Leon brings her particular hybrid of history and humor to the entwined subjects of science and superstition in the ancient world. Leon covers subjects as diverse as astronomy and astrology, and philosophy and practicalities of life and death.

Questions about the physical world, human bodies and health, and even mathematical problems abounded in ancient Greece and Rome. Then, as now, scientific work was part of broader culture. The answers offered by ancient thinkers were influential for centuries and are still actively discussed today. In this Very Short Introduction, Liba Taub describes ancient scientific ideas and practices, focusing on Greece and Rome between the 8th century BCE and...

A hundred years ago, the Minotaurs saved Caeli-Amur from conquest. Now, three very different people may hold the keys to the city's survival. Once, it is said, gods used magic to create reality, with powers that defied explanation. But the magic-or science, if one believes those who try to master the dangers of thaumaturgy-now seems more like a dream. Industrial workers for House Technis, farmers for House Arbor, and fisher folk of House Marin eke...

"Weinberg takes us across centuries from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato's Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral school of Chartres and the Royal Society of London. He shows that the scientists of ancient and medieval times not only did not understand what we understand about the world--they did not understand what there is to understand, or how to understand it. Yet over the centuries, through the struggle...

Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.