Numerical Ratings and One-line Descriptions of Books Reviewed, Organized by Topic

HISTORY

History is a very straightforward category. But in order to reduce duplication, I'm transferring some titles from "Spaceflight" here and to "Memoirs."

Lists of available reviews of books on history

PRINCIPAL AUTHOR	TITLE (Linked to review)	RATING (0-5)	REVIEW DATE	ONE-LINE DESCRIPTION
Benecke, Mark	The Dream of Eternal Life	3.5	4/05/2004	In a somewhat shallow and fragmentary account, forensic entomologist Benecke traces the much-desired but ever-elusive boon of immortality through recorded history.
Benjamin, Marina	Rocket Dreams	5.0	2/23/2004	Once we all dreamed of a glorious Space Age. What happened to those dreams? This engaging book holds the history of the thirty years since up for thoughtful examination.
Bergaust, Erik	Murder on Pad 34	3.0	7/05/2004	Bergaust was a true "space booster". But his analysis of the Apollo 204 fire, while useful, paints a distorted picture.
Bloodworth, Dennis	An Eye for the Dragon	5.0	12/28/2002	Sketches of southeast Asia 1954-1970 by a reporter (not mild-mannered) for a great metropolitan British newspaper
Cabbage, Michael	Comm Check...	5.0	3/25/2004	Space journalists Michael Cabbage and William Harwood have done a solid and very detailed job of reporting on the Columbia disaster, its investigation, and the implications for the future of NASA.
Cook, Nick	The Hunt for Zero Point	3.5	9/26/2005	Intrepid editor for British bastion of defense data uncovers secret (pseudo)science of anti-gravity, time travel & zero-point energy — or does he?
Cooke, Stephanie	In Mortal Hands	5.0	11/18/2009	A long-time reporter on military and commercial nuclear developments, Ms. Cooke surveys that history and cautions us that its dangers did not vanish with the Soviet Union.
Corson, William R.	The Betrayal	5.0	5/28/2011	Some agonizing ground truth on the Vietnam War from Lt. Col. William R. Corson, USMC, who fought in it and was responsible for the only teams to actually win the "hearts and minds" of Vietnamese peasants.
de Camp, L. Sprague	Lands Beyond	5.0	6/02/1998	One of the essential references for the historical truths behind Atlantis and other tales and legends.
Donnelly, Joseph P.	Wilderness Kingdom	5.0	11/16/2013	The little-known efforts of the Jesuit Father Nicholas Point to convert American Indians of the northwest, and the trove of journals and paintings that resulted, are described here.
Eller, Ronald D.	Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers	5.0	2/04/2015	A very thorough history of Appalachia's transformation during the decades 1880-1930.
Fallaci, Oriana	If the Sun Dies	5.0	1/27/2002	The woman called "the greatest political interviewer of modern times" in the 1970s here tells us of the year she spent probing NASA's space program.
Fallaci, Oriana	Interview with History	5.0	2/28/2002	Fallaci's interviews provide deep insight into 14 important personages of the 1970s, and into the troubled times which they influenced and were influenced by.
Fitzgerald, A. Ernest	The Pentagonists	5.0	7/28/1998	Testimony by a Pentagon cost analyst about the military-procurement culture of "waste, fraud and abuse".
Gray, Mike	Angle of Attack	5.0	8/12/1998	Skilled Rockwell engineer and manager Harrison Storms drove himself and his team for six years to build the Apollo Command Module and the second stage of the Saturn rocket that would launch it — only to become the sacrificial lamb when the Apollo fire happened.
Hersey, John	Hiroshima	5.0	8/07/2015	An understated account of six survivors heroically struggling to survive and help others in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, seventy years ago.
Klerkx, Greg	Lost in Space	5.0	11/05/2004	Space-age politics, the efforts of a bureaucratic NASA to preserve its empire, and the recent burgeoning of entrepreneurial spaceflight companies, form the heart of this engrossing narrative.
Lambright, W. Henry	Powering Apollo	5.0	6/08/2004	A fascinating introduction to the political machinations surrounding America's moon missions of the 1960s — and to the man who steered NASA through those reefs and shoals.
Lederer, William J.	Our Own Worst Enemy	5.0	5/23/2011	Ten years after The Ugly American, William Lederer dropped his other plans and wrote a hard-hitting, factual analysis of why we were failing in Viet Nam.
Lord, M. G.	Astro Turf	5.0	10/15/2005	A daughter of American aerospace engineering culture of the mid-twentieth-century examines how she — and we — got to the vastly different here and now.
O'Neill, Dan	The Firecracker Boys	5.0	12/26/1997	The history of a Project Plowshare test that — but for local protests — might have produced a super-Chernobyl in Alaska in 1961.
Orwell, George	The Road to Wigan Pier	4.0	7/04/2004	Orwell's gripping account of working-class poverty in the industrial North of England, based on his own in-depth research, is diminished by a mistaken conception of technological progress.
Press, Bill	Train Wreck	5.0	1/20/2010	Press documents the failure of the modern conservative movement with abundant facts and figures, and traces its origin in history.
Rasor, Dina	The Pentagon Underground	5.0	12/30/1997	Dina Rasor takes us inside the flawed procurement of the Army's M-1 Abrams tank.
Rhodes, Richard	Visions of Technology	5.0	3/30/2003	A veritable gold mine of short pieces on technology from throughout the 20th century
Rotter, Andrew J.	Hiroshima: The World's Bomb	5.0	1/03/2010	The vexing question of whether atomic bombs should have been used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is reexamined by Andrew Rotter.
Schell, Orville	Mandate of Heaven	5.0	9/15/2000	China expert Schell takes us inside the People's Republic of China when Tiananmen Square erupted.
Stern, Gerald M.	The Scotia Widows	5.0	5/04/2010	Gerald Stern shows us that Appalachian coal mines and Appalachian justice looked much the same in 1976 as they do today. That's not a thing to celebrate.
Weir, Alison	Against Our Better Judgment	5.0	3/19/2016	This concise but comprehensive summary of U.S.-Israel relations through 1950 is a must-read.
Winkler, Allan M.	Life Under a Cloud	5.0	12/21/1997	Historian Winkler describes the social and cultural effects on America of the first fifty years of the atomic age.

Quality Ranges for Book Reviews
The books are rated from 0 to 5 in increments of 0.5. Colors represent the following quality ranges:
4.0 to 5.0	Quality:	HIGH	(Color = Aqua)	Competent to exceptional; well worth the money
2.0 to 3.5	Quality:	FAIR	(Color = Lime)	Useful despite some flaws; may or may not be worth buying.
0.5 to 1.5	Quality:	POOR	(Color = Yellow)	Seriously flawed; read it if you wish, but don't buy it.
0.0 to 0.0	Quality:	YUCK	(Color = Fuchsia)	Avoid this book at all costs!