Search results for ""author larry gonick""

From New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick and Davidson College biology professor David Wessner comes this comprehensive and humorous cartoon guide to topics in biologyDid you faint when your middle school science teacher asked you to dissect a frog? Do you think DNA stands for “Don’t Know the Answer”? Do you still cling to the belief that osmosis was the name of Ozzy Osbourne’s last tour? If you said yes to any of these questions—or even if you didn’t—then you need The Cartoon Guide to Biology. The latest from New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick—writing with Davidson College biology professor David Wessner—is a hilarious and informative handbook to the science of life. From the inner workings of the cell, to the magic of gene expression, to the Krebs and Calvin cycles, to sexual and asexual reproduction, The Cartoon Guide to Biology uses simple, clear, humorous illustrations to make biology’s most complex concepts understandable and entertaining. Whether you’re peering into the microscope for the first time or brushing up after decades of de-evolution, this book has you covered.

Read more less

Have you ever asked yourself: Are spliced genes the same as mended Levis? Watson and Crick? Aren't they a team of British detectives? Plant sex? Can they do that? Is Genetic Mutation the name of one of those heavy metal bands? Asparagine? Which of the four food groups is that in? Then you need The Cartoon Guide to Genetics to explain the important concepts of classical and modern genetics-it's not only educational, it's funny too!

Read more less

Larry Gonick's celebrated series The Cartoon History of the Universe is a unique fusion of world history and the comics medium, a work of serious scholarship and a masterpiece of popular literature. Praised by Jonathan Spence in the New York Times Book Review as "a curious hybrid, at once flippant and scholarly, witty and politically correct, zany and traditionalist," Gonick's clever illustrations deliver important information with a deceptively light tone, teaching us about the people and events that have shaped our world. This long-awaited new volume covers the Middle Ages around the globe, including the multicultural Middle East, West Africa and the cross-Saharan trade, Central Asia and the Byzantine Empire, the European Dark Ages and the Crusades, the Mongol conquests, the Black Death, the Ottoman Empire, the Italian Renaissance, and the rise of Spain, leading up to Columbus's departure for the new world. Gonick offers an historical survey that is at once multicultural, humanistic, skeptical, and laugh-out-loud funny.

Read more less

A comprehensive new illustrated guide to geometry—from New York Times bestselling cartoonist Larry GonickWhat''s the point of points? Where do we draw the line? If there are two sides to everything, then what''s up with triangles, squares, and polygons?Once again, mathematician-turned-cartoonist Larry Gonick uses his unique gift for witty, lively, and clear exposition to demystify another complex subject: geometry.Moving from the most basic geometrical concepts—planes, lines, and points—through elementary postulates and to elaborate proofs, The Cartoon Guide to Geometry is a comprehensive primer on all the essentials of plane geometry: angles, triangles, area, similarity, and, yes, the Pythagorean theorem. Carefully tailored to the curriculum standards and standardized testing guidelines of the subject, the book provides innovative visuals that develop proofs and constructions with sequential graphics rather t

Read more less

If you think a negative charge is something that shows up on your credit card bill -- if you imagine that Ohm's Law dictates how long to meditate -- if you believe that Newtonian mechanics will fix your car -- you need The Cartoon Guide to Physics to set you straight. You don't have to be a scientist to grasp these and many other complex ideas, because The Cartoon Guide to Physics explains them all: velocity, acceleration, explosions, electricity and magnetism, circuits -- even a taste of relativity theory -- and much more, in simple, clear, and, yes, funny illustrations. Physics will never be the same!

Read more less

In "The Cartoon Guide to Calculus", master cartoonist and former Harvard calculus instructor Larry Gonick offers a complete and up-to-date illustrated course in college-level calculus. Using graphics and humor to lighten what is frequently a tough subject, Gonick entertainingly teaches all of the course essentials, functions, limits, derivatives, and integrals, with numerous examples and applications. He concludes with a bemused look at the paradoxes at the heart of calculus and the foundations of mathematics. And in an exciting first for the "Cartoon Guide" series, each chapter includes helpful problem sets, designed to help readers cement the lessons learned in each section. Combining entertainment and education, this is the perfect supplement for any study of calculus, whether readers are high school or college students, independent learners, or just lovers of Larry Gonick's bestselling, award-winning cartoon guides.

Read more less

Part II of the "Cartoon History of the Modern World" picks up where Part I left off, right after the American Revolution. Gonick illuminates with the Enlightenment, then goes deep into the French Revolution, followed by Napoleon's conquests. He covers everything from the Opium Wars to the post-Napoleonic world, industrialisation and the working class, early 20th-century revolutionaries, World Wars I and II, the Cold War era, religious fundamentalism, and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. After illustrating three centuries of major events and movements around the globe, Gonick finally brings readers to the eve of a new world order, with a semi-united Europe and rising powers in China and India, and in the end reflects on the ongoing challenge of a sustainable future.

Read more less

An acerbic graphic takedown of capitalism. In Hyper-Capitalism, cartoonist Larry Gonick and psychologist Tim Kasser offer a vivid and an accessible new way to understand how global, privatising, market-worshipping hyper-capitalism is threatening human wellbeing, social justice, and the planet. Drawing from contemporary research, they describe and illustrate concepts (such as corporate power, free trade, privatisation, and deregulation) that are critical for understanding the world we live in, and movements (such as voluntary simplicity, sharing, alternatives to GDP, and protests) that have developed in response to the system. Gonick and Kasser’s pointed and profound cartoon narratives provide a deep exploration of the global economy and the movements seeking to change it, all rendered in clear, graphic — and sometimes hilarious — terms. In the process, they point the way to a healthier future for all of us.

Read more less

Do you think that the Ozone Hole is a grunge rock club? Or that the Food Web is an on-line restaurant guide? Or that the Green Revolution happened in Greenland? Then you need The Cartoon Guide to the Environment to put you on the road to environmental literacy. The Cartoon Guide to the Environment covers the main topics of environmental science: chemical cycles, life communities, food webs, agriculture, human population growth, sources of energy and raw materials, waste disposal and recycling, cities, pollution, deforestation, ozone depletion, and global warming-and puts them in the context of ecology, with discussions of population dynamics, thermodynamics, and the behavior of complex systems.

Read more less

Updated version featuring all new material. If you have ever looked for P-values by shopping at P mart, tried to watch the Bernoulli Trails on "People's Court," or think that the standard deviation is a criminal offense in six states, then you need The Cartoon Guide to Statistics to put you on the road to statistical literacy. The Cartoon Guide to Statistics covers all the central ideas of modern statistics: the summary and display of data, probability in gambling and medicine, random variables, Bernoulli Trails, the Central Limit Theorem, hypothesis testing, confidence interval estimation, and much more-all explained in simple, clear, and yes, funny illustrations. Never again will you order the Poisson Distribution in a French restaurant!

Read more less