Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Science & Technology — Health Sciences

Börner (library and information science, Indiana Univ.) is curator of thePlaces & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit (http://scimaps.org/home.html) currently on display at Northwestern University.  Using new maps from the exhibit, this atlas, the second in a planned three-atlas series, focuses on the power of visualization and its essential role in this age of information overload.  (Number one in the series is theAtlas of Science: Visualizing What We Know; the planned third volume will beAtlas of Forecasts: Predicting and Broadcasting Science, Technology and Innovation.)  This is a beautiful, coffee tablestyle book, printed in a large (11" h x 13" w) format on high-quality, thick, glossy paper.  Some pages have only visualizations; other images are accompanied by text.  Börners declared goal is to disseminate data and data-visualization literacy.  The atlas is organized into four parts: "Science and Technology Facts," "Envisioning Science and Technology," "Science Maps in Action," and "Outlook."  Differentreading trajectories are suggested for different types of readers (familiar with science but not with mapping, "visualization expert," "designer not familiar with science visualization, programmer interested in building tools, and wish to see the future of science and technology).  Readers will want to look at the maps again and againand then read the text.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Though one can find many books about the the personal computer revolution, this book, which first appeared in 1984, is one of the few to encapsulate both the technical and entrepreneurial history of the PC.  The technological building blocks include the first microprocessors in the early 1970s, the CP/M operating system in 1974, and the the Altair BASIC programming language and Altair 8800 in 1975.  Entrepreneurial aspects extend to why the PC revolution was sparked by individuals while businesses such as Hewlett Packard initially resisted PC initiatives.  In the second edition of this book, Swaine and Freiberger offered hindsight; in this third edition they bring the discussion full circle.  Having pointed to the release of the Apple iMac in 1998 as the crowning achievement in PC development and discussed the increasing popularity of portable devices such as laptop computers, the authors add chapters about mobile platform development and cloud-based storage.  They also describe the dawn of computer conferencing and publishing.  The personal insights of computer scientists and engineers-turned-entrepreneursindividuals including Lee Felsenstein and the late Gary Kildall and Ed Robertshelp make this required reading for those interested in the history of technology and business.Summing Up: Essential. All readers

This book by Hey (Microsoft Research) and Pápay (Southampton Univ., UK) not only amply demonstrates their knowledge of the subject matter but also is well written and crisply explained.  The chapters are logically laid out in chronological order and effectively encapsulate the subjects being covered.  The pictures and various visuals are thoughtfully selected and enhance the topics in the text.  Few distractions interrupt the flow; biographies and expanded information on related topics are placed at the ends of chapters.  When tough technical information needs to be tackled, the authors usually explain all the necessary math, technical, and engineering topics and place them in a historical context, making it easier to understand them and grasp their significance.  To make the book more accessible, however, these technical explanations occasionally seem to be artificially abbreviated.  Taking a little longer to provide clearer explanations would have been more beneficial.  The book includes an exhaustively researched, well-organized, and well-laid-out bibliography as well as suggested reading for curious readers.  This book was a pleasure to read and would make an excellent beginning textbook for computer science and engineering majors.Summing Up: Essential. General readers and lower- and upper-division undergraduates.

This book is an extremely interesting and stimulating history of the concepts of cybernetics.  In the introduction Kline (history and ethics of engineering, Cornell Univ.) explains that he uses the phrase "cybernetics moment" to refer to the rise, fall and reinvention of cybernetics that occurred alongside the rise of information theory in the United States.  The subject burst upon the world in Norbert Wiener's classic 1948 bookCybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machinea title that explains the fundamental scope of cybernetics.  The idea that humans and machines could both be studied in terms of information, control, and communication theory captured the imagination of the world, and coupled with the more technical concept of information given by Claude Shannon in hisMathematical Theory of Communication (first published in book form in 1949), it looked in the 1950s and 1960s as if all problems, including societal problems, would yield to the cybernetic approach.  Kline masterfully explains how and why these hopes were not realized, especially in relation to social problems, and how cybernetics instead evolved into the facets of life referred to as the "Information Society" and the "Information Age."  This is a book for everyone to read, relish, and think about.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

Isaacson (CEO, Aspen Institute) follows his Jobs biography,Steve Jobs (CH, Apr'12, 49-4500), with an exceptional history of the innovations that drove the digital revolution.  Besides revealing the technologies involved, he integrates succinct profiles of important individuals and corporations, emphasizing the management styles deployed that either encouraged innovation or foiled success.  The collaboration between Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage in the 1840s launched the digital revolution.  Babbages Analytical Engine and Lovelaces accompanying commentary and algorithms were inspirational for later generations.  The author discusses the transformation of the 19th-century world of human calculators into todays digital world of the web, and explains that ubiquitous computers, smart appliances, and virtual social spaces required many significant innovations.  Switching circuits, transistors, microchips, microprocessors, the mouse, and memory storage were prerequisite; the conceptual shift away from single-use computers, e.g., the ENIAC for hydrogen bomb calculations, to multipurpose programmable computers was critical.  The journey of innovation continued with the birth of time-sharing and ARPANET, which evolved into the Internet; the successful launch of personal computers by Gates and Jobs; e-mail, Usenet groups, and bulletin boards creating community; and operating systems like Linux becoming open and free.  Isaacson concludes his engaging history with recent innovations that are building the web.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.