Product Description
Comrades and Partners explores the complex and multiple contexts that produced Hutchins and Rochester as political subjects and focuses on the tensions and contradictions of their public and private lives. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
As a young woman, Irit Shimrat went crazy and spent two years locked up in psych wards. She escaped to find support, respect, and political awareness in the Mad Movement and among queer people. This book is a personal record of her crazy episodes, her recovery, and her work as editor of the Canadian journal Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized and as coordinator of the Ontario-based Psychiatric Survivors Alliance whose insistence on drug-free treatment and peer counseling has changed North American attitudes toward mental illness. Call Me Crazy also includes lengthy interviews with other leaders of this movement. Shimrat's critical analysis of society's condemnation of other-minded people and her suggestions for recreating systems of health, support, and community are inspired. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A must-read for psychiatric consumers
One of the hardest things about being given a DSM diagnosis is the act of breaking free from the stigma of such a label.Unfortunately, most psychiatric professionals are more concerned about creating a growthindustry than in helping their patients to heal from their psychicwounds.

Shimrat allows those who have been denied a voice the room toexpress what really works for them regarding personal recovery.The keycomponent would have to be empowerment, as the psychiatric industry tendsto demoralize and disempower those whom they claim to help.Consideringthe fact that, at one time, gayness was considered a DSM catagory of mentalillness, it stands to reason that such diagnoses are quite arbitrary andpolitical in nature.

Empowerment is a political movement to liberatethose who have been called crazy by their caregivers who lack the insightto see mental health consumers as human beings worthy of dignity.That isthe focus of this book, and for that reason I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
Athlete, magician, marketing genius, millionaire- A. C. Gilbert was all of these, but he made his name by refusing to grow up. In 1913 Gilbert poured his boyish enthusiasm into a new toy. He called it the Erector Set, and the A. C. Gilbert Company sold 30 million of them. In this engaging book, award-winning journalist Bruce Watson tells the story of this amazing toy and its remarkable inventor-who, in 1918, became "The Man Who Saved Christmas" by convincing the U.S. War Resources Board not to ban wartime toy sales. Going beyond biography, Watson asks important questions about toys, boys, girls, science, and the way our perception of each has changed. The result is a quintessentially American tale of ingenuity, enthusiasm . . . and a marvelous invention that fit industrial America like a nut fits a bolt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Nice book
I enjoyed the TV secial many years ago and wanted to know more aboutthe life and times of AC Gilbert. I loved the science and chemesrty sets of my child hood.This is a great book if you like company and biographies.This is a great addition to the American Flyer Model train collectors libary. I bought it for my brother who used to be an American Flyer fan ( I was into Lionel).I kept the book - maybe I will get him one for next year!

A Toy Lovers' Hero
This book is being hawked to book club types who read widely if not deeply, but it seems to have missed its intended audience. The first clue is it has two subtitles. The second appears when you crack the cover. Watson seems to have reprised the successful writing style of his other books. What results is neither fish nor fowl.

The few black and white pictures will have toy collectors salivating for more. Any serious? afficianados will be put off with Watson's frequent recourse to pop psychology and his continual penchant to restate the obvious. What this book makes you want is a full scale, photo-drenched guide to the A.C. Gilbert toy company and especially erector sets.

Erector sets also have a long, speckled history, being bought at one point by Meccano, the British equivalent,and recently reissued by various companies who apparently just bought the name. As with Johnny Lighting, Aurora Models and Lionel Trains, Erector longs for some toy lover to bring back the real thing: kits that build various structures and vehicles and especially robots, not those currently in vogue with nostalgic adults (but ignored by creative kids) that only construct one rickety model.

That said, this book does a great job of recreating the possible environment of A.C. Gilbert's company and how he lived and breathed toys. As one subtitle suggests, he ought to be every toy lovers' hero for the way he saved Christmas in 1918 from a proposal that would force parents to buy war bonds rather than toys for their kids. Rather than appearing in circulating libraries and book clubs, this book needs to be redone with far more graphics and toy pics and aimed at toy collectors who would discover in A.C. Gilbert a mentor and hero.

Erectormania
Although I was born too late for the Erector set boom, I, for the most part, enjoyed this biography on toy magnate A.C. Gilbert.Part man, part boy, part inventor, part showman and all business, this gave good insight into the man behind the legendary toys.Again, I'm a little out of the loop as far as Gilbert's toys go, but I'm willing to wager that this would be much more enjoyable for somebody who grew up with Erectormania.

Required reading
This book should be required reading for industrial designers, toy designers and anyone else involved in design, marketing or production of consumer goods.This is a very important look into market forces, consumer behavior and the importance of placing the consumer first amd foremeost in your product design.

The book may be a biography, but is also a textbook for every enlightened designer and marketer.I will make this required reading for the Industrial design grad student I am mentoring.

Add to the fact that the author's style is at times hilarious, sometimes matter of fact, and the bottom of page 208 and page 209 will bring tears of joy and pride to your eyes.

Well written, entertaining and incredibly informative.

Examines how toys help avert or discharge childhood violence
A.C. Gilbert wore many hats: athlete, magician, and self-made millionaire - but he made his money by creating the Erector set toy back in 1913, making an invention which changed how boys played. The Man Who Changed How Boys And Toys Were Made isn't just a biography of an inventor; it examines how toys help avert or discharge childhood violence, how high-tech toys may serve a different purpose, and differences between how both sexes play. ... Read more

Product Description
A son's coming to terms with his mother's decision to abandon her career as a concert pianist in order to raise her children. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Gitta Gradova, and Chicago's GloriousMusical Past
We search in vain through Harold Schonberg's book, THE GREAT PIANISTS: FROM MOZART TO THE PRESENT, for the name "Gitta Gradova," a Chicago-born concert pianist and internationally acclaimed genius. How could such a respected NEW YORK TIMES critic have omitted the awesome Gitta Gradova from his carefully researched publication of 1963? Three possibilities come to mind: 1. Gitta left no recordings, 2. She dropped out "cold turkey" in 1941 (after a career of less than twenty years), 3. She was a woman.

But Dr. Thomas J. Cottle, author, professor, and family therapisr, finally sets the record straight in his powerful biography of his mother, Gitta Gradova, WHEN THE MUSIC STOPPED: DISCOVERING MY MOTHER. Because of its rare candor, based on the son's keen observations and remembrances of his anguished youth spent at Hawthorne Place, Chicago, this biography is unforgettable.

Born in Chicago in 1904, a city that remained her home base. Gitta Gradova (originally Gertrude Weinstock) was the youngest child of parents who had emigrated from Russia. Her ambitious father quickly recognized the exceptional gifts of his prodigy child, and saw to it that from the age of six she was directed only towards becoming a concert pianist. (In pursuit of this career, she never finished high school.)

Early musical studies took place in Chicago, but as her mastery grew, her father determined that she should go to New York for further musical studies. He had met and become friends with Sergei Prokofiev, and assumed that this composer might be of help to Gitta. Their first meeting in Chicago, however, did not augur well. According to Gitta herself, when her father introduced her to Prokofiev, he asked her, "What will you play for me?" And she responded in the self-assured style (or facade) that later characterized her stage personality, "Who the hell are you? I don't want to play for you."

Nevertheless, when Gitta was twelve years old, the father packed her off on a train to go all by herself to New York. Prior to her leaving, her father had asked Prokofiev to watch over her health, her well-being, and above all, her developing artistry.

