Keenan's Book Reviews

Mr. America by Mark Adams

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

Leif, Alfred. Metering for America: 125 Years of the Gas Industry and American Meter Company. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1961.

Friday, May 15, 2020

Feeding the Fire by Mark E. Eberhart

Mankind is hungry for energy. The United States is a huge consumer of energy, and our lifestyle depends on it. This makes us, and other developed countries, vulnerable. The burning of fossil fuels is leading to a changing climate that could have many negative ramifications. Our dependence on foreign sources of fuel, especially oil, have embroiled us in wars oversees and made us uncomfortable allies with nations that do not share our values.

Chemistry professor Mark E. Eberhart suggests that we need a good energy diet. Unfortunately, after spending a couple of chapters of Feeding the Fire setting up the idea, he ends up having only a little to say about an energy diet in the final chapter of the book.

In between, however, he tells an interesting history of energy from the big bang to our age. He also provides a primer in thermodynamics aimed at an audience that hasn’t studied science or engineering. If the book had purported to be about that, I’d probably be speaking about it in glowing terms. If you’re looking for a book that explains energy and how it works that is written for an audience with little scientific background, this is a good option.

Though most of the book concerns itself with the dispersal of energy through the universe and the development of technology, the energy diet is mainly a matter of policy. The central element of Eberhart’s vision is an “energy-industrial complex” modeled on the way the U.S. military works with industry on the long-term development, delivery and reliability of technology. U.S. energy policy is so disjointed that in practice we have no policy, but with imagination and discipline (and arguably the setting aside of partisanship for matters of national security that transcend it) we could develop a comprehensive policy that gets our efforts moving toward a more secure, efficient and cleaner future. It doesn’t even need to be a perfect policy, just a commitment to take specific actions and set specific standards to make things better over time.

Eberhart has some specific recommendations, especially related to the development of electric vehicles and supporting technolgies. In the 12 years since Feeding the Fire was published, we’ve made some headway on many of them. This is in spite of the fact that we still do not have a comprehensive energy policy.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

The Computers of Star Trek by Lois Gresh & Robert Weinberg

I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

My Inventions by Nikola Tesla

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Eberhart, Mark E. Feeding the Fire: The Lost History and Uncertain Future of Mankind’s Energy Addiction. New York: Harmony Books, 2007.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini

I usually don’t write reviews of fiction books, but occasionally I find a novel so enjoyable, or its subject so interesting or important that I want to write about it. That is the case with Enchantress of Numbers, a novel by Jennifer Chiaverini.

The subject is Ada Lovelace, who I think is interesting and important. She is credited as the author of the first published computer program in 1843. The only thing resembling a computer at the time was in the drawings and notes of mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage, a friend of Lovelace. He called the device, which was never built, an analytical engine.

Lovelace’s contribution has been debated, but it seems likely that she saw more capability in the analytical engine than even its inventor. As she described in her notes on her translation of a scientific paper on Babbage’s invention, originally printed in French and shorter than her notes were, she imagined the device being able to handle all manner of symbolic and logical functions in addition to solving mathematical equations. Even Babbage himself seemed mainly to see it as an improvement on his difference engine, a programmable calculating machine that was partly built, but never finished.

If she had been a man, her accomplishment would very likely have received much more accolades than it did at the time, or even for more than a century afterward. It was unusual for a woman to be even permitted to study math or science in those days. Her mother encouraged her to take on these fields to discourage her from following in the footsteps of her father, the poet Lord Byron.

Lovelace lived in a period of great change in society and science. She was a contemporary of Charles Darwin. She was a friend of Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday. When Queen Victoria was coronated, her husband was elevated to an earl and the new monarch called her forward to take her hand as the couple, newly made Count and Countess Lovelace, were took their bows. She attended the Great Exhibition of 1851, housed in the Crystal Palace, where the exhibits included the still relatively new telegraph.

I wasn’t sure I would care for a novelization of Lovelace’s life. I was not especially impressed with Arthur and George, Julian Barnes’ novel based on events from the life of Arthur Conan Doyle; I thought I would have preferred a straight nonfiction book on the subject. I found Chiaverini’s novel more compelling, perhaps because it is written as if by Ada Lovelace herself. As with any such fictionalization, there are parts that Chiaverini made up, though she draws on sources I enjoyed such as Benjamin Woolley’s excellent biography Bride of Science and James Essinger’s defense of the countess, Ada’s Algorithm. I realize that there are people who will pick up a novel who would not be attracted to a biography, and if it takes that to get more people to now about Ada Lovelace an her contributions, then Chiaverini’s effort was worthy.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Chiaverini, Jennifer. Enchantress of Numbers. New York: Dutton, 2017.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Chief Engineer by Erica Wagner

Washington Roebling spent 14 year of his life designing and building the Brooklyn Bridge. Though originally conceived by his father, John A. Roebling, almost every aspect of the bridge conceived of and constructed from 1869 until it opened in 1883 was from the imagination and under the supervision of Washington Roebling, the chief engineer.

