by Tom Zoellner (2009)
The fascinating story of the most powerful source of energy the earth can yieldUranium is a common element in the earth’s crust and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order—whoever could master uranium could master the world.Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan Project gave us reason to believe that civilization would end with apocalypse. Slave labor camps in Africa and Eastern Europe were built around mine shafts and America would knowingly send more than six hundred uranium miners to their graves in the name of national security.Fortunes have been made from this yellow dirt; massive energy grids have been run from it. Fear of it panicked the American people into supporting a questionable war with Iraq and its specter threatens to create another conflict in Iran. Now, some are hoping it can help avoid a global warming catastrophe.In Uranium, Tom Zoellner takes readers around the globe in this intriguing look at the mineral that can sustain life or destroy it.
Norman Lebrecht
The close friendship between Martin Simmonds and violin prodigy Dovidl Rappoport, two Jewish boys living in London between the 1930s and the end of World War II, is threatened by the unexpected disappearance of Dovidl on the eve of his debut performance.
Cynthia L. Girling, Kenneth I. Helphand
Nearly half of all Americans now reside in suburbia. Lured by the prospect of the "golden mean" of city and country, privacy and community, nature and designed space, city dwellers, for more than a century, have been fleeing the crush of urban life in greater and greater numbers for suburban developments. Unfortunately, the American suburb has rarely succeeded in delivering on its promise of the "best of both worlds," with a more intimate sense of community and enhanced personal freedom. Yard Street Park was designed to help suburban community designers and planners deliver on the traditional promise of the best of both worlds. The authors take a hard look at more than a century of suburban planning and reconsider aspects of most developer-designed suburbs. They offer design alternatives based on open space planning methods that can be applied to new or existing developments to transform them into sustainable, livable communities. A central feature of the authors' planning approach is a comprehensive system of open space networks linking the private world of yards to parks and commons of all scales - from neighborhood tot lots, to local and regional park systems - well-connected by greenways and streets designed for pedestrian and bike traffic. In their explorations of the problems inherent to most suburban developments, Professors Girling and Helphand take a broad historical perspective. They critically examine various planning theories and bring to light the historical roots of modern suburbia, including nineteenth- and early twentieth-century and post-World War II developments, such as Riverside, Garden Cities, Radburn, and Levittown. They also analyze a number of "classic" successes such as Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland. They closely examine new trends in suburban design to see what lessons can be learned from Technoburbs like Irvine, California and Scottsdale, Arizona, Ecoburbs such as The Woodlands in Texas and Village Homes in Davis, California, and the neotraditional communities designed by Calthorpe and Duany/Plater-Zyberk. Offering the prospect of a fresh start for suburban communities, Yard Street Park is a valuable resource for landscape architects, architects, planners, and developers.
James Miller
"Where did Rock and Roll come from? And what has it come to?"--BOOK JACKET. "These are the sorts of questions that cultural historian and veteran music journalist Jim Miller raises in his new book about the rise - and arrested development - of rock and roll. Concentrating on the music in its early, formative decades, he explores how rock and roll was transformed from a joyous and sometimes earthy dance music in the 1940s into an abrasive, often angry art music by the end of the 1970s. Along the way, he celebrates a culture of youthful exuberance - and critically analyzes how it was organized into a billion-dollar global industry."--BOOK JACKET.
Amy Hest
Katie, a Jewish girl living in New York City during World War II, sees many dynamic changes in her world as she ages from seven to ten waiting for her father to return from the war.