The Triumph Of Life

The Triumph of Life was the last major work by Percy Bysshe Shelley before his death in 1822. The work was left unfinished. Shelley wrote the poem at Casa Magni in Lerici, Italy in the early summer of 1822. He modelled the poem, written in terza rima, on Petrarch's Trionfi and Dante's Divine Comedy. Shelley was working on the poem when he was accidentally drowned on 8 July 1822 during a storm on a voyage from Leghorn. The poem was first published in the collection Posthumous Poems (1824) published in London by John and Henry L. Hunt which was edited by his wife Mary Shelley, who emphasised the importance of the work. The theme of the poem is an exploration of the nature of being and reality. For Shelley, life itself, the "painted veil" which obscures and disguises the immortal spirit, is a more universal conqueror than love, death, fame, chastity, divinity, or time, and, in a dream vision, he sees this triumphal chariot pass, "on the storm of its own rushing splendour," over the captive multitude of men. Ultimately, natural life corrupts and triumphs over the spirit.

"The genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring, and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves." --Mark Kurlansky, New York Times Book Review We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life: supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and pepper drove the Age of Discovery, coffee beans fueled the Enlightenment and cottonseed sparked the Industrial Revolution. Seeds are fundamental objects of beauty, evolutionary wonders, and simple fascinations. Yet, despite their importance, seeds are often seen as commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. This is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A fascinating scientific adventure, it is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow.

From the pyramids to mortality tables, Galileo to Florence Nightingale, a vibrant history of numbers and the birth of statistics. The great historian of science I. B. Cohen explores how numbers have come to assume a leading role in science, in the operations and structure of government, in marketing, and in many other aspects of daily life. Consulting and collecting numbers has been a feature of human affairs since antiquity—taxes, head counts for military service—but not until the Scientific Revolution in the twelfth century did social numbers such as births, deaths, and marriages begin to be analyzed. Cohen shines a new light on familiar figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Dickens; and he reveals Florence Nightingale to be a passionate statistician. Cohen has left us with an engaging and accessible history of numbers, an appreciation of the essential nature of statistics.

An original story; fresh and realistic. It is a book about topical issues in Nigerian marriages, culture clashes, childlessness, pride and humility, grief and pain, love and joy, politics, the diverse forms of religion inherent in Nigeria. It is a book about qualities and values which transcend culture, ethnicity. A book about profound nature of an African thriving in the midst of adversity. The Triumph of the Water Lily is a celebration of womanhood. It is a moving exploration of life and death, in which Effua, the narrator, tells of a passionate story of trial and tribulation, of the triumph of love and life, even in the throes of death. The novel attests to the nobility, elegance and profound goodness of Nkem, the central character. It is also a courageous story of romance filled with excitement, novelty and moments of shock, particularly for Effua, whose life has been inexorably influenced by Nkem's.

Well-heeled American corporations have long had a financial stake in undermining scientific consensus and manufacturing uncertainty. In The Triumph of Doubt, former Obama and Clinton official David Michaels details how corrupt science becomes public policy -- and where it's happening today. Opioids. Concussions. Obesity. Climate Change. America is a country of everyday crises -- big, long-spanning problems that persist despite their toll on the country's health. And for every case of government inaction on one of these issues, there is a set of familiar, doubtful refrains: The science is unclear. The data are inconclusive. Regulation is unjustified. It's a slippery slope. Is it? The Triumph of Doubt traces the ascendance of science-for-hire in American life and government, from its origins in the tobacco industry in the 1950s to its current manifestations across government, public policy, and even professional sports. Amid fraught conversations of "alternative facts" and "truth decay," The Triumph of Doubt wields its unprecedented access to shine a light on the machinations and scope of manipulated science in American society. It is an urgent, revelatory work, one that promises to reorient conversations around science and the public good for the foreseeable future.