World's Greatest Fix: A History of Nitrogen And Agriculture

In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, this gives the very early history of how human ingenuity overcame the risk of famine through productive agriculture.

Since the early part of the 20th century, topology has gradually spread to many other branches of mathematics, and this book demonstrates how the subject continues to play a central role in the field. Written by a world-renowned mathematician, this classic text traces the history of algebraic topology beginning with its creation in the early 1900s and describes in detail the important theories that were discovered before 1960. Through the work of Poincaré, de Rham, Cartan, Hureqicz, and many others, this historical book also focuses on the emergence of new ideas and methods that have led 21st-century mathematicians towards new research directions.

Since the early part of the 20th century, topology has gradually spread to many other branches of mathematics, and this book demonstrates how the subject continues to play a central role in the field. Written by a world-renowned mathematician, this classic text traces the history of algebraic topology beginning with its creation in the early 1900s and describes in detail the important theories that were discovered before 1960. Through the work of Poincaré, de Rham, Cartan, Hureqicz, and many others, this historical book also focuses on the emergence of new ideas and methods that have led 21st-century mathematicians towards new research directions.

This book tells the story of our greatest invention. Or, it almost does. Almost, because while the story has a beginning – in fact, it has many beginnings, not only in Mesopotamia, 3,100 years before the birth of Christ, but also in China, Egypt and Central America – and it certainly has a middle, one that snakes through the painted petroglyphs of Easter Island, through the great machines of empires and across the desks of inspired, brilliant scholars, the end of the story remains to be written.