Subject
Natural history, mathematics, and early scientific books written before the modern research article. They are here as public-domain texts, not as current advice.
by Thomas Paine
Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. Common Sense was published anonymously at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation.
by Plato
The Republic is Plato's most famous work and one of the seminal texts of Western philosophy and politics. The characters in this Socratic dialogue - including Socrates himself - discuss whether the just or unjust man is happier.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Initially intended as a chapter in Descent of Man, Expression grew in length and was published separately.
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biological adaptation distinct from, yet interconnected with, natural selection.
The Naturalist on the River Amazons, subtitled A Record of the Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel, is a book by the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates about his expedition to the Amazon basin.
by Mark Twain
Although Twain was interested in mental healing and the ideas behind Christian Science, he was hostile towards its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (–1910).
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a work of social and political theory by the English empiricist philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), published in (revised Latin edition ).
In mathematics, hyperbolic functions are analogues of the ordinary trigonometric functions, but defined using the hyperbola rather than the circle. Just as the points (cos t, sin t) form a circle with an unit radius, the points (cosh t, sinh t) form the right half of the unit hyperbola.
Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe began as a lecture series delivered by Humboldt at the University of Berlin, and was published in five volumes (the fifth was posthumous and completed based on Humboldt's notes). In the first volume, Humboldt paints a general "portrait of nature", describing the physical nature of outer space and the Earth.
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive is a book by English philosopher John Stuart Mill.
The Norse settlement of North America, including Greenland, began in the late 10th century AD and lasted for about 500 years. Further west, the evidence is more limited.
Finger prints was one of the first books to provide a scientific footing for matching fingerprints and for later acceptance in courts. He collected information from a number of people and recorded their backgrounds, financial situations, likes and dislikes, health, etc.
by Alfred Tylor
Colouration in Animals and Plants was the first substantial textbook to argue the case for Darwinian selection applying to all aspects of animal coloration. Colouration in Animals and Plants also pioneered the concept of frequency-dependent selection and introduced the term "aposematism".
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom was published within the United States in two volumes by Andrew Dickson White, a founder of Cornell University,. White chronicles the gradual emancipation of science from theology in various fields.
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, by Mary Somerville, is one of the best-selling science books of the 19th century. On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences went through many editions and was translated into several European languages.
Many commentators have viewed that one of the main themes of The Prince is that immoral acts are sometimes necessary to achieve political glory. From Machiavelli's correspondence, a version was being written, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (Of Principalities).
by L. C. (Louis Compton) Miall
The history of biology traces the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of biology as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching back to Ayurveda, ancient Egyptian medicine and the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world.
The South Country was originally published in the poet's collection Five Bells: XX Poems, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Cobwebs to catch flies was a reading primer and was one of the first books to differentiate between reading age groups, and which was widely used until the 1890s.