Strand, Ginger Gail.

Summary: "Worlds collide in this true story of weather control in the Cold War era and the making of Kurt Vonnegut In the mid-1950s, Kurt Vonnegut takes a job in the PR department at General Electric in Schenectady, where his older brother, Bernard, is a leadingscientist in its research lab--or "House of Magic." Kurt has ambitions as a novelist, and Bernard is working on a series of cutting-edge...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2015

Copies Available at Woodmere

Weiss, Mitch.

Summary: Based on government documents and eyewitness testimony, describes the U.S. Special Forces mission that led to the capture and execution of violent revolutionary leader Che Guevera.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Berkley Caliber 2013

Copies Available at Woodmere

Baron, David

Summary: In vibrant historical detail, American Eclipse animates the fierce jockeying that came to dominate late nineteenth-century American astronomy, revealing the challenges faced by three of the most determined eclipse chasers who participated in this adventure. James Craig Watson, in his day a renowned asteroid hunter; Vassar astronomer Maria Mitchell, who fought to demonstrate that science and...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company 2017

Copies Available at Woodmere

Phillips, Kevin

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Viking 2004

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Bird, Kai

Summary: J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress. In this biography twenty-five years in the making, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin capture Oppenheimer's life and times, from his early career to...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Vintage Books 2005

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Tise, Larry E.

Summary: Despite their great achievements following their first powered flights in 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright still enjoyed virtual anonymity until 1908. In seven crucial days in May of that year, however, the eyes of the world were suddenly cast upon them as they sought lucrative government contracts for their flying technology and then had to prove the capabilities of their machines.In these...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Palgrave Macmillan 2009

Copies Available at Woodmere

Cassidy, David C.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Pi Press 2005

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Biddle, Wayne.

Summary: A stunning investigation of the roots of the first moon landing forty years ago, this illuminating story of the dawn of the space age reaches back to the reactionary modernism of the Third Reich, using the life of "rocket scientist" Wernher von Braun as its narrative path through the crumbling of Weimar Germany and the rise of the Nazi regime. Von Braun, a blinkered opportunist who could apply...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: W.W. Norton 2009

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Cohen, Benyamin

Summary: "Albert Einstein's face is still one of the most recognizable in the world and he's widely considered to be the first modern-day celebrity. While many of his discoveries continue to define our daily lives, it's not just his genius that continues to shape our world. Today, more people know Einstein as an icon rather than a theorist-decades after his death, he's a celebrity with a massive online...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Sourcebooks 2023

Copies Available at Peninsula

Hornblum, Allen M.

Summary: "The sad history of young children, especially institutionalized children, being used as cheap and available test subjects - the raw material for experimentation - started long before the atomic age and went well beyond exposure to radioactive isotopes. Experimental vaccines for hepatitis, measles, polio and other diseases, exploratory therapeutic procedures such as electroshock and lobotomy,...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Palgrave Macmillan 2013

Copies Available at Woodmere

Neuwirth, Jessica

Summary: "When the Equal Rights Amendment was first passed by Congress in 1972, Richard Nixon was president and All in the Family's Archie Bunker was telling his feisty wife Edith to stifle it. Over the course of the next ten years, an initial wave of enthusiasm led to ratification of the ERA by thirty-five states, just three short of the thirty-eight states needed by the 1982 deadline. Many of the...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: New Press, The 2015

Copies Available at Woodmere

Gall, Chris

Summary: Released in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, this nonfiction picture book offers a step-by-step explanation of how the Apollo 11 spacecraft worked, as told by a young enthusiast. Includes glossary.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Roaring Brook Press 2019

Copies Available at Woodmere

Rudolph, John L.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Palgave 2000

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Kruse, Kevin Michael

Summary: "We're often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the idea of 'Christian America' is an invention--and a relatively recent one at that. As Kruse argues, the belief that America is fundamentally and formally a Christian nation originated in the 1930s when businessmen enlisted religious...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group 2015

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Prins, Nomi.

Summary: "All The Presidents' Bankers is a compelling narrative of how a small group of private bankers and their financial institutions shaped America's economy and its global position since the start of the twentieth century. Through personal, political and professional networks, these bankers strategically exercised, and continue to exercise, disproportionate control over the destiny of billions of...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Perseus Books Group 2013

Copies Available at Woodmere

Stern, Scott W.

Summary: In 1918, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Nina McCall was told to report to the local health officer to be examined for sexually transmitted infections. Confused and humiliated, Nina did as she was told, and the health officer performed a hasty (and invasive) examination and quickly diagnosed her with gonorrhea. Insisting she could not possibly have an STI, Nina was coerced into...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Beacon Press 2018

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Brownstein, Ronald

Summary: Documents the kaleidoscopic year during which transformative talents from Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard, and Beverly Hills heavily influenced pop culture, politics, and social movements.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Copies Available at Kingsley

Lichtblau, Eric.

Summary: "The shocking story of how America became one of the world's safest postwar havens for Nazis. Until recently, historians believed America gave asylum only to key Nazi scientists after World War II, along with some less famous perpetrators who managed to sneak in and who eventually were exposed by Nazi hunters. But the truth is much worse, and has been covered up for decades: the CIA and FBI...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2014

Copies Available at Peninsula

Wells, Jonathan Daniel

Summary: "Although slavery was outlawed in the northern states in 1827, the illegal slave trade continued in the one place modern readers would least expect, the streets and ports of America's great northern metropolis: New York City. In 'The Kidnapping Club,' historian Jonathan Daniel Wells takes readers to a rapidly changing city rife with contradiction, where social hierarchy clashed with a rising...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Bold Type Books 2020

Copies Available at Woodmere

Woodward, Bob

Summary: War is an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history. We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. We also see Donald Trump, conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to...

Format: sound recording-nonmusical

Publisher / Publication Date: 2024

Copies Available at Peninsula

Jarrow, Gail

Summary: "Imagine microscopic worms living in the soil. They enter your body through your bare feet, travel to your intestines, and stay there for years sucking your blood like vampires. You feel exhausted. You get sick easily. It sounds like a nightmare, but that's what happened in the American South during the 1800s and early 1900s. Doctors never guessed that hookworms were making patients ill, but...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Calkins Creek, an imprint of Astra Books for Young Readers 2022

Copies Available at Woodmere

Meacham, Jon

Summary: Jon Meacham chronicles the life and moral evolution of Abraham Lincoln and explores why and how Lincoln confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery in order to expand the possibilities of America. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford's Theater on...

Format: sound recording-nonmusical

Publisher / Publication Date: Random House Audio 2022

Copies Available at East Bay