Download or read book Empires of the Sky written by Alexander Rose and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Golden Age of Aviation is brought to life in this story of the giant Zeppelin airships that once roamed the sky—a story that ended with the fiery destruction of the Hindenburg. “Genius . . . a definitive tale of an incredible time when mere mortals learned to fly.”—Keith O’Brien, The New York Times At the dawn of the twentieth century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way. In the glittery 1920s, the count’s brilliant protégé, Hugo Eckener, achieved undreamed-of feats of daring and skill, including the extraordinary Round-the-World voyage of the Graf Zeppelin. At a time when America’s airplanes—rickety deathtraps held together by glue, screws, and luck—could barely make it from New York to Washington, D.C., Eckener’s airships serenely traversed oceans without a single crash, fatality, or injury. What Charles Lindbergh almost died doing—crossing the Atlantic in 1927—Eckener had effortlessly accomplished three years before the Spirit of St. Louis even took off. Even as the Nazis sought to exploit Zeppelins for their own nefarious purposes, Eckener built his masterwork, the behemoth Hindenburg—a marvel of design and engineering. Determined to forge an airline empire under the new flagship, Eckener met his match in Juan Trippe, the ruthlessly ambitious king of Pan American Airways, who believed his fleet of next-generation planes would vanquish Eckener’s coming airship armada. It was a fight only one man—and one technology—could win. Countering each other’s moves on the global chessboard, each seeking to wrest the advantage from his rival, the struggle for mastery of the air was a clash not only of technologies but of business, diplomacy, politics, personalities, and the two men’s vastly different dreams of the future. Empires of the Sky is the sweeping, untold tale of the duel that transfixed the world and helped create our modern age.
Download or read book Empire of the Clouds written by James Hamilton-Paterson and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-10-07 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. And what aircraft they were. The sleek Comet, the first jet airliner. The awesome delta-winged Vulcan, an intercontinental bomber that could be thrown about the sky like a fighter. The Hawker Hunter, the most beautiful fighter-jet ever built and the Lightning, which could zoom ten miles above the clouds in a couple of minutes and whose pilots rated flying it as better than sex. How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft manufacturer of any significance in the country? What became of the great industry of de Havilland or Handley Page? And what was it like to be alive in that marvellous post-war moment when innovative new British aircraft made their debut, and pilots were the rock stars of the age? James Hamilton-Paterson captures that season of glory in a compelling book that fuses his own memories of being a schoolboy plane spotter with a ruefully realistic history of British decline - its loss of self confidence and power. It is the story of great and charismatic machines and the men who flew them: heroes such as Bill Waterton, Neville Duke, John Derry and Bill Beaumont who took inconceivable risks, so that we could fly without a second thought.
Download or read book Sky Boys How They Built the Empire State Building written by Deborah Hopkinson and published by Schwartz & Wade. This book was released on 2012-11-28 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book and ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book provides a riveting brick-by-brick account of how one of the most amazing accomplishments in American architecture came to be. It’s 1930 and times are tough for Pop and his son. But look! On the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue, a building straight and simple as a pencil is being built in record time. Hundreds of men are leveling, shoveling, hauling. They’re hoisting 60,000 tons of steal, stacking 10 million bricks, eating lunch in the clouds. And when they cut ribbon and the crowds rush in, the boy and his father will be among the first to zoom up to the top of the tallest building in the world and see all of Manhattan spread at their feet.
Download or read book Pebble in the Sky written by Isaac Asimov and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he's a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it's the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil--so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty. Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two. This is young Isaac Asimov's first novel, full of wonders and ideas, the book that launched the novels of the Galactic Empire, culminating in the Foundation series. This is Golden Age SF at its finest. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Sky As Frontier written by David T. Courtwright and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at how aviation's frontier lasted only a scant 3 decades, then vanished as commercial and military imperatives made flying routine.
Download or read book The Empire Novels written by Isaac Asimov and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three clasic tales of space adventure - The Stars, Like Dust; The Currents of Space; and Pebble in the Sky.
