Books about Half century from Amazon.com

“Part treatise, part miscellany, unfailingly entertaining.”
–The New York Times

“A small pearl of a book . . . a great tale of the growth of a modern city as seen through the rise and fall of the lowly oyster.”
–Rocky Mountain News

Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster.
For centuries New York was famous for this particular shellfish, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s life that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for all classes, and a natural filtration system for the city’s congested waterways.

Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insight–along with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photos–this dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the seventeenth-century founding of New York to the death of its oyster beds and the rise of America’s environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattan’s Gilded Age dining chambers. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.

“Suffused with [Kurlansky’s] pleasure in exploring the city across ground that hasn’t already been covered with other writers’ footprints.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Fascinating stuff . . . [Kurlansky] has a keen eye for odd facts and natural detail.”
–The Wall Street Journal

“Kurlansky packs his breezy book with terrific anecdotes.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“Magnificent . . . a towering accomplishment.”
–Associated Press
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Price: $8.35 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This exciting book documents the complete decade-by-decade story of one of the worldÕs most important and influential electric guitars The Gibson Les Paul turns 50 years old in 2002, and since its invention, its sweet, urgent sound has been used by a host of major rock players - from Eric Clapton in Cream to Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, from Joe Walsh in The Eagles to Slash of Guns NÕRoses. Unique color photographs feature a multitude of luscious Les Paul models and highlight great players in action with their Les Paul guitars. Meticulous listings for the collector document every model produced from 1952 to the present day. 50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul is a beautiful, detailed examination of six decades of great guitars and the fine musicians inspired to play them. .
Price: $14.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What began 50 years ago, when
two high-school English teachers
in an Indiana farm community
began writing songs to express
spiritual insights, has become a
volume of church standards sung
the world over. Bill and Gloria
Gaither's songs have found permanent
homes in people's hearts
and hymnals, making this couple
among the most prolific and popular
in Christian music history. Now
fans and music lovers can see inside
the inspiration and life events
that created the songs they sing
most, including Because He Lives,
There's Something About That Name, and The Family of
God. In her trademark elegant prose, Gloria has created a
beautiful keepsake for all those who love Christian music
and its history..
Price: $10.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The world is an uncertain place, which is why the future and the unknown absolutely fascinate us. Veteran television journalist Mike Wallace asked the question "What will life be like 50 years from now?" to sixty of the world's greatest minds. Their responses offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural, scientific, political, and spiritual moods of the times. Edited and with an introduction by Mike Wallace, this book provides an imaginative and thought-provoking look into our collective soul and the critical issues that underlie our hopes, prayers, fears, and dreams for life in the 21st century.

Contributors include former presidents, leading scientists, noted writers and artists, respected religious leaders, and current political figures, including:

• Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google; known as a "Father of the Internet"
• Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a geneticist who led the Human Genome Project
• Dr. Wanda Jones, Director of the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Ray Kurzweil, an inventor whose developments include the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind and the first text-to-speech synthesizer
• General James E. Cartwright, Commander of United States Strategic Command
• Kim Dae-jung, the former President of the Republic of Korea
• Ronald Noble, Secretary General of Interpol
• Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner; called "the father of the Green Revolution"
• Carol Bellamy, former Executive Director UNICEF, first former volunteer to serve as director of Peace Corp, and current president and CEO of World Learning
• Gerardus 't Hooft, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands; Nobel Prize in Physics
• Craig Newmark, Internet pioneer and founder of craigslist

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Price: $11.11 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A brilliant ensemble of the world’s most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes.

Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a continuing human presence on Mars. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi investigates the ramifications of engineering high-IQ, geneticially happy babies. Psychiatrist Nancy Etcoff explains current research into the creation of emotion-sensing jewelry that could gauge our moods and tell us when to take an anti-depressant pill. And evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explores the probability that we will soon be able to obtain a genome printout that predicts our natural end for the same cost as a chest x-ray. (Will we want to read it? And will insurance companies and governments have access to it?) This fascinating and unprecedented book explores not only the practical possibilities of the near future, but also the social and political ramifications of the developments of the strange new world to come.

