The empire he inherited was weak from two messy dynastic succession, and ambitious enemy kings loomed large on all sides – a haughty king of Orissa in the east, five upstart Deccan Sultans to the North, revolting Tamil rajas in the South and enterprising Portuguese soldiers from the West. But Krishnadevaraya quickly rose to the challenge, and in the course of his remarkable twenty-year reign, he changed history forever. He won every single battle he fought and unified the whole of South India under his banner. Krishnadevaraya is remembered today as one of India’s greatest kings, not only because of his successes on the battlefield or the dazzling splendour of his empire, but because he was India’s first truly global leader. He had to confront very modern problems, such as building international alliances and negotiating overseas trade deals, while grappling with the challenges of globalism and multiculturalism. The Deccan of his time was a cosmopolitan place where Hindus and Muslims, North Indians and South Indians, Persians and Portuguese, all intermingled as they made their lives and fortunes. This cultural dynamism also inspired Krishnadevaraya to look back at India’s past and reflect on her histories and traditions. As a philosopher-king who was also a celebrated poet in his own right, he presided over an Indian Renaissance, when ancient texts and traditions were reinvigorated and infused with a fresh and modern vitality. Five hundred years after krishnadevaraya’s death, he is still remembered and loved as a compassionate and wise king, one who is immortalised in films and folk tales, poems and Ballads. This fascinating and riveting book is meticulously researched and beautifully written. Based on Portuguese and Persian chronicles, as well as many overlooked Telugu literary sources, Raya is the definitive biography of one of the world’s greatest leaders.

    Religious, in the denigration of Hindu icons:2. Psychological; -e.g. in the foisting of a fraudulent version of our history;3. Physical- e.g. the Islamic terrorist-driven ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir and nBangladesh, and the money-induced conversion of Hindus to Christianity;4. Cultural- e.g. through globalisation of tastes, dress and interpersonal morality that are determind in the Anglo-saxon white Christian world ("The West").

    High Art Lite provides a sustained analysis of the phenomenal success of YBA, young British artists obsessed with commerce, mass media and the cult of personality Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Marcus Harvey, Sarah Lucas, among others. In this fully revised and expanded edition, Julian Stallabrass explores how YBA lost its critical immunity in the new millennium, and looks at the ways in which figures such as Hirst, Emin, Wearing and Landy have altered their work in recent years.

    The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion -- and indeed our future.

    Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away the layers of mystery surrounding string theory to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter—from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas—is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny loops of energy.Today physicists and mathematicians throughout the world are feverishly working on one of the most ambitious theories ever proposed: superstring theory. String theory, as it is often called, is the key to the Unified Field Theory that eluded Einstein for more than thirty years. Finally, the century-old antagonism between the large and the small-General Relativity and Quantum Theory-is resolved. String theory proclaims that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe, from the frantic dancing of subatomic quarks to the majestic swirling of heavenly galaxies, are reflections of one grand physical principle and manifestations of one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy, a billionth of a billionth the size of an atom. In this brilliantly articulated and refreshingly clear book, Greene relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind twentieth-century physics' search for a theory of everything.Through the masterful use of metaphor and analogy, The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated viscerally accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.

    In those twelve months, Einstein shattered many cherished scientific beliefs with five extraordinary papers that would establish him as the world's leading physicist. This book brings those papers together in an accessible format. The best-known papers are the two that founded special relativity: On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies and Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content? In the former, Einstein showed that absolute time had to be replaced by a new absolute: the speed of light. In the second, he asserted the equivalence of mass and energy, which would lead to the famous formula E = mc2.The book also includes On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, in which Einstein challenged the wave theory of light, suggesting that light could also be regarded as a collection of particles. This helped to open the door to a whole new world--that of quantum physics. For ideas in this paper, he won the Nobel Prize in 1921.The fourth paper also led to a Nobel Prize, although for another scientist, Jean Perrin. On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat concerns the Brownian motion of such particles. With profound insight, Einstein blended ideas from kinetic theory and classical hydrodynamics to derive an equation for the mean free path of such particles as a function of the time, which Perrin confirmed experimentally. The fifth paper, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions, was Einstein's doctoral dissertation, and remains among his most cited articles. It shows how to calculate Avogadro's number and the size of molecules.These papers, presented in a modern English translation, are essential reading for any physicist, mathematician, or astrophysicist. Far more than just a collection of scientific articles, this book presents work that is among the high points of human achievement and marks a watershed in the history of science. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the miraculous year, this new paperback edition includes an introduction by John Stachel, which focuses on the personal aspects of Einstein's youth that facilitated and led up to the miraculous year.

