Product Description
A clear and moving record of one woman's healing from cult and ritual abuse, Spirit Alive shares the process of healing through understanding and integration , demystifies the meaning of classical Multiple Personality Disorder and counteracts mainstream sensationalizing of cult and ritual abuse.Releasing the pain and fear licked inside for years and learning to trust her ability to heal, Jedelinn remembers, copes, accepts, denies, rages, learns, feels, challenges, mourns. She reaches beyond survival, beyond a crowded internal prison of many voices. Through courage, honesty and trust, she finds joy and compassion, and she declares her spirit alive.Spirit Alive is invaluable to survivors of cult and ritual abuse, to their children , relations and friends, to therapists and other social workers, and to general readers. ... Read more

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A biography of Adam Smith (1723-1790), author of The Wealth of Nations, including sections on "The Beginning Of A Career," "Theology & Religious Establishments," and "Glasgow & Its University" (and an index).

Francis W. Hirst (1873-1953) was a British economist and author of The Political Economy of War. In 1907 Hirst was appointed editor of The Economist. ... Read more

Product Description

The development of Valium by Roche Pharmaceutical and the entire benzodiazepine group of active substances was among the greatest accomplishments in 20th-century pharmacology.

Good Chemistry combines a detailed account of this momentous development with an engaging biography of Leo Sternbach, the brilliant chemist who invented Valium and whose achievements heralded the beginning of a new era in research and therapeutics. This thought-provoking biographical history:

• Tells the fascinating life story of one of the 20th century's premier chemists
• Traces the developments that led to the invention of Valium
• Provides a cultural history of Valium and its impact on society

Customer Reviews (1)

A pat on his back by his peers
Perhaps my poor rating has something to do with the fact that this is the first biography I have read, which is not an autobiography. I was really disappointed in the way the general theme behind every historical tale was what a great, hardworking, persevering and smart guy Leo Sternbach is. Now I'm not disputing the truth of those things, it's just that compared with the nit and grit of an autobiography, this celebration of a man just doesn't cut it.

As for the second half of the book, it's almost as unbalanced as the first. It is an advertisement for benzodiazepines, and a complaint at the unfair treatment they have had in society. I felt uneasy while reading, like maybe I should be checking the sources because it was all too good to be true. That said there is a lot of information in there and I have learned a lot about the benzodiazepine class of drugs. I appreciated the clear explanations of the pharmacological aspects of the drugs.

I also noticed a lot of rough edges between the various authors, such as repeated information. Given the lack of depth I don't think it was necessary to have more than one or two authors at most.

As a read it lacks the anecdotes to keep it interesting. As a science book it lacks the depth to use it as guide or reference. ... Read more

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In seventeenth-century Britain, a new breed of `curious' gardeners was pushing at the frontiers of knowledge and new plants were stealing into Europe from East and West.John Tradescant and his son were at the vanguard of this change: as gardeners, as collectors and above all as exemplars of an age that began in wonder and ended with the dawning of science. Jennifer Potter's book evokes vividly the drama of their lives and takes its readers to the edge of an expanding universe. Strange Blooms is a magnificentpleasure for gardeners and non-gardeners alike. ... Read more

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was an exceptionally prolific and versatile writer. As a student, he composed pastoral plays in the style of the waning Rococo. With "Götz von Berlichingen", a drama conceived in the spirit of Shakespeare, he joined the avant-garde 'Storm and Stress' authors. When he was twenty-five, he wrote the epistolary novel Sorrows of Young Werther, eliciting fervent responses among those who rejected the traditions of the Enlightenment. In his tragedy"Faust", which evolved over a sixty-year period, he created a prototype of the Romantic hero. His lyric poetry has been translated into many languages. As minister of state in the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar he dealt with financial, ecological, and cultural issues. A scientist active in various fields, including botany and the theory of colors, he pondered aspects of evolution well before Darwin. Based on his studies in literary theory he developed a concept of 'world literature' that he hoped would foster communication among writers of different nations. Among his early admirers in England and America were Lord Byron, Thomas Carlyle, Joseph Cogswell, and Ralph Waldo Emerson ... Read more

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The late Abraham Pais wrote the definitive biography of Albert Einstein, "Subtle is the Lord" which won an American Book Award. As a distinguished physicist and Einstein's colleague, Pais combined a sophisticated understanding of physics with first-hand knowledge of this notoriously private individual, offering rare insights into both. It is his unique double perspective that makes his work so valuable.Now, in Shatterer of Worlds, Abraham Pais offers an illuminating portrait of another eminent colleague, J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures of modern physics. Pais introduces us to a precocious youth who sped through Harvard in three years, made signal contributions to quantum mechanics while in his twenties, and was instrumental in the growth of American physics in the decade before the Second World War, almost single-handedly putting American physics on the map. Pais paints a revealing portrait of Oppenheimer's life in Los Alamos, where in twenty remarkable, feverish months, under his inspired leadership, the first atomic bomb was designed and built, a success that made Oppenheimer America's most famous scientist. Pais, who was his next-door neighbor for many years, describes Oppenheimer's long tenure as Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, but also shows how Oppenheimer's intensity and arrogance won him powerful enemies, who would ultimately make him one of the principal victims of the Red Scare of the 1950s.Told with compassion and deep insight, Shatterer of Worlds is the most comprehensive biography of the great physicist available. It is Abraham Pais's final work, completed after his death by Robert P. Crease, an acclaimed historian of science in his own right. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

NotFor The Non-Professional
While I generally agree with the authors of the reviews below that this book provides insight into Oppenheimer's character, the development of IAS, and the inner workings of the Manhattan Project, I did not find this biography helpful inunderstanding either Oppenheimer's scientific work or the wider scientific research in quantum theory in which he played a role.I took to reading the "science" chapters with my laptop, set to Wikipedia, at my side, because -- perhaps because he died before revising or expanding the chapters that he had completed -- Pais does not define, let alone explain, any of the concepts and theories underlying Oppenheimer's research, but merely summarizes those ideas as though he were addressing an audience ofscience professionals. While no scientist, I'm not a science illiterate. Yet I understood very few of the descriptions in this book of Oppenheimer's actual scientific work. Therefore, I'd recommend this bio to readers interested in learning more about Oppenheimer's life, the history of IAS and the birth of the atomic age, but not to those nonscientists who want to learn more about Oppenheimer's research.

Gripping True Story
A gripping review of the man who really created the atomic bomb and fought to stop the hydrogen bomb.Read this book and find out why

The best book on Oppie at IAS
There have been several good biographies of Oppenheimer in the past few years. As biographies the others are probably better. This book though has two real advantages over the others:

First, Abraham Pais was a physicist himself. He worked with Oppenheimer and knew all or most of the significant physicists involved with atomic energy during and after the war. His insights on the physics being done at the time is very insightful.

Second, Oppenheimer is most known for Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. But after that, after he lost his security clearance Oppenheimer was head of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. This is where Pais knew him and it is in this part of his life that this book excells.

