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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorBrunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
Ross King · 193 pages
The superb story of the architect Filippo Brunelleschi and the design and construction of the Great Cathedral in Florence - one of the most magnificent achievements of the Italian Renaissance.Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, with its immense, terracotta-tiled cupola, still retains a rare power to astonish. Yet
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Erik Larson · 464 pages
From back cover: Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larson's spell-binding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men - the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America's place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik
Color: A Natural History of the Palette
Victoria Finlay · 448 pages
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson · 560 pages
"As I stood on the roof of my house, taking in this unexpected view, it struck me how glorious it was that this was exactly how this land must have looked to centuries of people, quietly going about their daily business – eating, sleeping, having sex, endeavouring to be amused – and it occurred to me, with the forcefulness of a thought experienced in 360 degrees, that that's really what history mo
Data by Design
Lauren F. Klein with Tanvi Sharma, Jay Varner, Margy Adams, Shiyao Li, Nicholas Yang, Dan Jutan, Jianing Fu, Anna Mola, Zhou Fang, Yang Li, and Silas Munro
The Pencil: A History Of Design And Circumstance
Henry Petroski · 434 pages
The Invention of Air
Steven Johnson · 254 pages
Bestselling author Steven Johnson recounts—in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion—the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America’s Founding Fathers. The Invention of Air is a book of world-changing ideas wrapped around a compelling narrative, a story of genius and violence and friendship in the midst of sweeping historical change th
Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster
Andrew Leatherbarrow · 247 pages
The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer
Anne-Marie O'Connor
Contributor to the Washington Post Anne-Marie O'Connor brilliantly regales us with the galvanizing story of Gustav Klimt's 1907 masterpiece -- the breathtaking portrait of a Viennese Jewish socialite, Adele Bloch-Bauer. The celebrated painting, stolen by Nazis during World War II, subsequently became the subject of a decade-long dispute between her heirs and the Austrian government. When the U.S.
A Man on the Moon
Andrew Chaikin, Michael Kramer · 688 pages
For the 25th anniversary of the first moon landing, a winning and detailed account of the Apollo astronauts, a dozen of whom were the first human beings to walk on the face of the moon. The strength of the book lies in Chaikin's exhaustive research, including interviews with all 24 Apollo astronauts. Chaikin, an editor of Sky and Telescope, draws on the wealth of material from NASA's files--incl
Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
Pope Brock · 330 pages
In 1917, after years of selling worthless patent remedies throughout the Southeast, John R. Brinkley--America's most brazen young con man--arrived in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas. He set up a medical practice and introduced an outlandish surgical method using goat glands to restore the fading virility of local farmers.It was all nonsense, of course, but thousands of paying customers quickly tu
Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb
Jonathan Fetter-Vorm · 154 pages
Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
Les Standiford · 320 pages
Last Train to Paradise is acclaimed novelist Les Standiford's fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad--one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockef
Apollo 8
Jeffrey Kluger · 320 pages
Recounts the bold but dangerous mission to secure America's position as the first nation to reach the moon, revealing the dangers endured by its crew and the ways the mission brought renewal to a country ravaged by assassinations and war.
Hitler's Scientists: Science, War and the Devil's Pact
John Cornwell · 560 pages
For the first three decades of the twentieth century, Germany held the premier position for science throughout the world. German scientists were the most accomplished and honored in their fields, winning the lion's share of Nobel prizes. But in 1933 came Hitler. Jewish scientists were dismissed from their positions in laboratories and at universities, and the Nazi ideology began to dominate German
God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
James Hannam · 441 pages
God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. --from publisher description.
Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's
R.A. Scotti · 299 pages
It was the splendor--and the scandal--of the age, the defining event of the high Renaissance. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe--the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave--to build a better basilica. Construction of the new St. Peter's spanned two centuries, embroiled 27 p
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
Richard Holmes · 554 pages
"The Age of Wonder' is Richard Holmes' first major work of biography for a decade. It has been inspired by the scientific ferment that swept through Britain at the end of the 18th century, and which Holmes now radically redefines as 'the revolution of Romantic Science."
Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century
Peter Geoffrey Hall · 632 pages
"Peter Hall's seminal Cities of Tomorrow remains an unrivalled account of the history of planning in theory and practice, as well as of the social and economic problems and opportunities that gave rise to it. Now comprehensively revised, the fourth edition offers a perceptive, critical, and global history of urban planning and design throughout the twentieth-century and beyond. A revised and updat
The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
Edward Dolnick · 398 pages
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea
Gary Kinder · 536 pages
In September 1857, the SS Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, foundered in a hurricane and sank two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. Over four hundred lives and twenty-one tons of California gold were lost. It was the worst peacetime disaster at sea in American history, a tragedy that remained lost in legend for
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
David S. Landes · 650 pages
David S. Landes tells the long, fascinating story of wealth and power throughout the world: the creation of wealth, the paths of winners and losers, the rise and fall of nations. He studies history as a process, attempting to understand how the world's cultures lead to - or retard - economic and military success and material achievement. Countries of the West, Landes asserts, prospered early thro