Showing titles in Transportation

Author Kurt C. Schlichting tells the story of the Manhattan waterfront as a struggle between public and private control of New York's priceless asset. Nature provided New York with a sheltered harbor but presented the city with a challenge: to find the necessary capital to build and expand the maritime infrastructure. From colonial times until after the Civil War, the city ceded control of the waterfront to private interests, excluding the public entirely and sparking a battle between shipping companies, the railroads, and ferries for access to the waterfront. 

During the summer of 1940, Hitler's Germany appeared unstoppable. The Nazis were masters of mainland Europe, in alliance with Stalin's Russia, and only the English Channel prevented an immediate invasion. Britain stood alone. Operation Sealion examines just how realistic the German threat of invasion was. The author studies the plans, the available capability and resources, and the Germans' record in Norway and, later, Crete. The author weighs these against the state of Britain's defenses and the relative strengths of the land, air, and naval forces. 

Nearly every US city would like to be more walkable - for reasons of health, wealth, and the environment - yet few are taking the proper steps to get there. The goals are often clear, but the path is seldom easy. Jeff Speck’s follow-up to his best-selling Walkable City is the resource that cities and citizens need to usher in an era of renewed street life. Walkable City Rules is a doer’s guide to making change in cities, and making it now.

Il ciclista non fa code, non ha problemi di parcheggio. Procede spavaldo, impettito e il suo agile veicolo gli trasmette una tranquilla solennità. Beffardamente sorpassa l'automobilista imbottigliato nel traffico. Nell'illustrare i vantaggi della bici, Trochet non si limita a considerazioni di natura logistica. Bicicletta diventa sinonimo di benessere fisico e spirituale, libertà di movimento e di pensiero.

During his remarkable lifetime, Harold Gatty became one of the world's great navigators (in 1931, he and Wiley Post flew around the world in a record-breaking eight days) and, to the benefit of posterity, recorded in this book much of his accumulated knowledge about pathfinding both on land and at sea. Applying methods used by primitive peoples and early explorers, the author reveals how to determine location, study wind directions and reflections in the sky, even how to use the senses of smell and hearing to find your way in the wilderness, in a desert, in snow-covered areas, and on the ocean.

Here's a biographical profile of John and Horace Dodge, the fabulously wealthy Detroit automobile pioneers who reveled in yachts, estates and producing great cars. Unfortunately, John and Horace's lifestyles were unacceptable to the social elite in Detroit; they regarded the brothers as uncultured, crude and boorish. And they probably were, but it bothered the brothers not at all.

Rosie Schaap has always loved bars: the wood and brass and jukeboxes, the knowing bartenders, and especially the sometimes surprising but always comforting company of regulars. Starting with her misspent youth in the bar car of a regional railroad, where at age 15 she told commuters’ fortunes in exchange for beer, and continuing today as she slings cocktails at a neighborhood joint in Brooklyn, Schaap has learned her way around both sides of a bar and come to realize how powerful the fellowship among bar patrons can be.

Here's a biographical profile of Charles and J. Frank Duryea, two visionaries who were among the first to recognize the potential of the automobile. In 1892 they built America's first gasoline-powered car and had it running successfully the following year.

Warfare in the sky for the first time in history! The French Lafayette Espadrille accepts Americans to serve as pilots before America's entry into World War I. James Norman Hall describes his frightening experiences flying over enemy lines and his soul searching when commanded to kill. He recounts his training in a French flight school, his friendships with other trainees and his crash landing in German territory.

Here's a biographical profile of the Duesenberg brothers, Augie and Fred, who built some of America's most famous cars, cars that today sell for millions at auctions. Jay Leno, owner of an extensive classic car collection, calls the Duesenberg SJ his favorite car. He feels it is "probably the greatest American car" ever built. The Duesenberg name evokes images of a European heritage, an automobile built in the image and traditions of iconic stalwarts such as Mercedes, Benz, Bugatti and Ferrari.

Commanded by Captain Howes Norris, the Sharon headed for the whaling grounds of the northwestern Pacific. At Pohnpei Island, 12 men from the Sharon deserted the ship, leaving her critically shorthanded. After steering for New Zealand to recruit more crew, the men on lookout raised a school of sperm whales. Two boats gave chase, each with a crew of six. Five men were left on board the Sharon: Norris, three pacific Islanders, and a Portuguese boy named Manuel.

Here's a biographical profile of the Freelan and Francis Stanley, identical twins who developed the Stanley Steamers, cars powered by steam engines. In 1897 the brothers, dressed alike in overcoats, bowler hats and sporting thick black beards appeared on Maple Street in Watertown, Mass., driving a horseless carriage that was nearly soundless. Spectators were stunned by the quick pace and eerie silence. One observer later recalled: "It was like watching a pair of pants run down the street with nobody in them."

You will find this book, although an exciting narrative, has an unpolished feel, because it was published in June of 1918, while Mr. Hall was a captive in a German POW camp. When he was captured behind enemy lines, the book was still a work in progress.

Here is the story of a mechanically inclined farm boy who turned the automobile from a toy for the wealthy, into a necessity for modern life.

This biography approaches the story of Henry Ford in the context of his world. For example, roads were as much a factor for cars, as the car was for roads. The farmer would not risk his livelihood on a Ford internal combustion tractor until the engine proved itself in his Sunday car.

In Magnolias, Sweet Tea, and Exhaust, Carole Townsend goes to ground with NASCAR, following the races at Southern tracks from one to the next, learning about the sport and the culture of NASCAR as she goes. Townsend meets and interviews top drivers as well as some of NASCAR’s rising stars, legends, team owners, pit crews, and fans.

It wasn’t surprising when the first abandoned bicycles were found along the dirt roads and farmland just across the border from Tijuana, but before long they were arriving in droves. The bikes went from curiosity, to nuisance, to phenomenon. But until they caught the eye of journalist Kimball Taylor, only a small cadre of human smugglers - coyotes - and migrants could say how or why they’d gotten there. This is the story of 7,000 bikes that made an incredible journey and one young man from Oaxaca who arrived at the border with nothing, built a small empire, and then vanished. 

In Driving the Future Oge portrays a future where clean, intelligent vehicles with lighter frames and alternative power trains will produce zero emissions and run at 100+ mpg. With electronic architectures more like that of airplanes, cars will be smarter and safer, will park themselves, and will network with other vehicles on the road to drive themselves.

Why a unicycle? Why a cross-country trip? Why leave a prominent New York magazine and return to the simple life in Kentucky? Reminiscent of classic literary travelogues, Mark Schimmoeller's Slowspoke: A Unicyclist's Guide to America takes listeners on an inward, emotional journey as he inches across landscapes and communities from North Carolina to Arizona. Schimmoeller became inspired by his unicycle as an adolescent.

Rather than offering simply a detailed retelling of the Titanic's sinking on her maiden voyage, John Maxtone-Graham devotes his considerable knowledge and impeccable prose to a discussion of salient, provocative, and rarely investigated components of the story, including dramatic survivors' accounts of the events of the fateful night....

Considered by many critics to be the very best Zane Grey Western, The U. P. Trail narrates the story of William Neale, a young engineer working for the Union Pacific railway. He must contend with Indians, bandits, badlands, and bad weather to get the train to the destination. And in the midst of all this, the love of his life is kidnapped! The railroads were expanding to link the nation, with the celebrated golden spike marking the spot in Utah where the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific would meet.