Category Archives: Politics
Wednesday’s Book Review: “One Nation, After All: What Middle Class Americans Really Think About”
One Nation, After All: What Middle Class Americans Really Think About. By Alan Wolfe. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. I have been reading several books that relate to the cultural/economic divide in the present-day United States. Although published some 15 … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “The Culture of the Cold War”
The Culture of the Cold War. By Stephen Whitfield. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, second edition 1996. I was preconditioned to appreciate this book when I first picked it up for a reading. I have been devouring studies … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Implosion: Lessons from National Security, High Reliability Spacecraft, Electronics, and the Forces Which Changed Them”
Implosion: Lessons from National Security, High Reliability Spacecraft, Electronics, and the Forces Which Changed Them. By L. Parker Temple. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons for the IEEE Press, 2013. Paperback. Figures, tables, acknowledgments, acronyms, abbreviations, program names, index. ISBN: … Continue reading
7th Space Policy and History Forum: “Low-Cost Innovation in Spacecraft Projects: Boon or Bust?”
I would like to invite anyone in the Washington, D.C., area on March 25, 2013, to join us for the upcoming 7th Space Policy and History Forum on “Low-Cost Innovation in Spacecraft Projects: Boon or Bust?” As noted below, please … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Benjamin Franklin”
Benjamin Franklin. By Edmund S. Morgan. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Benjamin Franklin is one of the first rank “founding fathers,” along with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington. But he was strikingly different from all of … Continue reading
“Lost and Gone Forever”? Clementine and the Blending of Civilian and Military Space Science
I have been working on a study of the Clementine program, a lunar orbiter that flew in 1994. Here is the abstract for this study. I would welcome any thoughts about it. In the early 1990s, just as the Cold … Continue reading
Special Issue of “OAH Magazine of History” Published on the “History Wars”
In the January 2013 issue of the Organization of American Historians Magazine of History published an issue dedicated to “History Wars.” The issue focuses on the periodic, and quite distinctive, conflicts concerning history that breaks out in the seemingly broad … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy”
Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy. By Christopher Hayes. New York: Crown Books, 2012. Is the meritocracy that runs the United States both dysfunctional and corrupt? Is it one or the other? Is it neither? Those are questions that … Continue reading
Frontiers of Flight, U.S. Industrial Policy, and Free Markets
In the November-December 2012 issue of Space Time: The Magazine of the American Astronautical Society I published a short article that focused on the government investment that facilitated flight in both the atmosphere and in space. It also discusses the … Continue reading
