Born in Glasgow in 1904, Dr John MacCormick studied law at Glasgow University and was one of the chief founding members of the National Party of Scotland in 1928 and, with the merger of the NPS and the Scottish Party, of the Scottish National Party in 1934. In 1942, he left the SNP and was instrumental in the forming the Scottish Convention which went on to produce the Scottish Covenant in 1949, upon which nearly two million signatures of support for a Scottish parliament were obtained.

Can a computer program think like a human?“Can machines think?” Ever since Alan Turing posed this question in an influential 1950 paper, it has been central to research in artificial intelligence. More than seventy-five years after Turing’s paper, we grapple with it every time we wonder if Watson was actually smarter than Jeopardy! champions, or if ChatGPT really knows what it’s talking about. In Thinking AI, computer scientist John MacCormick exp...

Nine revolutionary algorithms that power our computers and smartphonesEvery day, we use our computers to perform remarkable feats. A simple web search picks out a handful of relevant needles from the world's biggest haystack. Uploading a photo to Facebook transmits millions of pieces of information over numerous error-prone network links, yet somehow a perfect copy of the photo arrives intact. Without even knowing it, we use public-key cryptography to transmit secr...

This audiobook narrated by Quentin Cooper explains the tricks behind nine revolutionary algorithms that power our computers and smartphonesEvery day, we use our computers to perform remarkable feats. A simple web search picks out a handful of relevant needles from the world's biggest haystack. Uploading a photo to Facebook transmits millions of pieces of information over numerous error-prone network links, yet somehow a perfect copy of the photo arrives intact. With...

The seventh novel in the Ava Lee series finds Ava caught up in the election for the chairmanship of the Triad Societies.It’s been three months since Uncle’s passing, and Ava is finally ready to begin her new life as a partner with May Ling Wong and her sister-in-law Amanda in their Three Sisters venture capital firm. Ava travels to Shanghai to hear a pitch on a new investment possibility: the creation of a fashion line by Clark and Gillian Po. She also meets with t...

In the century before the great famine of the late 1840s, the Irish people, and the poor especially, became increasingly dependent on the potato for their food. So when potato blight struck, causing the tubers to rot in the ground, they suffered a grievous loss. Thus began a catastrophe in which approximately one million people lost their lives and many more left Ireland for North America, changing the country forever. During and after this terrible human crisis, the Briti...

The United Kingdom; Great Britain; the British Isles; the Home Nations: such a wealth of different names implies uncertainty and contention - and an ability to invent and adjust. In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, Linda Colley analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past.She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far - and why - it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and their limitations,...

This is a magisterial narrative of the most turbulent decade in Anglo-Irish history: a decade of unleashed passions that came close to destroying the parliamentary system and to causing civil war in the United Kingdom. It was also the decade of the cataclysmic Great War, of an officers' mutiny in an elite cavalry regiment of the British Army and of Irish armed rebellion. It was a time, argues Ronan Fanning, when violence and the threat of violence trumped democratic politics.This i...

This condensed history examines why the Great Famine was so catastrophic, and explores its effect on Irish society and culture. It explains the circumstances surrounding the period and addresses issues and characteristics of the time.Aspects covered include the spread of disease, the experiences of those on public works projects and the disagreements between political leaders regarding the distribution of what little food was available.Featuring new material on the Irish Fa...

Jenkins' account of the constitutional struggle between the Liberal government of the early twentieth century and the House of Lords. The battle started with the introduction of the People's Budget of 1909 and continued through two general elections until 1911 when the Lords accepted the Parliament bill.

Antonia Fraser's Perilous Question is a dazzling re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britain's history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller.The era, beginning with the accession of William IV, is evoked in the novels of Trollope and Thackeray, and described by the young Charles Dickens as a cub reporter. It is lit with notable characters. The reforming heroes ar...

In this fresh and challenging look at the origins of the United Kingdom, Michael Fry focuses on the years which led up to the Union of 1707, setting the political history of Scotland and England against the backdrop of war in Europe and the emergence of imperialism. He rejects the long-held assumption that the economy was of overwhelming importance in the Scots' acceptance of the terms of the Treaty, showing how they were able to exploit English ignorance of and indifference to Scotland to...