Also includes original essays by:

Lee Smolin
Martin Rees
Ian Stewart
Brian Goodwin
Marc D. Hauser
Alison Gopnik
Paul Bloom
Geoffrey Miller
Robert M. Sapolsky
Steven Strogatz
Stuart Kauffman
John H. Holland
Rodney Brooks
Peter Atkins
Roger C. Schank
Jaron Lanier
David Gelernter
Joseph LeDoux
Judith Rich Harris
Samuel Barondes
Paul W. Ewald.
Price: $3.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From the Boy Scouts and the U.S. military to marriage and adoption, the gay civil rights movement has exploded on the national stage.Eric Marcus takes us back in time to the earliest days of that struggle in a newly revised and thoroughly updated edition of Making History, originally published in 1992.Using the heart-felt stories of more than 60 people, he carries us through the compelling five-decade battle that has changed the fabric of American society.

The rich tapestry that emerges from Making Gay History includes the inspiring voices of teenagers and grandparents, journalists and housewives, from the little known Dr. Evelyn Hooker and Morty Manford to former Vice President Al Gore, Ellen DeGeneres, and Abigail Van Buren. Together, these many stories bear witness to a time of astonishing change as gay and lesbian people have struggled against prejudice and fought for equal rights under the law.

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Price: $7.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From Sea to Shining Sea for Children tells Americas story during its first fifty years. These were the days of Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Boone, Francis Asbury and Charles Finney, Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. During these years Conestoga wagons and circuit riders became famous, Indian wars and slavery were major concerns, and the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Trail expanded Americas boundaries from sea to shining sea. But God was also at work in the young nation, giving its settlers exciting opportunities to shape its history and to be His people. This book, written primarily for young people in the middle grades, includes study questions for each chapter and helps its readers see Gods part in American history..
Price: $4.65 [Notify me when price goes down.]

For nearly eight years, the American people have struggled to understand George W. Bush’s approach to the world. Many analysts, lacking a frame of reference, have simply dubbed it revolutionary But in U.S. Vs. Them, J. Peter Scoblic provocatively argues that the best way to understand Bush’s foreign policy is to recognize that it is not radical, but rather the most recent expression of conservatism, an often misunderstood ideology whose national security instincts are rooted in America’s eighteenth-century view of itself and whose modern form has percolated for more than a half century, reaching full strength in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Scoblic persuasively shows that the foreign policy of the American Right has been stuck for decades on a binary setting that allows it to see the world only in terms of us versus them or good versus evil. During the Cold War, that approach fostered an unwillingness to negotiate with the Soviet Union, a distrust of apolitical intelligence, and an insistence on military dominance— even as the advent of nuclear weapons rendered the traditional notion of victory in war obsolete. Today, what conservatives often present as moral clarity is in fact nothing more than a continued failure to recognize that American security depends on our ability to think outside our borders—to stop seeing the United States in unavoidable opposition to the rest of the world.

Tracing the history of Cold War conservatism from its development by William F. Buckley to its manifestation in Barry Goldwater through its implementation by Ronald Reagan and its culmination in the Bush administration, Scoblic weaves an intellectual history that reveals how the Right’s belligerence, intransigence, and disinclination for diplomacy not only brought us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, but also failed to meet the grave post-9/11 challenges posed by Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and especially by the most serious danger that looms before us: that of nuclear terrorism. What’s more, although the Bush administration is nearing its end, conservatism is certainly not, as this year’s Republican presidential candidates clearly demonstrated.

U.S. Vs. Them is a revealing and sometimes alarming analysis, but in diagnosing the origins of Bush’s foreign policy, it illuminates the path to renewed American leadership in the twenty-first century..
Price: $4.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Introduced in 1954 as one of Gretsch's "Guitars of the Future," the White Falcon was an overwhelmingly impressive instrument. The influence of this spectacular new guitar spread to other models and guitar manufacturers. It was the dawn of a half-century of awe-inspiring guitars which are now favored by widely popular artists including Pete Townshend, Tom Petty, Alanis Morisette, Sheryl Crow, John Frusciante, Bo Diddley, and more. This book compiles the best of Gretsch's inventions over the past 50 years and tells the stories of their creation and the men who created them. Includes 100 photos! (8-1/2 inch. x 11 inch., 144 pages).
Price: $14.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]