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An illustrated history of how scientific study and religious thought have influenced each other throughout the history of the United States.Discovery and Revelation explores the evolving relationship between religion, science, and technology in America through the centuries as humans strive to understand the world and their place in it. With at least 40 significant and rarely seen artifacts from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, the book highlights the way religious and scientific ideas have influenced each other and informed cultural change. Religious tradition has often adapted in response to scientific discoveries, while scientists have been motivated to undertake research both because of faith and in opposition to it. Delving deep into this intersection, Discovery and Revelation examines how these two approaches to understanding the world have changed the landscape of American society. It explores scientific advancements through artifacts like: • Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod: sparked debate about the relationship between weather and God. • Charles Darwin's "Tree of Life" sketch: represented his theory of evolution, which some objected to as being atheistic while others thought it reflected the intent of a Creator. • John Thomas Scopes portrait: photograph taken ahead of his time on trial for teaching evolution against Tennessee law forbidding denial of the Biblical account of man's origin. • Apollo 8's live television script: the crew caused controversy for reading from the Bible for their Christmas Eve broadcast. Discovery and Revelation is a testament to the fascinating and multifaceted nature of faith and knowledge and how they've shaped our nation.

A gorgeous publication that reveals the historical importance of first ladies through portraiture.Each first lady has brought her own priorities and flair to the position that has never been officially defined. They have served as hostesses, trendsetters, activists, and political players. First Ladies of the United States features 84 portraits of the nation''s first ladies, as varied in style and representation as the individual women they depict. From watercolors and oil paintings to engravings and photographs, this book celebrates the legacy of first ladies throughout history.First ladies are some of the most scrutinized public figures in the country, praised or criticized on everything from their fashion to their level of political involvement. There''s no better way to explore their visibility and lasting impact than with First Ladies of the United States, which places remarkable portraits alongside an insightful essay and lively entries that illuminate the history of the women who have shaped the White House.

Replete with color photographs, drawings, and maps of Viking sites, artifacts, and landscapes, this book celebrates and explores the Viking saga from the combined perspectives of history, archaeology, oral tradition, literature, and natural science. The book''s contributors chart the spread of marauders and traders in Europe as well as the expansion of farmers and explorers throughout the North Atlantic and into the New World. They show that Norse contacts with Native American groups were more extensive than has previously been believed, but that the outnumbered Europeans never established more than temporary settlements in North America.

The ideas of US Air Force Colonel John Boyd have transformed American military policy and practice. A first-rate fighter pilot and a self-taught scholar, he wrote the first manual on jet aerial combat; spearheaded the design of both of the Air Force's premier fighters, the F-15 and the F-16; and shaped the tactics that saved lives during the Vietnam War and the strategies that won the Gulf War. Many of America's best-known military and political leaders consulted Boyd on matters of technology, strategy, and theory.In The Mind of War, Grant T. Hammond offers the first complete portrait of John Boyd, his groundbreaking ideas, and his enduring legacy. Based on extensive interviews with Boyd and those who knew him as well as on a close analysis of Boyd's briefings, this intellectual biography brings the work of an extraordinary thinker to a broader public.

The year 2002 marked the 100th anniversary of the first installation of air-conditioning. During the past century, it has become a staple of American life; 83% of US homes are now air-conditioned. In this engaging social history, Marsha Ackermann explores how the idea of "cooling" became firmly embedded in the social perceptions and expectations of Americans, transforming our definition of comfort and the way we live, work, and play.

They flew low and slow, at treetop level, at night, in monsoons, and in point-blank range of enemy guns and missiles. They were missions no one else wanted, but the ones all other pilots prayed for when shot down. Flying the World War II-vintage Douglas A-1 Skyraider, a single-engine, propeller-driven relic in a war of “fast-movers,” these intrepid US Air Force pilots, call sign Sandy, risked their lives with every mission to rescue thousands of downed Navy and Air Force pilots.With a flashback memory and a style all his own, George J. Marrett depicts some of the most dangerous aerial combat of any war. The thrilling rescue of “Streetcar 304” and William Jones''s selfless act of heroism that earned him the Medal of Honor are but two of the compelling tales he recounts. Here too are the courages Jolly Green Giant helicopter crews, parajumpers, and forward air controllers who worked with the Sandys over heavily defended jungles and mountains well behind enemy lines.Passionate, mordantly witty, and filled with heart-pounding adrenaline, Cheating Death reads like the finest combat fiction, but it is the real deal: its heroes, cowards, jokers, and casualties all have names and faces readers will find difficult to forget.