By Gitta's account, she was all alone when she arrived in New York, and at first did not even have a place to stay. No mention whatsoever is made of Cottle's grandmother's part - or non-part - in her husband's grandiose plans, and Cottle later addresses this separation, imposed on a young child, as one of several experiences that may explain some of his mother's behavior - especially her all-consuming animosity towards him, the rare male over whom she ever had any control.

Later, she actually managed to spend a fair amount of time with Prokofiev, and although she was never really overly fond of him, still she did respect him. He had a salutary effect on her musical growth, and she was most indebted to him for introducing her to Sergei Rachmaninov, her lifelong friend and mentor. (Despite her eventual vast repertoire, she still tended to prefer playing Rachmaninov's music in concert.)It was around this time that she took the stage name, Gitta Gradova.

Besides Gitta's own writings in this book. there are also excerpts from reviews of her many triumphant appearances. Even for her final concert in 1940, with the New York Philharmonic, one critic was able to rave:

"There is fire and brimstone in music, and Mme. Gradova fanned them into a dazzling blaze of brilliance."

One year later she left the concert stage forever. Although Gitta explained her reason for ending her concert career as the desire to devote herself to "motherhood" (she already had two small children) it would seem that there were more complex dynamics at work. Cottle, author of some thirty books and numerous articles in the field of psychology, analyzes and speculates painstakingly on these variables and those of other disciplines as well.

Despite her professed dedication to motherhood, she in fact turned out to be an ill-equipped parent (even a damaging one). And great artist that she was, she ended up, to use Cottle's simile, like a "Ferrari caged in a garage," imprisoned in an untenable situation of her own making.

Although she really may have loved her children and done the best for them that she knew how, it would have been better, her son seems to feel, if she had remained on the concert stage. Yet, at the same time he is also aware that for a number of reasons this might have been risky - particularly in light of her terror of making memory slips, an obsession that grew increasingly menancing during her last years of concertizing.

Gitta's personality was complex. In turn, she could be warm - gracious - fascinating - gregarious - clever - insightful - articulate - magnetic - loyal. Later in life, she was remembered as a charismatic hostess who presided over star-studded soirees at Hawthorne Place, Chicago, sometimes a witty and and engaging story teller, or spontaneous spell-binding pianist. She had never given up music entirely, and was quite comfortable in the security of her own home, playing chamber music extemporaneously with her celebrated guests.

But Gitta had a darker side, and everyday life at Hawthorne Place was far from joyous. Often she would drag around the house in an unkempt, ill-conceived outfit, depressed, angry, complaining, preoccupied with details of some banal soap opera, finding her own existence either irritating or three-quarters empty. But it was especially "Tommy," who became the scapegoat, doomed to bear the brunt of his mother's savage sarcasm.

During his adolescence, they would have terrible word duels on a regular basis. At the lowest point Gitta would tell Tommy that when she would finally be rid of him (presumably meaning "dead") she would be "smiling" in her casket. This ghoulish scenario haunted her son well into adulthood. But not to be outdone, Tommy would retort that Gitta was totally worthless, and, as a mother, one rotten failure. The exact words were unimportant. This was a "dialect of insult" in which each participant aimed at the jugular, and deep wounds were inflicted that never totally healed.

Although this was the heyday in Chicago of psychoanalysis, and mother and son each had their share of psychoanalytical probing, yet nothing really helped to dissipate the miasma that prevailed at Hawthorne Place. Dr. Cottle believes than an expert family therapist might have been the answer, but alas, they were not rescued in time.

The book, which provides a rare record of Chicago's musical history, contains vivid descriptions of the sumptuous soirees held regularly at Hawthorne Place. On these occasions, Gitta would join in extemporaneous chamber music, along with the many internationally known musicians present. Some of these comprised Vladimir Horowitz, her true "alter-ego," not to mention Sergei Rachmaninov, Arturo Toscanini, Sergei Prokofiev, Josef Hofmann, Nathan Milstein, Jasha Heifitz, Igor Stravinsky, AD INFINITUM.(In one photo, there is the rare image of a laughing Rachmaninov, standing close to his friend Gitta, along with informal snapshots of Gitta and her other illustrious guests, not to mention fascinating glimpses of family members.)

Many Chicagoans - even musicians - are unaware of their city's glorious musical past, and that at one time Hawthorne Place was THE happening place for what was perhaps the greatest chamber music to be heard anywhere in the world. They may never have heard that this venue was at one time a true "Mecca," where world class artists could rub shoulders on a regular basis, and be moved to make spectacular music together. In fact, even in New York City there may never have been one single site where so many great artists gathered together time after time. It was the best of all possible worlds, and a cherished time always to be remembered.

When Gitta turned eighty, to the shock of everyone present at her birthday celebration, she announced that she would be returning to the concert stage. She even followed through on this plan and set a date to perform Rachmaninov's FIRST PIANO CONCERTO at Ravinia on July 5th, 1985, under the baton of James Levine. Whether she would ever have had the courage to go through with this plan will never be known. She died three months before the performance.

What comes through strongly in this book, however, is the deep admiration and even awe Thomas Cottle had for his mother's phenomenal music, as well as the love he always had for her, despite a troubled adolescence. This book is a most touching tribute to his mother.

Somewhat convoluted
I ordered this book after listening to an interview with the author. The stories of the various musicians and performances were somewhat endearing but there wasn't anything to tie them together. In some ways the book reads like a textbook - very factual and precise but then segues into anectdotes and childhood memories. Perhaps it is Cottle's bias as Gradova's son that fuels his need to pontificate the minutia of his family couch. This book does get better as you read but it certainly is heavier on detail than I expected and is in serious need of editing.

Beautiful Book
This is a story about a fascinating woman, the writer's mother Gitta Gradova, a brilliant pianist who--after all kinds of pressures and for all kinds of reasons--stopped performing publicly in order to raise her family.Her son has brought her back to life on the pages of this book along with her dozens of brilliant celebrated friends and colleagues. That's not the half of it, though.
This writer, an experienced and articulate student of human nature whose background in psychology has--somehow--not dulled his personal honesty, takes the oppurtunity to explore the landscape of children and parents as children grow up, the motives of artists in general and of his mother in particular, the conflict all talented women face as their children are born, and the nature of performance of all kinds.Cottle'stangential discussions of the nature of art--rich with thought and examples--are more complete, provocative and loving than many books devoted to the subject.
This is a book about art and a book about family showing the balance between the two that all artists most somehow find. It's a book about women and their sons, about the sacrifices and frictions of life here on earth, and ultimately about all of us. ... Read more

Product Description
Winner of the Columbia University Lionel Trilling Award. Robert Murphy was in the prime of his career as an anthropologist when he felt the first symptom of a malady that would ultimately take him on an odyssey stranger than any field trip to the Amazon: a tumor of the spinal cord that progressed slowly and irreversibly into quadriplegia. In this gripping account, Murphy explores society's fears, myths, and misunderstandings about disability, and the damage they inflict. He reports how paralysis—like all disabilities—assaults people's identity, social standing, and ties with others, while at the same time making the love of life burn even more fiercely. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

"The Body Silent" by Robert Murphy
Valuable insights into the world of the disabled from many angles by a respected professor with progressive spinal cord disease.Highly recommended to persons with disabilities and to the general public who often encounter them.

