After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer--better known as the ENIAC— even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told -- until now.
Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. PROVING GROUND restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers' groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and PROVING GROUND is the celebration they deserve.
Grand Central Publishing
|
9781538718285
|
Hardcover
The Flying Tigers
By Kleiner, Sam
The thrilling story behind the American pilots who were secretly recruited to defend the nation's desperate Chinese allies before Pearl Harbor and ended up on the front lines of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Sam Kleiner's The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China.
Penguin Books
|
9780399564154
|
Paperback
The Invisible Bridge
By Perlstein, Rick
From the bestselling author of Nixonland a dazzling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s. In January of 1973 Richard Nixon announced the end of the Vietnam War and prepared for a triumphant second termuntil televised Watergate hearings revealed his White House as little better than a mafia den. The next president declared upon Nixons resignation our long national nightmare is overbut then congressional investigators exposed the CIA for assassinating foreign leaders. The collapse of the South Vietnamese government rendered moot the sacrifice of some 58,000 American lives. The economy was in tatters. And as Americans began thinking about their nation in a new wayas one more nation among nations, no more providential than any otherthe pundits declared that from now on successful politicians would be the ones who honored this chastened new national mood.
Simon & Schuster
|
9781476782416
|
Hardcover
Bosch
By Bosch, Hieronymus
A comprehensive look at the work of Jheronimus Bosch, published to coincide with the 5th centenary of the artist's death and in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museo del PradoJheronimus van Aken (1450-1516) was born and lived in the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in North Brabant; in signing himself "Jheronimus Bosch" he linked his fame to his native city. In Spain, where he was known as "el Bosco," his work earned considerable acclaim early in his career.Bosch came from a long line of painters and soon mastered the skills of his craft. In stylistic terms, however, he departed from tradition, developing his own outlook. His inventive approach to both content and form is a hallmark of his work. Bosch played a pioneering role in the transformation of Flemish painting techniques in the early sixteenth century.
Thames & Hudson
|
9780500970799
|
Paperback
I Used to Live Here Once
By Seymour, Miranda
An intimate, profoundly moving biography of Jean Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea.Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling writers of the twentieth century. Memories of her Caribbean girlhood haunt the four short and piercingly brilliant novels that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in 1920s Paris and later in England, a body of fiction -- above all, the extraordinary Wide Sargasso Sea -- that has a passionate following today. And yet her own colorful life, including her early years on the Caribbean island of Dominica, remains too little explored, until now.In I Used to Live Here Once, Miranda Seymour sheds new light on the artist whose proud and fiercely solitary life profoundly informed her writing. Rhys experienced tragedy and extreme poverty, alcohol and drug dependency, romantic and sexual turmoil, all of which contributed to the "Rhys woman" of her oeuvre.
W. W. Norton & Company
|
9781324006121
|
Hardcover
Moonshiners and Prohibitionists
By Stewart, Bruce E.
Homemade liquor has played a prominent role in the Appalachian economy for nearly two centuries. The region endured profound transformations during the extreme prohibition movements of the nineteenth century, when the manufacturing and sale of alcohol -- an integral part of daily life for many Appalachians -- was banned. In Moonshiners and Prohibitionists: The Battle over Alcohol in Southern Appalachia, Bruce E. Stewart chronicles the social tensions that accompanied the region's early transition from a rural to an urban-industrial economy. Stewart analyzes the dynamic relationship of the bootleggers and opponents of liquor sales in western North Carolina, as well as conflict driven by social and economic development that manifested in political discord.
University Press of Kentucky
|
9780813176192
|
Paperback
Inside Syria
By Erlich, Reese
Based on first-hand reporting from Syria and Washington, journalist Reese Erlich unravels the complex dynamics underlying the Syrian civil war. Through vivid, on-the-ground accounts and interviews with both rebel leaders and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erlich gives the reader a better understanding of this momentous power struggle and why it matters.Through his many contacts inside Syria, the author reveals who is supporting Assad and why; he describes the agendas of the rebel factions; and he depicts in stark terms the dire plight of many ordinary Syrian people caught in the cross-fire. The book also provides insights into the role of the Kurds, the continuing influence of Iran, and the policies of American leaders who seem interested only in protecting US regional interests.
Prometheus Books
|
9781616149482
|
Hardcover
Trump
By Trump, Donald J.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work - a firsthand account of the rise of America's foremost deal-maker. "I like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big." - Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action - how he runs his organization and how he runs his life - as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker's art. And throughout, Trump talks - really talks - about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur - the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight. Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal "Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again." - The New York Times "Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet." - Chicago Tribune "Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump's larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader's attention is instantly and fully claimed." - Boston Herald "A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography." - New York PostFrom the Hardcover edition.
Ballantine Books
|
9780399594496
|
Print book
The Woman's Hour
By Weiss, Elaine
"Both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for every reader" -- Hillary Rodham ClintonSoon to be a major television event, the nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have approved the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote; one last state--Tennessee--is needed for women's voting rights to be the law of the land. The suffragists face vicious opposition from politicians, clergy, corporations, and racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the nation's moral collapse.
