Conceived in the 1930s, simplified and successfully tested in the 1950s, the darling of the automotive industry in the early 1970s, then all but abandoned before resurging for a brilliant run as a high-performance powerplant for Mazda, the Wankel rotary engine has long been an object of fascination and more than a little mystery.
The availability of inexpensive steel, so crucial to the United States' emergence as a leading industrial power in the late nineteenth century, relied upon the rise of an ore transport system on the Great Lakes that would feed American industry as a whole and come to alter the face of the region.
Among the engineers fueling the rapid rise of the automotive industry at the dawn of the 20th century was James Allison, a fountain pen maker who joined with Carl G.
Though American Motors never approached the size of Detroit's Big Three, it produced a long series of successful cars that were distinctive, often innovative and in many cases influential.
In 1915, journalist Emily Post set out from New York to investigate whether it was possible to drive comfortably across the country to San Francisco in an automobile.
World War II's naval battles between the United States and Japan have been the subject of many books, popular movies, and documentaries, but the very important story of the fighting between United States and Japanese aircraft carriers is often lost in broader discussions of the Pacific naval war.
A small business owner and lifelong lover of classic sports cars, Jackson Brooks began in the early 1960s to purchase, restore and enjoy a long succession of rare automotive beauties, many of which are million-dollar commodities in today's market.
Picking up the narrative from his earlier volume, The Early Exploration of Inland Washington Waters: Journals and Logs from Six Expeditions, 1786-1792, Richard Blumenthal once again offers the reader a fascinating, firsthand look at the Northwest's earliest maritime history.
From authors Anne Jones and former NASCAR champion Rex White, here are oral histories of more than 50 individuals from stock car and drag racing's not-so-distant past and present.
While the Monitor and Merrimack are the most famous of the Civil War ironclads, the Confederacy had another ship in its flotilla that carried high hopes and a metal hull.
This analysis of naval engagements during the War Between the States presents the action from the efforts at Fort Sumter during the secession of South Carolina in 1860, through the battles in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Mississippi River, and along the eastern seaboard, to the final attack at Fort Fisher on the coast of North Carolina in January 1865.
In February 1967, Air Force Lieutenant Vaughan arrived at Ching Chuan Kang Air Base in Taiwan to begin 14 months as a C-130 Hercules pilot, airlifting supplies and troops throughout southeast Asia.
The 1973 oil crisis forced the American automotive industry into a period of dramatic change, marked by stiff foreign competition, tougher product regulations and suddenly altered consumer demand.
Colonial pioneers began entering the logging and forestry industries in great numbers along the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains during the late 1700s and were soon producing more products than they could use.
Now in its second edition, this expanded work catalogs every person, animal, ship and cannon mentioned by name in the 21 books of Patrick O'Brian's series on the maritime adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.
A catalog of archaeological artifacts that have been left behind in space as a result of human exploration, this work describes the remnants of lost satellites, discarded lunar rovers, depleted rockets, and various abandoned spacecraft.
This book provides summaries and analyses of more than 250 novels and nearly 30 films and examines the extent to which they accurately reflect the history, mores and manners of the period--and the extent to which they reveal the ideas and attitudes of their authors and of the periods in which they were written.
Between the last battle fought entirely under oars in 1571 and the first fought entirely under steam in 1866, naval warfare in the Middle Seas and adjacent Atlantic waters was dominated by the sailing warship.
Independent stock car racers rarely won, often crashed, and flirted with death constantly, all for less money and fame than the money-backed star drivers of their day.
Even before American involvement in World War I, motor vehicle manufacturing in the United States was widespread and diverse, though the war served to expand the market rapidly.
Once the Union Army gained control of the upper rivers of the Mississippi Valley during the first half of 1862, slow and heavy ironclads proved ineffective in patrolling the waters.
The dramatic account of two American warships in the South Pacific, this book follows the USS Astoria (CA-34) and USS Chicago (CA-29) during the late summer of 1942, when both participated in the early days of the critical battle for Guadalcanal.