Oppenheimer was an enigmatic person. He was certainly an accomplished physicist. Not perhaps the equal of the very best, but clearly on the first string. Oppenheimer's work in physics earned him what might be called an honorable mention in the history books. Oppenheimer's work as a manager of the project and as director of the institute required not brilliance in physics but managerial capabilities far beyond those exhibited by other physicists of the time (with the possible exception of Edward Teller).

Oppenheimer's expulsion from Government service over security issues was one of the travesties of the McCarthy era. It seems though that his subsequent work at the IAS gave him enough pleasure that he was not unhappy. He continued to work at the forefront of physics.

If you want to know more about Oppenheimer's life before and during the war, look to other books. If you want some insight into his later life and into the depth of his character, this is the best book I have found. ... Read more

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Betty Berzon, renowned psychotherapist and author of the bestselling book Permanent Partners, tells her own incredible story here. Berzon’s journey from psychiatric patient on suicide watch—her wrists tethered to the bed rails in a locked hospital ward—to her present role as a groundbreaking therapist and gay pioneer makes for purely compelling reading.

Berzon is recognized today as a trailblazing co-founder of a number of important lesbian and gay organizations and one of the first therapists to focus on means of developing healthy gay relationships and overcoming homophobia. Her sometimes bumpy road to success never fails to fascinate. Along the way she encounters such luminaries as Anaïs Nin, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Sitwells, Evelyn Hooker, and Paul Monette. Her recollections here provide a collective portrait of her fellow pioneers and a stirring lesson in twentieth-century history.

It is, however, the intimate story of Berzon’s own private passage toward self-discovery—from mental breakdown and suicide attempts, through hospitalization, eventual triumphant recovery, and her own coming out as an open lesbian at the age of forty—that makes this memoir an urgent, insightful, and deeply emotional testament to human survival.

"Betty Berzon is a treasure to the gay civil rights movement, a pioneering therapist who has shown many the way in battling homophobia. Now, in Surviving Madness, we get a rich account of the fascinating journey of her own life, the remarkable people and places that punctuated it, and the war that raged inside her head within a culture that has often demonized homosexuality. It is an enthralling, instructive, and ultimately uplifting story."—Michelangelo Signorile, author of Queer in America and Life Outside ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Excellent historical account--just rather impersonal
This book is well-written and covers a lot of ground; it was just too impersonal for my tastes. The book starts out with the air of a traditional memoir, but towards the latter half it changes tone and becomes more of an historical account. It's an excellent history of the gay/lesbian rights movement as seen through Berzon's eyes; unfortunately, if you're not familiar with the players in that movement then it's easy to lose your bearings.Berzon's rise from the depths is inspiring, however, no matter what your background.It just got lost for me in all the names and dates towards the end of the book.

Surviving Madness: A Therapist's Own Story
A very compelling story of a top Psychotherapist who was also a deeply closted lesbian for the 1st half of her life and a gay activist in the 2nd half. Ms. Berzon opens her heart to the reader as she shares her joys and her sufferings. She is also an excellent writer and for readers who would like to become writers, she offers some valuable insight.

what an amazing journey!
Difficult to imagine that this revered guru of same-sex relationships was for many years the victim of her own internalized homophobia. The highs and lows of Berzon's life are vividly recounted, punctuated with names of friends like Anais Nin, Evelyn Hooker, Paul Monette, and Michael Murphy. It's no spoiler to say that she ultimately found happiness in a long-term relationship, making her tale that much more inspiring. Highly recommended.

Opening Your Soul
An unbelievable journey that shows courage, an innate ability to survive, and a strength of character we all wish we could emulate. I know Surviving Madness was written with tears, because I shed them in so many parts of her story.

Once I started reading the book I didn't stop till I had finished. What greater review can you give.... ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (10)

More of a political analysis than a biography
I was truly hoping for more from this. There have been a lot of biographies in recent years on important individuals in the early Nasa years. In most of them James Webb is almost a shadow as he was an administrator and wasn't involved in the day to day operations of the astronauts and engineers. Webb's world however was still extremely important as it was he who dealt with the important political and administrative side of Nasa through the 60s. The problem with this book however is largely that the author is more interested in writing a book on politics than a biography of James Webb.

The problems with this book start early on. An example of the author's lack of interest in writing an actual biography comes in covering Webb coming from Oklahoma where he worked in the oil industry to Washington DC. It mentions that Webb was wanted in Washington in part due to his experience in the the field of law. The problem is that up to that point in the book the author has never mentioned once that Webb had any experience in law. I actually went back at this point in the book and tried to find mention of this but there is none. In fact the author doesn't even mention where Webb went to college or what he majored in. We literally go from Webb as a teen doing normal small town jobs to him being a pilot flying with Ivy leaguers in one paragraph. This is done in such a general way so we don't even really find out anything like what planes he flew.

It's very clear at this point that the author has done little actual research on Webb's life prior to Nasa. The book just hops from point to point with little connection between some of the sections. The author is simply interested in specific political moments in the history of Nasa in the 1960s and that is all he really wants to talk about. Webb throughout the book feels almost like a tool to get from one political or administrative battle to another.

Another small problem throughout the book is the author's own political bias. While not overpowering it's there enough to be a annoying from time to time. Early on in the book for example he describes how Webb was a Democrat. He then waxes on for several sentences about this was because of all the wonderful things that the Democratic party believes in. This happens off and on throughout the entire book. While never overpowering it is a distraction as here you are reading about something and suddenly the author goes off for a short bit to again mention how wonderful the Democrats are. He doesn't do a very good job of hiding what he is doing either. It leaves you with the feeling that the author doesn't credit his reader with being smart enough to recognize what he's doing.

In the end I have the feeling the author wanted to strictly write a book about the politics of Nasa and the space program in the 1960s. I have a feeling he was sidetracked by the publisher into making it a biography as they tend to be higher profile in this area and higher profile means more sales. Unfortunate as I think if it was approached strictly as a book on the administrative and political world of Nasa in the 1960s it would have been a pretty good book. As it is we're left with a book that is half of one thing, half of another and not very good at being either.

Interesting book but with author's bias
This is a great book in the sense that it is giving insights into the the political side of how Apollo (plus Gemini and the NASA centers) were run.There are a multitude of fine technical books on the manned space program so this one does a great job of filling the gap on the political and management side of the house.

What was a bit unsettling is how the author's personal politics kept popping up time and time again.After the tenth (and twentieth) time reading it, I was pretty sure that Webb was a Democratic who believed in the New Deal ideals that Roosevelt initiated.In summary, Democrats are good, Republicans are bad, and New Deal Dems are the best.That message came through loud and clear.Like the reviewer below, I wondered too if there were any errors of omission so that the author could paint history to best suit his personal views.As long as you keep that in mind, this book does deliver information not found in the standard Apollo histories.

One amusing part where the book shows how times have changed in the few years since it was written is when Webb is going to Congress to get the funding and he asks for $20B.The author has a footnote where he says that $20B may not seem like a lot of money today, but adjusted for inflation Apollo would be like asking for $140B in 2006 dollars.After the recent bank bailouts and TARP funds, $140B for a technological leap like Apollo seems like a bargain.

