Ben Wilson

From a brilliant young historian, a colorful journey through 7,000 years and twenty-six world cities that shows how urban living has been the spur and incubator to humankind's greatest innovations. In the two hundred millennia of our existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. Historian Ben Wilson, author of bestselling and award-winning books on British history, now tells the grand, glorious story of how city living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning with Uruk, the world's first city, dating to 5000 BC and memorably portrayed in the Epic of Gilgamesh, he shows us that cities were never a necessity but that once they existed their density created such a blossoming of human endeavor--producing new professions, forms of art, worship, and trade--that they kick-started nothing less than civilization. Guiding readers through famous cities over 7,000 years, he reveals the innovations driven by each: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris. In the modern age, he studies the impact of verticality in New York City, the sprawl of L.A., and the eco-reimagining of twenty-first-century Shanghai. Lively, erudite, page turning, and irresistible, Metropolis is a grand tour of human achievement.

A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention

Metropolis

The story of our navy is nothing less than the story of Britain, our culture and our empire. Much more than a parade of admirals and their battles, this is the story of how an insignificant island nation conquered the world's oceans to become its greatest trading empire. Few other nations have fallen so deeply in love with a branch of the armed forces as the British did with its Navy. Yet, as Ben Wilson shows, there was nothing inevitable about this rise to maritime domination, nor was it ever an easy path. For much of our history Britain was a third-rate maritime power on the periphery of Europe. EMPIRE OF THE DEEP also reveals how our naval history has shaped us in more subtle and surprising ways - our language, culture, politics and national character all owe a great debt to this conquest of the seas. This is a gripping, fresh take on our national story.

The Rise and Fall of the British Navy

Empire of the Deep

Bruce Williams

Your domain is rich and interconnected, and your API should be too. Upgrade your web API to GraphQL, leveraging its flexible queries to empower your users, and its declarative structure to simplify your code. Absinthe is the GraphQL toolkit for Elixir, a functional programming language designed to enable massive concurrency atop robust application architectures. Written by the creators of Absinthe, this book will help you take full advantage of these two groundbreaking technologies. Build your own flexible, high-performance APIs using step-by-step guidance and expert advice you won't find anywhere else. GraphQL is a new way of structuring and building web services, and the result is transformational. Find out how to offer a more tailored, cohesive experience to your users, easily aggregate data from different data sources, and improve your back end's maintainability with Absinthe's declarative approach to defining how your API works. Build a GraphQL-based API from scratch using Absinthe, starting from core principles. Learn the type system and how to expand your schema to suit your application's needs. Discover a growing ecosystem of tools and utilities to understand, debug, and document your API. Take it to production, but do it safely with solid best practices in mind. Find out how complexity analysis and persisted queries can let you support your users flexibly, but responsibly too. Along the way, discover how Elixir makes all the difference for a high performance, fault-tolerant API. Use asynchronous and batching execution, or write your own custom add-ons to extend Absinthe. Go live with subscriptions, delivering data over websockets on top of Elixir (and Erlang/OTP's) famous solid performance and real-time capabilities. Transform your applications with the powerful combination of Elixir and GraphQL, using Absinthe. What You Need: To follow along with the book, you should have Erlang/OTP 19+ and Elixir 1.4+ installed. The book will guide you through setting up a new Phoenix application using Absinthe.

Flexible, Robust Services for Queries, Mutations, and Subscriptions

Craft GraphQL APIs in Elixir with Absinthe

A global history of the 1850s, the ambitious, explosive, and tumultuous decade that revolutionized the modern world

The 1850s and the Dawn of the Global Age

Heyday

The History and Future of Nature in the City

Urban Jungle

In this exhilarating look at cities, past and future, Ben Wilson proposes that, in our world of rising seas and threatening weather, the natural world may prove the city's savior "Illuminating...Wilson leaves readers with hope about the future of efforts to preserve the ecosystems that surround us, as well as a new perspective that looks beyond the concrete and asphalt when walking along a city’s streets."—Associated Press Since the beginning of civilization, humans have built cities to wall nature out, then glorified it in beloved but quite artificial parks. In Urban Jungle Ben Wilson—the author of Metropolis, a seven-thousand-year history of cities that the Wall Street Journal called “a towering achievement”—looks to the fraught relationship between nature and the city for clues to how the planet can survive in an age of climate crisis. Whether it was the market farmers of Paris, Germans in medieval forest cities, or the Aztecs in the floating city of Tenochtitlan, pre-modern humans had an essential bond with nature. But when the day came that water was piped in and food flown from distant fields, that relationship was lost. Today, urban areas are the fastest-growing habitat on Earth and in Urban Jungle Ben Wilson finds that we are at last acknowledging that human engineering is not enough to protect us from extremes of weather. He takes us to places where efforts to rewild the city are under way: to Los Angeles, where the city’s concrete river will run blue again, to New York City, where a bleak landfill will be a vast grassland preserve. The pinnacle of this strategy will be Amsterdam: a city that is its own ecosystem, that makes no waste and produces its own energy. In many cities, Wilson finds, nature is already thriving. Koalas are settling in Brisbane, wild boar may raid your picnic in Berlin. Green canopies, wildflowers, wildlife: the things that will help cities survive, he notes, also make people happy. Urban Jungle offers the pleasures of history—how backyard gardens spread exotic species all over the world, how war produces biodiversity—alongside a fantastic vision of the lush green cities of our future. Climate change, Ben Wilson believes, is only the latest chapter in the dramatic human story of nature and the city.

