"William Rosen has written a most powerful story, one with a heroic cast of characters and an ingenious set of machines. His recounting of the invention of the steam engine puts it in the historical and cultural context that the achievement and its legacy deserve."---Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of civil engineering and professor of history, Duke University, author of The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global...

Describes the history of the discovery of antibiotics, including the eccentric characters whose false starts and lucky accidents led to humans having much greater control over the microbes that resulted in previously deadly infections.

Weaving together evolutionary microbiology, economics, military strategy, ecology, and ancient and modern medicine, author Rosen tells of history's first pandemic--a plague seven centuries before the Black Death that killed tens of millions, devastated the empires of Persia and Rome, left victims from Ireland to Iraq, and opened the way for the armies of Islam. Emperor Justinian had reunified Rome's fractured empire by defeating the Goths and Vandals...

"A triumphant Caesar enters Rome after defeating the sons of his old enemy, Pompey. Jealousy and fear over Caesar's reforms reveal a brewing conspiracy to assassinate him. As the plot thickens, Caesar's wife is plagued by terrible nightmares and begs him not to go to the Capitol. But Caesar shrugs off her fears and is accompanied to the Senate by the conspirators thus sealing his fate. Caesar's loyal friends rally to avenge his death and preserve...