Fundamentally excellent, but....
The story of the political battles and management difficulties of the Apollo program has gotten short shrift in the overwhelming coverage of the technical aspects.This is quite understandable, but books like this are essential to covering the history of Apollo.
Regrettably, the wanderings into the personal politics and biases of the author caused me to suspect how much he might have covered up or eliminated as a historian, for personal reasons.For example, to blame the defunding of the Apollo program on the Nixon administration is extremely disingenuous, considering it was a Democratic Congress that refused to allocate the funds, preferring instead to shift the money to "problems here on Earth."
Similar issues throughout make this a history that needs to be approached with caution.For a reader knowledgeable of the real politics of the time, I'd give it 4 stars.

Great book, despite some grammer problems
Although Bizney's writing style is a little informal and sometimes grammatically wrong, the book is great in itself is great!

We've all read about the astronauts who made it to the moon and their stories. We've all read about the spacecraft that were used, but no one has really said much about how it was all put together.

Bizney writes about James E. Webb, the director of NASA at the time of Mercury, Gemini, and part of Apollo. He talks about all of the politicking that went into the space program, the struggles that went on behind the scenes and the flaws that almost ground Apollo before it even began. He discusses the problems with contractors and how the capsule and Saturn V were flawed at the start of the program, but eventually fixed.

This is a great read for anyone who is as much of a space nerd as I am and for anyone who wants to know how NASA works behind the scenes.

Behind The Gloss
At last its good to find a book which covers the politics behind any large government organisation, and especially one as large as NASA. This book complements the huge number of technology offerings on the early days of spaceflight, and then to the moon. It was interesting to see how NASA went through the various phases of an entrepreneurial company, and almost distructing, before re-inventing itself several times over.
Mr Bizony has made a good effort in trying to distill a large period oftime and a number of memorable events into a readable volume without getting too sidetracked in the huge undetaking of man going to the moon.
I have found this a good contrast to the Robert Godwin Apollo Mission Reports. ... Read more

Product Description
This book offers glimpses into the personal and scholarly lives of 20 giants in the history of psychology. As in the earlier volumes, prominent scholars were invited to prepare chapters on a pioneer who had made important contributions in their own area of expertise. Some of the psychologists described may be the teachers of the instructors who will be the users of this book, potentially providing a personal connection of the pioneers to the students. A special section provides brief portraits of the editors and authors, containing interesting information about the relationship between the pioneers and the psychologists who describe them.

Utilizing an informal, personal, sometimes humorous, style of writing, the book will appeal to students and instructors interested in the history of psychology. Each of the five volumes in this series contains different profiles thereby bringing more than 100 of the pioneers in psychology more vividly to life.
... Read more

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Product Description
In this straightforward memoir, McAuliffe's mother, Grace George Corrigan, makes it very clear just who and what the nation lost in the Challenger tragedy. The product of family history, notes and letters, this is a very personal biography of a remarkable woman. 32 photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Well written
This book is written by the mother of the Late Christa McAullife.It was a wonderful book!Interesting and a inside look at the excitement they felt being chosen then the tradgedy they felt after the Loss of her.It basicly is a bio about Christa.

An Uplifting Story of Life
Unlike most books about Christa McAuliffe this one discuses Christa's life before the selection as teacher in space as well as after the selection process and it is written by the person who knew her like no one else, her mother. We learn of Christa's childhood and her spirt and joy that stayed with her during the course of her whole life. Nothing could take this away from her and with it she enriched and touched the lives of every student she had. Corrigan's book using letters and family history paints a touching portrait of Christa no one else could. Everyone should read this book and it will uplift you farther than you ever thought possible and give you a whole new out look on teachers and what the power they have to uplift. No matter what your backround is you will benefit from having read this book.

A Touching Memoir
This book is honest and touching. Rarely do we receive the privelege of being allowed into the heart of a mother who has lost a son or daughter. So much is learned from Corrigan's novel. ... Read more

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Winner of the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir

Jeffery Smith was living in Missoula, Montana, working as a psychiatric case manager when his own clinical depression began. Eventually, all his prescribed antidepressant medications proved ineffective. Unlike so many personal accounts, Where the Roots Reach for Water tells the story of what happened to Smith after he decided to give them up. Trying to learn how to make a life with his illness, Smith sets out to get at the essence of--using the old term for depression--melancholia.

Deftly woven into his "personal history" is a "natural history" of this ancient illness. Drawing on centuries of art, writing and medical treatises, Smith finds ancient links between melancholia and spirituality, love and sex, music and philosophy, gardening, and, importantly, our relationship with landscapes.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

A Non-conventional Way of Coping with Depression
As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist , I read a lot of books on depression and have treated a lot of clients with depression.This is a memoir and description of melancholia/depression told from a different slant than other books I have read. While I believe that the author's coping mechanisms worked for him, this book should not be taken as gospel on the treatment of depression.

Historically, Smith examines the 'saturnine' and 'black bile' concepts attributed to the etiology of melancholia.He decides to find his personal 'roots' without antidepressants. His discovery ends with a belief in his sense of place.This sense of place is the environment and its impact on emotions, coupled with faith.For Smith, faith involves faith in oneself, faith in intimacy and knowing one is lovable, and faith in God.He sees these faiths as necessary precursors to living through melancholia and perhaps even understanding its purpose.

As a licensed professional, I believe that clinical depression has no 'purpose'.It is an illness.I do not advocate stopping medications as this can lead to disastrous results.I am glad that Smith's way of coping helped him but I certainly do not advocate it for most people.

There are other books that should be read with this one so that a more balanced way of treating depression can be seen. I recommend 'Noonday Demon' by Solomon, Loren Slater's memoir, and William Styron's memoir.Any of these will give a balanced perspective to Smith's views.

Excellent, but shouldn't stand alone
This book is excellently written - lucid and engrossing. The history and culture of melancholia are well-researched and fascinating. The descriptions of depressive episodes resonate deeply and are not overwrought. The story here will certainly change the way you look at depression. It may even help some sufferers find a certain amount of peace in simply learning to stop fighting depression and learning instead to work with it. However, despite the author's occasional warnings, I worry that this book alone might actually lead some people away from overcoming depression or realizing their full potential for a life free of affliction. I would strongly recommend that Smith's book be read in conjunction with others that draw on more recent developments in neuroscience and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy such as The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (purchase includes audio CD narrated by Jon Kabat-Zinn) or Sharon Begley's Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves

unique approach to much-discussed subject
Like many sufferers from depression in my experience, the author reached a point where his medication abruptly quit working. Others did not produce the desired result of the first, and instead of continuing playing med roulette, Smith stopped his and began the examination of his disorder that is recorded here. The author has no personal vendetta against the Western therapeutic institution, nor does he spend much time lingering on the disappointment of having the meds fail him. Instead, he takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of mood disorders fromfamilial, historical, literary, and Eastern angles, to name a few.

He also describes what he learned from the mental health clients he works with, as well as his girlfriend. Smith does not shy away from describing several incidents that do not put him in the best light, and this paradoxically made me like him as narrator more.