A lot has been written about the bridge. In Chief Engineer, Erica Wagner provides a broader picture of Roebling’s life from his youth to his productive old age.

Roebling grew up in Pennsylvania. His boyhood home was still on the frontier of settlement even in the 1830s. His formally schooling was varied, and much of his education came from assisting his father in bridge building. Though John Roebling was a successful engineer and businessman, and immigrant success story, he was abusive to his wife and children. Washington Roebling grew up to be a man who could bear hardship, but he long resented the abuse he, his siblings and especially his mother suffered in his father’s house.

Engineering was not Roebling’s only area of success. He joined Union forces during the Civil War. Though he joined a private, his engineering experience won him an appointment and an officer and he eventually rose to the rank of colonel. His rise to the officer corps did not remove him from danger in that bloody war. Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg were just some of the battles he was part of.

The war was hard on his health, but good in other ways. It was during those years that he met his wife Emily, sister of General G. K. Warren. Emily was a vigorous, capable person who proved to be a great partner to her husband and successful on her own.

The war was not as hard on Roebling’s health as hard as the Brooklyn Bridge would be. Roebling spent a lot of time in the caissons as they sunk deeper, seeking firm foundations for the bridge towers. Prolonged work in compressed air damaged his health, possibly permanently. Though he remained in charge of the bridge, his health prevented him from being at the bridge during much of its above ground construction. Emily became his secretary and agent during this time. She was involved to such a degree that rumors spread that she was the actual engineer. There no support for the rumors that Emily was a designer of the bridge, but it is fair to say that Roebling leaned on her and her ability to organize and communicate with tact and she made important contributions to the success of the bridge.

Roebling lived a long life, surviving Emily, two of his younger brothers and even some of his nephews. Though he left an active role in the wire company his father founded, he eventually took over management of the company when his brothers who ran it, Ferdinand and Charles, and later their sons died. He seemed to relish the work and the challenge well into his eighties.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Brooklyn Bridge by Judith St. George

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Great Bridge by David McCollough

The Johnstown Flood by David McCollough

The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

Road to the Sea by Florence Dorsey

Rising Tide by James M. Barry

Wagner, Erica. Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

The Johnstown Flood by David McCollough

On Memorial Day 1889, a storm struck western Pennsylvania. Floods were common enough in the mountain community of Johnstown and the surrounding villages. This one was extraordinary. Upstream the valley sat a structure that was poised to make the flood much worse, the dam at South Fork Reservoir.

David McCullough describes the flood and the devastating dam break in The Johnstown Flood. It was the worst disaster in the United States up until its time with more than 2,000 people killed by the huge wave that swept down the valley, with more killed by fire and disease in the aftermath.

The dam had originally built by the State of Pennsylvania too supply water for a canal. Within a few years the canal was closed because the railroad provided freight and passenger transportation through the area. The dam changed hands several times after that. I fell into disrepair. Somewhere along the line someone salvaged the pipes that allowed one to control the water level behind the dam; though in it partly collapsed state it no longer held much water.

This changed when developers bought the dam and surrounding property to build a resort for the wealthy industrialists of Pittsburgh. The dam was rebuilt with indifference to materials and methods. The drain pipes were never restored. The spillway was obstructed by a grate (to keep the fish in the stocked lake from disappearing downstream) and low bridge. By the time of the flood, perhaps since it was repaired, there was a slight dip in the center of the dam, creating an unknown, unprotected second spillway. This dip was hard to see with the eye on the large dam, but a survey to measure the elevations would have turned it up.

The dam filled and the lake became quite large. The vacationers sailed ships on it. The water level was commonly within a couple of feet of the spillway, and there was no practical way for the dam operators to control that water level. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Many of the people of Johnstown expressed concern that the dam was a danger to the city. However, the prevailing view was that the wealthy elite of Pittsburgh would have it built right; very few endeavored to assess it for themselves. Similarly, the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, including such prominences as Andrew Carnegie, had faith that the developer did the work right, and they put no effort into checking it out.

When the floodwaters overtopped the earthen dam, it collapsed quickly, unleashing a deadly wave of possibly 20 million tons of water. It is hard to imagine the devastation caused by the wave, even 15 miles downstream in Johnstown. McCullough describes it, sometimes in great detail, based on reports from the time. The rolling wall of water seems awesome at first, but as it begins to destroy homes and injure and kill people, it becomes sickening as well.

