Astrobiology–the study of life in space–is one of today’s fastest growing and most popular fields of science. In this compelling, accessible, and elegantly reasoned new book, award-winning scholar and researcher Chris Impey explores the foundations of this rapidly developing discipline, where it’s going, and what it’s likely to find. The journey begins with the earliest steps of science, gaining traction through the revelations of the Renaissance, including Copernicus’s revolutionary declaration that the Earth was not the center of the universe but simply a planet circling the sun. But if Earth is not the only planet, it is so far the only living one that we know of. In fascinating detail, The Living Cosmos reveals the incredible proliferation and variety of life on Earth, paying special tribute to some of its hardiest life forms, extremophiles, a dizzying array of microscopic organisms compared, in Impey’s wise and humorous prose, to superheroes that can survive extreme heat and cold, live deep within rocks, or thrive in pure acid. From there, Impey launches into space, where astrobiologists investigate the potential for life beyond our own world. Is it to be found on Mars, the “death planet” that has foiled most planetary missions, and which was wet and temperate billions of years ago? Or on Venus, Earth’s “evil twin,” where it rains sulfuric acid and whose heat could melt lead? (“Whoever named it after the goddess of love had a sorry history of relationships.”) The answer may lie in a moon within our Solar System, or it may be found in one of the hundreds of extra-solar planets that have already been located. The Living Cosmos sees beyond these explorations, and imagines space vehicles that eschew fuel for solar- or even nuclear-powered rockets, all sent by countries motivated by the millions to be made in space tourism. But The Living Cosmos is more than just a riveting work about experiment and discovery. It is also an affecting portrait of the individuals who have devoted their lives to astrobiology. Illustrated throughout, The Living Cosmos is a revelatory book about a science that is changing our view of the universe, a mesmerizing guide to what life actually means and where it may–or may not–exist, and a stunning work that explains our past as it predicts our future. From the Hardcover edition.

First published in 1988, this book traces the complex evolution of Oxford and Cambridge from the twelfth through the early sixteenth centuries. In the process, the author incorporates new research on Cambridge University that has become available only recently. Alan B. Cobban is able to give an overall view of the functioning of the English universities, touching on the development of the academic hierarchy, the various features of the curriculum and the teaching offered by these institutions. The author also addresses the social and economic circumstances of students and the relations between the universities and their respective town and ecclesiastical authorities. Cobban draws on much recent work to supply new details and altered perspectives in this single-volume reappraisal of the history of these two distinguished educational institutions.

In this book, John C. Moore surveys the history of universities, from their origin in the Middle Ages to the present. Universities have survived the disruptive power of the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific, French, and Industrial Revolutions, and the turmoil of two world wars—and they have been exported to every continent through Western imperialism. Moore deftly tells this story in a series of chronological chapters, covering major developments such as the rise of literary humanism and the printing press, the “Berlin model” of universities as research institutions, the growing importance of science and technology, and the global wave of campus activism that rocked the twentieth century. Focusing on significant individuals and global contexts, he highlights how the university has absorbed influences without losing its central traditions. Today, Moore argues, as universities seek corporate solutions to twenty-first-century problems, we must renew our commitment to a higher education that produces not only technicians, but citizens.