An incredible book by an incredible person...
This is one of my books that I bought and put aside to read later. I don't remember how long ago I bought it but I am certainly glad that I gave it a second chance to read it before discarding it. I am now not planning to sell this book, as it is too important a volume on disability in society, and it certainly applies to the bioethical and eduethical work I do on the side of my 'regular' job of teaching and writing.

Murphy is unlike me in that he came upon his disability later in life, while I was born basically deaf and remained that way for the first 13 years of my life before getting a hearing aid at the age of 13. Murphy had to deal with a slow-growing tumor that entwined itself into his spinal cord. Unlike many tumors that can be excised with surgery, his was such that the possibility of removing it also came with the possibility of losing everything else, including his life or the ability to continue to do his important work. Like many of us who have chosen not to take the risk of surgery and who don't believe that to be disabled is worse than to be dead, Murphy worked with and around his progressive disabling and was able to give the world another 15 years of his wisdom in cultural anthropology.

This book is a must-read for any person with a disability, no matter when they became disabled. Murphy had the background of an academic anthropologist, with many years of successful teaching and writing for major journals in anthropology and culture. He had also written major books, one of which continues to be used in most universities on women and gender in primitive societies. So in coming into the genre of disability studies, he brought to the field a first-rate mind and ability to write so others can understand difficult concepts.

Murphy's book is not the usual autobiography that one usually expects, but rather explores disability(specifically his, but he introduces others and also the culture) without a single shard of either self-pity or 'hey, look at me' attitude that is so often written about in media (where the media puts someone with a disability on a pedestal that is unrealistic of the very real problems that those of us with disabilities face daily). He writes presenting his disablement as a fait-accompli, dealing with the problems as they arose...and in some cases, he ignored his health situation to the point of putting him at risk for infection from bedsores because he was too busy teaching. Like Murphy states, that wasn't courage as often as it was just not wanting to take the time to have his physical body get in the way of what he was trying to do. In treating his disablement with this attitude, he did become the courageous person that he presented to the public...and I wish so badly I had had the opportunity to meet him and hear him speak. Like so many others such as Michael Fox and Christopher REeve, Murphy was a non-disabled person whose close encounters with his own disablement led him to become a voice in a minority that has long been voiceless. He died much too soon, but in giving his last fifteen years of work to physical disabilities in society, he has provided us with an ongoing voice. I certainly intend to use his words and his writing in my work in hopes that it will inspire others as it has inspired me.

Karen Sadler

Hearing the Body
Bob became paraplegiac at a late age, after having enjoyed a long, brilliant career as a professor at Columbia and an anthropologist who, with his anthropologist wife Yolanda, lived among Amazonian Indians and Saharan camel nomads. He was too clever to be overwhelmed with self-pity. This book was written from the perspective that he loved most: what you'd think is true is probably just the opposite. We expect paralyzed people to get better, like other "sick" patients, but the problem is, they don't: they're damaged selves. Hey--just like everybody else. We all have to come to terms with life's damages and our isolation and loneliness as we attempt to cope with it. Who would ever have thought it possible--we can all learn something compelling about our normal selves, viewing life from the wheelchair! Ironically (and this is the kind of twist that styles Murphy's ideas) the disabled are a mirror for the rest of us: "The paralytic is, quite literally, a prisoner of the flesh, but most humans are convicts of sorts. We live within walls of our own making, staring out at life through bars thrown up by culture and annealed by our fears. . . .[that] induces a mental paralysis, a stilling of thought." Murphy has never sold his soul to an illusion: he speaks candidly as a participant observer of his own encounter with symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and transformation. Always the fox, he transcends the smoke screen that our cultural prejudices force upon us, and hears his own body and its message with astounding clarity and patience. This is a book that students read eagerly, in both anthropology and sociology classes, because its message is provocative, and its ethnography is true. It teaches us all to listen to the sound of our own struggles with personal identity and mortality, and to smile with the knowledge that we are not alone.

Disibility means reliance on others
Ten years ago since the American Disabilities Act went into effect, the disabled still feel that they are isolated from the real world.Former professor of anthropology at Columbia University Robert F. Murphy examinesfrom his personal perspective the life of a disabled person in a worldwhere he was independent and zealous of life. The reader will discover whatit is like for a disabled person to battle besides the inability to carryout everyday function we take for granted.The Body Silent is unlike otherbooks written by the disable.The Body Silent is an excellent book full ofprose and not journal entries of how fortunate the non-disabled really are.This book (recommended to me by anthropologist Dr. James Trostle) willchange your perspective and outlook on how it is like to grow up again andlearning how to walk, one step at a time.

a celebration of life worth living
As a graduate student in anthropology, I came to know and respect Bob Murphy more than any other scholar. Of the texts he wrote, The Body Silent,stands apart in that it says much about the man, anthropology, disabilityin American society, and life itself. It will deeply touch a wide varietyof readers, and for those that knew him, will bring tears to their eyes. Asto its impact on what is now known as disability studies, it put thediscipline on the academic agenda. As such, it is a seminal text and is amust for anyone thinking of entering the field. ... Read more

Product Description

The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team will relate who these men were and offer far more extensive background stories, in addition to those of the more familiar names of early Soviet space explorers from that group. Many previously-unpublished photographs of these “missing” candidates will also be included for the first time in this book. It will be a detailed, but highly readable and balanced account of the history, training and experiences of the first group of twenty cosmonauts of the USSR. A covert recruitment and selection process was set in motion throughout the Soviet military in August 1959, just prior to the naming of America’s Mercury astronauts. Those selected were ordered to report for training at a special camp outside of Moscow in the spring of 1960. Just a year later, Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Air Force (promoted in flight to the rank of major) was launched aboard a Vostok spacecraft and became the first person ever to achieve space flight and orbit the Earth.

Customer Reviews (2)

A Masterpiece of Investigative Research
Burgess and Hall have made a significant contribution to the history of the Soviet/CIS manned space program, building upon the works of such authors as James E. Oberg.The well-researched and well-documented book tells the stories of the "original 20" cosmonauts with details and photograhs not readily appearing in other works on the topic.Particular attention is given to two promising cosmonauts, Neluybov and Bondarenko as well as the alleged "dead cosmonauts" with both descriptions and names.The authors have also debunked the myth of the "perfect Soviet man" with their accounts of the exploits of those twenty pioneers who were indeed far from "perfect."There are many more details that the Soviet/CIS space enthusiast will find quite interesting.It is required reading on the subject!

Space Sleuthing At Its Best
Absolutely masterful chronicle of the careers and fates of the earliest Soviet cosmonauts, as determined by a team of dogged space sleuths who over decades had to penetrate Soviet secrecy and coverups and outright falsifications to figure out the human stories behind the headlines. I'm celestially proud to have been one of their colleagues and a contributor of some resources on this daunting voyage of discovery -- whose wonderful fruits are displayed in this book that never could have been written without these inspired amateur space historians. Well done! ... Read more

Product Description
In 1821, Charles Babbage was reviewing a set of mathematical tables with a colleague in preparation for a scientific presentation when, after finding a wealth of errors, he exclaimed in frustration, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam!" With this outburst, Babbage began to envision an end to human errors in the numerical tables upon which finance, trade, science, and navigation relied. The Difference Engine is the fascinating story of his heroic quest, against all odds, to build the first computing machine more than one hundred years before the modern computer we use today was invented.