Award-winning geneticist John C. Avise guides this delightful voyage around the planet in search of answers to nature's mysteries. He demonstrates how scientists directly examine DNA to address long-standing questions about wild animals, plants, and microbes. Through dozens of stories that span the world, nature emerges as a realm where truth can be far stranger than fiction. From a 100-ton mushroom to egg-swapping birds, extinct ground sloths to microbes inside our bodies, Avise examines a cornucopia of natural-history topics and explains how today's modern genetic techniques offer novel insights. Do armadillo litters really contain clones? When is a fig tree not just a single tree? Where have migratory whales traveled? Who are the mothers of the embryos carried by pregnant male seahorses? What insect was the world's earliest farmer? How closely related are Neanderthals to modern humans? Answers to these and many more questions are presented here in a straightforwad manner that reveals Avise's enthusiasm for uncovering nature's hidden ways. Each entry is accompanied by a beautiful illustration from Trudy Nicholson, widely recognized as one of today's leading nature artists.

In this brilliant study, Elizabeth White Nelson challenges a central tenet of 19th-century American history: namely, that men and women lived in separate spheres. Women, supposedly, lived lives focused around hearth and home; men focused on trade and commerce. Market Sentiments turns this theory on its head, arguing that the market and parlor sentimentality were closely intertwined for both men and women.Scholars have long seen 19th-century sentimentalism as a reaction to the rapid expansion of the marketplace, which some feared would threaten their traditional values of thrift, independence, and equality of economic opportunity. But Nelson demonstrates that the rise of sentimentalism and the marketplace were fundamentally linked and, indeed, fueled each other. The invention of Valentine's Day (called "this important Business of Love” by one 19th-century observer) during this era was a prime example of how emotional rhetoric could be economically pragmatic. Not only did people purchase sentimental objects for their parlors—brass candlesticks as spin-off products from Uncle Tom's Cabin, for instance—but they also used sentimental language to explain the profound changes in American culture.Through her voluminous and ingenious use of sources such as literary bestsellers, fashion magazines, hair jewelry, and the decoration of Victorian parlors, Elizabeth White Nelson shows that, for 19th-century Americans, hearth, home, and the pursuit of cash came together in one big sentimental enterprise.

This little known classic history of flight-testing the Xplanes is reborn, sweepingly revised and updated with new and recently released information. Aviation enthusiasts will savor the most detailed account available of record-setting aircraft like the X-1 and XZ-15, flown by Chuck Yeager and other legends, as well as all the cutting-edge NASA and Defense Department programs that perfected the aeronautical concepts and technology used in US military, space, and commercial craft. A completely updated and reinterpreted text, three new chapters, dozens of rare photographs, and the complete statistical record of nearly six decades of testing make this required reading for anyone interested in manned flight.

After nearly eighteen months of the largely unsuccessful bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder, the US Air Force began to look for ways to overcome technological, geographical, and political challenges in North Vietnam and use limited air power more effectively. In 1972 the two Linebacker campaigns joined with other air operations to make a dramatic, although temporary, difference. While they unleashed powerful B-52 area bombers, the campaigns also demonstrated the efficacy of newly developed laser-guided precision bombs.Drawing upon twenty years of research in classified records, Wayne Thompson integrates operational, political, and personal detail to present a full history of the Air Force role in the war against North Vietnam. He provides an unprecedented view of the motivations and actions of the people involved—from aircrews to generals to politicians—in every phase of the air campaigns. He outlines, for instance, the political reasons for President Johnson''s reluctance to use B-52 bombers against major North Vietnamese targets. He also examines how the media influenced US policy and how US prisoners became the war''s most celebrated heroes.The war in Southeast Asia ultimately pushed the Air Force toward adopting more flexible tactics and incorporating increasingly sophisticated weapons that would shape later conflicts.

In America Noir David Cochran details how ten writers and filmmakers challenged the social pieties prevalent during the Cold War, such as the superiority of the American democracy, the benevolence of free enterprise, and the sanctity of the suburban family. Rod Serling''s The Twilight Zone featured victims of vast, faceless, bureaucratic powers. Jim Thompson''s noir thrillers, such as The Grifters, portrayed the ravages of capitalism on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Patricia Highsmith, in The Talented Mr. Ripley, placed an amoral con man in an international setting, implicitly questioning America''s fitness as leader of the free world. Charles Willeford''s pulp novels, such as Wild Wives and Woman Chaser, depicted the family as a hotbed of violence and chaos.These artists pioneered a detached, ironic sensibility that radically juxtaposed cultural references and blurred the distinctions between “high” and “low” art. Their refusal to surrender to the pressures for political conformity and their unflinching portrayal of the underside of American life paved the way for the emergence of a 1960s counterculture that forever changed the way America views itself.