British mathematician and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) coined the phrase "big bang theory" to describe the currently accepted explanation of the beginning of the universe. Hoyle's work center
The standard economics textbook for more than a generation, John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848) was really as much a synthesis of his predecessors’ ideas as it was an original ec
Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles) (1687) is considered to be among the finest scientific works ever published. His grand unifying idea of gravitation, with effects ext
In this superb little book, written during World War II, historian, sociologist, and novelist H.G. Wells (1866-1946) contemplates the belief systems, prejudices, and institutions that have brought hum
In the tradition of "fool literature" produced by the ferment of new ideas that directly preceded the Protestant Reformation, Dutch priest, humanist, and scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) compose
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was one of the most influential economists of the first half of the twentieth century. In The End of Laissez-Faire (1926), Keynes presents a brief historical review of
These three 1966 lectures by Noble laureate Crick explain why "vitalism," the idea that an intangible life force beyond the grasp of science distinguishes the animate from the inanimate, is itself dea
First published in 1923, this was the last major work published by prominent British neoclassical economist Marshall and was considered by him to be a continuation of the project begun with Principle
Science has called into question many traditional assumptions about human nature. In the age of the human genome project, this truism is even more obvious than it was in 1965, when scientist and histo
A work that has had a profound influence on the study of English and American law, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined is a model of rigorous and clear analysis. With its publication Austin broug
This treatise, written in 1923 by the renowned proponent of deficit spending, is devoted to the need for stable currency as the indispensable foundation to a healthy world economy. Keynes begins by la
Reprints a translation by A.A. Brill, which was originally published in 1918 (Dodd, Mead & Company). Freud's classic work applies psychoanalysis to aboriginals, paralleling aboriginal practice and
**** Reprint of the classic Macmillan text of 1889. Recommended by Books for College Libraries 3rd ed.. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
In The Descent of Man (1871, 1874) Charles Darwin (1809-1882) focused special attention on the origin and history of our own species, a subject he had avoided in his previous writings on evolution. He
As the co-formulator with Charles Darwin of the theory of biological evolution via natural selection, naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) argued that plant and animal species develop througho
Distinguished British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) set off a series of movements that drastically altered the ways in which economists view the world. In his most important work, The Gene
The once-dreaded scourge of smallpox has been eradicated through barrier immunization. The eminent scientist Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was a pioneer in demonstrating that vaccination was an effective
The Ptolemaic system of the universe, with the earth at the center, had held sway since antiquity as authoritative in philosophy, science, and church teaching. Following his observations of the heaven
The brilliant German mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), one of the founders of modern astronomy, revolutionized the Copernican heliocentric theory of the universe with his three laws of motion
White (one time president, Cornell University) details the sparks struck when science impinged upon the sacred cattle of superstition. Originally published by Appleton in 1896. Annotation copyright Bo
In this selection of his most important writings, renowned scientist and philosopher Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) discusses his views on the demonstrative evidence of evolution, the physical basis
Political economy had been studied long before Adam Smith. But Wealth of Nations (1776) established it for the first time as a separate science. Smith based his arguments on vast historical knowledge,
Originally published in 1845, this digest of thirty lectures by one of Germany's most influential humanist philosophers extends the critique expounded in The Essence of Christianity (1841) to religio
This is a reprint of British mathematics professor Alfred North Whitehead's (1861-1947) famed publication (Cambridge University Press, 1920), which greatly influenced the fields of science and mathema
Judging it to be "of all my writings incomparably the best," Hume accurately assessed this groundbreaking classic, which continues to influence philosophical thinking on ethics to this day through the
In his pioneering treatise on education the great French philosopher presented concepts that had a significant influence on the development of pedagogy, and yet many of his ideas still sound radical t
Originally published in 1854, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought , by English mathematician George Boole, launched modern mathematical logic. Boole's major contribution was to demonstrate concl
This little-known work by Jeremy Bentham, the great English philosopher and originator of utilitarianism, was considered so controversial when it was first published in 1822 that Bentham used the pse
William James's (1842-1910) masterful treatise on the psychology of individual religious experience was originally composed for the prestigious Gifford Lectures delivered at Edinburgh University in 1
The Spirit of Laws is one of the most influential books of all time. This masterpiece of political philosophy was widely read throughout Europe, attracted an especially enthusiastic readership in Engl
George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) had a powerful influence on the development of American pragmatism in the twentieth century. He also had a strong impact on the social sciences. This classic book repre
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had an enormous influence on twentieth-century philosophy even though only one of his works, the famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was published in his lifetime. B
Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900) wrote The Antichrist (1888) after Thus Spake Zarathustra and shortly before the mental collapse that incapacitated him for the rest of his life. This work is both an un
To those who know Adam Smith principally by his classic treatise on economics, The Wealth of Nations, this earlier work may come as a revelation. Smith is often misrepresented in the public imaginatio
In Liberalism and Social Action, John Dewey (1859-1952), one of America's leading social philosophers, surveys the history of liberal thought from John Locke to John Stuart Mill, in his search to fin
"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anythingupon insufficient evidence." -- W. K. CliffordThe above forthright assertion of mathematician and educator W. K. Clifford (1845-1879
America's most renowned social philosopher John Dewey shines his powerful intellect on the serious public and cultural issues surrounding the place of the individual in a technologically advanced soci
Physicist, mathematician, and logician Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) was America's first internationally recognized philosopher, the man who created the concept of "pragmatism," popularized by William
