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The stone age, the iron age, the steam and electrical ages all saw the reach of humankind transformed by new technology. Now we are living in the quantum age, a revolution in everyday life led by our understanding of the very, very small. Quantum physics lies at the heart of every electronic device from smartphones to lasers; quantum superconductors allow levitating trains and MRI scanners, while superfast, ultra-secure quantum computers may soon be a reality. Yet quantum particles such as atoms, electrons and photons remain mysterious, acting totally unlike the objects we experience directly. With his trademark clarity and enthusiasm, acclaimed popular science author Brian Clegg reveals the amazing world of the quantum that lies all around us.

From Plato to Virginia Woolf, Structuralism to Practical Criticism, Introducing Literary Criticism charts the history and development of literary criticism into a rich and complex discipline. Tackling disputes over the value and meaning of literature, and exploring theoretical and practical approaches, this unique illustrated guide will help readers of all levels to get more out of their reading.

From the ever-curious mind that brought you the bestselling Do You Think You're Clever? comes a brand-new trip to the far reaches of the intellectual universe, courtesy of even more notoriously provocative Oxbridge interview questions. How would you poison someone without the police finding out? (Medicine, Cambridge)What makes a strong woman? (Theology, Oxford)Instead of politicians, why don't we let the managers of IKEA run the country? (Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge)How do you organise a successful revolution? (History, Oxford)Whether you're interested in going to Oxbridge or just want to give your brain a workout, join polymath John Farndon on another exhilarating journey through the twists and turns of thought, and explore just what it means to be genuinely clever - rather than just smart.

A brilliant new Notebook accompanying the Introducing Graphic Guide series

You probably know, or think you know, quite a bit about what happened in the 20th century - chances are, if you're reading this, you lived through at least some of it - and you may have referenced the Cuban Missile Crisis, the double helix, or the Wall Street Crash in conversation. But even for people who were there, it was the fastest-moving hundred years in history, so refresh your memory with these pacey profiles on everything from Sputnik to Stonewall. Twentieth Century presents a unique approach to modern history, condensing 100 years of innovation and art, politics and conflict, triumph and disaster, into 50 graphic snapshots that offer an instant appreciation of the way the world revolves and evolves. Consider which events define a period of history and why. From the Red Army to Black Monday, from Woodstock to the World Wide Web, this is the fastest way to travel in time.

Adapt or die: it's nature's most famous imperative. But how does evolution actually happen? It's too slow to see, but it's going on all around you, all the time. Even if you're on top of the key terms - variation? Natural selection? Parent-offspring conflict? - you still need some context to put them in. From populations to speciation and polymorphism to evolutionary psychology, here's the one-stop source for all you need to know. Evolution unlocks the laboratory of life, dissecting it into the 50 most significant topics that provide the missing links to understand the natural world's four-billion-year ancestry and the process of natural selection in which species either adapt in myriad ways - mutation, ingenuity, and intelligence - to meet the challenges of a changing environment, or die. Unravel the development of living organisms, at micro and macro level - from genes to geniuses.

How did Roger Lane-Smith build up the world's largest law firm within 30 years, starting from a tiny office in a Manchester side-street? This compelling autobiography will tell you. Told with candour and great humour, this is the story of one lawyer's determined quest for the biggest and the best - and shows exactly how it was done. Equally at home with Hollywood celebrities such as Aaron Spelling, David Soul and Joan Collins as with captains of industry and commerce, Roger Lane-Smith really has 'seen it all'. The story of his life is about much more than the law - he has been close to some of the key moments of the last 30 years, from the legal shenanigans of the icons of popular culture to the deals he has made at the cutting edge of high finance. Everyone with an interest in the law will find this book a treasure trove of information and gossip, and it will appeal equally to anyone keen to see how a successful business can be built through hard work and astute risk-taking.

'We need effective citizen-lobbyists - not just likers, followers or even marchers - more than ever. I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.'Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, the EconomistMany democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. Citizens are making clear their frustration with their supposedly representative governments, which instead seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups.What can we do about it? How do we fix democracy and get our voices heard?The answer, argues Alberto Alemanno, is to become change-makers - citizen lobbyists. By using our skills and talents and mobilizing others, we can bring about social and political change. Whoever you are, you've got power, and this book will show you how to unleash it.From successfully challenging Facebook's use of private data to abolishing EU mobile phone roaming charges, Alberto highlights the stories of those who have lobbied for change, and shows how you can follow in their footsteps, whether you want to influence immigration policy, put pressure on big business or protect your local community.

This set contains three brilliant Introducing Graphic Guides on mind-blowing ideas that have revolutionised our view of how the universe works - Darwin, Evolution and Genetics.

This set contains three brilliant Introducing Graphic Guides on mind-blowing ideas that have revolutionised our view of how the universe works - Infinity, Consciousness and Stephen Hawking.

