In 1836 the United States government received a strange and unprecedented gift - a bequest of 104,960 gold sovereigns (then worth half a million dollars) to est

Chronicles the life of James Smithson as a scientist, suspected spy, gambler, radical revolutionary, and philanthropist, telling the story of his remarkable beq

"A quirky, oddly touching book that allows us to step, for a few moments, inside the world of a practicing Enlightenment scientist, to sit beside him as he fans

In her illuminating and dramatic biography The Stranger and the Statesman, New York Times bestselling author Nina Burleigh reveals a little-known slice of histo

From the bestselling author of The Knowledge Web come fifty mesmerizing journeys into the history of technology, each following a chain of consequential events