Smithsonian: 207 books
Queen Bess
Daredevil Aviator
Language: English
Release Date: March 10, 2015
Here is the brief but intense life of Bessie Coleman, America's first African American woman aviator. Born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, she became known as “Queen Bess,” a barnstormer and flying-circus performer who defied the strictures of race, sex, and society in pursuit of a dream.
Air Vagabonds
Oceans, Airmen, and a Quest for Adventure
Language: English
Release Date: May 26, 2015
Air Vagabonds is the story of the amazing, true (mis)adventures of a band of rogues piloting aircraft alone into exotic and deadly destinations.
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s the demand for light aircraft eclipsed anything seen before or since. This created the need for a small air...
The Museum in Transition
A Philosophical Perspective
Language: English
Release Date: July 15, 2014
During the past thirty years, museums of all kinds have tried to become more responsive to the interests of a diverse public. With exhibitions becoming people-centered, idea-oriented, and contextualized, the boundaries between museums and the “real” world are eroding. Setting the transition from...
Great Apes and Humans
The Ethics of Coexistence
Language: English
Release Date: May 27, 2014
The great apes -- gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans -- are known to be our closest living relatives. Chimpanzees in particular share 98 percent of our DNA, and scientists widely agree that they exhibit intellectual abilities long thought to be unique to humans, such as self-awareness...
Asteroids
A History
Language: English
Release Date: April 26, 2016
Asteroids suggest images of a catastrophic impact with Earth, triggering infernos, tidal waves, famine, and death -- but these scenarios have obscured the larger story of how asteroids have been discovered and studied. During the past two centuries, the quest for knowledge about asteroids has involved...
Imagined Life
A Speculative Scientific Journey among the Exoplanets in Search of Intelligent Aliens, Ice Creatures, and Supergravity Animals
Language: English
Release Date: September 17, 2019
The captivating possibilities of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, based on current scientific knowledge of existing worlds and forms of life
It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists...
by Peter J. Kuznick, James Gilbert
Language: English
Release Date: April 9, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: April 9, 2013
This anthology of essays questions many widespread assumptions about the culture of postwar America. Illuminating the origins and development of the many threads that constituted American culture during the Cold War, the contributors challenge the existence of a monolithic culture during the 1950s...
Cancer in the Community
Class and Medical Authority
Language: English
Release Date: April 9, 2013
Focusing on deep conflicts between the medical establishment and the working class, Martha Balshem chronicles a health education project in “Tannerstown,” a pseudonym for a blue-collar neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia.
Ethics on the Ark
Zoos, Animal Welfare, and Wildlife Conservation
Language: English
Release Date: January 11, 2012
Ethics on the Ark presents a passionate, multivocal discussion—among zoo professionals, activists, conservation biologists, and philosophers—about the future of zoos and aquariums, the treatment of animals in captivity, and the question of whether the individual, the species, or the ecosystem...
Museums, Objects, and Collections
A Cultural Study
Language: English
Release Date: August 15, 2017
This book examines the historical context of museums, their collections, and the objects that form them. Susan M. Pearce probes the psychological and social reasons that people collect and identifies three modes of collecting: collecting as souvenirs, as fetishes, and as systematic assemblages. She...
The Evolution of Washington, DC
Historical Selections from the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection at the George Washington University
Language: English
Release Date: March 17, 2015
The Evolution of Washington, DC is a striking volume featuring select pieces of the extraordinary collection of Washingtoniana donated by Albert H. Small to the George Washington University in 2011. It showcases treasures such as an 1860 lithograph of the equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson in front...
by John C. Avise
Language: English
Release Date: May 27, 2014
Language: English
Release Date: May 27, 2014
Award-winning geneticist John C. Avise guides this delightful voyage around the planet in search of answers to nature's mysteries. He demonstrates how scientists directly examine DNA to address long-standing questions about wild animals, plants, and microbes. Through dozens of stories that span the...
aka Marcel Duchamp
Meditations on the Identities of an Artist
Language: English
Release Date: December 30, 2014
aka Marcel Duchamp is an anthology of recent essays by leading scholars on Marcel Duchamp, arguably the most influential artist of the twentieth century. With scholarship addressing the full range of Duchamp's career, these papers examine how Duchamp's influence grew and impressed itself upon his...
Magnificent Failure
Free Fall from the Edge of Space
Language: English
Release Date: September 2, 2014
Locked in a desperate Cold War race against the Soviets to find out if humans could survive in space and live through a free fall from space vehicles, the Pentagon gave civilian adventurer Nick Piantanida’s Project Strato-Jump little notice until May Day, 1966. Operating in the shadows of well-funded,...