{"title":"Loren Graham","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ghost-of-the-executed-engineer-book-loren-graham-9780674354371","title":"The Ghost of the Executed Engineer","description":"Stalin ordered his execution, but here Palchinksy's ghost leads us through the miasma of Soviet technology and industry, pointing out the mistakes he condemned in his lifetime, the corruption and collapse he predicted, and the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this engineer's life and work, as Graham tells it, is also the story of the Soviet Union's industrial promise and failure.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49703811842321,"sku":"CIN0674354370G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51544477008145,"sku":"GOR006450228","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51721351889169,"sku":"CIN0674354370VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674354370.jpg?v=1776765392"},{"product_id":"lonely-ideas-book-loren-graham-9780262019798","title":"Lonely Ideas","description":"An expert investigates Russia's long history of technological invention followed by commercial failure and points to new opportunities to break the pattern. When have you gone into an electronics store, picked up a desirable gadget, and found that it was labeled Made in Russia? Probably never. Russia, despite its epic intellectual achievements in music, literature, art, and pure science, is a negligible presence in world technology. Despite its current leaders' ambitions to create a knowledge economy, Russia is economically dependent on gas and oil. In Lonely Ideas, Loren Graham investigates Russia's long history of technological invention followed by failure to commercialize and implement.For three centuries, Graham shows, Russia has been adept at developing technical ideas but abysmal at benefiting from them. From the seventeenth-century arms industry through twentieth-century Nobel-awarded work in lasers, Russia has failed to sustain its technological inventiveness. Graham identifies a range of conditions that nurture technological innovation: a society that values inventiveness and practicality; an economic system that provides investment opportunities; a legal system that protects intellectual property; a political system that encourages innovation and success. Graham finds Russia lacking on all counts. He explains that Russia's failure to sustain technology, and its recurrent attempts to force modernization, reflect its political and social evolution and even its resistance to democratic principles.But Graham points to new connections between Western companies and Russian researchers, new research institutions, a national focus on nanotechnology, and the establishment of Skolkovo, a new technology city. Today, he argues, Russia has the best chance in its history to break its pattern of technological failure.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49729584398609,"sku":"NGR9780262019798","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49777926308113,"sku":"CIN0262019795G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50536076706065,"sku":"GOR010166595","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262019795.jpg?v=1751070286"},{"product_id":"science-and-philosophy-in-the-soviet-union-book-loren-graham-9780394443874","title":"Science and philosophy in the Soviet Union","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49778043191569,"sku":"CIN039444387XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/039444387X.jpg?v=1750813984"},{"product_id":"naming-infinity-book-loren-graham-9780674032934","title":"Naming Infinity","description":"In 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements.  Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory.  The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and ­creativity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50196556611857,"sku":"CIN0674032934G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50913962688785,"sku":"CIN0674032934VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51741560832273,"sku":"GOR003817583","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674032934.jpg?v=1751326988"},{"product_id":"lysenkos-ghost-book-loren-graham-9780674089051","title":"Lysenkos Ghost","description":"Lysenko became one of the most notorious figures in twentieth-century science after his genetic theories were discredited decades ago. Yet some scientists now claim that discoveries in epigenetics prove that he was right after all. Loren Graham reopens the case, to determine whether new developments in molecular biology validate Lysenkos claims.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50730971758865,"sku":"GOR014052751","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50750919082257,"sku":"GOR007737532","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50926206320913,"sku":"CIN0674089057G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51693887619345,"sku":"CIN0674089057VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674089057.jpg?v=1750911970"},{"product_id":"mose-book-loren-graham-9780819512208","title":"Mose","description":"A striking interplay of content and style makes this book-length narrative poem a wrenching, compelling tale. Mose is incarcerated in a Texas prison for a crime whose circumstances slowly unfold as he numbers the days of his sentence and fantasizes about a woman inexorably tied to his fate. As the harshness of prison life begins to close in and distort Mose's consciousness, he is increasingly obsessed with the truth of what happened. In the end, that inquiry reveals to him \"another world underneath \/ this one\" where everything \"is backwards \/ to what we want.