Benjamin Soames

How did the great scientists make their remarkable discoveries? And what kind of men were they? This companion volume to Great Inventors and their Inventions introduces the work of nine men to younger readers, and ranges from the world of Ancient Greece to the 20th century discovery of DNA. Included are the crucial discovery that the earth goes round the sun (Galileo), the principle of gravity (Newton), the evolution of the species (Darwin) and the...

Nine remarkable men produced inventions that changed the world. The printing press, the telephone, powered flight and recording and many others have made the modern world what it is. But who were the men who had these ideas and made reality of them? As David Angus shows, they were very different – quiet, boisterous, confident, withdrawn – but all had a moment of vision allied to single-minded determination to battle through numerous prototypes...

The glory of ancient Greece is all around us, even in the 21st century, because Greece was the cradle of Western civilisation. We know about the gods and their characters — Zeus, Athene, Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite — and their heroes, both legendary (Heracles) and historical (Alexander the Great). Architecture, mathematics, politics, philosophy, observation of nature and the cosmos and much more emerged in ancient Greece. Hugh Griffith's entertaining...

The tales of the Norse gods, of the giants, demons, trolls and dwarves, still have the power to fascinate more than a thousand years after they were first told. Here are the stories of the one-eyed god Odin, the all-seeing, who from his throne in Asgard, the home of the gods, has to prepare for Ragnarok, the final conflict between good and evil. There are tales too of Tyr, the god of war, of the cunning Loki, of Thor, the mighty thunder god and a...

One thing that hasn't changed much at all in the last 10,000 years is the human brain. The relentless curiosity of the human mind, combined with our ability to solve problems, has resulted in huge innovation and change. Here, then, are some of the most revolutionary ideas of the last 300 years. From James Watt and the invention of the steam engine, and the motorcars of Daimler and Benz, to cinema and television, More Great Inventors and Their Inventions...

This collection features the lives of nine remarkable people, whose stories have inspired generations of adventurers. With Francis Drake we raid the Spanish Main and sail around the world. With Richard Burton we cross the deserts of Arabia. Hiram Bingham discovers the lost city of the Incas. Amelia Earhart personifies the heroic exploits of the early days of aviation. With Scott and Amundsen we race to the South Pole; with Hillary and Tenzing we conquer...

Tailored for youth audiences, this collection of great Ancient Greek myths include Gods and Titans, Perseus, The Labours of Hercules, The Adventures of Theseus, and Jason and the Argonauts.

Illness, disease, and injury prompted the development of medicine from the earliest days of mankind: useful herbs, methods for treating wounds, and even setting bones were passed down the generations by word of mouth. With the growth of civilization came more scientific methods, generally discovered by significant individuals. Presents the major figures in the history of medicine, from Hippocrates in Ancient Greece to the medieval abbess Hildegard...

Lemuel Gulliver sets out on a series of travels, but each time he finds himself shipwrecked in new and unfamiliar lands. And how unfamiliar … In Lilliput, everyone is tiny, and it takes thousands of them to capture him; in Brodingnag, they're huge and treat him as a sort of living toy; in Laputa, they live on a floating island inventing impossibly mad projects; and the Houyhnhnms are horses! But through all his adventures, Gulliver learns to see...

Hamlet is commonly, regarded as one of the greatest plays ever written. Drawing on Danish chronicles and the Elizabethan vogue for revenge tragedy, Shakespeare created a play that is at once a philosophic treatise, a family drama, and a supernatural thriller. In the wake of his father's death, Prince Hamlet finds that his Uncle Claudius has swiftly taken the throne and married his mother, Queen Gertrude. The ghost of the dead king then, appears and...