Book picks similar to
The Warning: Accident at Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Omen for the Age of Terror by Mike Gray
non-fiction
science
nuclear
nuclear-disasters
Fallout: Disasters, Lies, and the Legacy of the Nuclear Age
Fred Pearce - 2018
Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created.At first, Pearce reminds us, America loved the bomb. Las Vegas, only seventy miles from the Nevada site of some hundred atmospheric tests, crowned four Miss Atomic Bombs in 1950s. Later, communities downwind of these tests suffered high cancer rates. The fate of a group of Japanese fishermen, who suffered high radiation doses from the first hydrogen bomb test in Bikini atoll, was worse. The United States Atomic Energy Commission accused them of being Red spies and ignored requests from the doctors desperately trying to treat them.Pearce moves on to explore the closed cities of the Soviet Union, where plutonium was refined and nuclear bombs tested throughout the '50s and '60s, and where the full extent of environmental and human damage is only now coming to light. Exploring the radioactive badlands created by nuclear accidents--not only the well-known examples of Chernobyl and Fukushima, but also the little known area around Satlykovo in the Russian Ural Mountains and the Windscale fire in the UK--Pearce describes the compulsive secrecy, deviousness, and lack of accountability that have persisted even as the technology has morphed from military to civilian uses.Finally, Pearce turns to the toxic legacies of nuclear technology: the emerging dilemmas over handling its waste and decommissioning of the great radioactive structures of the nuclear age, and the fearful doublethink over the world's growing stockpiles of plutonium, the most lethal and ubiquitous product of nuclear technologies.For any reader who craves a clear-headed examination of the tangled relationship between a powerful technology and human politics, foibles, fears, and arrogance, Fallout is the definitive look at humanity's nuclear adventure.
The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast
Bonnie Henderson - 2014
The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast is the gripping story of the geological discoveries—and the scientists who uncovered them—that signal the imminence of a catastrophic tsunami on the Northwest Coast.
Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic
Marla Cone - 1978
Awarded a major grant to conduct an exhaustive study of the deteriorating environment of the Arctic by the Pew Charitable Trusts (the first time Pew has given such a grant to a journalist), Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Marla Cone traveled across the Arctic, from Greenland to the Aleutian Islands, to find out why the Arctic is toxic.Silent Snow is not only a scientific journey, but a personal one. Whether hunting giant bowhead whales with native Alaskans who are struggling to protect their livelihood, or tracking endangered polar bears in Norway, Cone reports with an insider's eye on the dangers of pollution to native peoples and ecosystems, how Arctic cultures are adapting to this pollution, and what solutions will prevent the crisis from getting worse.
Fire at Eden's Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story
Brent Walth - 1994
An impetuous, flamboyant, imposing, and outrageous showman, Oregon Governor Tom McCall fascinated America as a refreshingly candid and forthright politician.
Runaway: How a Slave Defied America's First President (Kindle Single)
Bill Donahue - 2016
Runaway introduces us to the only one of those enchained people to escape and tell her story. Ona Judge was the young personal attendant to Martha Washington. On a spring evening in 1796, she slipped out of the president's home, throwing her master and mistress into a consternation that lingered for years. Why had Ona fled, and where had she gone? Join Harper's and New York Times Magazine contributor Bill Donahue as he traces the flight of America's most intriguing fugitive slave.Journalist Bill Donahue has written for Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, The Atlantic, Runner’s World, The New Yorker, and Harper’s. In reporting stories from over 20 countries, he has searched for fallen meteorites in the Sahara Desert, biked the streets of Shanghai, snuck into Manuel Noriega’s abandoned beach house in Panama, and taste-tested moonshine in the snowy Caucasus mountains of Georgia. He is the author of The Secret World of Saints, an e-book about the Catholic Church and its saintmaking process, and his work has been reprinted in Best American Sports Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and many other anthologies. He lives in rural New Hampshire, where he runs the Scriven Arts Colony.Cover Design by Kerry Ellis.
Sleep, Interrupted: A physician reveals the #1 reason why so many of us are sick and tired
Steven Y. Park - 2008
Or you have persistent pain you and your doctor can't explain. Man or woman, you may be fighting fluctuating hormone levels. Or maybe you snore like a freight train.Anything that narrows the throat and interrupts sleep, particularly breathing problems brought on by sleep position, illness, life changes, or your anatomy, may be key to understanding a host of common health issues. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Steven Park outlines a simple, rational explanation for what s making you sick, and provides guidance for treatment options that address specific health problems.
Leap Year
Steve Erickson - 1989
He paints a portrait of a country already far beyond its own crossroads.