Set against the politics and science of the explosive early Victorian era, The Difference Engine is a thrilling tale ofBabbage's exuberant determination. Like Longitude, The Difference Engine is a fascinating portrait of the human story behind a pivotal moment in history and one of the most influential inventions of our time.Amazon.com Review
What a difference a century makes. Doron Swade, technology historian and assistant director of London's Science Museum, investigates the troubles that plagued 19th-century knowledge engineers in The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer.

The author is in a unique position to appreciate the technical difficulties of the time, as he led a team that built a working model of a Difference Engine, using contemporary materials, in time for Babbage's 1991 bicentenary. The meat of the book is comprised of the story of the first computing machine design as gathered from the technical notes and drawings curated by Swade. Though Babbage certainly had problems translating his ideas into brass, the reader also comes to understand his fruitless, drawn-out arguments with his funders. Swade had it comparatively easy, though his depictions of the frustrating search for money and then working out how best to build the enormous machine in the late 1980s are delightful.

It is difficult--maybe impossible--to draw a clear, unbroken line of influence from Babbage to any modern computer researchers, but his importance both as the first pioneer and as a symbol of the joys and sorrows of computing is unquestioned. Swade clearly respects his subject deeply, all the more so for having tried to bring the great old man's ideas to life. The Difference Engine is lovingly comprehensive and will thrill readers looking for a more technical examination of Babbage's career. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Charles Babbage: Victorian Era Technologist
Author, engineer, visionary, genius.Charles Babbage.The man born to lead humankind into a utopian era propelled by automatic computation machines.But by some cosmic prank he was born not at the first glow of the electrified age, but much earlier in a coal-fired industrial age in which neither precision production machine tools nor even the standard screw thread existed.And electricity?The triode, the fundamental active device at the root of the electronics big bang, was just being nudged to life a full generation after Babbage's death.Today, countless bits of silicon at our fingertips and spread across the globe and above our heads pulse with programs which manage everything from communications to transportation to entertainment.Inspiration for our globally connected engineers and scientists springs from the incredible developments in communications, analytical tools, and nano and bio-technologies.Babbage's muse was a Victorian lady adorned in steam power.
Author Doron Swade's description of the analysis of Babbage's drawings and of the trials engaged in the actual modern day build of Difference Engine #2 leaves me with a bit of a sense of sorrow for old Charles.It just doesn't seem plausible that he could have pulled this off had he a dozen 19th century lifetimes.Production of the thousands and thousands of precision mechanical parts needed for the construction of his machine would have challenged the industrial capacity of Babbage's day.And even if all the parts had been delivered, did he foresee the time required for the assembly and testing of the machine?The author experienced that the modern day building and debugging of the engine proceeded slowly and with numerous fits and starts.Additionally, Charles may have been flawed with an inability to maintain a consistent focus on the development of his difference engine; he puttered with incessant design changes and was often distracted by any number of scientific developments occurring in his lifetime in the middle half of the 19th century.But his genius and sense of mortality drove him to the only workable solution, that being the preparation of detailed mechanical drawings for a subsequent generation of enthusiasts to discover and execute.So whatever sorrow I felt is now displaced by respect for someone who retreated from his dogged passion for assembling and publicly operating his computational engine into the more solitary labor of transferring his concept to a full set of mechanical drawings.These were the drawings which author Swade and his team used to build the machine nearly a century and a half later.
This is an interesting and educational read for anyone curious about the state of technology and the associated politics in Victorian times.The reader will meet personalities who will be remembered because we have honorably linked their names to important developments including screw threads (Whitworth), a software language (Ada), and a space telescope (Herschel).
So, no, today's world is not driven by fleets of "Babbage engines".He could not have foreseen a future reliant on millions of transistors modulating nano-amps on a device smaller than your thumbnail, and these devices replicated by the millions in our cars, phones, iPods, and dishwashers.I agree with my friend's conclusion that Babbage engines, had they been built and mass produced, would have "died out" with the rise of electronics.It is amazing, however, that Babbage foresaw the configuration of his mechanical Analytical Engine as consisting of two unique but connected components; one, a mechanical entity for carrying out arithmetic operations, and two, a mechanical contrivance where numeric values would be stored.Amazing, because his concept, although relegated to mechanical implementation, predated by a century the concepts detailed by Von Neumann who viewed the configuration of modern computer architecture as consisting of those two fundamental interfaced components - the arithmetic logical unit or central processor, and the computer memory.
Kudos to Swade for bringing the life and times of Charles Babbage to the fore, and for his years of involvement and dedication to the actual construction of Difference Engine #2.There are numerous YouTube entries where you can see the machine operating.Or perhaps you were lucky enough to be awed, as I was, as an actual witness to the operation of Babbage's dream onsite at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Same book as "The Cogwheel Brain"
This is a terrific book. Beyond that, I have nothing to add to the previous excellent reviews, except to note that it seems to be precisely the same book as Doron Swade's The Cogwheel Brain. I nearly bought both until I checked the tables of contents...

One of the great accomplishments of the 19th century
Charles Babbage and John Herschel, the astronomer, were preparing tables for the astronomical society.They needed to check the work of computations by humans, by different computers.The need for tables was particulary important for navigators.The source of error in the tables was clear, human fallibility.The manual production of tables, calculation, transcription, typesetting, and proofreading created opportunities for error.The engine of change in 1821 was the steam engine.Charles Babbage wanted to produce a machine to produce error-free tables.

Babbage entered Trinity in 1810.He studied on his own the work of the French mathematicians.His father was a well-to-do London banker.Charles married and received from his father an allowance of three hundred pounds.In London he established himself in scientific circles.By the spring of 1822 he had a small working model of his first design.Computing devices of the time required manipulation and were limited as to the size of the numbers the devices could handle.Babbit first used the method of differences, addition, in his design.He sent a brief announcement to the Astronomical Society about his invention.He received a mandate from the government and was prepared to build a new machine.He hired Joseph Clement for precision engineering work.Clement and Babbage devised new tools and modified machines.There was a need to produce large numbers of similar parts.Babbage conceived of his machine when manufacturing was in transition.By 1826 Babbage was wholly absorbed in the design of his Difference Engine.The machine was eight feet by seven feet by three feet.

In 1826 Babbage published a book on life assurance.While traveling in Europe following the death of his wife, he learned of his election as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.He never resided in Cambridge and gave no lectures.Babbage expressed a view on the decline of science In England.Undoubtedly science was more professional in Prussia and France.Babbage's position alienated some of his supporters.In 1832 part of the engine was put on display in his drawing room.Clement was to leave the project.Work was not resumed.The Treasury Department spent more than seventeen thousand pounds on it.

There is a curious affinity between mathematics, mind, and computing.After the break with Clement, Babbage moved from the Difference Engine to the Analytical Engine.He devised the first automatic mechanisms for multiplication and division.He had in fact designed a general purpose four function calculator.In 1836 he opted for punch cards to control the engine.The Analytical Engine was never built.Babbage worked in isolation.With the Analytical Engine Babbage was seduced by the intellectual quest.

After twenty years the Treasury axed the Difference Engine and wrote off the expense.Between 1846 and 1849 Babbage designed Difference Engine No. 2.Maurice Wilkins believed the Analytical Engine was one of the great accomplishments of the 19th century.The Science Museum in Britain built a version of the Difference Engine No. 2 for an exhibit on Babbage.