    In a book of unprecedented scope, McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound—not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The left hemisphere is detail oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things & is inclined to self-interest. The right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility & generosity. This division helps explain the origins of music & language, & casts new light on the history of philosophy, as well as on some mental illnesses. The 2nd part of the book takes a journey thru the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought & belief of thinkers & artists, from Aeschylus to Magritte. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences.List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionAsymmetry and the brain --What do the two hemispheres 'do'? --Language, truth and music --The nature of the two worlds --The primacy of the right hemisphere --The triumph of the left hemisphere --Imitation and the evolution of culture --The ancient world --The Renaissance and the Reformation --The Enlightenment --Romanticism and the Industrial Revolution --The modern and post-modern worldsConclusionNotes BibliographyIndex

    Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories. But perhaps the ultimate challenge is achieving a monumental synthesis of the two remaining theories--relativity and the quantum theory. This would be the crowning achievement of science, a profound merging of all the forces of nature into one beautiful, magnificent equation to unlock the deepest mysteries in science: What happened before the Big Bang? What lies on the other side of a black hole? Are there other universes and dimensions? Is time travel possible? Why are we here? Kaku also explains the intense controversy swirling around this theory, with Nobel laureates taking opposite sides on this vital question.

    Bhishma, the venerable patriarch of the families, lies fatally wounded on the plains of Kurukshetra. On his deathbed he offers Radheya, his nemesis, a chance to rule the Kuru kingdom by capturing Yudhishthira.In the Pandava camp, Yudhishthira, a reluctant warrior, tries desperately to hold his allies together and escape capture without appearing to be a coward. Meanwhile, his young and impulsive nephew, Abhimanyu, a warrior prince, dreams of glory and yearns for a chance to save the Pandava cause. The lives of these three warriors, Yudhisthira, Radheya and Abhimanyu, collide brutally on the thirteenth day. A story of how stories are created, how fact becomes fiction, how history becomes mythology and how men become legends, The Thirteenth Day re-imagines India's greatest epic like never before.

    It discusses how and why the members of the Assembly wrote their constitution as they did. This new edition of Austin's classic work has a preface that brings it up to date with contemporary developments in constitutional law.

    The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context.  Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.

    He argues that the only feasible explanations of scientific successes are historical explanations, and that anarchism must now replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge.

    The work is divided into three broad divisions of the natural course of cultural development in Ancient India: (1) From the prehistoric age to 600 B.C., (2) From 600 B.C. to 300 A.D., (3) From 300 A.D. to 1200 A.D.The work describes the political, economic, religious and cultural conditions of the country, the expansionist activities, the colonisation schemes of her rulers in the Far East. Political theories and administrative organizations are also discussed but more stress has been laid on the religious, literary and cultural aspects of Ancient India.Among the more important additions may be mentioned the chapters on the prehistoric age, including the Indus Valley Civilization, more detailed account of the ancient republican clans and the various medieval local dynasties, specially those of the south and the development of art and colonisation. Important changes, though much less extensive, have been made in chapters dealing with political theory and administrative system, as well as social and economic condition and an entirely new section on coins has been added. Considerable other modifications and rearrangements, involving re-grouping of chapters, have been made and more copious footnotes and fuller bibliography have been added for the guidance of advanced students.The book is of a more advanced type. It would meet the needs not only of general readers but also of earnest students who require a thorough grasp of the essential facts and features before taking up specialized study in any branch of the subject. It would also fulfil requirements of the candidates for competitive examinations in which Ancient Indian History and culture is a prescribed subject.

    

    From Edward Lorenz’s discovery of the Butterfly Effect, to Mitchell Feigenbaum’s calculation of a universal constant, to Benoit Mandelbrot’s concept of fractals, which created a new geometry of nature, Gleick’s engaging narrative focuses on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science. In Chaos, Gleick makes the story of chaos theory not only fascinating but also accessible to beginners, and opens our eyes to a surprising new view of the universe.