\" The journey to that world is a suspenseful and powerful study of a man's character and the trap it sets for him.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51121102192913,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51121104912657,"sku":"NIN9780819512208","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0819512206.jpg?v=1751108285"},{"product_id":"functions-and-uses-of-disciplinary-histories-book-loren-graham-9789027715210","title":"Functions and Uses of Disciplinary Histories","description":"Edward Gibbon's allegation at the beginning of his Essay on the Study of Literature (1764) that the history of empires is that of the miseries of humankind whereas the history of the sciences is that of their splendour and happiness has for a long time been accepted by professional scientists and by historians of science alike. For its practitioner, the history of a discipline displayed above all the always difficult but fmally rewarding approach to a truth which was incorporated in the discipline in its actual fonn. Looking back, it was only too easy to distinguish those who erred and heretics in the field from the few forerunners of true science. On the one hand, the traditional history of science was told as a story of hero and hero worship, on the other hand it was, paradoxically enough, the constant attempt to remind the scientist whom he should better forget. It is not surprising at all therefore that the traditional history of science was a field of only minor interest for the practitioner of a distinct scientific diSCipline or specialty and at the same time a hardly challenging task for the professional historian. Nietzsche had already described the historian of science as someone who arrives late after harvest-time: it is somebody who is only a tolerated guest at the thanksgiving dinner of the scientific community .","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52135516635409,"sku":"NLS9789027715210","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9789027715210.jpg?v=1757549475"},{"product_id":"functions-and-uses-of-disciplinary-histories-book-loren-graham-9789027715203","title":"Functions and Uses of Disciplinary Histories","description":"Edward Gibbon's allegation at the beginning of his Essay on the Study of Literature (1764) that the history of empires is that of the miseries of humankind whereas the history of the sciences is that of their splendour and happiness has for a long time been accepted by professional scientists and by historians of science alike. For its practitioner, the history of a discipline displayed above all the always difficult but fmally rewarding approach to a truth which was incorporated in the discipline in its actual fonn. Looking back, it was only too easy to distinguish those who erred and heretics in the field from the few forerunners of true science. On the one hand, the traditional history of science was told as a story of hero and hero worship, on the other hand it was, paradoxically enough, the constant attempt to remind the scientist whom he should better forget. It is not surprising at all therefore that the traditional history of science was a field of only minor interest for the practitioner of a distinct scientific diSCipline or specialty and at the same time a hardly challenging task for the professional historian. Nietzsche had already described the historian of science as someone who arrives late after harvest-time: it is somebody who is only a tolerated guest at the thanksgiving dinner of the scientific community .","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52142693286161,"sku":"NLS9789027715203","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9789027715203.jpg?v=1757581273"},{"product_id":"fame-or-oblivion-book-loren-graham-9798887198231","title":"Fame or Oblivion?","description":"Why do some creations flourish while others fade into obscurity?   In Fame or Oblivion? the author makes a provocative thesis: that Russian society has historically nurtured literary and artistic genius while stifling technological innovation. Based on the tools of cultural and historical analysis, the book examines how social patterns, economic systems, and institutional support—or lack thereof—influence the outcomes of creative achievements.  From the enduring heritage of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky to the forgotten names of the inventors of early computers and lasers, this work put into contrast Russia’s world's known contributions to literature, music, and mathematics with its underrecognized pioneers in science and technology. It argues that invention does not exist per se, but requires a huge environment of support, investment, and societal readiness.  Though rooted in Russian history, the book offers a universal lens—inviting readers to reflect on the correlation between genius and recognition, and to consider how societies can better harness the full spectrum of human ingenuity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53612995445009,"sku":"NGR9798887198231","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53636786454801,"sku":"NLS9798887198231","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9798887198231.jpg?v=1780316012"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-loren-graham.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}