Download or read book Sky Keeper written by S.M. Gaither and published by S.M. Gaither. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to the World Below, where the keepers command the sky, but the commander of the keepers controls the empire... For centuries, the four kingdoms of the Caspian empire have remained safe and hidden below the ocean, protected from the Surface World—and from that ocean that separates them—by a great barrier maintained by magic. Aven Talavir has spent her entire life learning to be a keeper of that barrier, channeling her powers into maintaining and healing it. But now an impossibly sinister force seeks to shatter it. To stop the looming flood of destruction, Aven picks up her knives and sets off on a quest to find an ancient power that may be able to permanently heal the makeshift sky. Reaching it will mean fighting her way through dangerous politics and deadly magic, all while finding love and friendship in unexpected places— Only to realize that the greatest treachery may not lie in the breaking sky, but in the very hearts of the people around her. The perfect next read for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Tamora Pierce, and Megan Whalen Turner. If you enjoy strong female leads, swoon-worthy romance, feisty mythical creatures, and unique magic systems, then grab the first book of this trilogy today!
Download or read book Empire of Ivory written by Naomi Novik and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education comes the fourth volume of the Temeraire series, as the Napoleonic Wars bring Will Laurence and Temeraire to Africa in search of aid. “Temeraire is a dragon for the ages.”—Terry Brooks Tragedy has struck His Majesty's Aerial Corps, whose magnificent fleet of fighting dragons and their human captains valiantly defends England’s shores against the encroaching armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. An epidemic of unknown origin and no known cure is decimating the noble dragons’ ranks—forcing the hopelessly stricken into quarantine. Now only Temeraire and a pack of newly recruited dragons remain uninfected—and stand as the only means of an airborne defense against France's ever bolder sorties. Bonaparte’s dragons are already harrowing Britain’s ships at sea. Only one recourse remains: Temeraire and his captain, Will Laurence, must take wing to Africa, whose shores may hold the cure for the mysterious and deadly contagion. On this mission there is no time to waste, and no telling what Don’t miss any of Naomi Novik’s magical Temeraire series HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON • THRONE OF JADE • BLACK POWDER WAR • EMPIRE OF IVORY • VICTORY OF EAGLES • TONGUES OF SERPENTS • CRUCIBLE OF GOLD • BLOOD OF TYRANTS • LEAGUE OF DRAGONS
Download or read book Astronomy of the Inca Empire written by Steven R. Gullberg and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Astronomy in the Inca Empire was a robust and fundamental practice. The subsequent Spanish conquest of the Andes region disrupted much of this indigenous culture and resulted in a significant loss of information about its rich history. Through modern archaeoastronomy, this book helps recover and interpret some of these elements of Inca civilization. Astronomy was intricately woven into the very fabric of Andean existence and daily life. Accordingly, the text takes a holistic approach to its research, considering first and foremost the cultural context of each astronomy-related site. The chapters necessarily start with a history of the Incas from the beginning of their empire through the completion of the conquest by Spain before diving into an astronomical and cultural analysis of many of the huacas found in the heart of the Inca Empire. Over 300 color images—original artwork and many photos captured during the author’s extensive field research in Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, Cusco, and elsewhere—are included throughout the book, adding visual insight to a rigorous examination of Inca astronomical sites and history.
Download or read book Skyfall written by Catherine Asaro and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-10 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "'Skyfall' goes back to the beginning, to the rebirth of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forges a vast interstellar empire."--Back cover.
Download or read book The Drowning Empire The Complete Series written by S.M. Gaither and published by S.M. Gaither. This book was released on 2020-02-05 with total page 1222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a girl who held up the sky. It begins with a break, a flood of rain and tears. And it ends with a crown that might cost her everything she loves. This boxed set contains all three books in The Drowning Empire trilogy--over 1200 pages of magic, action, and romance! One click today and prepare to get lost in this epic fantasy retelling of the Atlantis myth! Book One, Sky Keeper Welcome to the World Below, where the keepers command the sky, but the commander of the keepers controls the empire... For centuries, the four kingdoms of the Caspian empire have remained safe and hidden below the ocean, protected from the Surface World—and from that ocean that separates them—by a great barrier maintained by magic. Aven Talavir has spent her entire life learning to be a keeper of that barrier, channeling her powers into maintaining and healing it. But now an impossibly sinister force seeks to shatter it. To stop the looming flood of destruction, Aven picks up her knives and sets off on a quest to find an ancient power that may be able to permanently heal the makeshift sky. Reaching it will mean fighting her way through dangerous politics and deadly magic, all while finding love and friendship in unexpected places— Only to realize that the greatest treachery may not lie in the breaking sky, but in the very hearts of the people around her. Book Two, Curse Breaker In the underwater empire of Caspia, a storm is brewing. Aven Talavir's efforts to unite the four kingdoms resulted in a temporary peace, but that peace is shattered all over again when she is named the controversial heir to a dying emperor's throne. The crown on her head makes her a target. One that Kai 'West' Armana would do anything to remove. One that results in an attack, and a curse on the newly crowned empress that will require an unimaginable sacrifice to undo. And that sacrifice is only the beginning. Because the world is not healed. The sky is not safe. And things that should be dead and drowned do not always stay that way. Book Three, Storm Bringer The Sky is Changed. Once upon a time, Aven Talavir lived in a sparkling empire beneath the waves, protected from the Sea-Above by a sky made of magic. Then it all fell apart. The four kingdoms of the Caspian Empire are united no longer. Aven is an empress in name only, her kingdom overtaken by her rivals, her city flooded, and her hope fading as she sets out on a desperate journey to find allies, and to take back the power she needs to mount one final effort to save her world. That power exists. She knows that now. But the cost of wielding it may be more than she can pay. The epic story that began in Sky Keeper concludes in this thrilling final book. Waters and armies will rise, kings and queens will fall, and the Empress of Sky will see her true reign begin…Or else watch everything she loves be swept away by a storming sea.
