Books like 'Circles'
Readers who enjoyed Circles by James Burke also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical technology archaeology
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Signal & Noise by John Griesemer
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOn a dark, wet London morning in 1857, Chester Ludlow, an American engineer, arrives on the muddy banks of the Isle of Dogs to witness the launch of the largest steamship ever built, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's The Great Eastern. Ludlow, propelled by fierce ambition, is a key member of a small consortium whose ambition is to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable... -
![Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold]()
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsWhat do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries... -
![The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Stephen Brusatte]()
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Stephen Brusatte
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsA sweeping and revelatory new history of mammals, illuminating the lost story of the extraordinary family tree that led to us Though humans claim to rule the Earth, we are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals...Categorized as:
archaeology non-fiction outdoors animals evolution audiobook historical ancient-civilization -
![Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto by Alan Stern, D. Grinspoon]()
Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto by Alan Stern, D. Grinspoon
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAlan Stern and David Grinspoon take us behind the scenes of the science, politics, egos, and public expectations that fueled the greatest space mission of our time: New Horizons' misison to Pluto.On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened...Categorized as:
technology audiobook exploration historical male-author non-fiction space space-travel -
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![Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein by Abraham Pais, Roger Penrose]()
Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein by Abraham Pais, Roger Penrose
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSince the death of Albert Einstein in 1955 there have been many books and articles written about the man and a number of attempts to "explain" relativity. In this new major work Abraham Pais, himself an eminent physicist who worked alongside Einstein in the post-war years, traces the development of Einstein's entire oeuvre... -
![Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism by Bhu Srinivasan]()
Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism by Bhu Srinivasan
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life... -
![Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner]()
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMasters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy...Categorized as:
technology 20th-century 21st-century audiobook fiction historical journalism non-fiction -
![The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder by Peter Zeihan]()
The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder by Peter Zeihan
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe freshman book of New York Times Bestselling Author of The End of the World is Just the Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.An eye-opening assement of American power and deglobalization in the bestselling tradition of The World is Flat and The Next 100 Years .Near the end of the Second World War, the United States made a bold strategic gambit that rewired the international system... -
![The Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati by Michel Danino]()
The Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati by Michel Danino
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Lost River explores the geography, history, and mythology, of the Sarasvati river, drawing from various sources like folklore, the Vedas, archaeology, local practices, history, geology, and meteorology. The book explains that the river, its very existence, and its course have been discussed and speculated over for years... -
![Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases by Paul A. Offit]()
Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases by Paul A. Offit
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMaurice Hilleman's mother died a day after he was born and his twin sister stillborn. As an adult, he said that he felt he had escaped an appointment with death. He made it his life's work to see that others could do the same... -
![Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber]()
Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNew discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies.Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women...Categorized as:
archaeology technology ancient-civilization audiobook classics female-author feminism historical -
![How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region by Joe Studwell]()
How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region by Joe Studwell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the 1980s and 1990s many in the West came to believe in the myth of an East-Asian economic miracle. Japan was going to dominate, then China. Countries were called “tigers” or “mini-dragons,” and were seen as not just development prodigies, but as a unified bloc, culturally and economically similar, and inexorably on the rise... -
![What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker]()
What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe untold story of the heretical thinkers who dared to question the nature of our quantum universeEvery physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl... -
![Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Barry]()
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Barry
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn account of the 1927 Mississippi River flood explores one of the greatest national disasters the United States has ever experienced and its consequences in a comprehensive volume that clearly shows how the flood changed the course of history. 60,000 first printing. Tour... -
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![The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester]()
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsThe revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision... -
![A History of the World in 100 Objects 6 Copy Counter Display by Neil MacGregor]()
A History of the World in 100 Objects 6 Copy Counter Display by Neil MacGregor
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe blockbuster "New York Times" bestseller and the companion volume to the wildly popular radio series Neil MacGregor has blazed an unusual path to international renown. As director of the British Museum, he organized an exhibit that aimed to tell the history of humanity through the stories of one hundred objects made, used, venerated, or discarded by man...Categorized as:
archaeology technology 21st-century ancient-civilization audiobook fiction historical journey -
![Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh]()
Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA half century ago, a shocking Washington Post headline claimed that the world began in five cataclysmic minutes rather than having existed for all time; a skeptical scientist dubbed the maverick theory the Big Bang...Categorized as:
technology 21st-century historical male-author non-fiction philosophy religion space -
![The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine by Charles Petzold]()
The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine by Charles Petzold
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsProgramming Legend Charles Petzold unlocks the secrets of the extraordinary and prescient 1936 paper by Alan M... -
![500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians by Alvin M. Josephy Jr.]()
500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians by Alvin M. Josephy Jr.
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA book that grew from an eight-hour TV series, this is the epic and unforgettable story of the history, lore, legends, and legacy of North American Indians... -
![The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins by Tom Higham]()
The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins by Tom Higham
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratings'Fascinating and entertaining. If you read one book on human origins, this should be it' Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now 'The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the world's experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs50,000 years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world...Categorized as:
archaeology non-fiction evolution audiobook ancient-civilization historical outdoors -
![Cave of Bones: A True Story of Discovery, Adventure, and Human Origins by Lee Berger, John Hawks]()
Cave of Bones: A True Story of Discovery, Adventure, and Human Origins by Lee Berger, John Hawks
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA true-life scientific adventure story, this thrilling book takes the reader deep into South African caves to discover fossil remains that compel a monumental reframing of the human family tree...Categorized as:
archaeology technology non-fiction evolution audiobook action-adventure outdoors historical -
![The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War by Robert J. Gordon]()
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War by Robert J. Gordon
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces... -
![Connections by James Burke]()
Connections by James Burke
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn this bestselling book, James Burke examines the ideas, inventions, and coincidences that have culminated in the major technological advances of today. He untangles the pattern of interconnecting events, the accidents of time, circumstance, and place that gave rise to major inventions of the world...Categorized as:
technology audiobook fiction historical non-fiction philosophy politics psychological -
![The Day the Universe Changed: How Galileo's Telescope Changed the Truth by James Burke]()
The Day the Universe Changed: How Galileo's Telescope Changed the Truth by James Burke
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRevision of Burke's highly successful original of 1985. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or... -
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![The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher]()
The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLanguage is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language... -
![The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski]()
The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLauded by critics & devoured by readers, this companion to the BBC series traces the development of science as an expression of the special gifts that characterize humans & make us preeminent animals. Bronowski's exciting, illustrated investigation offers a perspective not just on science, but on civilization itself...Categorized as:
archaeology technology 20th-century ancient-civilization audiobook classics evolution fiction -
![Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul A. Offit]()
Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul A. Offit
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat happens when ideas presented as science lead us in the wrong direction? History is filled with brilliant ideas that gave rise to disaster, and this book explores the most fascinating—and significant—missteps: from opium's heyday as the pain reliever of choice to recognition of opioids as a major cause of death in the U.S... -
![Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper]()
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA New York Times technology and business reporter charts the dramatic rise of Bitcoin and the fascinating personalities who are striving to create a new global money for the Internet age.Digital Gold is New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper’s brilliant and engrossing history of Bitcoin, the landmark digital money and financial technology that has spawned a global social movement... -
![Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein]()
Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMoney only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money... -
![League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru]()
League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratings“PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS DO NOT SUSTAIN FREQUENT REPETITIVE BLOWS TO THE BRAIN ON A REGULAR BASIS.”So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport...
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