The account of the author’s life, spent between Europe and America, is at the same time an account of his generation, one that came of age between the two World Wars. Recalling not only circumstances of his own situation but that of his friends, the author shows how this generation faced a reality that seemed fragmented, and in their shared thirst for knowledge and commitment to ideas they searched for cohesiveness among the glittering, holistic ideologies and movements of the twenties and thirties. The author’s scholarly work on the German Resistance to Hitler revealed to him those who maintained dignity and courage in times of peril and despair, which became for him a life’s pursuit. This work is unique in its thorough inclusion of the postwar decades and its perspective from a historian eager to rescue the “other” Germany—the Germany of the righteous rather than the Holocaust murderers.

Turbulence is widely recognized as one of the outstanding problems of the physical sciences, but it still remains only partially understood despite having attracted the sustained efforts of many leading scientists for well over a century. In A Voyage Through Turbulence we are transported through a crucial period of the history of the subject via biographies of twelve of its great personalities, starting with Osborne Reynolds and his pioneering work of the 1880s. This book will provide absorbing reading for every scientist, mathematician and engineer interested in the history and culture of turbulence, as background to the intense challenges that this universal phenomenon still presents.

The account of the author's life, spent between Europe and America, is at the same time an account of his generation, one that came of age between the two World Wars. Recalling not only circumstances of his own situation but that of his friends, the author shows how this generation faced a reality that seemed fragmented, and in their shared thirst for knowledge and commitment to ideas they searched for cohesiveness among the glittering, holistic ideologies and movements of the twenties and thirties. The author's scholarly work on the German Resistance to Hitler revealed to him those who maintained dignity and courage in times of peril and despair, which became for him a life's pursuit. This work is unique in its thorough inclusion of the postwar decades and its perspective from a historian eager to rescue the "other" Germany--the Germany of the righteous rather than the Holocaust murderers.

From a beginning in an Egyptian Delta town and the port of Alexandria to the scenic vistas of sunny southern California, Ahmed Zewail takes us on a voyage through time his own life and the split-second world of the femtosecond. In this engaging exposé of his life and work until his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1999, Zewail explores in non-technical language the landscape of molecules glimpsed on the scale of one quadrillionth of a second: the femtosecond, 0. 000 000 000 000 001 second. Zewail enriches the journey into the strange territory of femtochemistry with insightful analogies and illustrations to aid both the general reader and the scientifically inclined. He likewise draws lessons from his life story so far, and he meditates on the impact the revolution in science has had on our modern world in both developed and developing countries. He suggests a concrete course of action for the world of the have-nots, and ends the book with hope for Egypt in developing the nation's greatest natural resource its youth to build a more promising future, and for America to develop a new vision domestically and internationally.

A magnificent epic of the sea and a dynamic portrait of turn-of-the-century America.--Publishers Weekly

A page-turning classic--comic, eerily timely--novel that stands alongside Brave New World and Gulliver's Travels

The bestselling author of Blue Latitudes takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he's mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus's sail in 1492 to Jamestown's founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America. An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs—these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers. Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek—from Florida's Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges—Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.