by John H. Lienhard ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2000
All told, lots of neat stories of invention and inventors, told by a witness and participant who deplores the passive voice....
An elaboration on the NPR broadcasts made by Lienhard (Mechanical Engineering/Univ. of Houston), who contends, basically, that machines are us.
Lienhard begins with history, examining the growth of technology from the chance mutations that created plump-grained wheat (which required threshing) to the emergence of the computer. Lienhard observes that the interactions between society and technology result in machines that reflect social needs while also acting as the instruments of social change. Medieval monks, for example, brought hydropower and wind power to Europe and inspired a quest for perpetual motion, which led to the invention of mechanical clocks, which then became a necessity once the Black Death had decimated Europe and put a premium on time and how it should be spent. While historians may question that particular chain of connections (as well as others that Lienhard puts forth), his wealth of detail about the who, the what, and the how of pivotal inventions is quite wonderful. One of the best chapters deals with priority, in which one learns of all the unsung predecessors of Bell’s telephone, Fulton’s steamboat, Morse’s telegraph, Edison’s light bulb, and Benz’s automobile. Another chapter underscores how machines come to reveal their purpose—recounting, for example, how the telephone was initially regarded primarily as a business tool while typewriters were considered a novelty, never meant to replace the handwritten letter. In due course Lienhard discusses spectacular failures of technology—bridge collapses, airplane crashes, etc.—and he makes the surprising point that (at least in terms of airplanes) it is designed instability that enables maneuverability and hence safety. However, his general conclusion is that “success breeds complacency breeds failure breeds caution”—which leads again to success, hubris, and on to failure.
All told, lots of neat stories of invention and inventors, told by a witness and participant who deplores the passive voice. “You and I have made the world we live in,” he says—and he, for one, rejoices in it.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-19-513583-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
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by Tom Wolfe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 1979
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.
But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.
But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Richard Rhodes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1986
A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0684813785
Page Count: 932
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986
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