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Growing American Rubber explores America's quest during tense decades of the twentieth century to identify a viable source of domestic rubber. Straddling international revolutions and world wars, this unique and well-researched history chronicles efforts of leaders in business, science, and government to sever American dependence on foreign suppliers. Mark Finlay plots out intersecting networks of actors including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, prominent botanists, interned Japanese Americans, Haiti...

Now reissued, having been unobtainable for many years, this spectacular book, the first to be devoted entirely to the period of the automaton's apogee, is an essential addition to the library of the collector, the specialist, and all who are interested in automata. An introductory chapter depicts the Paris in which automaton-makers lived and worked, its atmosphere, preoccupations and amusements. There follow the little-known histories of the seven leading makers, from their foundation in the mid...

In this book of World War II reminiscences, edited by "flying ace" Laddie Lucas, airmen from both sides of all nationalities recall memorable characters they met in the air forces. There are intimate, first-hand portraits of the famous and the not-so-famous, from heroes like Leonard Cheshire, Douglas Bader and Johnnie Johnson to the legendary Commanders-in-Chief like Sir Arthur ("Bomber") Harris, their pilots, air and ground crews and operational personnel. Here, remembered for their courage, co...

As technology transforms our lives at an ever quickening rate, Donald Cardwell reminds us that technological innovation is not created in a vacuum rather, it is the product of the successful interaction between social change, scientific developments, and political vision. In this wide-ranging, "spirited" (Booklist) survey of the machines and tools that humans have developed throughout history, Cardwell not only explains the mechanical technicalities but also delves into the underlying trends tha...

We are not all born with equal opportunities. Yet there have been countless women who have overcome a range of barriers such as prejudice, illness, and personal tragedy to advance our understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). They used their knowledge to change the world, and their stories are fascinating. This book offers a concise introduction to the lives of 45 women, taking you into the cultural and social context of the world they lived in. Through their int...

Charles Ortloff provides a new perspective on archaeological studies of the urban and agricultural water supply and distribution systems of the major ancient civilizations of South America, the Middle East, and South-East Asia, by using modern computer analysis methods to extract the true hydraulic/hydrological knowledge base available to these peoples. His many new revelations about the capabilities and innovations of ancient water engineers force us to re-evaluate what was known and practised...

The years between roughly 1760 and 1810, a period stretching from the rise of Joseph Haydn's career to the height of Ludwig van Beethoven's, are often viewed as a golden age for musical culture, when audiences started to revel in the sounds of the concert hall. But the latter half of the eighteenth century also saw proliferating optical technologies-including magnifying instruments, magic lanterns, peepshows, and shadow-plays-that offered new performance tools, fostered musical innovation, and s...

The essays collected in this volume address the digital humanities' core tensions: fast and slow; surficial and nuanced; quantitative and qualitative. Scholars design algorithms and projects to process, aggregate, encode, and regularize historical texts and artifacts in order to position them for new and further interpretations. Every essay in this book is concerned with the human-machine dynamic, as it bears on early modern research objects and methods. The interpretive work in these pages and...

This volume contains 18 papers presented at the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress and Great Rivers History Symposium held in Kansas City, Missouri, from May 17 to 21, 2009. ""Great Rivers History"" focuses on the great rivers of the world and the engineering challenges of balancing the urgency for development and growth with the environmental need for a sustainable future. This seminal collection offers a fascinating history of: the Paris sewer system; the Turtle Creek Reservoir;...