Other books that might interest you

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  NASA’s Space Race Programs: The...

  Charles River Editors

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  Today the Space Race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 “winning” the Race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the Solar System. Moreover, the notion that America “won” the Space Race at the end of the 1960s overlooks just how competitive the Space Race actually was in launching people into orbit, as well as the major contributions the Space Race influenced in leading to today’s International Space Station and continued space exploration. 
  The Apollo space program is the most famous and celebrated in American history, but the first successful landing of men on the Moon during Apollo 11 had complicated roots dating back over a decade. Landing on the Moon presented an ideal goal all on its own, but the government’s urgency in designing the Apollo program was actually brought about by the Soviet Union, which spent much of the 1950s leaving the United States in its dust (and rocket fuel). In 1957, at a time when people were concerned about communism and nuclear war, many Americans were dismayed by news that the Soviet Union was successfully launching satellites into orbit. 
  Throughout the 1960s, NASA would spend tens of billions on missions to the Moon, the most expensive peacetime program in American history to that point, and Apollo was only made possible by the tests conducted through earlier missions. Of course, by the time it was all done, Americans sure felt the cost was worth it as they watched the first live shots of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon. As he left his first footprint on the Moon, Armstrong transmitted one of the 20th century’s most famous phrases: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

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  The Big Roads - The Untold Story...

  Earl Swift

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  A man-made wonder, a connective network, an economic force, a bringer of blight and sprawl and the possibility of escape-the U.S. interstate system transformed America. The Big Roads presents the surprising history of how we got from dirt tracks to expressways in the space of a single lifetime.Earl Swift brings to light the visionaries who created these essential highways as well as the critics and citizens who questioned their headlong expansion throughout the country, including:Carl Fisher, the irrepressible car-racing entrepreneur who spurred the push for good roads in the early years of the automobile, built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and made a fortune creating Miami Beach, only to lose it all;Thomas MacDonald, chief among a handful of driven engineers who conceived of the interstates and how they would work, years before President Eisenhower knew the plans existed;Lewis Mumford, the critic whose crusade against America's budding love affair with the automobile-and the ever bigger roads it required-now seems prescient;Joe Wiles, an African American family man turned activist, one of thousands of ordinary citizens in dozens of cities who found their homes and communities targeted by the concrete juggernaut-and were unwilling to be uprooted in the name of progress.In mapping a fascinating route through the dreams, discoveries, and protests that shaped these mighty roads, Swift shows that the interstates embody the wanderlust, grand scale, and conflicting notions of citizenship that define America.

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  Tales of a Poultry Farm

  Clara Dillingham Pierson

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  Another interesting book by Clara Dillingham Pierson, this time focusing on the poultry you might have in your farmyard! The chickens, ducks, and turkeys get some new experiences as a new owner comes to the farm, and does some things that seem very odd to them. Learn along with the chickens about the new owner, and also some other things that are worse, like the awful hook worms that some young chickens experienced when they disobeyed their mom. This book is just as interesting as the others by this author, so enjoy living in the poultry yard for a while! (Summary by Trotsa)

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  Lost Feast - Culinary Extinction...

  Lenore Newman

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  A rollicking exploration of the history and future of our favorite foods. 
  When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future. Whether it's chasing down the luscious butter of local Icelandic cattle or looking at the impacts of modern industrialized agriculture on the range of food varieties we can put in our shopping carts, Newman's bright, intelligent gaze finds insight and humor at every turn. 
  Bracketing the chapters that look at the history of our relationship to specific foods, Lenore enlists her ecologist friend and fellow cook, Dan, in a series of "extinction dinners" designed to recreate meals of the past or to illustrate how we might be eating in the future. Part culinary romp, part environmental wake-up call, Lost Feast makes a critical contribution to our understanding of food security today. You will never look at what's on your plate in quite the same way again.

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  Aztec Astronomy and Astrology:...

  Charles River Editors

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  Nearly 500 years after the Spanish conquered their mighty empire, the Aztecs are often remembered today for their major capital, Tenochtitlan, as well as being fierce conquerors of the Valley of Mexico who often engaged in human sacrifice rituals. Unlike the Maya, the Aztecs are not widely viewed or remembered with nuance, in part because their own leader burned extant Aztec writings and rewrote a mythologized history explaining his empire’s dominance less than a century before the Spanish arrived. Naturally, Cortes and other Spaniards depicted the Aztecs as savages greatly in need of conversion to Catholicism. While the Maya are remembered for their astronomy, numeral system, and calendar, the Aztecs have primarily been remembered in a far narrower way, despite continuing to be a source of pride to Mexicans through the centuries. 
  	For the Aztec, astronomy was not a purely scientific pursuit but intimately linked to religious, mythological, and ideological elements that were of the highest importance. The celestial realm held a sacred nature, as did the many gods and goddesses that dwelt there, so for all Mesoamerican cultures, astronomy was a fundamental part of their daily lives. Thus, astronomy was present in their calendars, religion, and even agriculture, and in close relation to astronomy, the concept of time was also an essential part of their worldview. The Aztec recorded many of the astronomical events they observed in codices and hieroglyphic inscriptions, but the main evidence of their deep astronomical knowledge comes from their calendar system. This information was then used to plan the orientation of buildings and ceremonial centers, which were aligned to sunrises or sunsets corresponding to special dates, such as solstices or equinoxes. Observational calendars were also used to schedule agricultural activities, as well as rituals, festivals, and celebrations, on an annual cycle.

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  Summary of Getting to Yes:...

  SpeedReader Summaries

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  The SpeedReader Summary of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury 
  Inside, you’ll find: 
  ·     An introduction to Getting to Yes and its authors 
  ·     Time-saving chapter summaries 
  ·     A big picture recap of the Atomic Habits’s main principles 
  ·     Discussion and commentary 
  ·     Action steps to take 
  ·     Additional resources, like printables, videos, and podcasts 
  About Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury 
   If you plan to ask for a raise, negotiate for more flexibility at work, put together a business deal, or find a solution to an ongoing source of conflict with your spouse in the future, Getting to Yes is a book you should read. Getting to Yes gives you a start-to-finish system for “principled negotiation” Principled negotiation is a methodology where parties work together to address their mutual interests with creative, fair solutions. According to the book’s authors, Roger Fisher and William Ury, principled negotiation is the complete opposite of our conventional image of negotiation: two parties stubbornly engaged in a battle of will, each laser-focused on his or her own interests at the expense of the other’s interests.  
  Getting to Yes provides a framework to allow you to achieve a good outcome for both sides, beginning with teaching you how to determine whether to negotiate at all and what you should consider a positive outcome. By listening carefully to each other, treating each other with fairness, and exploring options together, negotiators can get to yes in ways that reduce the need to rely on hard-bargaining and needless concessions.

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