The mapmakers

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Duane A. Smith

In 1861, Colorado was a newly named territory. Four years later it was forever changed, by the Civil War that had been raging back East and by its own development and the evolution of mining. The Colorado that emerged in the spring of 1865 was no longer the frontier that had found itself in a war. That frontier, that time, that way of life, all had passed. This is the story of Colorado and its people during the years of the Civil War, 1861-1865. It is not, however, a military history. Using original sources ranging from letters, diaries, journals, and reminiscences to government reports and newspaper stories, the book captures an important period in Colorado's mining, political, and economic development. -- from book jacket.

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Glenn Kay and Michael Rose

Complete with a foreword by Mike Nelson, host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, this dynamic guide to one of Hollywood's most popular and enduring genres provides a history of the disaster genre, descriptions of its trends and unusual traits, portraits of famous stars, and reviews of more than 150 disaster movies. The films reviewed include everything from famous titles such as The Poseidon Adventure, Titanic, and The Towering Inferno to more obscure movies such as The Night the World Exploded, Terror on the 40th Floor, and War Between the Planets. Casual disaster-movie fans, as well as die-hard lovers of the genre will benefit from the rating system, which ranges from "Highly Recommended" to "Avoid at All Costs," and the dubious "Recommended for All the Wrong Reasons."

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Paul Theerman and Adele F. Seeff

This volume grows out of a symposium commemorating the three-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, held at the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution in 1987. Widely acknowledged to be the most important scientific work ever published, the 1687 Principia contains the first complete statement of principles that were to govern physical science into the nineteenth century. Presented here is a sampling of the best current scholarship on the Principia, its context, and its influence. The essays reflect the depth of inquiry and diversity of research that have characterized the last generation of work on Newton. The volume opens with an essay by Richard S. Westfall that justifies claims that Newton was the "culmination of the scientific revolution." The I. Bernard Cohen essay that follows illustrates the difference between "mathematical principles" and "natural philosophy." Two complementary papers give new insights into the Newtonian foundations of celestial mechanics: William Harper analyzes Newton's argument for universal gravitation from the perspective of a philosopher of science; Michael S. Mahoney discusses the mathematical aspects of Newton's use of force law to determine planetary orbits. B.J.T. Dobbs uses her research on alchemy to develop an integrated view of Newton's work, while P.E. Spargo explores the alchemistic theme in his paper on chemical experiments. Studies of comets are linked to the seventeenth-century political context in a novel way by Simon Schaffer. Anita Guerrini proves that Newton's concepts of the structure of matter and ether inspired speculations about the nature of insanity, while Norriss Hetherington shows that Newton's formulation of natural laws served as an inspirational model for Adam Smith's formulation of economic laws. Arthur Donovan argues that Lavoisier's formulation of chemistry was not carried out in imitation of Newtonian natural philosophy but initiated a new tradition of "positive science." Frank Wilczek looks back from the perspective of contemporary physics and sees the seeds of modern ideas about transformations in Newton's admittedly speculative Queries. The volume concludes with a short overview by Dudley Shapere.

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Marvin McAllister

An exploration of the career of William Brown, a 19th-century free man of colour, who pioneered theatrical spaces for black New Yorkers, hitherto denied access to whites-only venues. The text explores these intercultural, multiracial environments and investigates negative white reactions.