Wonderful Engines
This book has 2 basic parts.First, is the discussion of Babbage's life and his computing engines.Second, is the author's modern-day story of attempting to complete Babbage's Difference Engine, a feat which Babbage himself was unable to do.I picked up this book for the first part.I wanted to learn about Babbage and how his engines worked.While the author gives a wonderful account of Babbage's life and methodology, he does not clearly describe HOW these engines function.I realize that the engines are extremely complex, but a chapter on the functioning of the Difference Engine trial piece and some diagrams on its operations would have been much appreciated. Unfortunately, as were Babbage's contemporaries, we are left mainly in dark as to how simply turning a crank can produce the necessary additions.The author also never fully explains the "method of finite differences" upon which the function of the difference engine is based.

The most amazing part of the book is the overview of Babbage's design for the Analytical Engine- the first programmable computer.It is amazingly similar in concept to today's modern computers, but it uses motion through metal gears and cams, instead of electricity through logic gates and wires. I expected to be bored by the modern-day story, but I actually was interested in the process of reconstructing this 19th century machine.It was enlightening to see how the same problems Babbage faced 150 years before troubled engineers today.

Overall, I recommend this book for those curious about Babbage and his engines. However, the writing seems jerky and unorganized in parts, and there is little technical description of the engines' functionality.

Doron Swade's Quest to Build a Difference Engine
This is the first book I've read on Charles Babbage, but I imagine that there are others that are better.First, this book seems to assume you've already read a book or two about Babbage before.It almost has an apologetic tone and seems to be an answer to what, I assume, have been slights against Babbage and his work.Second, this book is as much about the author and his quest to build a Difference Engine as it is about Babbage himself.If you want to hear about dealing with office politics in an British museum, you may find this interesting.

All in all, this is a fairly dry read.It was interesting at points, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for your first book on Babbage. ... Read more

Product Description
The story of the Menninger Clinic is the story of the Menninger family. The two cannot be separated, according to historian Lawrence Friedman, for one cannot be understood without the other.

Friedman should know. He is the only scholar granted full, unrestricted access to the Menninger archives and the personal papers of founder Karl and Will Menninger. In this study of the Menningers and their clinic, Friedman lifts the public relations veil to reveal the story behind the public success: the reciprocal influence of the family upon the clinic and the clinic upon the family.

Friedman has taken extraordinary time and care in researching this study. The resulting book is neither exposé nor hagiography. Nor is it a narrow institutional history. It is, instead, a finely wrought historical study based upon a decade of research in more than a dozen archives, including the vast Menninger archive.

Menninger is the first study of a major American psychiatric center based on full, unrestricted access to archival materials. It also incorporates information gleaned from extensive interviews with members of the Menninger family as well as interviews with more than one hundred people important in the clinic's history. Not only does Friedman examine the dynamics of the Menninger family close up, but he also steps back for a larger view of the Menningers' role in the history of psychiatry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Well researched, and well written!!
Book was very well researched and written with great articulation even for the layman. Friedman does a fine job covering Menninger's life...even describing information not known before. A great read for all scholars.

older version
book arrived in a timely manner, although the book is a previous version, not the current version sold by A Beka.I should have paid more attention to the version / copyright date.It should work find for this fall. ... Read more

Product Description
One of America's most daring and accomplished test pilots, Tex Johnston flew the first U.S. jet airplanes and, in a career spanning the 1930s through the 1970s, helped create the jet age at such pioneering aerospace companies as Bell Aircraft and Boeing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

TexJohnston
This was bought as a Father's Day gift for my own father. Tex Alvin Johnston is actually a cousin to by Father through his mother's side of the family! So this book was especially interesting to him. It arrived just 5-days after placing my online order. So thank you to Amazon.com's partner store! Excellent buying experience. ... Read more

Product Description
Trained as a musician, amateur scientist William Herschel found international fame after discovering the planet Uranus in 1781. Though he is still best known for this finding, his partnership with his sister Caroline yielded other groundbreaking work that affects how we see the world today. The Herschels made comprehensive surveys of the night sky, carefully categorizing every visible object in the void. Caroline wrote an influential catalogue of nebulae, and William discovered infrared radiation. Veteran science writer Michael D. Lemonick guides readers through the depths of the solar system and into his subjects’ private lives: William developed bizarre theories about inhabitants of the sun; he procured an unheard-of salary for Caroline from King George III even as he hassled over the funding for an enormous, forty-foot telescope; and the siblings feuded over William’s marriage but eventually reconciled. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Two commoners who brought the celestial heavens down to Earth
The title of this latest publication in the Great Discoveries series of books aptly describes the content of this neat paperback. At the time of the American Revolution, a German musician seeking a better opportunity transferred to England and thence became obsessed with the celestial patterns. An autodidact, William Herschel picked up English, Latin, Greek, mathematics and then turned to studying the skies. To better view the cosmos, he designed and built his own telescopes.

Among his discoveries were the planets Uranus and Saturn, and their associated moons along with assorted nebulae. Uranus was named the Georgian Star in honor of King George III, who prior to succumbing to his genetic malady, was impressed by the discoveries and served as patron to this brilliant cosmologist.

Shining alongside her star struck brother was younger sister Caroline, who not only assisted in the star sightings, but herself became so fascinated in the study that independently she sighted and is credited with comet recognition and recording galactic changes.

This is truly a fascinating chronicle of a gifted musical family in the late 1700s whose findings are now being corroborated in our technological age. It is an inspiring story not only from the celestial view, but it serves as a reflection of the social and historical customs of the times, and also gives insights into the nature of the human character.

Reviewed by Rita Hoots

Got me hooked on deeper research
As an amateur astronomer, I've always admired Herschel as sort of the model of our hobby: A skilled professional in another field (you can find recordings of his musical compositions on Amazon, too) who made major contributions to the field. What's clear here is the role his kid sister Caroline played in making it all possible. I'm glad to see that she's starting to get the attention she deserves next to her brother.

The Georgian Star, by Michael Lemonick
The Georgian Star, by Michael Lemonick, is the biography of William Herschel and his sister Caroline Herschel.In 1781, William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.As Lemonick points out, this made Herschel the first discoverer of a planet, since Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn had been visible and known to anyone who cared to look up at the night sky for all of human history.

Herschel became more and more interested in astronomy.He bought books on the subject, studied the heavens through telescopes, and began making his own telescopes.With Caroline's help, he began spending every free minute, day and night, on astronomy.He invented the technique of making repeated sweeps of the entire night sky, cataloguing everything he found.In the midst of it all, he came upon the new planet.We call this planet Uranus, but at the time, Herschel's science colleagues urged him to name the planet for King George III.In this way, Herschel earned the King's favor and was freed at last from having to make a living with music.

Throughout The Georgian Star, Mike Lemonick quotes from Caroline Herschel's wry, humorous diary about her brother's frenetic days and nights, and about her own award-winning contributions.William Herschel discovered more than 2000 nebulae, hundreds of paired stars, and infra-red radiation.He tracked the direction of the migration of our Solar System through the Milky Way, and realized that starlight we presently see has taken so long to reach us, the stars whose light it is might well have burned out by now.

The Georgian Star combines science, history, and human interest so beautifully, we are sorry to come to the end of the book

Fascinating...
The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos by Michael D. Lemonick is a fascinating look at two astronomers who are little known but have made tremendous contributions to our understanding of astronomy.