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
Héctor Tobar - 2014
Across the globe, we sat riveted to television and computer screens as journalists flocked to the Atacama desert. While we saw what transpired above ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, the story of the miners experiences below the earths surface and the lives that led them there hasn't been heard until now. In this master work of a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, Hctor Tobar gains exclusive access to the miners and their stories. The result is a miraculous and emotionally textured account of the thirty-three men who came to think of the San José mine as a kind of coffin, as a cave inflicting constant and thundering aural torment, and as a church where they sought redemption through prayer while the world watched from above. It offers an understanding of the families and personal histories that brought los 33 to the mine, and the mystical and spiritual elements that surrounded working in such a dangerous place.
The Curse: The Colorful & Chaotic History of the LA Clippers
Mick Minas - 2016
Author Mick Minas goes behind the scenes-- interviewing players, coaches, and front office personnel--to create the first in-depth look at the history of the Clippers.The Curse is filled with drama: the unauthorized relocation of the franchise that led to the NBA filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Clippers, the disruption of the team's first playoff appearance by the Los Angeles riots, the bold but unsuccessful attempt to sign Kobe Bryant at the peak of his career, and the scandal that ultimately resulted in owner Donald Sterling being banned from the NBA for life. Featuring some of basketball's biggest names, including World B. Free, Elgin Baylor, Danny Manning, Doc Rivers, Larry Brown, Dominique Wilkins, Elton Brand, Baron Davis, Blake Griffin, and Chris Paul, The Curse delves into the disasters of the past and the complications of the present. This is the definitive history of the NBA's most dysfunctional franchise.
Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse
Paul Gahlinger - 2003
• Does Ecstasy cause brain damage? • Why is crack more addictive than cocaine? • What questions regarding drugs are legal to ask in a job interview? • When does marijuana possession carry a greater prison sentence than murder?Illegal Drugs is the first comprehensive reference to offer timely, pertinent information on every drug currently prohibited by law in the United States. It includes their histories, chemical properties and effects, medical uses and recreational abuses, and associated health problems, as well as addiction and treatment information.Additional survey chapters discuss general and historical information on illegal drug use, the effect of drugs on the brain, the war on drugs, drugs in the workplace, the economy and culture of illegal drugs, and information on thirty-three psychoactive drugs that are legal in the United States, from caffeine, alcohol and tobacco to betel nuts and kava kava.This book is a must-have resource for students, parents, health care workers, law enforcement officers, and anyone else who needs accurate information about drugs.
May at 10
Anthony Seldon - 2019
May at 10 tells the compelling inside story of the most turbulent period in modern British politics for 100 years.Written by one of Britain’s leading political and social commentators, May at 10 describes how Theresa May arrived in 10 Downing Street in 2016 with the clearest, yet toughest, agenda of any Prime Minister since the Second World War: delivering Brexit. What follows defies belief or historical precedent. This story has never been told.Including a comprehensive series of interviews with May’s closest aides and allies, and with unparalleled access to the advisers who shaped her premiership, Downing Street’s official historian Anthony Seldon decodes the enigma of the Prime Minister’s tenure. Drawing on all his authorial experience, he unpacks what is the most intriguing government and Prime Minister of the modern era.
iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age
Bill Gertz - 2017
Covert information warfare is being waged by world powers, rogue states—such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—and even terrorist groups like ISIS. This conflict has been designed to defeat and ultimately destroy the United States. This new type of warfare is part of the Information Age that has come to dominate our lives. In iWar, Bill Gertz describes how technology has completely revolutionized modern warfare, how the Obama administration failed to meet this challenge, and what we can and must do to catch up and triumph over this timely and important struggle.
Faisal
Rebecca Stefoff - 1989
A biography of the Saudi Arabian king who ruled from 1964 until his assassination in 1975 and who became, during his reign, an important world leader through his control of his country's vast oil resources.
Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire
Martin Fletcher - 2015
It was truly horrific, a startling story – and wholly avoidable – but it had only the briefest of inquiries, and it seemed its lessons were not learned.Twelve-year-old Martin Fletcher was at Valley Parade that day, celebrating Bradford's promotion to the second flight, with his dad, brother, uncle and grandfather. Martin was the only one of them to survive the fire – the biggest loss suffered by a single family in any British football disaster.In later years, Martin devoted himself to extensively investigating how the disaster was caused, its culture of institutional neglect and the government's general indifference towards football fans' safety at the time. This book tells the gripping, extraordinary in-depth story of a boy's unthinkable loss following a spring afternoon at a football match, of how fifty-six people could die at a game, and of the truths he unearthed as an adult. This is the story – thirty years on – of the disaster football has never properly acknowledged.