The people of that valley recovered with admirable speed and took over the cleanup and restoration of their town the very next day. Soon aid came from across the country, and especially from elsewhere in Pennsylvania, including the National Guard and a still young American Red Cross.

As the initial terror of the event subsided, attention turned to the club at South Fork. Though the press, including the Engineering News, laid blame on the club and the shoddy, unprofessional work done to rebuild the dam, the courts never held the club or its members accountable. The courts, mostly in Pittsburgh where club members held sway, accepted that it was an act of God. It’s clear to more objective observers that a properly built dam would probably have survived the flood, or at the very least would have had a much less damaging failure. Though McCullough suggests the residents of Johnstown and the members of the club were too trusting, he does not shy away from the negligence of those who rebuilt the dam in a way that would almost surely lead to the disaster that came.

David McCollough also wrote

The Great Bridge

The Wright Brothers

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Brooklyn Bridge by Judith St. George

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

Genesis

On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine

On the Mainlines by William B. Claycomb

Rising Tide by James M. Barry

Road to the Sea by Florence Dorsey

McCullough, David. The Johnstown Flood. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

450 Books Reviewed on Keenan's Book Reviews

I’ve posted reviews of 450 books on this blog. Here are links to the 50 most recent posts. Further down are links to more reviews.

First Time Reviews

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Choosing Civility by P. M. Forni

Duel with the Devil by Paul Collins

Faith by Jimmy Carter

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo

The Gentleman Scientists by Tom Schachtman

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

Haggai

The Holy Bible

How Not to Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg

How to Improve Your Memory by James D. Weinland

I Can Make You Happy by Paul McKenna

The Irresistible Introvert by Michaela Chung

The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need by Paul Pearsall

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Malachi

Major Prophets

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe

Minor Prophets

Move by Rosabeth Moss Canter

My Inventions by Nikola Tesla

Nearing Home by Billy Graham

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

100 Ways to Happiness by Timothy Sharp

Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte

Positive Words, Powerful Results by Hal Urban

Reposition Yourself by T. D. Jakes

Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M. Pittman & Elizabeth M. Karle

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Road to the Sea by Florence Dorsey

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

The Society for Useful Knowledge by Jonathan Lyons

Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Stan Lee by Bob Batchelor

Suggestible You by Erik Vance

The Supergirls by Mike Madrid

Take the Leap by Heather McCloskey Beck

Think 4:8 by Tommy Newberry & Lyn Smith

Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

Saturday, April 7, 2018

The Gentleman Scientists by Tom Schachtman

The period of time around the American Revolution coincided with the Enlightenment. In Gentleman Scientists and Revolutionaries, Tom Schachtman endeavors to present a history of American science during this time and show how scientific ideas influenced the founding fathers.

Shachtman starts with the colonial period. Because many of the formally educated people in America, including clergyman, had studied in Europe, Enlightenment science was taught to many of the founding fathers to some degree in their youths. As frontiersman, even in American cities and upper class, practical knowledge was considered to be an acceptable subject along with classical subjects. At the time, they wouldn’t have used the word “science,” nor would they have strongly distinguished the study of science from the professions of engineering, architecture and medicine or even agriculture and skilled trades.

Americans were well-read, and the many newspapers of the time introduced common people to scientific debate. In particular, Philadelphia newspapers (including one operated by Benjamin Franklin’s brother) sensationalized the debate over variolation (inoculation) to prevent small pox. The American reputation for science was slow to develop in the colonial period, but Franklin’s success in studying electricity proved that the colonies could produce scientists to match the European adepts.

The Revolutionary War did not bring scientific study to a stop, but it necessarily diverted a lot of attention. Even so, people continued to seek scientific and technological advances, especially if they might help the war effort.

After the war, the United States continued to develop its scientific talent. Schacthman culminates his book in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson and the period shortly after it. By this time, the nation had a depth of scientific talent and could mount and expedition to the western edge of the continent, start a steamboat line, and demonstrate that meteors originated in outer space.

Scientific ideas of the time shaped the founders’ political thinking. In particular, the Enlightenment was a period when many people abandoned the notion that knowledge was received from authorities. Knowledge could be discovered through observation of nature and the application of reason. In particular, people might discover the laws of effective government in much the way that Isaac Newton discovered the laws of motion.

A related idea was that knowledge was tested, adjusted and improved by experimentation. They did not imagine that they were creating a perfect government, they were instead applying the lessons they learned from previous experiments in ancient and European governments to a new experiment that may or may not produce the results they hoped for. In some ways, Americans are

still participating in that same experiment.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Defining Noah Webster by K. Alan Snyder