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. “A towering achievement. . . . Reading this book is like visiting an exhilarating city for the first time—dazzling.” —The Wall Street Journal During the two hundred millennia of humanity’s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such a flourishing of human endeavor—new professions, new forms of art, worship and trade—that they kick-started civilization. Guiding us through the centuries, Wilson reveals the innovations nurtured by the inimitable energy of human beings together: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Époque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change. Page-turning, irresistible, and rich with engrossing detail, Metropolis is a brilliant demonstration that the story of human civilization is the story of cities.

From a brilliant young historian, a colourful journey through 7,000 years and twenty-six world cities that shows how urban living has been the spur and incubator to humankind's greatest innovations. In the two hundred millennia of our existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. Ben Wilson, author of bestselling and award-winning books on British history, now tells the grand, glorious story of how city living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning in 5,000 BC with Uruk, the world's first city, immortalized in The Epic of Gilgamesh, he shows us that cities were never a necessity, but that once they existed, their density created such a blossoming of human endeavour--producing new professions, art forms, worship and trade--that they kickstarted civilization itself. Guiding readers through famous cities over 7,000 years, Wilson reveals the innovations driven by each: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in 9th century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris. In the modern age, he studies the impact of verticality in New York City, the sprawl of LA and the eco-reimagining of 21st-century Shanghai. Lively, erudite, page-turning and irresistible, Metropolis is a grand tour of human endeavour.

Decency and Disorder, 1789-1837

HEYDAY brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in modern history. Over the course of the 1850s, the world was reshaped by technology, trade, mass migration and war. The global economy expanded fivefold, millions of families emigrated to the ends of the earth to carve out new lives, technology revolutionised communications, while steamships and railways cut across vast continents and oceans, shrinking the world and creating the first global age. It was a decade of breathtaking transformation, with striking parallels for our own times. The 1850s saw the laying of the first undersea cable in 1851, the rush for gold from California to Australia, while fleets of pirate vessels docked in Hong Kong harbour, eager to take advantage of booming trade. The West's insatiable hunger for land, natural resources and new markets encouraged free trade, bold exploration and colonisation as never before. In a fast-paced, kaleidoscopic narrative, the acclaimed historian Ben Wilson recreates this time of explosive energy and dizzying change, a rollercoaster ride of booms and bust, focusing on the lives of the men and women reshaping its frontiers. At the centre stands Great Britain. The country was the peak of its power as it attempted to determine the destinies of hundreds of millions of people. A dazzling history of a tumultuous decade, HEYDAY reclaims an often overlooked decade that was fundamental not only in in the making of Britain but of the modern world.

Britain and the Birth of the Modern World

"I need a break from social media... " For years it was the most overheard phrase in Ben Wilson's existence, from office to pub, toddler group to football match. So, to mark a milestone birthday, he decided to take one. A full year: Glastonbury without Instagram, Euro 2020 without Twitter, fatherhood without Facebook. The rules seemed simple - until real-world events turned them upside down............... From mental-health woes to single-parenting highs, via heartbreak, hope, half-marathon days, and sleepless nights, this is the raw, hilarious, and life-changing tale of a blue-tick addict's 12-month trek through the social media wilderness............... Ben Wilson is a journalist and former editor of Official PlayStation Magazine and a number of websites. He was born in South London and now lives near Bath with his family, juggling the responsibilities of being a full-time dad with freelance writing commitments. His work has featured in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, and many more. This is his first book.

One Year Without Social Media

Angus Wilson

The Complete Whale-Watching Handbook is a spectacular celebration of whales, porpoises, and dolphins, and of the immense diversity of opportunities to view these spectacular marine mammals in the wild. Once the stuff of fishermen’s yarns and literary classics, we can all now experience the excitement of an eye-to-eye encounter with a whale, dolphin, or porpoise. This book covers the biology of each creature listed, focusing on the species that can be seen on excursions, the behaviors likely to be encountered, and the nature of the industry. There is also a species guide, followed by a comprehensive region-by-region guide to whale-, dolphin-, or porpoise-watching opportunities worldwide. Up-to-date listings include contact information and a seasonal analysis of the species that can be expected. There are also sections explaining the study of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, examining the impact of whale-watching on whale populations, and offering practical advice on how to view, photograph and enjoy these creatures in the wild.

