Böcker utgivna av Hill & Wang Inc.,U.S.

Best known as the longtime writer of the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American-which introduced generations of readers to the joys of recreational mathematics-Martin Gardner has for decades pursued a parallel career as a devastatingly effective debunker of what he once famously dubbed "fads and fallacies in the name of science." It is mainly in this latter role that he is onstage in this collection of choice essays.When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish takes aim at a gallery of amusing targets, ranging from Ann Coulter's qualifications as an evolutionary biologist to the logical fallacies of precognition and extrasensory perception, from Santa Claus to The Wizard of Oz, from mutilated chessboards to the little-known "one-poem poet" Langdon Smith (the original author of this volume's title line). The writings assembled here fall naturally into seven broad categories: Science, Bogus Science, Mathematics, Logic, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, and Politics. Under each heading, Gardner displays an awesome level of erudition combined with a wicked sense of humor.

Through the lives of Diane Nash, Bob Moses, John Lewis, and their contemporaries, this book provides a carefully woven group biography of the activists who - under the banner of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - challenged the way Americans think about civil rights, politics, and moral obligation in an unjust democracy.

Mexico's struggle for independence was as much a series of civil wars and failed social revolutions as it was a war to separate Mexico from Spain. This book presents an account of the era, and shows why the revolution failed to bring about meaningful and sorely needed reform.

Ordinary people do not experience history as it is taught by historians. The same people who lived through the Civil War and the eradication of slavery also dealt with the hardships of Reconstruction, so why do we almost always treat them separately? This title challenges this convention to tell the story of generations of African Americans.