Although some authors of depression memoirs have explored their moods from a historic or literary viewpoint, this one is the first I have read that weaves it into the narrative so richly.

Great Writing, Great History, Bad Psychology
AS a psychologist who works with truly treatment-resistant depressives who have had abusive childhoods or horrible adulthoods, as an educator of psychology grad students, and as a person who has suffered from lifelong clinical depression, I plunged into this book as hungrily as the roots of the title. The writing is terrific. The scholarship on the "natural history" of psychology, the philosophy and history of the disease is terrific, and I learned a few things that I didn't know, even though I have taught history and systems of psychology. The descriptions of episodes of depression ring true.

But in the end the book disappointed me. Smith included bipolar disorder as well as unipolar clinical depression in his discussion of various aspects of melancholia, without noting that there are significant major differences between the two. While claiming to have "treatment resistant" depression, Smith showed his depression was really existential and situational after all, not truly biochemical and treatment resistant; the fact that it went away when he found the love of a good woman, found religion, and returned to his true home, shows that his depression was his heart's yearning for meaning and home, not his neurotransmitter receptors crying for the right dosage of biochemicals. For truly treatment-resistant depressives, even finding home, God and love can't keep the darkness away for long, and the ending of his book seemed too pat, too Hollywood simplistic to me.

Although I hope he is really cured of his depression, if Smith writes another book in a few years about how his melancholia returned in spite of finding home, love and God, then I think he does really have treatment-resistant depression. In the meantime, this book about a man who grew up surrounded by love, who had a happy childhood in a wonderful environment, had a good education and lots of choices, who chose to move away from that original home, and chose to work at jobs that were meaningful but supposedly "lower" than he was capable of, shows that even excellent drugs cannot overcome choices we make that do not meet our deepest needs. In cases like his, the optimum treatment for depression is to answer the heart's callings and make the right choices, not expect drugs to fix us. I don't think this book makes that point clearly enough - almost, but not quite.

Helps you understand. Depressed? Try Chiropractic!!!
I think this has been one of the touching books I have ever read. My friend of 4 years just drifted away from me in his own bout of depression. The storm rolled in quickly and slowly. I don't know how to explain it, and he doesn't either.
Jeffery's book helped me to understand. And for that I am forever grateful. I pray that he comes through the other side.
Touching, saddening, inspiring. You must read this if someone you love is going through this.
I would love to thank the author. Maybe he will check these comments.

UPDATE... I went to a chiropractor for the first time this year for other reasons. I had been going through what I thought must have been Seasonal Affective Disorder because it was winter. Kind of blue and crying for about two weeks. He adjusted my neck, euphoric rush and never felt that way since. Your happy hormones can get pinched off... ... Read more

Product Description
He set polar flight records, organized a series of daring wartime air operations, and became a leader in Arctic aviation. But despite these achievements, Norwegian-American aviator Bernt Balchen saw his public image and military career repeatedly undermined by his one-time mentor, the famous and influential Admiral Richard Byrd.

Glines describes how Byrd's respect for Balchen's talents gradually eroded even as Balchen steadily gained a wider reputation for courage and technical skill. Glines contends that Byrd derailed Balchen's postwar promotion to brigadier general, forcing his retirement from the military in 1956. He also documents how Balchen's publisher bowed to pressure from Byrd's supporters to remove material from a 1958 autobiography. Balchen had argued that Byrd's claims to have been the first to fly across the North Pole in 1926 could not be supported by speed and distance calculations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

From a pleased Norwegian
The existing review of this book that appears on the Amazon site is an excellent one that gives great details about the book. All I wanted to say is that as a fellow author, and of Norwegian descent, I regretted every time I had to put this book down.
There is a song by the late Canadian Stan Rogers that includes the line: "Now you know what it is to scale the heights and fall just short of fame, and have not one in ten thousand know your name."
That was written about someone else, but it sure fits in Balchen's case. A man always on the verge of being at least as famous as Admiral Byrd. A man of incredible courage, inventiveness, and grace in the face of hostilities, both of nature and of Byrd himself. This is an awesome biography that ought to be the catalyst for the re-writing of every history textbook. I thank Carrol Glines for making the enormous effort.

A long overdue recognition of a true hero.
Bernt Balchen is perhaps the most underappreciated hero of our times. A master flyer, an artist, a negotiator, and most of all, a soldier, Balchen's unassuming personality belied the fact that he had one of themost fascinating careers in aviation history. Balchen, unfortunately, wasthe victim of a vendetta by a man for whom he had done much, AdmiralRichard E. Byrd. Byrd feared that Balchen would reveal that Byrd's famousfirst flight over the North Pole was in fact a fraud, and waged a life-longwar against Balchen. Glines is a highly skilled biographer (JimmyDoolittle, Roscoe Turner) and he makes the most of his talents here. Hisresearch is excellent, and he portrays Balchen in his true colors as apatriot who fought the Russians with the Finns in the First World War, thenconducted clandestine operations with the Norwegian underground in thesecond. He was the confidant of the great flyers of the era, includingAmelia Earhart, and was among the first to be capable of true instrumentflight. Bernt Balchen Polar Aviator would make a fantastic movie, forit has everything--exploration, romance, combat, skullduggery, and most ofall, heroism. Balchen was a strong, handsome man who would have been anOlympic boxer for Norway if he had not elected to learn to fly with theNorwegian navy. He became an expert in Polar matters, saved many lives, wasimportant during the Cold War, and had thousands of friends who knew justwhat a hero he was. The United States government, however, allowed SenatorHarry Byrd to block Balchen's promotion to general, forcing his retirment,and at one time, deported him! This is a great biography of a great man,done by a great biographer! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

The Life and Times of a Genius
The accomplishments of Jeremiah Horrocks, as depicted in this book, are truly astounding. The author carefully reconstructs Horrocks' genealogy, his brief life and his ground-breaking work in astronomy, amidst the backdrop of seventeenth century England. The book is well-written, clear and engaging. Less appealing to me was that the book contains many passages reproduced in the original old English. This slowed me down a bit since I found them cumbersome due to the different spelling and sentence structure characteristic of the period. On the other hand, this may be inevitable, at least to some degree, because of the book's subject matter. Overall, this is an interesting read that would likely be particularly appealing to astronomers at all levels.

Lost in Civl War of England, but Rediscovered.
Since the dawn of history, every civilization has seen men who studied the skies.In Europe and Asia, astronomers existed in Babylon, Egypt, India and China.In America, the Incas and Aztecs built pyramids and temples which showed knowledge and fascination with the sun, moon, and stars in the night sky.England had Stonehenge.

There's not much factual knowledge about Jeremiah Horrocks short
life; there has been only one other biography to surface, published in 1859 by A. B. Whatton.Photographs show the area and places he lived as he moved about.Born in May, 1618, he was only fourteen years old when he entered Cambridge on July 5, 1632.Just seven years later (1639), he was knowledgeable about the solar system and his observation of the primitive set-up he used in Carr House to view a rare celestial event, the "transit of Venus" was documented.It is similar to the way we are encouraged to watch the eclipse of the sun so as not to be blinded by the strong rays.He died in 1641.