In the 1700s, William and Caroline Herschel were born into a Germany family of talented musicians.William ended up in England (easy to do as George III of England was also the Elector of Hanover). He then smuggled his sister over when their mother refused to let her leave Germany (mother Anna did not want to lose Caroline's domestic services).Both siblings were professional musicians.Caroline was a singer, while William served as organist, choir master, composer and instrumentalist in various English churches.But both William and Caroline became fascinated by astronomy and began on a course to study the cosmos.In addition, he began building his own telescopes--which happened to be much stronger than those being used by professionals.William wasn't taken very seriously at first, but eventually earned the respect of professional scientists of the day.He was even awarded a pension by George III, which allowed him to quit music forever and focus all his energies on stargazing.

During his long life, William made many discoveries--including the planet, Uranus, as well as the existence of infrared radiation.His sister also made a number of discoveries (mostly comets) but was especially talented in organizing and cataloguing "all of the 2500 nebulae and star clusters she and William had discovered."Her efforts also earned her a pension from the king.

I find the study of astronomy fascinating, although if it gets too technical, my eyes begin to glaze over.The Georgian Star was the perfect book in explaining much about our knowledge of astronomy, but in an understandable way.Lemonick also explains how the work done by both William and Caroline is still relevant today.

excellent book
Fast delivery and excellent customer service (when I made a mistake on shipping - it was handled with exceptional customer service on Amazon's end) I have been shopping from Amazon for over 3 years and highly recommend them. This book also very insightful and good reading ... Read more

Product Description
In Cathedrals of Science, Patrick Coffey describes how chemistry got its modern footing-how thirteen brilliant men and one woman struggled with the laws of the universe and with each other.They wanted to discover how the world worked, but they also wanted credit for making those discoveries, and their personalities often affected how that credit was assigned. Gilbert Lewis, for example, could be reclusive and resentful, and his enmity with Walther Nernst may have cost him the Nobel Prize; Irving Langmuir, gregarious and charming, "rediscovered" Lewis's theory of the chemical bond and received much of the credit for it. Langmuir's personality smoothed his path to the Nobel Prize over Lewis.

Coffey deals with moral and societal issues as well.These same scientists were the first to be seen by their countries as military assets.Fritz Haber, dubbed the "father of chemical warfare," pioneered the use of poison gas in World War I-vividly described-and Glenn Seaborg and Harold Urey were leaders in World War II's Manhattan Project; Urey and Linus Pauling worked for nuclear disarmament after the war. Science was not always fair, and many were excluded.The Nazis pushed Jewish scientists like Haber from their posts in the 1930s.Anti-Semitism was also a force in American chemistry, and few women were allowed in; Pauling, for example, used his influence to cut off the funding and block the publications of his rival, Dorothy Wrinch.

Cathedrals of Science paints a colorful portrait of the building of modern chemistry from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Persosnalities in Science
I enjoyed the book, and relished the little nuggets of knowledge such as :
G.N. Lewis invented "activity","fugacity", "ionic strength" and "photon" as terminology. "Lewisite" was named for a different Lewis.
I had not realized how involved he was in heavy water and isotopic labeling.
The material on Haber was interesting, but much of it was available elsewhere.
I had never read much about Langmuir before- his life was fascinating:
the mountain climbing, the connection with Kurt Vonnegut etc., and of course his work on chemical bonding and surface chemistry. I was impressed that he spoke fluent French and German.
Nernst I want to read more about, and Ostwald.
A theme throughout the book was the extreme sensitivity of many of these scientists to personal slights, quarrels over priority and the like.
Academic advancement depends on reputation-makes people crazy over things
many of the rest of us would let pass.
Dorothy Wrinch was new to me. Feminists may find her story pathetic, but possibly less so than that of Rosalind Franklin.
The assertion (p.209) that the first transmutation of an isotope of one element into that of another was done at Berkeley is most likely incorrect. I also found confusing the statement that an isotope had been
formed by bombarding something with neutrons in a cyclotron. I suspect some technicalities were left out in respect of general readers.

The story of Lewis and Langmuir
I am a physical chemistry faculty member at Berkeley, in the chemistry department that G. N. Lewis built, and I am also the recipient of the 2005 Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics.So understandably, I am interested in learning about these two towering and competing figures.Coffey's book is about these two men and a few others who contributed to creating the field of physical chemistry during the first half of the 20th century. His descriptions of scientific principles are vivid and accurate, and his stories about Lewis and Langmuir are fascinating.In view of the former, I trust the accuracy of the latter.I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of science in general, and the history of physical chemistry in particular.

Captivating Narative / Detailed Research
I really enjoyed Cathedrals of Science.The narrative was every bit as captivating as a historical fiction, yet the detailed research gives one a rewarding insight into an extremely interesting subject and historical time period. As with many, I have read extensively on the popularly know quantum physics pioneers. Coffey's work more broadly illuminates the "age defining" discoveries and key personalities of the period.I found the author's discussions of the Pathological Science of Langmuir especially relevant to today's political - scientific discourse.

great book for any engineer
A great read! I liked the way the author describes the different work cultures and habits of both Lewis and Langmuir...academia vs. industry.
The author's plain talk about "the battles over priority of invention" and the scientific discovery methods gave me much insight into my own career in software engineering.
One other thing that I _really_ liked was the feeling that I had just taken a refresher chemistry class (except this was way more fun :-)

Food for thought
When I finished reading this fascinating book, I found myself wondering: why have physics and physicists been the subjects of so many biographies, other nonfiction, novels, plays, and even opera - and chemistry and chemists so few? Not for lack of significance: Chemistry is Us. And not for lack of dramatic potential: as Patrick Coffey shows very skillfully, the history of modern chemistry is replete with profound moral quandaries, contentious outsize personalities, and epic quarrels. I recommend Cathedrals of Science to everyone, even if you've forgotten your chemistry (the author stirs it in gently). This is a compelling story, with much food for thought. ... Read more

Product Description
Konrad Zuse is one of the great pioneers of the computer age. He created the first fully automated, program controlled, freely programmable computer using binary floating-point calculation. It was operational in 1941. He built his first machines in Berlin during the Second World War, with bombs falling all around, and after the war he built up a company that was taken over by Siemens in 1967. Zuse was an inventor in the traditional style, full of phantastic ideas, but also gifted with a powerful analytical mind. Single-handedly, he developed one of the first programming languages, the Plan Calculus, including features copied only decades later in other languages. He wrote numerous books and articles and won many honors and awards. This is his autobiography, written in an engagingly lively and pleasant style, full of anecdotes, reminiscences, and philosophical asides. It traces his life from his childhood in East Prussia, through tense wartime experiences and hard times building up his business after the war, to a ripe old age and well-earned celebrity.Amazon.com Review
Personal computers didn't appear until the 1970s, but as early as 1941, the first automated, program-controlled, and freely programmable computer was up and running. The Computer--My Life is the story of Konrad Zuse and his revolutionary invention--the computer (or mechanical brain as he liked to call it), which Zuse built in his parents' living room. Zuse writes his autobiography simply and directly to be accessible to a wide audience of non-technophiles and includes hand-drawn diagrams of computer functions, as well as cartoons from his younger years when he dreamed of becoming an artist. The book also includes appendices with detailed technical information for the more technical reader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One of the few imporant biographies of the 20th century.
This book and its author are just amazing. Konrad Zuse is definitly a unique character and so is his story of the invention of the FIRST computer during World War II in Berlin.

