日本作家中勘助的自传体小说。创作于1910年至1913。以19世纪末明治维新后的东京地区为舞台，描写了主人公从幼年到少年时期的成长过程，笔法细腻，视角独特，感情饱满，也毫不掩饰主人公对日本对外侵略行为的朴素质疑和厌恶。起初由作者大学时代的老师、文坛巨匠夏目漱石推荐、作为散文在《东京朝日新闻》上连载发表，获得读者持续好评。1921年出版单行本，至今再版不断。截至2006年12月，仅岩波书店一社出版发行的“文库版”（小型便携版，不包括同一出版社另外发行的普通平装版、精装版等）的部数就累计达1,136,000册，另有角川书店、小学馆等出版社的版本发行。1950年代至1980年代，大阪滩中学教师桥本武擅做主张，以本书一册代替教科书讲授初中三年的语文，获得惊人的升学奇迹，并为日本社会各界输送了众多栋梁之才，此事被传为奇谈。现代中国学者周作人曾在《知堂书话》中对此书推崇备至，并亲自翻译了一段。

The acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world—and in the process created modern environmentalism.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. In North America, his name still graces four counties, thirteen towns, a river, parks, bays, lakes, and mountains. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether he was climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infected Siberia or translating his research into bestselling publications that changed science and thinking. Among Humboldt’s most revolutionary ideas was a radical vision of nature, that it is a complex and interconnected global force that does not exist for the use of humankind alone.
Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his daring expeditions and investigation of wild environments around the world and his discoveries of similarities between climate and vegetation zones on different continents. She also discusses his prediction of human-induced climate change, his remarkable ability to fashion poetic narrative out of scientific observation, and his relationships with iconic figures such as Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson. Wulf examines how Humboldt’s writings inspired other naturalists and poets such as Darwin, Wordsworth, and Goethe, and she makes the compelling case that it was Humboldt’s influence that led John Muir to his ideas of natural preservation and that shaped Thoreau’s Walden.
With this brilliantly researched and compellingly written book, Andrea Wulf shows the myriad fundamental ways in which Humboldt created our understanding of the natural world, and she champions a renewed interest in this vital and lost player in environmental history and science.

A dazzling history of the modest family that rose to become one of the most powerful in Europe, The Medici is a remarkably modern story of power, money, and ambition. Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage.<br /><br /><br />Strathern also follows the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello; as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola; and the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de' Médici, who became Queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns.

Intended for juniors and seniors majoring in mathematics, as well as anyone pursuing independent study, this book traces the historical development of four different mathematical concepts by presenting readers with the original sources. Each chapter showcases a masterpiece of mathematical achievement, anchored to a sequence of selected primary sources. The authors examine the interplay between the discrete and continuous, with a focus on sums of powers. They then delineate the development of algorithms by Newton, Simpson and Smale. Next they explore our modern understanding of curvature, and finally they look at the properties of prime numbers. The book includes exercises, numerous photographs, and an annotated bibliography.

The stories of five mathematical journeys into new realms, pieced together from the writings of the explorers themselves. Some were guided by mere curiosity and the thrill of adventure, others by more practical motives. In each case the outcome was a vast expansion of the known mathematical world and the realisation that still greater vistas remain to be explored. The authors tell these stories by guiding readers through the very words of the mathematicians at the heart of these events, providing an insightinto the art of approaching mathematical problems. The five chapters are completely independent, with varying levels of mathematical sophistication, and will attract students, instructors, and the intellectually curious reader. By working through some of the original sources and supplementary exercises, which discuss and solve -- or attempt to solve -- a great problem, this book helps readers discover the roots of modern problems, ideas, and concepts, even whole subjects. Students will also see the obstacles that earlier thinkers had to clear in order to make their respective contributions to five central themes in the evolution of mathematics.

Tracing the story from its earliest sources, this book celebrates the lives and work of pioneers of modern mathematics: Fermat, Euler, Lagrange, Legendre, Gauss, Fourier, Dirichlet and more. Includes an English translation of Gauss's 1838 letter to Dirichlet.