Mark Forsyth - author of the Sunday Times Number One bestseller The Etymologicon - reveals in this essay, specially commissioned for Independent Booksellers Week, the most valuable thing about a really good bookshop. Along the way he considers the wisdom of Donald Rumsfeld, naughty French photographs, why Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy would never have met online, and why only a bookshop can give you that precious thing - what you never knew you were looking for.

This is a book about the 75 years of a very successful accountancy practice. They are 75 important years both in the history of the United Kingdom, encompassing the Second World War and all the recessions and periods of growth in the 60-year period following that war, and in the history of accountancy and how it has had to adapt to both the changes in accounting practices and in accounting technology. As you will see, the Price Bailey story is one of growth from a single partner in one office to 22 partners in seven offices, not only in East Anglia but in the City and West End of London as well as in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Price Bailey, which became a Limited Liability Partnership in 2004, is now the 29th biggest accountancy practice in the country. Its new Managing Director, Martin Clapson, is also Chairman of the European Board of the International Association of Professional Accountants (IAPA). Many people view accountants as a necessary adjunct to their life because the law of the land demands that financial dealings, whether personal or corporate, be properly assessed and recorded and that the correct tax, if any is due, be paid. There is no doubt that Price Bailey has always been meticulous in making sure this work is done properly and in due time. However, it has also always been the practice of the firm to carry out the above in an open and friendly manner and to offer more than the mere adding up of sums. As Richard Price, son of one of the original partners and a very long-serving member of Price Bailey, will tell you in the book, the firm has always made sure that they were close to the clients and often mixed with them socially. As you will also see, Price Bailey, especially in the last twelve years under the leadership of Peter Gillman, has greatly increased the services it can offer. Most recently, it is now authorised to give legal advice.

An attractive forceBetween all objects with massJust like you and meScience is a thing of magic and wonder. It reveals complex patterns - and often thrilling chaos - at the heart of nature; the strange alchemy of reactions between invisible atoms; the bewildering origins of our universe; and the connections in our brains that create love, fear, joy - and poetry. Sciku brings together more than 400 revealing, poignant, witty haiku on scientific subjects. Written by students at The Camden School for Girls, these poems reflect on topics as varied as Newton's laws, climate change, time travel and evolution. They are also elegiac, enigmatic and often extremely beautiful. Dissolving confusionTo some, solutionsAre answers; to chemists theyAre still all mixed up.

The Science Magpie is Simon Flynn's bestselling collection of enthralling facts, stories, poems and more from science's history, from the Large Hadron Collider rap to the sins of Isaac Newton. With Antiques Roadshow regular Marc Allum as your guide, go in search of stolen masterpieces, explore the first museums, learn the secrets of the forgers and brush up on your auction technique with The Antiques Magpie. And with acclaimed nature writer Daniel Allen, join naturalists, novelists and poets as they explore the most isolated parts of the planet and discover which plants can be used to predict the weather in The Nature Magpie.

Benghazi, Libya. 9/11/2012. Just over a year after the fall of Gaddafi, and on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a group of heavily armed Islamic terrorists had their sights set on the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence presence in the city. In the prolonged attack, four Americans died, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, the Information Officer Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, working for the Central Intelligence Agency. Based on confidential eyewitness sources within the intelligence, diplomatic, and military communities, Under Fire is the terrifying account of that night, and of a desperate last stand amid the chaos of rebellion.

A Practical Guide that will show you how to improve your persuasive technique.

Introducing Levi-Strauss is a guide to the work of the great French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009). The book brilliantly traces the development and influence of Levi-Strauss' thought, from his early work on the function of the incest taboo to initiate an exchange of women between groups, to his identification of a timeless "e;wild"e; or "e;primitive"e; mode of thinking - a pensee sauvage - behind the processes of human culture. Accessibly written by Boris Wiseman and beautifully illustrated by Judy Groves, Introducing Lvi-Strauss also explores the major contribution that Lvi-Strauss made to contemporary aesthetic history - his work on American-Indian mythology provides a key insight into the way in which art itself comes into being. This is an essential introduction to a key thinker.

The works of French philosopher Alain Badiou range from novels, poems, 'romanoperas' and popular political treatises to elaborate philosophical arguments engaging with mathematical theory.Badiou suggests that 'philosophy is always a biography of the philosopher', and throughout all of his writing there is a staunch commitment to emancipatory politics and a radical yet faithful subjectivity. His famous, or infamous, philosophy of emancipation is firmly grounded in his fidelity to the universal idea of a collective life.Introducing Alain Badiou is an elegantly written and crisply illustrated guide to an essential contemporary thinker.

When Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess set off for Britain on a peace mission in May 1941, he launched one of the great mysteries of the Second World War. Had he really acted alone, without Hitler's knowledge? Who were the British he had come to see? Was British intelligence involved?Award-winning historian Peter Padfield presents striking new evidence that demands the wholesale reappraisal of the episode. For, allied to a powerful argument that Hess must have had both Hitler's backing and considerable encouragement from Britain, Padfield demonstrates that he also brought with him a draft peace treaty committing Hitler to the evacuation of occupied European countries. Made public, this would have destroyed Churchill's campaign to bring the United States into the war. Expertly woven into a compelling narrative that touches on Lord (Victor) Rothschild and the Cambridge spy ring, possible British foreknowledge of Operation Barbarossa and the 'final solution', MI6's use of Hess to prevent the bombing of London and the mysterious circumstances of his death in Spandau prison - including the previously unseen witness accounts from that day - Hess, Hitler and Churchill is among the most important history books of recent years.

'As one of the last remaining survivors of the Great Depression and the Second World War, I will not go gently into that good night. I want to tell you what the world looks like through my eyes, so that you can help change it...'In November 2013, 91-year-old Yorkshireman, RAF veteran and ex-carpet salesman Harry Leslie Smith's Guardian article - 'This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time' - was shared over 80,000 times on Facebook and started a huge debate about the state of society. Now he brings his unique perspective to bear on NHS cutbacks, benefits policy, political corruption, food poverty, the cost of education - and much more.From the deprivation of 1930s Barnsley and the terror of war to the creation of our welfare state, Harry has experienced how a great civilisation can rise from the rubble. But at the end of his life, he fears how easily it is being eroded. Harry's Last Stand is a lyrical, searing modern invective that shows what the past can teach us, and how the future is ours for the taking.

New for Icon's Hot Science series - a startling insight into the data that runs our lives.

It's an astonishing fact that capturing all the energy in just one hour's worth of sunlight would enable us to meet the planet's food and energy needs for an entire year. The Solar Revolution tells the story of how scientists are working to reconnect us to the 'solar economy', harnessing the power of the sun to provide sustainable food and energy for a global population of 10 billion people: an achievement that would end our dependence on 'fossilised sunshine' in the form of coal, oil and gas and remake our connection with the soil that grows our food. Steve McKevitt and Tony Ryan describe the human race's complex relationship with the sun and take us back through history to see how our world became the place it is today - chemically, geologically, ecologically, climatically and economically - before moving on to the cutting-edge science and technology that will enable us to live happily in a sustainable future.

Simon Flynn's bestselling selection of enthralling facts, stories, poems and more from science's history

Martin Bell OBE has been many things - an icon of BBC war reporting, Britain's first independent MP for 50 years, a UNICEF ambassador, and 'the man in the white suit' - a tireless campaigner for honesty and accountability in politics.But as For Whom the Bell Tolls reveals, he's also a poet of light verse, and here Bell's poems continue his war by other means on duplicitous politicians, our all-consuming media, the venality of celebrity culture and much more. The earliest poem here was written when Martin was 19; the most recent cover the riots of August 2011, the phone-hacking scandal and the 'Arab spring'.Oscillating between trenchant satire and touching honesty with often poignant autobiography spiced with gentle humour, Bell presents poems on Tony Blair and Iraq, on Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic, on his hero, Reuters reporter Kurt Schork, and colourful episodes from his work and life, from the chart-topping calypso written about him in St Lucia to his being a guest at Idi Amin's wedding:'...that by God / Was well worth doing, if distinctly odd.'

Father of existentialism or the Eeyore of philosophy?Known as the first modern theologian, SrenKierkegaard was a prolific writer of the Danish 'golden age'. A philosopher,poet and social critic, his key concepts of angst, despair, and theimportance of the individual, influenced many 20th-century philosophers andliterature throughout Europe.Dave Robinson and Oscar Zarate's brilliant graphicguide explains what Kierkegaard means by 'anti-philosophy', and tells anilluminating story of the strange life and ideas of a man tortured by hisattempts to change the very priorities of Western thought.

'Excellent ... an astounding amount of material.'Times Educational Supplement Popular culture often portrays the Holocaust as ahorrific drama played out between Nazi executioners and ghetto Jewish victims -in short, a single aberration of history. Introducingthe Holocaust is a powerful graphic guide that dissolves thisstereotype, explaining the causes and its relevance today. It places theHolocaust where it belongs - at the centre of modern European and worldhistory. Haim Bresheeth and Stuart Hood - along with LitzaJansz's outstanding illustrations - bring a unique and unforgettable perspectiveto how we think about this most dark of shadows on human history.

This is the dramatic story of the ups and downs of a born entrepreneur.

Did you know that Estonia once managed to beat Scotland without even turning up? That the Cote d'Ivoire has the most expensive team? And why Dutch defender Winston Bograde is paid twice what Real Madrid pays Beckham, Ronaldo and Zidane combined? Gary Rimmer's unique Number Freaking technique unearths the real truth behind the beautiful game. Discover: How many German police officers await each England fan in 2006 Which club has opened a chain of themed restaurants in China How many free condoms are given out during a game Who is worth more per gramme: Michael Ballack or cocaine? How many cows a football fan consumes each year - and much, much more. From which German football stadium has the most comfy seats to the cup that was hidden in an Italian shoebox, Gary Rimmer presents the essential guide to everything you never needed to know about football.