Search results for ""Author Michael Schumacher""

A dramatic, deeply informed account of one of the most consequential elections and periods in American history 1968—rife with riots, assassinations, anti–Vietnam War protests, and realpolitik—was one of the most tumultuous years in the twentieth century, culminating in one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history. The Contest tells the story of that contentious election and that remarkable year. Bringing a fresh perspective to events that still resonate half a century later, this book is especially timely, giving us the long view of a turning point in American culture and politics.Author Michael Schumacher sets the stage with a deep look at the people with important roles in the unfolding drama: Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and especially Hubert H. Humphrey, whose papers and journals afford surprising new insights. Following these politicians in the lead-up to the primaries, through the chaotic conventions, and down the home stretch to the general election, The Contest combines biographical and historical details to create a narrative as intimate in human detail as it is momentous in scope and significance.An election year when the competing forces of law and order and social justice were on the ballot, the Vietnam War divided the country, and the liberal regime begun with Franklin D. Roosevelt was on the defensive, 1968 marked a profound shift in the nation’s culture and sense of itself. Thorough in its research and spellbinding in the telling, Schumacher’s book brings sharp focus to that year and its lessons for our current critical moment in American politics.

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With the sweep of an epic novel, Michael Schumacher tells the story of Allen Ginsberg and his times, with fascinating portraits of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, among others, along with many rarely seen photographs.

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The Edmund Fitzgerald, a colossal ore carrier, had been fighting her way through a pounding November storm on Lake Superior. Then the Fitz’s radar went out, and she started to take on water. Despite gale-force winds and thirty-foot seas, there was no reason to think the Fitz wouldn’t find safe harbor at Whitefish Point, Michigan. The last words from the Fitz’s captain, Ernest McSorley, was “We are holding our own.” By all indications, the crew had no idea they were in mortal danger before they plunged to Lake Superior’s bottom with no chance to call for help.Michael Schumacher relates in vivid detail the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald, her many years on the waters of the Great Lakes, the fateful final day, the search efforts and investigation, as well as the speculation and controversy that followed in the wake of the disaster. A fitting tribute to one of the largest ships to have sailed the Great Lakes and the men who tragically lost their lives, Mighty Fitz provides a comprehensive look at the most legendary shipwreck on America’s inland waters.

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Shipwreck stories from along Minnesota’s north shore of Lake Superior and Isle Royale Against the backdrop of the extraordinary history of Great Lakes shipping, Too Much Sea for Their Decks chronicles shipwrecked schooners, wooden freighters, early steel-hulled steamers, whalebacks, and bulk carriers—some well-known, some unknown or forgotten—all lost in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.Included are compelling accounts of vessels destined for infamy, such as that of the Stranger, a slender wooden schooner swallowed by the lake in 1875, the sailors’ bodies never recovered nor the wreckage ever found; an account of the whaleback Wilson, rammed by a large commercial freighter in broad daylight and in calm seas, sinking before many on board could escape; and the mysterious loss of the Kamloops, a package freighter that went down in a storm and whose sailors were found on the Isle Royale the following spring, having escaped the wreck only to die of exposure on the island. Then there is the ill-fated Steinbrenner, plagued by bad luck from the time of her construction, when she was nearly destroyed by fire, to her eventual (and tragic) sinking in 1953. These tales and more represent loss of life and property—and are haunting stories of brave and heroic crews.Arranged chronologically and presented in three sections covering Minnesota's North Shore, Isle Royale, and the three biggest storms in Minnesota’s Great Lakes history (the 1905 Mataafa storm, the 1913 hurricane on the lakes, and the 1940 Armistice Day storm), each shipwreck documented within these pages provides a piece to the history of shipping on Lake Superior.

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“The way to point to the existence of the universe is to see one thing directly and clearly and describe it. . . . If you see something as a symbol of something else, then you don't experience the object itself, but you're always referring it to something else in your mind. It's like making out with one person and thinking about another.” —Ginsberg speaking to his writing class at Naropa Institute, 1985With “Howl” Allen Ginsberg became the voice of the Beat Generation. It was a voice heard in some of the best-known poetry of our time—but also in Ginsberg’s eloquent and extensive commentary on literature, consciousness, and politics, as well as his own work. Much of what he had to say, he said in interviews, and many of the best of these are collected for the first time in this book. Here we encounter Ginsberg elaborating on how speech, as much as writing and reading, and even poetry, is an act of art.Testifying before a Senate subcommittee on LSD in 1966; gently pressing an emotionally broken Ezra Pound in a Venice pensione in 1967; taking questions in a U.C. Davis dormitory lobby after a visit to Vacaville State Prison in 1974; speaking at length on poetics, and in detail about his “Blake Visions,” with his father Louis (also a poet); engaging William Burroughs and Norman Mailer during a writing class: Ginsberg speaks with remarkable candor, insight, and erudition about reading and writing, music and fame, literary friendships and influences, and, of course, the culture (or counterculture) and politics of his generation. Revealing, enlightening, and often just plain entertaining, Allen Ginsberg in conversation is the quintessential twentieth-century American poet as we have never before encountered him: fully present, in pitch-perfect detail.