Read it!
An excellent source of information for those who mistakenly thought that ENIAC was the first general purpose computer.

Critical for an understanding of the hist. of computers
Zuse explains how and why he build the world's first computer.Easy to understand, but not belittling.This book is essential for anyone interested in the history of CS. ... Read more

Product Description
By the time he died in 1993 at the age of 73, Irving Howe was one of the twentieth century's most important public thinkers.Deeply passionate, committed to social reform and secular Jewishness, ardently devoted to fiction and poetry, in love with baseball, music, and ballet, Howe wrote with such eloquence and lived with such conviction that his extraordinary work is now part of the canon of American social thought.

In the first comprehensive biography of Howe's life, historian Gerald Sorin brings us close to this man who rose from Jewish immigrant poverty in the 1930s to become one of the most provocative intellectuals of our time.Known most widely for his award-winning book World of Our Fathers, a rich portrayal of the East European Jewish experience in New York, Howe also won acclaim for his prodigious output of illuminating essays on American culture and as an indefatigable promoter of democratic socialism as can be seen in the pages of Dissent, the journal he edited for nearly forty years.

Deeply devoted to the ideal of democratic radicalism and true equality, Howe was constantly engaged in a struggle for decency and basic fairness in the face of social injustice. In the century of Auschwitz, the Gulag, and global inter-ethnic mass murder, it was difficult to sustain political certainties and take pride in one's humanity.To have lived a life of conviction and engagement in that era was a notable achievement.Irving Howe lived such a life and Gerald Sorin has done a masterful job of guiding us through it in all its passion and complexity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Retreat of the "Greatest Generation" Intellectuals
The last time we heard the name of the subject of this biography, Irving Howe, in this space it was as a (well paid) cameo performer and resident literary expert in Woody Allen's comedic send up of mass culture, Zelig. If Woody Allen is regarded as the consummate New Yorker, then Irving Howe, for better or worst and I think for the worst, represented the consummate post- World War II New York intellectual. Furthermore, as detailed here Howe came to see himself, as reflected in various shifts in his literary work and his politics, as a New York Jewish intellectual. (The Jewish intellectual aspect of this biography is a little beyond the scope of what I want to review here but should be mentioned as it is a central theme of Professor Sorin's work).

Moreover, as a perusal of this sympathetic, sometimes overly sympathetic, biography will reveal, as if to add insult to injury, this long time and well known editor of the social democratic journal Dissent fancied himself a New York socialist intellectual, as well. And that is the rub. As I will argue below Howe and his `greatest generation' cohort of public intellectuals did more than their fair share of muddying the political waters as people of my generation, the generation of '68, tried to make political sense of the world. And tried to change it for the better, despite the best efforts of Howe and his crowd to make peace, for the nth time, with bourgeois society.

I have mentioned in a review of Socialist Workers Party (SWP) leader James P. Cannon's The Struggle for the Proletarian Party, a book about the faction fight over defense of the Soviet Union and the organizational norms of a Bolshevik party in 1939-40, found elsewhere in this space that I have long questioned the wisdom of the entry tactic into the American Socialist Party by those forces who followed Leon Trotsky in the 1930's. Irving Howe is an individual case study that points out, in bold relief, the impetus behind that questioning.

Howe, born of poor New York Jewish immigrant parents in 1920, came of political age in the 1930's as he gravitated toward the leftward moving Socialist Party in high school and later at that hotbed of 1930's radicalism, City College of New York. As a result of the Trotskyist entry (as an organization then called the Workers Party) into the Socialist party they were able to pull out a significant portion of the Socialist Party's youth group, including Howe, when they were expelled from that party in 1938. This cohort of, mainly, young New York socialists thereafter formed a key component of the anti-Soviet defensist opposition led by Max Shachtman that split from the main body of Trotskyism, The SWP, in 1940. From there on, especially in the post World War II period with the onrush of the Cold War, these `third camp' socialists made their peace, quietly or by a warm embrace, with American imperialism.

The bulk of Howe's intellectual career, as a niche magazine editor and professor at various top-notch universities, thus was spent explaining the ways of god to man, oops, American imperialism to newly minted graduate students. So, not only does Professor Howe serve here as a whipping boy for the errors of the 1930's Trotskyists but also as a prima facie case of what happens when one's theoretical baggage breaks away from a hard materialist conception of history. Therefore, by the time that my generation was ready to `storm heaven' in the 1960's we dismissed Howe and his intellectuals in retreat out of hand.

Professor Sorin does a very good and thorough job of describing the tensions between Howe's branch of the Old Left and the various components of the New Left as each group squared off against the other in the Sixties. Sorin gives, as could be expected from his sympathies, his protagonist Howe much the best of it. For our part, we of the New Left may have made every political mistake in the book due to more than our share of naiveté and overzealousness but we had a better sense than Howe and his ilk of how irrational the forces that we opposed (and still oppose) really were. But read the biography and make your own decision on that.

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
Irving Howe was a 20th century Renaissance man who wrote with conviction and intelligence on three different areas: politics, literature, and Jewish culture. Although he made a living as a college professor for much of his life, most of his diverse and voluminous publications were meant for people outside academia. Howe is perhaps best known as the author of World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made, but he was also an editor of and contributor to the journal Dissent for many years, as well as the author of a number of books of literary criticism.

Howe was a socialist. In his youth, he was a Trotskyist, and like many people, his politics became more moderate as he matured. But unlike many others from his generation of leftwing activists - some of whom were supporters of Stalin in their youth and then extreme conservatives later on - Howe remained a firm believer in democratic socialism throughout his adult life. This is not to say that his basic consistency always led him to what seem in retrospect to have been good opinions. In this regard, author Gerald Sorin gives us Irving Howe, warts and all (pardon the cliche). For example, before and even during World War II, Howe viewed that conflict as not much more than a battle between imperialist powers. Howe also fought long and hard with the New Left activists during the 60s - while some 60s radicals probably did think they were the first people to notice that there are problems in America, Howe's response to their arrogance left a lot to be desired. Howe also didn't exactly see the import of the women's movement in its early years. To his credit though, Howe eventually came around somewhat on feminism and was also an early and vocal supporter of the civil rights movement.