The Royal Greenwith Observatory was founded in 1675; John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal.However, Jeremiah Horrock is known as the "Father of British Astronomy.This book was released to coincide with the June, 2004, viewing of Venus moving across the face of the sun (for only the fifth time since the 1639 occurrence: about every 73 years or so).

My son Geoffrey earned his PhD in Astronomy at the University of Chicago and learned how to handle the monster telescopes at Kitt Peak as a grad student way out there in Arizona.

Peter Aughton has written ENDEAVOR, RESOLUTION, and NEWTON'S APPLE.He teaches at the University of the West of England and a Fellow of the Institute for Math.In 1970s he was involved with the Concorde supersonic airliner.He certainly knows his astronomy from primitive times.

A Forgotten Astronomer, Worth Remembering
Isaac Newton famously said, "If I have seen further than others before me, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."Newton was not always so quick to acknowledge his debt to his fellow scientists, but everyone knows the remark could apply to indisputable giants like Galileo and Kepler.However, he also would have meant a giant who has, almost three centuries later, become almost an unknown within the history of astronomy.In _The Transit of Venus: The Brief, Brilliant Life of Jeremiah Horrocks, Father of British Astronomy_ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), Peter Aughton, who has written before on the voyages of Captain Cook and on Newton, puts Horrocks into his rightful place.It would be too much to say that he gives us a full picture of Horrocks and his work, for the mass of materials about the astronomer is just too meager.However, Horrocks was a brilliant astronomical observer and theoretician, and Newton knew it then as we should now.

There was in June 2004 a transit of Venus, only the fifth since Horrocks watched his in 1639.A transit occurs when Venus seems to cross the face of the Sun, and was important in those days because it could be used to calculate how far the Sun was from the Earth.He studied Kepler's work at college in Cambridge, and trusted Kepler, but not blindly; he discovered that Kepler, who had correctly predicted a 1631 transit of Venus, had mistakenly missed a transit that was coming in 1639.Horrocks only realized this with a month to spare, but he was ready to trace the planet crossing the Sun; he did so by training his telescope on the Sun and projecting the picture upon a screen within a darkened room.It was his mathematical analysis of the movements and timing of what he had seen that enabled him to confirm that Venus was moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, just as Kepler's laws had implied.However, a clear view of the planet crossing the solar disk showed it to be much smaller than Kepler had thought, and the calculated distance between the Earth and the Sun was far larger than any previous astronomer had come close to considering.Copernicus had estimated the distance to be 7.5 million kilometers, Kepler 22.1, and Horrocks weighed in with 95.4.Even then, he was well below the real figure of 149, but it can be said without exaggeration that he was the first man who had an inkling of how big the solar system really was.

Horrocks wrote up his account of the transit, and also went on to show that the Moon tracked an elliptical, not circular, path around the Earth, although the path of the Moon wobbled irregularly due to the gravity of the Sun.He also showed that Saturn and Jupiter were vastly larger than the Earth.Astonishingly, he made these discoveries when he was only twenty-two; only a year later in 1641 he was dead.There is no evidence about the cause of his death.His account of his researches was not published until 1662, and he was belatedly recognized as a genius by the new Royal Society.His work was revolutionary at the time he did it, but was not as influential as it could have been, if he had been within the mainstream of British science rather than observing and theorizing near Liverpool, if he had lived longer, and if Britain were not torn by its Civil War.Newton, in his monumental _Principia_, gave special credit to Horrocks for divining the elliptical orbit of the Moon.His influence might be small, but his importance as an observer and as a theoretician (those qualities are not often so well combined in one person) is clear.As much as can be known about him is in Aughton's necessarily brief but admiring review, from which readers will get a good idea of how astronomy was done at the time, and a welcome introduction to an original thinker.
... Read more

Product Description
"[Slater has] the playful mind of a philosopher and the exquisite, unique voice of a poet." (The Washington Post Book World)

In this powerful and provocative new memoir, award-winning author Lauren Slater forces readers to redraw the boundary between what we know as fact and what we believe through the creation of our own personal fictions. Mixing memoir with mendacity, Slater examines memories of her youth, when after being diagnosed with a strange illness she developed seizures and neurological disturbances-and the compulsion to lie. Openly questioning the reliability of memoir itself, Slater presents the mesmerizing story of a young woman who discovers not only what plagues her but also what cures her-the birth of her sensuality, her creativity as an artist, and storytelling as an act of healing.Amazon.com Review
One has good reason to be suspicious of a book that calls itself a "metaphorical memoir." If a metaphor substitutes one thing for another to which it's not ordinarily related, and a memoir relates the personal experiences of the author, then a metaphorical memoir would be... well, lying, if we're going to get technical about it. Or it could be Lying, in which case, hold that judgment and lay all categories aside: here is a book so stunningly contrary it deserves a whole genre to itself.

Lauren Slater may have grown up with epilepsy. Or she may have Munchausen syndrome, "also called factitious illness," also called lying. Or, quite possibly, she has never had any of the above, and all her exquisite evocations of auras and grand mal seizures are merely well-researched symbolic descriptions of her psychic state. In a chapter that's disguised as an extended letter to her editor (and impishly titled "How to Market This Book") she defends her decision to call the work nonfiction:

Why is what we feel less true than what is? Supposing I simply feel like an epileptic, a spastic person, one with a shivering brain; supposing I have chosen epilepsy because it is the most accurate conduit to convey my psyche to you? Would this not still be a memoir, my memoir?

But if Slater is playing with our heads, she's not doing so for fashionable postmodern reasons. Lying's bag of tricks emerges from some complex and deeply felt ideas about form, reality, and consciousness itself--and what's more, it's an extraordinary memoir, "true" or not. A field full of nuns, their windblown habits tipping them over into the snow; an electric brain stimulator that makes a patient see colors and taste her own words; Slater rolling in mounds of Barbadian sugar and then running back to her mother, coated like candy--who cares whether any of these actually happened? In the end, Lying is fundamentally true, just as a great novel or indeed any great work of art is true: in a way that has nothing to do with fact. --Mary Park ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Amazing
This is probably one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. Slater writes this book from an interesting perspective. One sees her story directly through her eyes. Even though the reader is left wodnering what truly is real in her story, she does a great job of leading the reader through her story/her lie. In the beginning one reads, believing that what she says is the truth, but by the end the truth is unclear. I saw it as looking at the world through her eyes. Afterall it is her autobiography, just because it isn't a fact doesn't neccessarily mean it isn't how she felt or what she expereinced. She even says this is a metaphorical memior and through it we see that it wasn't about the events of her life but about her inner self, her emotions, and her perceptions of life. This book was excellent. It was hard to put it down and it constantly kept my attention. Definately a must read!

Adrift
Memoir: Harper's Magazine gives us the "Offutt Glossary" which states, "Memoir: ...a popular form in which the writer remembers entire passages of dialogue from the past, with the ultimate goal of blaming the writer's parents for his current psychological challenges." (Which is invariably the mother as is the case with Slater's Metaphorical Memoir, "Lying.")

