SUMMER BOOKS 2006: BROKEN GENIUS?; BONES, ROCKS & STARS

Broken Genius: The rise and fall of William Shockley, Creator of the electronic age; Bones, Rocks & Stars: The science of when things happened; The Whole Story: Alternative medicine on trial?; Climate Change Begins at Home: Life on the two-way street of global warming; The Science of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

macmillanscience: big ideas, great stories, fine writing

SUMMER BOOKS 2006
BROKEN GENIUS ? BONES, ROCKS & STARS

BROKEN GENIUS:
THE RISE AND FALL OF WILLIAM SHOCKLEY, CREATOR OF THE ELECTRONIC AGE
by JOEL N. SHURKIN
First biography of incendiary inventor of transistor and founder of Silicon
Valley.
Details: 13 JUNE 2006; Macmillan; ISBN 1403988153; Hardback; $27.95/£19.99;
25 B&W images
AUTHOR/JACKET image downloads:
<http://www.macmillanscience.com/1403988153.htm>

THE BOOK: Broken Genius is the first biography of William Shockley, founding
father of Silicon Valley - one of the most significant and reviled
scientists of the 20th century, twice featured on the cover of Time
magazine. 50 years ago this year Shockley won a Nobel Prize for inventing
the transistor, upon which almost everything that makes the modern world is
based. Little has affected history as much as this device, developed along
with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Telephone Laboratories
in the mid-1940s.
But William Shockley is remembered more for one of the most vicious
controversies in modern science. His campaigning about race, intelligence
and genetics saw him donating to the Nobel Prize sperm bank, being vilified
on national TV and ultimately destroyed his reputation. Drawing upon unique
access to the colossal private Shockley archives, veteran technology
historian and journalist Joel N. Shurkin gives an unflinching account of how
such promise ended in such ignominy.

THE AUTHOR: Dr Joel N. Shurkin is science writer emeritus at Stanford
University, where he has written and taught for many years. He covered the
moon landings for Reuters, served ten years as science writer at the
Philadelphia Inquirer and was on the team that won a Pulitzer Prize, among
many other awards, for its Three Mile Island reportage. He has written nine
books including: Terman's Kids (Little, Brown) about the study of gifted
students; Invisible Fire, on the eradication of smallpox; a science-fiction
novel called The Helix (Norton); and most recently A Consumer's Guide to
Psychotherapy (OUP). His definitive history of the computer, Engines of the
Mind (Norton), is in multiple editions in several languages.

AUTHOR CONTACTS: +1 410 491 1692; [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
NB: Joel N. Shurkin is available for interview at the AAAS in St Louis in
Feb and at the APS in Baltimore in March; please contact him direct to
arrange.

Praise for Joel Shurkin's previous books
Engines Of The Mind (Norton)
* "A fine book, full of interesting angles and lively stuff."
Boston Globe
* "A popularized, clearly written history of computing" Wall
Street Journal
Terman's Kids (Little, Brown)
* "Shurkin views his subject in a sympathetic light, but makes
no apologies for Terman's flaws as a scientist and a human being."
Philadelphia Inquirer
* "An important investigation. Shurkin argues that Terman's
many biases strongly affected 20th-century ideas about intelligence and the
gifted." Library Journal

BONES, ROCKS & STARS: tHE SCIENCE OF WHEN THINGS HAPPENED
by Dr cHRIS TURNEY
A timely take on the controversial business of dating the past.
DETAILS: 13 June 2006; Macmillan; ISBN 1403985995; Hardback; $24.95/£16.99
AUTHOR/JACKET image downloads:
<http://www.macmillanscience.com/1403985995.htm>

THE BOOK: What is the Turin Shroud? When were the Pyramids built? Where are
the branches on the human family tree? Why did the dinosaurs die out? How
did the Earth take shape? With questions like these, says Chris Turney, time
is of the essence. And understanding how we pinpoint the past, he cautions,
is crucial to putting the present in perspective and planning for the
future.
In eleven chapters, each one focussing on a famous dating controversy (from
the existence of King Arthur to the last Ice Age), Turney reveals the
leg-work behind the headlines. Drawing on years of professional experience,
most recently with the celebrated 'Hobbit' fossil of Indonesia, Turney
explains how written records, carbon, pollen, tree rings, constellations,
and DNA sequencing can help historians, archaeologists, palaeontologists and
geologists to 'tell the time'. We ignore or misunderstand these techniques
and their results at our peril, he concludes.

THE AUTHOR: Dr Chris Turney is a British geologist currently based at the
University of Wollongong, Australia. Chris did the radiocarbon dating on the
'Hobbit' fossil of Flores, Indonesia that hit the headlines worldwide in
2004. He has published numerous scientific papers and magazine articles and
done numerous media interviews thanks to his infectious enthusiasm for
working out how old things are.
AUTHOR CONTACTS: +61 2 4221 3561; [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>

EVENTS: Edinburgh Science Festival, Sydney Literary Festival, Cambridge.
Details and updates see www.macmillanscience.com/blog.asp
<http://www.macmillanscience.com/blog.asp>

OUT SOON IN PAPERBACK:

THE WHOLE STORY: ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE ON TRIAL?
by Toby Murcott. <http://www.macmillanscience.com/1403945004.htm>
How the $60 billion-a-year complementary therapies industry is giving
medicine itself a thorough examination
DETAILS: 20 JULY 2006; MACMILLAN; ISBN 0230007538; PAPERBACK; £8.99/$14.95
"Required reading." The Guardian

CLIMATE CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME: LIFE ON THE TWO-WAY STREET OF GLOBAL WARMING
by Dave Reay. With a new forward by Mark Lynas.
<http://www.macmillanscience.com/1403945780.htm>
A compelling call for individual action on climate change
DETAILS: 20 JULY 2006; MACMILLAN; ISBN 0230007546; PAPERBACK; £8.99/$14.95
"Brilliant work" BBC2

THE SCIENCE OF THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
by Michael Hanlon. <http://www.macmillanscience.com/1403945772.htm>
The real science behind a sci-fi classic, from the Big Bang to the end of
the Universe
DETAILS: 20 JULY 2006; MACMILLAN; ISBN 0230008909; PAPERBACK; £8.99/$14.95
"An excellent, entertaining book" The Skeptic

NOTES FOR EDITORS
The above titles are the latest in Macmillan Publishers' critically
acclaimed global popular science list, featuring entertaining, authoritative
books about the drama, politics, history and implications of research and
discovery, appealing to a broad readership. For more information see
www.macmillanscience.com <http://www.macmillanscience.com>

Press/Galley requests
* US/Canada: Deborah McCandless
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> +1 646 307 5023
* UK/EU/Rest Of World: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> +44 (0) 207 843 4587
* Australia: Jenny McHendrie [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> +61 (0) 3 9825 1157

Extract enquiries: Jon Mitchell: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> +44 (0) 20 7014 6151
Jacket & author image downloads:
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Published: 15 Feb 2006

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