Download or read book Empire of the Sun written by J. G. Ballard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg's film, tells of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China. Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him. Shanghai, 1941 -- a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world. Ballard's enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.
Download or read book Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient Andes written by Brian S. Bauer and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This joint project of an astrophysicist (Dearborn) and an archeologist (Bauer) was written for the use of astronomers, archeologists, and historians. Includes sufficient background information for readers with little or no knowledge of the Andes. Text sheds new light on relationship between Inca cosmology and social structure"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.
Download or read book Eagle and Empire written by Alan Smale and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning author of Clash of Eagles and Eagle in Exile concludes his masterly alternate-history saga of the Roman invasion of North America in this stunning novel. Roman Praetor Gaius Marcellinus came to North America as a conqueror, but after meeting with defeat at the hands of the city-state of Cahokia, he has had to forge a new destiny in this strange land. In the decade since his arrival, he has managed to broker an unstable peace between the invading Romans and a loose affiliation of Native American tribes known as the League. But invaders from the west will shatter that peace and plunge the continent into war: The Mongol Horde has arrived and they are taking no prisoners. As the Mongol cavalry advances across the Great Plains leaving destruction in its path, Marcellinus and his Cahokian friends must summon allies both great and small in preparation for a final showdown. Alliances will shift, foes will rise, and friends will fall as Alan Smale brings us ever closer to the dramatic final battle for the future of the North American continent. Praise for Eagle and Empire “Smale delivers in spades . . . the best of the trilogy. Highly recommended.”—Historical Novels Review “The pace . . . is breathless and the action relentless. . . . A satisfying culmination to the adventures of a Roman warrior in the New World.”—Kirkus Reviews “The final volume of Smale’s Clash of Eagles trilogy is relentless, with characters and readers hardly getting a breath before the next threat comes crashing down. . . . Smale’s hard-hitting and satisfying conclusion will be a must for his readers, as the trilogy will be for any fan of alternate history.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “[Eagle and Empire] had awesome worldbuilding, worthy and interesting characters, and a great plot. . . . Altogether, a very satisfying journey.”—The Nameless Zine
Download or read book Empire of Man written by David Weber and published by Baen Publishing Enterprises. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 1253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times best-selling series - Omnibus - March Upcountry and March to the Sea, Books 1 and 2 in the Empire of Man Series. Roger Ramius MacClintock was young, handsome, athletic, an excellent dresser, and third in line for the Throne of Man. It probably wasn't too surprising that someone in his position should react by becoming spoiled, self_centered, and petulant. After all, what else did he have to do with his life? Then warships of the Empire of Man's worst rivals shoot his crippled vessel out of space and Roger is shipwrecked on the planet Marduk, whose jungles are full of deadly predators and barbarian hordes with really bad dispositions. Now all Roger has to do is hike halfway around the entire planet, then capture a spaceport from the Bad Guys, somehow commandeer a starship, and then go home to Mother for explanations. Fortunately, Roger has an ace in the hole: Bravo Company of Bronze Battalion of The Empress' Own Regiment. If anyone can get him off Marduk alive, it's the Bronze Barbarians. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About The Empire of Man Series: _Will fascinate sophisticated readers (the manual of arms for a fourarmed, 10 foot soldier is a thing of beauty) . . . [and] grip straightforward action lovers.Ó ¾Publishers Weekly _Coauthors Weber and Ringo excel in depicting the lives and times of soldiers both on and off the battlefield.Ó ¾Library Journal.
Download or read book Revelation written by and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.
Download or read book Empire of the Summer Moon written by S. C. Gwynne and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.