While her writing is visual, sensual, creative, stylish, graphic, I find myself carried along but never quite sure of where I am going and, if the narrator and I ever arrive, is it a place she meant to lead me; is it where she even meant to go herself? Or is she going in circles and never arriving? In other words, I'm lost and I don't trust my guide.

Willa Cather in the 1930s urged the memoirist to uncover the "inviolable self, the core being at the center in whose company we breathe free; that something we call our real selves." Where is the real self of Laura Slater? At the end of the day, she makes us question, "Where is the 'real self' of anyone when life itself is in a constant state of flux?" She may have a point. Am I afraid to look at that point? It's all very nebulous and we're on thin ice.

Back to the supposed purpose of memoir: It is, hopefully, a pursuit of becoming and in the course of this 'becoming' one becomes authentic. As a memoirist Slater should take the reader (and herself) away from the fog of her perceptions created by the conflict with her "bitchy, depressed, hissing, narcissistic, controlling" mother, and whatever the circumstances of her birth were (we're never quite sure) toward the truth of her core self. She blames epileptic seizures for standing in her way of doing just that, although the reader comes to find that she didn't have epilepsy at all: she was just using its symptoms as a metaphor to create colors, sensations, blackouts to define the indefinable "non being" or "other being" from which she does not seem to be able to escape; a beautifully creative tactic and as such should be marketed as fiction. Or should it? Perhaps this is the new memoir. I don't know.

She was close to approaching her authentic self in the AA meeting she accidentally tripped upon, but she falters and deceives in that she has to lie to fit in, and she does it quite convincingly. Or did she lie? I'm not sure. She was being true to herself, or was she? As her neurologist says, "In a sense you lied, but in another sense you didn't, because trickery is so hinged on your personality style, and, therefore, you were only being true to yourself." Now there's a good one. Can all the wrongdoers be excused because their deviations are a result of following the dictates of a personality "style" through which they are being true to themselves? I'm confused. Colorfully, metaphorically, mystically confused.

In the final analysis memoir, it has been posited, should lift the self from the raw material of life shaped by circumstance and experience, and ultimately transform and deliver wisdom. What happened to her is not what mattered, be it metaphorical or real, but what she made of what happened and what she brings to the reader of what she made of what happened.

I think...maybe...I wonder.

Loved the first 1/4
The first 1/4 I loved. She writes beautifully. The prose is wonderful, her thoughts provoking. And then it went downhill, until I had to force myself to finish it and stop skipping paragraphs. I didn't like the game ("Am I lying to you?"), her narcissism, or her insistence that a metaphorical vehicle was the only way to be emotionally honest. Metaphors are compelling (to me) when they illuminate truth and subtlety, not obscure them.

Perhaps the book is a true depiction of her early years, but I expected more from her, namely the ability to move beyond her adolescent psyche, demonstrate insight about those years, and progress: turn away from the game she's been playing, if only briefly. She admits doing this to some extent personally but won't process it in front of the readers, so the book feels half finished. We're entrenched in metaphorical bells and whistles that have no real-life correlations and are therefore meaningless.

As I reader, I felt like a pawn in her self-serving game, disappointed and jarred. For another (better) memoir about lying, I recommend The Liars' Club by Mary Karr. It's an absolutely captivating read - slow & gritty - but the prose is like a drug, and the landscape is incredible.

not bad
Seller said the book would be in "good condition or better".This book has some colored pencil scribbles in it, and some writing with marker.Not bad though.

Doesn't live up to Slater's reputation.
Prior to this book, I'd read Prozac Diary and Welcome to my Country, both of which were quite good.This book, although an interesting concept, does not live up to Slater's better works.Satire-like, memoir-like, fiction-like....But it fits none of these, is fairly incoherent, and does not really thread the story together adequately.If you want some fictional-type, possibly-true, almost-factual words, try this book.It is a fairly quick read and mildly entertaining.Personally, I'd save my time for Welcome to my Country.Reminds me of Blank: The Power of Not Actually Thinking at All (A Mindless Parody) ... Read more

Product Description
"Starred Review. Reeves deploys hisconsiderable writing skillin portraying Rutherford's personality... capturing the full aspect of the man."—BooklistBorn in colonial New Zealand, Ernest Rutherford grew up on the frontier—adifferent world from Cambridge,to which he won a scholarship at theage of twenty-four. His work revolutionized modern physics. Among hisdiscoveries were the orbitalstructure of the atom and the concept ofthe "half-life" of radioactivematerials. Rutherford and the youngmen workingunder him were thefirst to split the atom,unlocking tremendous forces—forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, thatwould bring us the atomicbomb. In Richard Reeves's hands,Rutherford comes alive, a ruddy, genial mananda pivotal figure inscientifichistory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Force of Nature Book Review
This well written book vastly increased my knowledge of the contributions of Ernest Rutherford beyond the skimpy treatment he received in both my high school science and college physics textbooks.

Science Simplified
Although this biography is aimed at a general audience, it does an effective job of presenting Rutherford's contributions to our early understanding of the atom and of the subatomic world. Using laboratory apparatus quaintly primitive by today's standards, Rutherford in the early decades of the 20th century found elegant, indirect methods to "see" into the structure of the atom. Guided by intuition as much as by previous knowledge and experience, he drew startling and startlingly accurate conclusions from data generated by his own experiments and by those of other scientists around the world. He is remembered not only as one of the greatest experimental physicists of the 20th century but also as one who fostered an international approach to science based on cooperation and sharing of results.

A great man - poorly served
I ordered this little biography because it was on sale.It was not a good deal.It lacks depth or insight.Although the author has a technical background, most of Rutherford's experiments are poorly described and their importance virtually ignored.Interactions between Rutherford and his many collaborators and students are trivialized.Because it is short and cheap, it will find it's way into libraries around the world.That's a good thing because Rutherford was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century and certainly New Zealand's most famous son.Hopefully, interested readers will have access to "Rutherford: Scientist Supreme"
by John Campbell, a much more complete and authoritative biography.If not, then check out the following website for better information: [...].For the technically inclined, get a copy of the recently reprinted "Radioactive Transformations" by Rutherford himself - absolutely fascinating!

A Great, Short Biography
There are probably only a handful of scientists the average educated person could name, among them Galileo, Newton, Einstein.And, of course, even a typical educated person might have trouble saying something about why these scientists are so important.This is too bad.Not just because of what it says about science education in the world today but because there are so many scientists whose work deserves better recognition.Ernest Rutherford is one of those who deserves better.

Many students comes across Rutherford in middle or high school during the study of the atom.Rutherford's "gold foil experiment" through which he identified the atomic nucleus and developed the "solar system" model of the atom is a standard part of the curriculum.However, this only touches on Rutherford's body of work and says nothing about the type of man, and scientist, he was.In A Force of Nature, Richard Reeves does an excellent job of bringing both to the fore.

