Books by James Poskett
“It challenges our assumptions…It’s really nice to read an account of scientific endeavor which tells you that across cultures and places, things were going on that gave insight into the world. For example, there’s the astronomer, Ulugh Beg, who five centuries ago calculated the length of the solar year to within 25 seconds of accuracy to what we’ve got today. That single episode encapsulates what this book is about. It encourages us to stop imagining that we are somehow at the center of the universe of progress and development and to recognize that there are other cultures out there who have been way ahead of the game and who we’ve learned from…The book is very accessible…I really appreciate a scientist helping me to understand scientific developments in a way that absolutely resonates and unpeels the complexities of our world. It’s a very significant book.” Read more...
The British Academy Book Prize: 2022 Shortlist
Philippe Sands, Lawyer
Interviews where books by James Poskett were recommended
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1
The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness
by Katie Booth -
2
Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
by Harald Jähner & Shaun Whiteside (translator) -
3
Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village
by Marit Kapla & Peter Graves (translator) -
4
Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science
by James Poskett -
5
When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold
by Alia Trabucco Zerán & Sophie Hughes (translator) -
6
Kingdom of Characters: A Tale of Language, Obsession, and Genius in Modern China
by Jing Tsu
The British Academy Book Prize: 2022 Shortlist, recommended by Philippe Sands
The British Academy Book Prize: 2022 Shortlist, recommended by Philippe Sands
The annual British Academy book prize rewards “works of nonfiction that have contributed to public understanding of world cultures and their interaction.” Human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, one of the prize’s judges, talks us through the books that made the 2022 shortlist and explains what makes them so compelling.
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1
The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
by Kenneth Pomeranz -
2
Cotton: the Fabric that made the Modern World
by Giorgio Riello -
3
The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World
by Anne Gerritsen -
4
Vermeer's Hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world
by Timothy Brook -
5
Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science
by James Poskett
The best books on Global History, recommended by Maxine Berg
The best books on Global History, recommended by Maxine Berg
From the Indian cottons that were traded around Asia and Africa in the Middle Ages, to the global dominance of the blue-and-white pottery of Jingdezhen, historian Maxine Berg introduces five books that transformed our understanding of the past millennium and are significant milestones in the development of the vibrant field of global history.