Thomas Crump – författare

From the beginning of the eighteenth century to the high water mark of the Victorian era, the world was transformed by a technological revolution the like of which had never been seen before. Inventors, businessmen, scientists, explorers all had their part to play in the story of the Industrial Revolution and in this Brief History Thomas Crump brings their story to life, and shows why it is a chapter in English history that can not be ignored.Previous praise for Thomas Crump's A Brief History of Science:'A serious and fully furnished history of science, from which anyone interested in the development of ideas . . . will greatly profit.' A. C. Grayling, Financial Times'Provides an enduring sense of the extraordinary ingenuity that defines our relationship with nature.' Guardian'An excellent account . . Crump writes with authority.' TLS

First published in 1981, this book concerns itself with the different ways in which money is used, the relationships which then arise, and the institutions concerned in maintaining its various functions. Thomas Crump examines the emergence of institutions with familiar and distinctive monetary roles: the state, the market and the banking system. However, other uses of money - such as for gambling or the payment of fines - are also taken into account, in an exhaustive, encyclopedic treatment of the subject, which extends far beyond the range of conventional treatises on money.

First published in 1981, this book concerns itself with the different ways in which money is used, the relationships which then arise, and the institutions concerned in maintaining its various functions. Thomas Crump examines the emergence of institutions with familiar and distinctive monetary roles: the state, the market and the banking system. However, other uses of money - such as for gambling or the payment of fines - are also taken into account, in an exhaustive, encyclopedic treatment of the subject, which extends far beyond the range of conventional treatises on money.

Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union from 1964-1982, a longer period than any other Soviet leader apart from Stalin. During Brezhnev’s time Soviet power seemed at its height and increasing. Living standards were rising, the Soviet Union was a nuclear power and successful in its space missions, and the Soviet Union's influence reached into all part of the world. Yet, as this book, which provides a comprehensive overview and reassessment of Brezhnev’s life, early political career and career as leader, shows, the seeds of decline were sown in Brezhnev's time. There was a huge over-commitment of resources to the Soviet industrial-military complex and to massively expensive foreign policy overstretch. At the same time there was a failure to deliver on citizens' rising expectations, and an overconfident ignoring of dissidents and their demands. The book will be of great interest to Russian specialists, and also to scholars of international relations and world history.

Numbers are an important feature of almost all known cultures. In this detailed anthropological study, Thomas Crump examines how people from a wide range of diverse cultures, and from different historical backgrounds, use and understand numbers. By looking at the logical, psychological and linguistic implications, he analyses how numbers operate within different contexts. The author goes on to consider the relationship of numbers to specific themes, such as ethnoscience, politics, measurement, time, money, music, games and architecture. The Anthropology of Numbers is an original contribution to scholarship, written in a clear and accessible style. It will be of interest to anthropologists who study cognition, symbolism, primitive thought and classification, and to those in adjacent disciplines of psychology, cognitive science and mathematical social science.

Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union from 1964-1982, a longer period than any other Soviet leader apart from Stalin. During Brezhnev’s time Soviet power seemed at its height and increasing. Living standards were rising, the Soviet Union was a nuclear power and successful in its space missions, and the Soviet Union's influence reached into all part of the world. Yet, as this book, which provides a comprehensive overview and reassessment of Brezhnev’s life, early political career and career as leader, shows, the seeds of decline were sown in Brezhnev's time. There was a huge over-commitment of resources to the Soviet industrial-military complex and to massively expensive foreign policy overstretch. At the same time there was a failure to deliver on citizens' rising expectations, and an overconfident ignoring of dissidents and their demands. The book will be of great interest to Russian specialists, and also to scholars of international relations and world history.

From earliest pre-history, with the dawning understanding of fire and its many uses, up to the astonishing advances of the twenty-first century, Thomas Crump traces the ever more sophisticated means employed in our attempts to understand the universe. The result is a vigorous and readable account of how our curious nature has continually pushed forward the frontiers of science and, as a consequence, human civilization.

In 1710 an obscure Devon ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invented a machine with a pump driven by coal, used to extract water from mines. Over the next two hundred years the steam engine would be at the heart of the industrial revolution that changed the fortunes of nations.Passionately written and insightful, A Brief History of the Age of Steam reveals not just the lives of the greatinventors such as Watts, Stephenson and Brunel, but also tells a narrative that reaches from the US to the expansion of China, India and South America. Crump shows how the steam engine changed the world.

This is an engaging study of Lincoln and how he shaped a nation.'It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth' - Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, 1863.Lincoln's life, leadership qualities and achievements have made him a figurehead of American values, ranked as one of the greatest US presidents. Thomas Crump examines how the United States was transformed - politically, economically, geographically and socially - during Lincoln's life, and how, more than anyone else, he adapted to these changes and gave them a new direction. This was essentially the beginning of the steam age, meaning that the adult Lincoln lived against a backdrop of steamboats on the great inland waterways and a continually expanding railroad network opening up the new states beyond the Appalachians. The foundations of America as an industrial state - at least in the north - were being laid.Lincoln preserved the Union with his skilful supervision of the war effort, his selection of effective commanders such as Grant and Sherman, and his powerful rhetoric to rally public support.His re-election in the 1864 presidential election was a landslide victory. Crump portrays Lincoln's America and shows how institutions, places and people changed during Lincoln's lifetime. By the time of his death the country is presented as on the verge of a great breakthrough, foreshadowed by events on the Pacific coast in the 1850s, and worked for by Lincoln.Written with clarity and insight, this is an engaging account of the true beginnings of the modern United States.