Just ten years after his death, many of the socialist ideas and ideals that Irving Howe wrote about seem to have been inspired by convictions that are anachronistic in today's world. Gerald Sorin does a terrific job conjuring up Howe and his world in a way that makes you hopeful that democratic socialism is still something that might just work, if it were given half a chance. Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent is a fine biography of a thoughtful man who believed that the world could be a better, more just place for all people. ... Read more

Product Description
When Ishi, "the last wild Indian," came out of hiding in August of 1911, he was quickly whisked away by train to San Francisco to meet Alfred Kroeber, one of the fathers of American anthropology. When Kroeber and Ishi came face to face, it was a momentous event, not only for each man, but for the cultures they represented. Each stood on the brink: one culture was in danger of losing something vital while the other was in danger of disappearing altogether.
Ishi was a survivor, and viewed the bright lights of the big city with a mixture of awe and bemusement. What surprised everyone is how handily he adapted himself to the modern city while maintaining his sense of self and his culture. He and his people had ingeniously used everything they could get their hands on from whites to survive in hiding, and now Ishi was doing the same in San Francisco. The wild man was in fact doubly civilized--he had his own culture, and he opened himself up to that of modern America.Kroeber was professionally trained to document Ishi's culture, his civilization. What he didn't count on was how deeply working with the man would lead him to question his own profession and his civilization--how it would rekindle a wildness of his own.
Though Ishi's story has been told before in film and fiction, Wild Men is the first book to focus on the depth of Ishi and Kroeber's friendship and to explore what their intertwined stories tell us about Indian survival in modern America and about America's fascination with the wild even as it was becoming ever-more urban and modern. Wild Men is about two individuals and two worlds intimately brought together in ways that turned out to be at once inspiring and tragic. Each man stood looking at the other from the opposite edge of a chasm: they reached out in the hope of keeping the other from falling in. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wild Men is terrific
Sackman has taken a well know story and crafted it into a marvelous excursion into the lives of two fascinating individuals. Along the way his story takes many highways and byways, bringing together a wealth of information and insights into turn-of-the century San Francisco,, native American history, the study of anthropology, train travel, and so much more. A fascinating read, highlighted by numerous photos.

Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the wilderness of Modern America
The author almost abandoned this project when he learned that another book about the last wild Indian (//Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian// by Orin Starn, 2004) was in the works.Encouraged by his publisher, Douglas Cazaux Sackman, a history professor at the University of Puget Sound, Sackman persevered and //Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the Wilderness of Modern America// joins the collection of books and film exploring the life of Ishi, the last surviving member of his tribe.Ishi was a middle-aged adult when he was found standing in a slaughterhouse corral in Oroville, California, in 1911.Alfred Kroeber, a prominent anthropologist, secured Ishi's passage from Oroville to San Francisco, where Ishi became a resident of the Museum of Anthropology.For the remainder of Ishi's life, Kroeber, and others, endeavored to capture the language, history, and culture of this living artifact.Sackman describes his book as "...an entirely new narrative exploring different aspects of our shared American history that the meeting of these two men illuminate."His compact, well-written, and scholarly work will stretch your thinking on the value of aboriginal cultures, as well as mankind's relationship to the wilderness.

Reviewed by Diana Irvine ... Read more

Product Description
Distinguished African Americans in Aviation and Space Science offers brief, readable entries that describe the lives and careers of 80 men and 20 women who defied poverty and prejudice to excel in the fields of aviation and space exploration. Each essay begins with birth and death dates, educational institutions attended and degrees earned, positions held, and awards won. A short summary of the individual's contribution to aviation or space science is followed by a biographical narrative divided into three sections: Early Years, Higher Education, and Career Highlights. Often based on the authors' correspondence with the subjects themselves, or with family members, this illustrated volume provides the fullest and most accessible biographical information available for many of these figures. ... Read more

Product Description
Exploring the life and personality of one of America's greatest twentieth-century innovators, this unique biography examines the ambitions and obsessions that inspired the genius. Reprint. PW. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Reading this book was like digging a hole in gravel
I started this book with a lot of enthusiasm. I'm an Edison fan and figured I'd give it a go. But after the first 50 pages, I could not go on. The author's writing style made this book almost unreadable...and I have a master's degree. So it should have been a fun, easy read, right? Um. No. After run-on sentence after run-on sentence, each mixing sometimes three and four thoughts that would have to be re-read over just to come to some kind of understanding as to what was being referred to, and in the process, coming to some kind of conclusion that would lead one, impulsively, it could be argued, to start thinking in those terms, albeit wrong. So basically, the ENTIRE book is written like the crazy sentence that preceded this one. Get the idea? The author obviously did a lot of work. The editor must have been playing Tetris non-stop while proofing the manuscript. Yikes. Avoid.

Very boring and dry writing style - I couldn't finish the book!!!
I cannot recommend this book. The writing style was so boring and dry that I could not finish the book. You would think that the life of someone like Thomas Edison would be a naturally exciting read but Neil Baldwin somehow found a way of making the story boring. In contrast, I found the biography about Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow to be first-rate writing - Chernow's writing style immerses the reader into Hamilton's life - anything written by Ron Chernow is highly recommended. Unfortunately, when it comes to writing style, Neil Baldwin is no Ron Chernow

Well done, tells it like it is
Marge Simpson (tired of Homer's endless prattling about Edison): I bet Thomas Edison didn't talk about Thomas Edison all day.
Homer: Oh, that's not true Marge. He was a shameless self-promoter!

This is a mammoth book that seeks to provide the entire story of the world's most famous inventor. Baldwin takes us from Edison's birth to his deathbed, with equal parts of attention being paid to his personal life and his professional life.

Some people might be disappointed by the fact that Baldwin doesn't fawn over Edison the man, but I appreciated the objectivity. While Edison's famous work ethic and engineering genius earned him the mythic status that he holds in the public imagination, his home life was troubled, unsurprising for anyone who is at the top of their field. Bringing some of the less savory aspects of Edison into the light de-mythologizes him somewhat, but this is done in the service of truth, and I generally find that this makes for a better biography.

I notice that other reviewers have criticized Baldwin's lack of science credentials, but I didn't find that to be a problem, either. Edison wasn't a scientist himself, in the sense that a nuclear physicist or a chemist is a scientist. Edison was an inventor. He made things, and the basis of his creations was generally not an abstract scientific concept that would be difficult for laymen to grasp. That being said, I do wish that there were some diagrams and sketches, which would have given us a more clear picture of the nuts and bolts of Edison's work.

I was actually surprised to see the simplicity of most of Edison's inventions. It seemed that his real genius lay more in tinkering with an existing idea until the dream of a working practical application became reality.

Another big surprise to me was how much of Edison's role depended on his ability to market himself. He and the media collaborated to give him an extremely high profile. While I don't want to belittle his amazing acheivements, his profile is much higher than others who, it can be argued, made equal or even greater contributions to society.

My biggest problem with this work was that it was kind of boring. Baldwin has found some fascinating anecdotes and facts about Edison, but they are mixed in with too many dull details. The writing itself is generally quite dry, with more of a textbook atmosphere than some other successful modern nonfiction works.

Despite this, there are some fascinating and bizarre aspects of Edison that Baldwin gives their due. For example, in Edison's old age, when his hearing went, his wife used to keep him up to date on the dinner conversation by tapping morse code onto his thigh. He also lived on almost nothing but milk and the occasional bit of bread for the last two years of his life.

Overall, I would recommend this book to the person who is serious about getting the real story of Thomas Edison. If you're looking for a more entertaining read, or one which treads lightly around his mythic status, go elsewhere.

Edison the man
In this biography of the great inventor, Neil Baldwin chooses to emphasize Edison the person rather than focusing on the inventions, as some earlier biographers had done. Perhaps for this reason, though the book is thorough, it reads somewhat shallow. Of all the inventions of Edison, Baldwin writes in detail only about 2 of them: the phonograph and motion pictures. He also spends a great deal of space covering Edison's work in the iron ore mine he owned in Ogdensburg, NJ, and his experiments with rubber, both of which produced negligible results. I found Matthew Josephson's 1959 biography on Edison to be much better.

Z-zzzzz
If this is your first look into Thomas Edison, find a different book. It was a constant struggle to finish this one, I had to force myself to go on. A cure for insomnia ... Read more