A sweeping, atmospheric history of Bell Labs that highlights its unparalleled role as an incubator of innovation and birthplace of the century's most influential technologies. Bell Laboratories, which thrived from the 1920s to the 1980s, was the most innovative and productive institution of the twentieth century. Long before America's brightest scientific minds began migrating west to Silicon Valley, they flocked to this sylvan campus in the New Jersey suburbs built and funded by AT&T. At its peak, Bell Labs employed nearly fifteen thousand people, twelve hundred of whom had PhDs. Thirteen would go on to win Nobel prizes. It was a citadel of science and scholarship as well as a hotbed of creative thinking. It was, in effect, a factory of ideas whose workings have remained largely hidden until now. "New York Times Magazine" writer Jon Gertner unveils the unique magic of Bell Labs through the eyes and actions of its scientists. These ingenious, often eccentric men would become revolutionaries, and sometimes legends, whether for inventing radio astronomy in their spare time (and on the company's dime), riding unicycles through the corridors, or pioneering the principles that propel today's technology. In these pages, we learn how radar came to be, and lasers, transistors, satellites, mobile phones, and much more. Even more important, Gertner reveals the forces that set off this explosion of creativity. Bell Labs combined the best aspects of the academic and corporate worlds, hiring the brightest and usually the youngest minds, creating a culture and even an architecture that forced employees in different fields to work together, in virtually complete intellectual freedom, with little pressure to create moneymaking innovations. In Gertner's portrait, we come to understand why both researchers and business leaders look to Bell Labs as a model and long to incorporate its magic into their own work. Written with a novelist's gift for pacing and an ability to convey the thrill of innovation, "The Idea Factory" yields a revelatory take on the business of invention. What are the principles of innovation? How do new technology and new ideas begin? Are some environments more favorable than others? How should they be structured, and how should they be governed? Can strokes of genius be accelerated, replicated, standardized? The history of Bell Labs provides crucial answers that can and should be applied today by anyone who wants to understand where good ideas come from.

This book is an autobiographical account of George Mandler--born in 1924--who grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Vienna. It details the fears and attempts to find a safe haven when Austria was invaded and absorbed into Nazi Germany in 1938, followed by Mandler's escape to England and residence in a small boarding school. The threat of the holocaust and reaction to anti-semitism are explored and the author describes the life of an emigre youth group run by a branch of the Austrian communist party. Drafted in 1943, Mandler is trained in military intelligence and ends up as a front line interrogator with the 7th army in Germany. The training and function of military intelligence and the role of German and Austrian refugees in it are described for the first time in detail. Military intelligence and counter-intelligence work in post-war Germany follows, including the evacuation of a scientific establishment before the arrival of the Soviets. Returning to New York in 1946, Mandler begins his college training at New York University and the University of Basel, Switzerland. This is followed by graduate training in psychology at Yale and a first position at Harvard for seven years. Highlights of the period include a short episode of peripheral involvement in a Soviet spy scandal. After five years at the University of Toronto, Mandler is given the opportunity of a lifetime--to start a department at the prestigious new San Diego branch of the University of California. He describes the process of building a department and a university in the context of the 1960s, as well as academic life and actions during the turbulent 60s and 70s. Mandler's successful career as a writer and researcher in psychology is described in lay language, as is the professional/scientific bifurcation of the field. The final chapter comments on and describes current academic life and problems.

Reasons to Stay Alive is about making the most of your time on earth. In the western world the suicide rate is highest amongst men under the age of 35. Matt Haig could have added to that statistic when, aged 24, he found himself staring at a cliff-edge about to jump off. This is the story of why he didn't, how he recovered and learned to live with anxiety and depression. It's also an upbeat, joyous and very funny exploration of how live better, love better, read better and feel more.

How does a boy from a financially and intellectually impoverished background grow up to become a Harvard researcher, win international acclaim for his groundbreaking work, and catch fire as a pioneering psychologist? As the only person in the history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its highest honorsfor distinguished research, teaching, and writing Elliot Aronson is living proof that humans are capable of capturing the power of the situation and conquering the prison of personality. A personal and compelling look into Aronson’s profound contributions to the field of social psychology, Not by Chance Alone is a lifelong story of human potential and the power of social change.

Karen Blixen (who wrote under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen) knew the African countryside as intimately as her own face in the mirror. "The civilized people," she wrote, "have lost the aptitude of stillness, and must take lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it." From her own wild heart she wrote this achingly beautiful book.

本书是日本著名音乐大师坂本龙一唯一口述自传。幼时的坂本龙一，因为饲养小白兔而作的一曲《小兔之歌》，使他第一次强烈地体会到音乐带来的喜悦。青年时，他是一名彻头彻尾的“愤青”，罢课抗议、游行示威，但也迷恋于德彪西、贝多芬、披头士，并潜心阅读黑格尔、胡塞尔、德里达等。期间，他 曾一度拒绝学习钢琴，正因为这次“拒绝”带来的空虚，使他察觉到“自己原来是如此喜爱音乐啊”，音乐使他自由。此后，他真正开启了自己的音乐人生，凭借《末代皇帝》的配乐，他登顶国际舞台赢得盛誉…在口述中，坂本龙一不断俯瞰自己迄今为止的生命，以期看清现在的自我。书中还穿插着他不同时期的照片50余幅，展现了这位音乐大师充满魅力的人生历程。

This richly coloured memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family, from its bold arrival in cosmopolitan Alexandria to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, Andre Aciman introduces us to the marvellous eccentrics who shaped his life: the strutting daredevil, soldier, salesman, and spy; the two grandmothers, the Princess and the Saint, who gossip in six languages; and Aunt Flora, the German refugee who warns that Jews lose everything "at least twice in their lives." And through it all, we come to know a boy who, even as he longs for a wider world, does not want to be led, forever, out of Egypt.