Mr. Reeve's describes many of Rutherford's achievements in a very accessible way.Rutherford's work ranged from investigations of radio and radioactivity to basic sonar concepts during the war.His work on the atom included more than just his well-know discovery of the nucleus.He also was the first to split the atom, though he never realized (or admitted he realized) the awesome power potential of this process.His work earned him a Nobel Prize (in chemistry, Rutherford would sneer) as well as a number of other awards and honors, including the prestigious directorship of the Cavendish Laboratories.

But Mr. Reeve is also able to give a real sense of Rutherford as a human being.As a "colonial" (a New Zealander), Rutherford found it difficult to fit in with the Cambridge set when he earned a scholarship to attend.It wasn't until he became one of the most famous experimenters in the world that he was generally accepted and, even then, his loud voice and rough manners were a matter of note among his contemporaries.Still, few scientists in history have been as successful as both a researcher and a teacher--he pointed many of his students in the direction of earn their own Nobel Prizes.

As a science teacher, I have struggled to educate my students not only in the key ideas of the field but also on the people who brought these great ideas and discoveries into the world.As one of the true experimental geniuses in history, Rutherford still often doesn't get his due.(Theorists get all the glory.)Yet, in his time, only Einstein was revered more.It is nice that Mr. Reeve has put together a book that can bring Rutherford to the public's attention again.

A sound introduction to Rutherford and his work
There have been many biographies of Ernest Rutherford; what does Richard Reeves 'A Force of Nature' contribute to what has already been done? In a few words: popular accessibility. This is a book of scientific biography for a popular audience, and it works.

Like other entrants in the Norton 'Great Discoveries' series, the point is the explication of a great scientific discovery and the life of the person most responsible for bringing it about. Reeves has already proven himself an accomplished biographer, especially of Presidents Reagan, Nixon, and Kennedy. This is apparently his first biography of a scientist.

Reeves traces Rutherford's trajectory from New Zealand to the Cavendish in Cambridge to McGill (in Montreal) to Manchester and beyond. But the real story is Rutherford's discovery of the structure of the atom. Although the topic may sound boring to those not interested in such things, Reeves effectively relays the excitement and drama of this particular scientific discovery (the ability to do so of which is the real strength of many of the books in the 'Great Discoveries' series). Here's but one example: Reeves describing Rutherford's reaction after his team first split the atom:

"Rutherford's first reaction was to swear Cockcroft, Walton, and Chadwick to secrecy...until the results could be published in 'Nature'. Only God could know what the Americans would come up with if they knew in advance of publication. ... Of course the secret did not really hold...Rutherford [soon] told members [of the Royal Society] what happened...then he swept his arm toward Cockcroft and Walton and boomed out, 'Stand up, boys! Let everyone have a look at you!' " (p. 147-48)

Because politics and history appear to be Reeves' own biographical strengths, we learn perhaps as much or more about Rutherford's impact on politics and history (e.g. helping 'rescue' European scientists during WWII) as we do his impact on science. This is not to say that Reeves does not adequately discuss or understand Rutherford's scientific accomplishments (he does--he was an engineer early on in his career), but rather that Reeve's does not do any original analysis of Rutherford's scientific work. The author admits there are better (e.g. longer) sources available for this (see his bibliography at the back of 'A Force of Nature').

Overall, this is a highly readable biography of one of the 20th century's greatest scientists, and is a good starting point for those interested in learning more about Rutherford.

Final note (for full disclosure): As a reviewer for a major newspaper, I often receive books that I am not able review in print. I was pleased however to receive this one and was impressed enough to review it online. ... Read more

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Product Description
A giant in the youthful days of aeronautics, TheodoreTheodorsen still stands tall among those who have followed him. This textfocuses on Theodorsen's research contributions through a reprinting ofselected papers and appreciations authored by notable scholars in severalof the fields in which he was active. ... Read more

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Even by Victorian standards, the Scots/Canadian Sir Sandford Fleming was a man of extraordinary energy - designer of Canada's first postage stamp and the first street maps of Canadian cities, engineer of the trans-Canadian railway to British Columbia and of the trans-Pacific telegraph cable from London to Australia and New Zealand via Canada and Fiji, he yet found the time to write volumes of diaries, thousands of letters and fifteen books. Time Lord tells the story of yet another achievement - Fleming's greatest - his idea of unifying the world's times in a series of time zones, an idea originally rejected as too trivial for discussion by the Royal Canadian Society of Engineers for whom he wrote his first paper on the subject. Twenty years later, after a series of journeys to the British astronomer-Royal, the Czar's Astronomer, the courts of Prussia, Italy and Japan and finally the American President, and after opposition from many quarters, the world adjusted its clocks and accepted Fleming's new system. It is an extraordinary story, wonderfully illuminating of the past, and of a fascinating man, difficult, irascible, but ultimately brilliant.Comparable obviously to Longitude, Fleming's achievement, in a world without modern communications or transport, makes the achievement of a single European currency seem like a minor detail in comparison.Amazon.com Review
In the 1880s, a businessman traveling by train from New York toBoston needed, on arrival, to adjust his clock, moving it ahead by 12minutes. The strange increment, writes Clark Blaise, was a matter of localinterpretation, some enterprising Bostonian having determined that therising sun touched the shore of Massachusetts a dozen minutes beforewarming Manhattan.

Such local interpretations of time made the job of establishing railroadschedules a matter of guesswork and hope, as the Canadian entrepreneurSandford Fleming discovered when he missed a train in the west of Irelandin 1876. Frustrated, Fleming realized that a new system of universal timewould need to be created if railroad travel were ever to realize its fullpotential. As Blaise writes, "the adoption of standard time for theworld was as necessary for commercial advancement as the invention of theelevator was for modern urban development," and nations such as Englandthat had a system of standard time in place owed much of their economicsuperiority to the predictability and reliability such a system put inplace.

Fleming discovered that getting the world onto the same schedule requiredyears of negotiating and browbeating, a nightmare that Blaise ablyrecounts. Fleming's efforts eventually paid off, and as Blaise writes, "Ofall the inventions of the Industrial Age, standard time has endured,virtually unchanged, the longest." His entertaining account of how thatcame to be will be of appeal to readers who enjoyed Dava Sobel's Longitude, HenryPetroski's The Pencil, and other popular works in the history of technology. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

Too much filler that has little to do with the subject of the book
Disappointing. I was hoping for more of a look into the science of timekeeping, something as detailed and interesting as Dava Sobel's "Longitude." This book mostly contains a whole lot of rambling about Victorian attitudes and modes. Sandford Fleming himself was still enigmatic at the end of the book. I just didn't find enough here to hold my interest. Not recommended.

Don't Waste Your Time
The book spends a lot more time talking about Fleming and things going on around the time of his life and less on the specific topic of the creation and adoption of standard time - definitely not what I expected given the title.

Bending time's arrow
How could i possibly pass by such a title?As an avid fan of Doctor WHO, the original time lord, captured the eye firmly enough.But this is hardly a book of science fiction, although few novelists could adequately depict the subject.This book is the rendering of one of the 19th Century's most notable autodidacts.An almost penniless emigrant from rural Scotland, Sandford Fleming revolutionised the world's concept of time.In this fascinating, but rather disorganised, account, Blaise weaves numerous themes around Fleming's aim to make the world's time measurement coherent - and universal.