Penguin Books
|
9780143128991
|
Paperback
Agent Sonya
By Macintyre, Ben
In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her.They didn't know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn't know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.
Proving Ground
By Kleiman, Kathy
After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer--better known as the ENIAC— even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told -- until now.
Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. PROVING GROUND restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers' groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and PROVING GROUND is the celebration they deserve.
The Flying Tigers
By Kleiner, Sam
The thrilling story behind the American pilots who were secretly recruited to defend the nation's desperate Chinese allies before Pearl Harbor and ended up on the front lines of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Sam Kleiner's The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China.
The Invisible Bridge
By Perlstein, Rick
From the bestselling author of Nixonland a dazzling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s. In January of 1973 Richard Nixon announced the end of the Vietnam War and prepared for a triumphant second termuntil televised Watergate hearings revealed his White House as little better than a mafia den. The next president declared upon Nixons resignation our long national nightmare is overbut then congressional investigators exposed the CIA for assassinating foreign leaders. The collapse of the South Vietnamese government rendered moot the sacrifice of some 58,000 American lives. The economy was in tatters. And as Americans began thinking about their nation in a new wayas one more nation among nations, no more providential than any otherthe pundits declared that from now on successful politicians would be the ones who honored this chastened new national mood.
Bosch
By Bosch, Hieronymus
A comprehensive look at the work of Jheronimus Bosch, published to coincide with the 5th centenary of the artist's death and in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museo del PradoJheronimus van Aken (1450-1516) was born and lived in the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in North Brabant; in signing himself "Jheronimus Bosch" he linked his fame to his native city. In Spain, where he was known as "el Bosco," his work earned considerable acclaim early in his career.Bosch came from a long line of painters and soon mastered the skills of his craft. In stylistic terms, however, he departed from tradition, developing his own outlook. His inventive approach to both content and form is a hallmark of his work. Bosch played a pioneering role in the transformation of Flemish painting techniques in the early sixteenth century.
I Used to Live Here Once
By Seymour, Miranda
An intimate, profoundly moving biography of Jean Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea.Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling writers of the twentieth century. Memories of her Caribbean girlhood haunt the four short and piercingly brilliant novels that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in 1920s Paris and later in England, a body of fiction -- above all, the extraordinary Wide Sargasso Sea -- that has a passionate following today. And yet her own colorful life, including her early years on the Caribbean island of Dominica, remains too little explored, until now.In I Used to Live Here Once, Miranda Seymour sheds new light on the artist whose proud and fiercely solitary life profoundly informed her writing. Rhys experienced tragedy and extreme poverty, alcohol and drug dependency, romantic and sexual turmoil, all of which contributed to the "Rhys woman" of her oeuvre.
Moonshiners and Prohibitionists
By Stewart, Bruce E.
Homemade liquor has played a prominent role in the Appalachian economy for nearly two centuries. The region endured profound transformations during the extreme prohibition movements of the nineteenth century, when the manufacturing and sale of alcohol -- an integral part of daily life for many Appalachians -- was banned. In Moonshiners and Prohibitionists: The Battle over Alcohol in Southern Appalachia, Bruce E. Stewart chronicles the social tensions that accompanied the region's early transition from a rural to an urban-industrial economy. Stewart analyzes the dynamic relationship of the bootleggers and opponents of liquor sales in western North Carolina, as well as conflict driven by social and economic development that manifested in political discord.
Inside Syria
By Erlich, Reese
Based on first-hand reporting from Syria and Washington, journalist Reese Erlich unravels the complex dynamics underlying the Syrian civil war. Through vivid, on-the-ground accounts and interviews with both rebel leaders and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erlich gives the reader a better understanding of this momentous power struggle and why it matters.Through his many contacts inside Syria, the author reveals who is supporting Assad and why; he describes the agendas of the rebel factions; and he depicts in stark terms the dire plight of many ordinary Syrian people caught in the cross-fire. The book also provides insights into the role of the Kurds, the continuing influence of Iran, and the policies of American leaders who seem interested only in protecting US regional interests.
Trump
By Trump, Donald J.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work - a firsthand account of the rise of America's foremost deal-maker. "I like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big." - Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action - how he runs his organization and how he runs his life - as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker's art. And throughout, Trump talks - really talks - about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur - the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight. Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal "Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again." - The New York Times "Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet." - Chicago Tribune "Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump's larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader's attention is instantly and fully claimed." - Boston Herald "A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography." - New York PostFrom the Hardcover edition.
The Woman's Hour
By Weiss, Elaine
"Both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for every reader" -- Hillary Rodham ClintonSoon to be a major television event, the nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have approved the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote; one last state--Tennessee--is needed for women's voting rights to be the law of the land. The suffragists face vicious opposition from politicians, clergy, corporations, and racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the nation's moral collapse.
Agent Sonya
By Macintyre, Ben
In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her.They didn't know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn't know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.