one of the most important thing for every human being in his life. A great deal of mindfulness is required at every point in our lives. A brain weighing 1.5 grams contains cells containing one hundred million neurons. Each cell interacts with tens of thousands of cells simultaneously. It is said that if we start collecting ten new pieces of information every second we live, at the end of our life we can store only two million numbers of information. The information that can be stored in 12 million floppy disks is said to be stored in the human brain. 94% of the brain is unused for...