The prompt for Fleming's quest was a missed train in Ireland well into the era of the Industrial Revolution.Driven by steam, that age first used that power to raise water from coal mines.Applied to transportation of goods and people, one of steam's legacies was changing the nature of time.Factory workers now laboured to the clock, and travel speed increased dramatically.Rail travel quickly overtook animal prowess, but also revolutionised our lives.In North America, the spread of the land led to rail companies becoming the index of industry, and a force in politics and society.Each rail company kept time according to its head office.Its schedules granted it dominion over time, leading to such anomalies as the city of St Louis, which observed six different railroad times.This, in addition to the common practice of each town marking its own time by the sun's overhead passage.

Without question,Blaise' most eloquent chapter is "The Aesthetics of Time" in which he renders the influence of changing concepts on time on the arts, notably impressionism and literature.While the world was moving toward more uniform means of dealing with time, the arts recognised that the established "natural time" with its easy, regular flow - "time's arrow" - had been demolished.Readers and viewers came to accept disjointed time in stories and paintings.Blaise uses Cailllebotte's "Paris Street, Rainy Day", which was composed from a string of photographs, as the prime example.Nothing is still and the figures appear detached from "normal" concepts of time.In a similar manner, novelists could break up stories into disconnected parts, skipping about in the chronology to build new forms of narrative.Blaise' own narrative follows their pattern, forcing the reader to accept his irregular presentation.Given the quality of Blaise' insights and ability to discuss them, this book is half the size it might be.

Fleming's missed train kept him apart from most of this social upheaval.A tightly focussed engineer, his aim was standard time around the planet.He understood the desire for a "prime meridian", but wanted a mechanism that would transcend national or commercial interests.He devised a complex scheme with a time centred within the Earth.It would have obsoleted every clock and pocket watch in existence, but had the advantage of universality.Ocean shippers also favoured a standard scheme, with nearly all ships using Greenwich, England as their temporal starting point.Resistance from nations who'd already established their own primes obstructed Fleming's project, which came to a head in Washington, D.C., in 1884.A prolonged, three-week negotiation ultimately led to the standard time zones we live within today.In Blaise's view, Fleming is justifiably renowned for his contribution to this achievement. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This book SCREAMED for a good editor
After he set out the initial scene and made narrative inroads, the author proceeded to regale us with his views on time and why they're important.These pseudo-science views could have all made a great short story but had no place interspersing with an actual narrative.It really screamed for a good editor to sit the poor man down and say "No."

Self indulgent essay, precious little about Fleming
Most of Time Lord should have been about Sir Sandford Fleming, about how he grew up, about why he left home (Scotland) and crossed the ocean to a new land (Canada), his trials and tribulations, the events of his life, great and small, that shaped this great but mostly forgotten man. Then after three or four hundred pages of this, an author can permit himself to give his personal views in a few pages.

Instead of doing this, Clark Blaise reverses the precepts and gives us 200 pages of his Views on Time and how Deep the Concept is. He gives us a mishmash of poetry and literature and badly thought out espresso philosophy. Nothing about Fleming. I would have loved a day-by-day account of the Prime Meridian conference, or of Fleming's days as chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. No such luck.

After finishing the book, I went to the shortish wikipedia entry on Fleming and found more facts there than in Blaise's book. Until someone writes a better book, that might be the best thing to do.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo ... Read more

Product Description
The strange, exhilarating, and haunting story of the man who broke the world record for manned balloon altitude.

Locked in a desperate Cold War race against the Soviets to find out if humans could survive in space and live through a free fall from space vehicles, the Pentagon gave civilian adventurer Nick Piantanida's Project Strato-Jump little notice until May Day, 1966. Operating in the shadows of well-funded, high-visibility Air Force and Navy projects, the former truck driver and pet store owner set a new world record for manned balloon altitude. Rising more than 23 miles over the South Dakota prairie, Piantanida nearly perished trying to set the world record for the highest free fall parachute jump from that height. On his next attempt, he would not be so lucky.

In the spirit of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Magnificent Failure portrays a loner driven to test himself. The story recalls a by-gone era when men tested the limits of mortality armed only with an indomitable spirit, ingenuity, and (some say) sheer lunacy. Part harrowing adventure story, part space history, part psychological portrait of an extraordinary risk-taker, this story fascinates and intrigues the armchair adventurer in all of us. 22 b/w photographs, 3 b/w illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Magnficent Failure
Magnificent Failure is a magnificent book!

I can't believe this story is not widely known or been turned into a film. From a now long gone era where a normal guy with no money or celebrity, but with tons of self confidence, charisma, good looks, talent, intelligence, and guts could just pull off something that would seem impossible to do - go to the very edge of space and jump out of a balloon, just to prove he could do it. A well written picture of a more innocent (and trusting) era of adventure and an excellent story of a man who just compelled others to help him achieve (almost) his dream. And all of it true. A great book.

Magnificent Failure: Free Fall from the Edge of Space
This a fantastic insight into the effort by Nick Piantanida to top Joe Kittinger's record jump of 102,800 feet in 1960. More important is the personal disaster Nick Piantanida created for himself by his over confidence during the training without fully understanding the consequences.It is all to common to be so close to disaster that you do not see it until it is too late.Beautifully written it engages the reader to want more.This story is a fascinating development of a disaster and a guide for what to watch for in our own lives.One of Craig Ryan's recent books about Joe Kittinger "Come up and get me" wraps additional history around the tragedy behind "Magnificent Failure".Come Up and Get Me: An Autobiography of Colonel Joseph Kittinger

Magnificent Failure
This is a wonderful book.If you have any interest in ballooning and the glory years of scientific ballooning this is a book for you.

The people that attempted these flights helped pave the way for our current space program.

This is a very good book.

Unexpected Surprise
I picked this book up at a local Dollar Tree for, what else, one dollar. I'm not completely sure on how that reflects on the book itself. No matter where I purchased it, the story of Nick Piantanida and the Strato-Jump project is just incredible. I am not a baloonist, parachutist, or anything even remotely related, but Nick's story is inspiring no matter who you are. This is one of the best books I have read in the past year. No matter where you find this book, pick it up! Also, the photographs are great! Highly recommended.

Excellent !!
As a collector of books written by or about former astronauts as well as balloonist I can honestly say that this is one of the finest written accounts I have read. This book truly captures both the technical side of this endeavor and the man behind the dream.

As a 3rd grade student of St. Bernard's Grade School in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1965 I distinctly recall being on the school playground and watching a small dot in the sky that we knew was a ballon. I recall at that time knowing the difference between gas and hot air ballons. The buzz on the playground was that someone was going to parachute from the balloon. I am not sure how I knew that but I was captivated by this event as I have been since by aeronautical events of all kinds.

Thanks Craig Ryan.....this is a very cool book!

EZ ... Read more