Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer - Tapa dura

Fine cloth copy in a near fine, very slightly edge-nicked and dust-dulled dust wrapper, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and sharp-cornered.; 287 pages; Physical description; xv, 287 p, [33] p of plates : ill, facsims, plans, ports ; 24 cm. Includes bibliography and index. Summary; 304, plates, figures. To many, the name Charles Babbage (1792-1871) conjures up the picture of an eccentric 19th-century Englishman who tinkered with calculators and designed the forerunner of today's multi-purpose stored program computer: a quirky mathematician obsessed with a grand scheme. They would be surprised to learn that Babbage was a polymath, a sophisticated traveler, a devoted husband, a political and social reformer and friend of the eminent. Freelance writer and Oxford scholar Anthony Hyman does his hero up proud in this definitive biography - not only describing the many facets of the life, but also providing the socio-cultural background for Babbage's many outspoken proposals. Subjects; Babbage, Charles 1791-1871 - Exposition of 1851.