The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something… Gamal Abdel Nasser

The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945-1956 : strategy and diplomacy in the early Cold War Peter L. Hahn Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c 1991 Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. xii, 359 p. ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-340) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

Egypt figured prominently in United States policy in the Middle East after World War II because of its strategic, political, and economic importance. Peter Hahn explores the triangular relationship between the United States, Great Britain, and Egypt in order to analyze the justifications and implications of American policy in the region and within the context of a broader Cold War strategy.

This work is the first comprehensive scholarly account of relations between those countries during this period. Hahn shows how the United States sought to establish stability in Egypt and the Middle East to preserve Western interests, deny the resources of the region to the Soviet Union, and prevent the outbreak of war. He demonstrates that American officials’ desire to recognize Egyptian nationalistic aspirations was constrained by their strategic imperatives in the Middle East and by the demands of the Anglo-American alliance.

Using many recently declassified American and British political and military documents, Hahn offers a comprehensive view of the intricacies of alliance diplomacy and multilateral relations. He sketches the United States’ growing involvement in Egyptian affairs and its accumulation of commitments to Middle East security and stability and shows that these events paralleled the decline of British influence in the region.

Hahn identifies the individuals and agencies that formulated American policy toward Egypt and discusses the influence of domestic and international issues on the direction of policy. He also explains and analyzes the tactics devised by American officials to advance their interests in Egypt, judging their soundness and success.

Chrysler is considering bringing a Fiat-engineered subcompact sedan from Serbia to North America under the Chrysler brand. The Chrysler brand product plan, unveiled in November, called for a Fiat-derived subcompact sedan to be imported. The vehicle would be built in Kragujevac, Serbia, where Serbian automaker Zastava Automobili once made the Yugo…

Chrysler? Fiat-engineered subcompact? The Yugo plant? C’mon Automotive News… April Fools was months ago. Besides, this seems too cruelly ironic to even properly be a joke. Remember, these little gags have to come from a place of love…

The Yugo : the rise and fall of the worst car in history  Jason Vuic  New York : Hill and Wang, 2009  Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. 262 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR’s Car Talk declared it “the worst car of the millennium.” And for most Americans that’s where the story begins and ends.

The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand “good” communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you’ve got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History.

Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia’s nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo . . . at the bottom.

To the most exalted son of heaven. May this elevate you a little higher… Inscribed on a torpedo warhead

Hellcats : the epic story of World War II’s most daring submarine raid  Peter Sasgen  New York : NAL Caliber, c 2010  Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. 320 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

In 1945, American sub force commanders believed that if the Japanese merchant fleet was sunk, the enemy would be forced to surrender. The problem: the ships were protected in the Sea of Japan by a barrier of deadly minefields.

Here, Sasgen tells the gripping story of Operation Barney, a daunting mission in which nine submarines, nicknamed Hellcats, were tasked with getting through the mines and decimating the enemy fleet. Drawing on original documents and the personal letters of one doomed Hellcat commander, Sasgen crafts a classic naval tale of the heroic submariners and one of World War II‘s most ambitious and dangerous underwater raids.

The inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such as way as to him seems best… Reverend Henning Jacobson

Pox : an American history  Michael Willrich  New York : Penguin Press, 2011  Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. 422 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

At the turn of the twentieth century, a powerful smallpox epidemic swept the United States from coast to coast. The age-old disease spread swiftly through an increasingly interconnected American landscape: from southern tobacco plantations to the dense immigrant neighborhoods of northern cities to far-flung villages on the edges of the nascent American empire. In Pox,  historian Willrich offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation’s continent-wide fight against smallpox launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth century.

At the dawn of the activist Progressive era and during a moment of great optimism about modern medicine, the government responded to the deadly epidemic by calling for universal compulsory vaccination. To enforce the law, public health authorities relied on quarantines, pest houses, and “virus squads” – corps of doctors and club-wielding police. Though these measures eventually contained the disease, they also sparked a wave of popular resistance among Americans who perceived them as a threat to their health and to their rights.

At the time, anti-vaccinationists were often dismissed as misguided cranks, but Willrich argues that they belonged to a wider legacy of American dissent that attended the rise of an increasingly powerful government. While a well-organized anti-vaccination movement sprang up during these years, many Americans resisted in subtler ways – by concealing sick family members or forging immunization certificates. Pox introduces us to memorable characters on both sides of the debate, from Henning Jacobson, a Swedish Lutheran minister whose battle against vaccination went all the way to the Supreme Court, to C. P. Wertenbaker, a federal surgeon who saw himself as a medical missionary combating a deadly – and preventable – disease.

As Willrich suggests, many of the questions first raised by the Progressive-era anti-vaccination movement are still with us: How far should the government go to protect us from peril? What happens when the interests of public health collide with religious beliefs and personal conscience? In Pox, Willrich delivers a riveting tale about the clash of modern medicine, civil liberties, and government power at the turn of the twentieth century that resonates powerfully today.

This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you via a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one: Through this unique means I convey to you and all mankind, America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere… Dwight David Eisenhower

HISTORIC VIEW OF THE VEREIN FUER RAUMSCHIFFAHRT, 1930. LEFT TO RIGHT: RUDOLF NEBEL, FRANZ RITTER, UNKNOWN, KURT HEINISCH, UNKNOWN, HERMANN OBERTH, UNKNOWN, KLAUS RIEDEL, WERNHER VON BRAUN, UNKNOWN, KLAUS RIEDEL HOLDS EARLY VERSION OR MODEL FOR THE MINIMUM ROCKET, ‘MIRAK’.

A ball, a dog, and a monkey : 1957, the space race begins  Michael D’Antonio  New York : Simon & Schuster, 2007  Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. 306 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-291) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG   

Photograph shows people walking by a model of Sputnik III at the USSR Exhibition in Sokolniki Park, Moscow, next to the American National Exhibition.

When the Soviet Union launched the first orbital satellite, Sputnik I, Americans panicked. The Soviets had nuclear weapons, the Cold War was underway, and now the USSR had taken the lead in the space race. Members of Congress and the press called for an all-out effort to launch a satellite into orbit. With dire warnings about national security in the news almost every day, the armed services saw space as the new military frontier. But President Eisenhower insisted that the space effort, which relied on military technology, be supervised by civilians so that the space race would be peaceful. Meanwhile, the Soviets put a dog inside the next Sputnik, and Americans grew more worried as the first animal in space whirled around the Earth.

Explorer 1 First U.S. Satellite

Throughout 1958 America went space crazy. UFO sightings spiked. Boys from Brooklyn to Burbank shot model rockets into the air. Space-themed beauty pageants became a national phenomenon. The news media flocked to the launchpads on the swampy Florida coast, and reporters reinvented themselves as space correspondents. And finally the Army’s rocket program succeeded. Determined not to be outdone by the Russians, America’s space scientists launched the first primate into space, a small monkey they nicknamed Old Reliable for his calm demeanor. And then at Christmas time, Eisenhower authorized the launch of a secret satellite with a surprise aboard – President Eisenhower’s Christmas Message.