This book confronts readers with the most direct evidence yet of Nelson Mandela’s intellectual evolution into one of the great moral heroes of our time.
Mandela was a former president of South Africa, the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election, who held office from 1994 to 1999.
The book reveals the heroism of a man who refused to compromise his moral values in the face of extraordinary punishment. Ultimately, these letters position Mandela as one of the most inspiring figures of the 20th century.
The book was assembled over 10 years by Sahm Venter, a South African journalist and author, who obtained the letters from a variety of sources, among them a collection named for a policeman who, after Mandela’s release, returned notebooks confiscated from his cell in 1971 into which he had carefully copied his letters before passing them on to warders to be mailed.
According to a review published in the New York Times, many of the letters portray Mandela the loving husband and attentive father to five children — his three older ones by his first wife, Evelyn, and his two with his second wife, Winnie.
The letters make clear Mandela’s efforts to stay connected to his extended family, who sometimes consulted him on tribal matters.
What We Are Reading Today: The Prison Letters of Mandela
What We Are Reading Today: The Prison Letters of Mandela
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Experiments of the Mind’
Author: EMILY MARTIN
Experimental cognitive psychology research is a hidden force in our online lives. We engage with it, often unknowingly, whenever we download a health app, complete a Facebook quiz, or rate our latest purchase.
How did experimental psychology come to play an outsized role in these developments? “Experiments of the Mind” considers this question through a look at cognitive psychology laboratories. Emily Martin traces how psychological research methods evolved, escaped the boundaries of the discipline, and infiltrated social media and our digital universe.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Quantitative Biosciences Companion in Python’
Authors: JOSHUA S. WEITZ, NOLAN ENGLISH, ALEXANDER LEE, AND ALI ZAMANI
This lab guide accompanies the textbook “Quantitative Biosciences,” providing students with the skills they need to translate biological principles and mathematical concepts into computational models of living systems.
This hands-on guide uses a case study approach organized around central questions in the life sciences, introducing landmark advances in the field while teaching students—whether from the life sciences, physics, computational sciences, engineering, or mathematics—how to reason quantitatively in the face of uncertainty.
What We Are Reading Today: Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe
- The story of how evidence for the so-called “Lambda-Cold Dark Matter” model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton
Authors: Jeramiah P. Ostriker and Simmon Mitton
Heart of Darkness describes the incredible saga of humankind’s quest to unravel the deepest secrets of the universe. Over the past 40 years, scientists have learned that two little-understood components—dark matter and dark energy—comprise most of the known cosmos, explain the growth of all cosmic structure, and hold the key to the universe’s fate.
The story of how evidence for the so-called “Lambda-Cold Dark Matter” model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton.
From humankind’s early attempts to comprehend Earth’s place in the solar system, to astronomers’ exploration of the Milky Way galaxy and the realm of the nebulae beyond, to the detection of the primordial fluctuations of energy from which all subsequent structure developed, this book explains the physics and the history of how the current model of our universe arose and has passed every test hurled at it by the skeptics.
This monumental puzzle is far from complete, however, as scientists confront the mysteries of the ultimate causes of cosmic structure formation and the real nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Natural History of Shells’ by Geerat Vermeij
Geerat Vermeij wrote this “celebration of shells” to share his enthusiasm for these supremely elegant creations and what they can teach us about nature.
Most popular books on shells emphasize the identification of species, but Vermeij uses shells as a way to explore major ideas in biology.
How are shells built? How do they work? And how did they evolve?
With lucidity and charm, the MacArthur-winning evolutionary biologist reveals how shells give us insights into the lives of animals today and in the distant geological past.
What We Are Reading Today: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs
Author: Gregory S. Paul
The bestselling “Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs” remains the must-have book for anyone who loves dinosaurs, from amateur enthusiasts to professional paleontologists. Now extensively revised and expanded, this dazzlingly illustrated large-format edition features nearly 100 new dinosaur species and hundreds of new and updated illustrations, bringing readers up to the minute on the latest discoveries and research that are radically transforming what we know about dinosaurs and their world.