A Guide to Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises of the World

The Complete Whale-Watching Handbook

„Metropolis este un demers admirabil și o lectură extrem de captivantă." — The New York Times Book Review În cei două sute de mii de ani ai existenței noastre, nimic nu ne-a modelat mai profund decât orașul. Renumitul istoric Ben Wilson spune povestea grandioasă a felului în care traiul la oraș i-a permis culturii noastre să înflorească. Începând cu Uruk, primul oraș din lume, descris memorabil în Epopeea lui Ghilgameș, Wilson ne arată că orașele n-au fost niciodată o necesitate, dar odată ce au apărut, densitatea populației lor a dus la un asemenea avânt al strădaniilor omenești – creând noi profesii, forme de artă, credință și comerț –, încât asta a însemnat de fapt nașterea civilizației. Însoțind cititorii prin orașe faimoase, de-a lungul a peste 7 000 de ani, Wilson prezintă inovațiile pe care le-a adus fiecare dintre acestea: cultura civică în agora Atenei, comerțul global în Bagdadul secolului al XIX-lea, științele financiare în cafenelele din Londra, facilitățile domestice din inima Amsterdamului, fala Parisului din perioada Belle Époque. În epoca modernă, Wilson studiază impactul urbanizării pe verticală din New York City, extinderea Los Angelesului, reinventarea Shanghaiului din secolul XXI ca oraș sustenabil ecologic. Captivant și cu o scriitură admirabilă, Metropolis reprezintă un tur de forță al realizărilor omenești. Strălucitul istoric Ben Wilson ne propune o călătorie plină de culoare, ce străbate 7 000 de ani și douăzeci și șase de orașe ale lumii, menită să arate că traiul la oraș a facilitat și a stimulat cele mai mărețe inovații ale omenirii. „O realizare impresionantă… Să te afunzi în paginile acestei cărți este ca și cum ai vizita pentru prima oară un oraș fabulos. Metropolis abundă în informații și observații pătrunzătoare." — The Wall Street Journal „O odă închinată orașelor și vieții cosmopolite. Ben Wilson își demonstrează talentul de îndrumător plin de erudiție și creativitate prin istoria civilizației, plecând de la întinsele sale zone urbane." — Time Ben Wilson este autorul a cinci cărți primite cu entuziasm de critică și de public. Printre acestea, se numără What Price Liberty? pentru care a fost recompensat cu Somerset Maugham Award, Empire of the Deep, bestseller Sunday Times și, cel mai recent, Heyday: The Dawn of the Global Age. A absolvit Pembroke College, Cambridge, cu o diplomă de licență magna cum laude și are un doctorat în istorie. Este deseori invitat la posturile publice de radio și televiziune din SUA, Marea Britanie și Irlanda și scrie periodic pentru publicații precum The Times, The Spectator, The Literary Review, Daily Telegraph și Prospect.

Satirist William Hone is the forgotten hero of the British press. In 1817 he was forced to defend himself against a censorious government, in what amounted to a show trial pitting a self-educated Fleet Street journalist against the Lord Chief Justice and a hand-picked jury. Hone's crime was to ridicule the powers that be. Through Hone's life, Ben Wilson looks at the history of the struggle for free expression against repressive law.

William Hone and the Fight for the Free Press

The Laughter of Triumph

Realm of Illusion

'This excellent biography is a timely reminder of the astonishing power of the press in the hands of a single free, fearless, and long-since forgotten practitioner.' - Daily Telegraph (UK)

Brilliant young historian Ben Wilson explores a time when licentious Britain tried to straighten out its moral code, ridding itself of its boisterous pastimes, plain-speaking and drunkenness - raising uncomfortable but fascinating parallels with our own age. Decency and Disorder is about the generation who grew up during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, and some of its most exciting figures.

The Age of Cant 1789-1837

Decency and Disorder

Individual liberty will be the defining issue of the twenty-first century, while fear of terrorism, crime and social chaos has put our ideas of liberty into retreat in recent years. It is clear that there is not just a crisis of liberty, but a crisis in the way people talk about liberty. How do we, as individuals, negotiate the maximum amount of freedom in such a complex world? How can we resist the growth of intrusive authoritarianism without exposing ourselves to crime, terrorism and other risks? Even those who instinctively support social freedoms are losing confidence when confronted with such hard truths. History provides a guide to answering these questions. We have a rich legacy to draw upon to help define our approach to current problems. Yet it is a history which we are in danger of forgetting or misreading. In What Price Liberty? Ben Wilson travels through four centuries of British, American and European history, elaborating not just how civil liberties were constructed in the past, but how they were continually re-thought -and re-fought - in response to modernity. The last chapters put into context the controversies of the last decade or so-the threat of terrorism and the rise of the database nation. If liberty is to survive now it must, like it did in the past, adapt to new circumstances. But to do this we need to agree about the value we place on liberty.

Ben Wilson

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