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Dennis Hale reached the dock just in time to see the Daniel J. Morrell heading out to open waters, a 600-foot freighter that had plied the waters for sixty years, carrying ore from Minnesota’s Iron Range to steel firms around the Great Lakes. The twenty-six-year-old watchman had, quite literally, missed the boat—which meant scrambling to rejoin the Morrell at its next stop or forfeiting a good chunk of his pay package. Seventy-two hours later, Hale would find himself clinging to a life raft alongside the frozen bodies of his crewmates in the violent waves of Lake Huron. The boat would not be reported missing for another twenty-seven hours and by the time the life raft was found, Dennis Hale would remain as the sole survivor of the wreck of the Daniel J. Morrell.This is life-and-death drama on the inland sea as only Michael Schumacher can tell it. In Torn in Two the great Lakes historian recreates the circumstances surrounding the terrible storm of November 29, 1966, that broke the mighty freighter in half, sending twenty-five of the Morrell’s twenty-nine-man crew to their deaths and consigning the surviving four to the freezing raft where all but Hale would perish. At the heart of Torn in Two are the terrible hours spent by Hale on the life raft with his crewmen, clinging to life for thirty-eight hours in freezing temperatures and wearing only a peacoat, life jacket, and boxer shorts. The fight to save Hale and find the others, the Coast Guard hearings into what happened, the discovery of the wreckage—Schumacher’s vivid narrative captures every harrowing detail and curious fact of the Morrell’s demise, finally doing justice to this epic shipwreck fifty years past.

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A documentary drawn from testimony at the Coast Guard’s official inquiry looks anew at one of the most storied, and mysterious, shipwrecks in American history The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the most famous shipwreck stories in Great Lakes history. It is also one of maritime lore’s great mysteries, the details of its disappearance as obscure now as on that fateful November day in 1975. The investigation into the wreck, resulting in a controversial final report, generated more than 3,000 pages of documentation, a mere fraction of which has been made available to the public. In The Trial of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Michael Schumacher mines this rich resource to produce the first-ever documentary account, a companion to his popular narrative Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In the words of search and rescue personnel, ship designers and inspectors, scientists and naval engineers, former crewmen of the Fitz and the Arthur M. Anderson (the nearby ore carrier that captured the damaged vessel’s last communications), The Trial of the Edmund Fitzgerald recreates the doomed ore boat’s final minutes, the suspense of the search and rescue operations, and the drama of the subsequent Coast Guard inquiry. From the Anderson’s captain and first mate we hear reports of the Fitzgerald taking on water in the fierce storm near Michipicoten and Caribou Islands, losing its radar, and stating, finally, famously, “We are holding our own.” We follow the investigation, the speculation, and expert testimony to a problematic conclusion—countered by an alternate theory that the Anderson’s captain maintained to his dying day.By declaring the Edmund Fitzgerald an official gravesite, Canada closed the wreck to further exploration. But here the exploration continues, providing a unique, and uniquely enlightening, perspective on this unforgettable episode in America’s maritime history.

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Dynamic components and adaptive elements are becoming increasingly important in contemporary architecture, and not just because of their visual effect. If architects and engineers are engaging more and more with the issue of movement – whether in the form of sun-tracking solar cells, lowerable walls, or intelligently programmed elevators – it’s because they are busy exploring responses to three challenges: How can we control and reduce the energy requirement of buildings? How can we expand the range of possible uses? And how can we represent, illustrate, accommodate, and control dynamic movements in buildings? Designers and builders who seek to use kinetic components face technical and design challenges that aren’t covered by traditional structural theory. For these users, this book presents the technical tools and constructional solutions that will allow them to implement these movements concretely and deploy them functionally within the domains of of "Energy," "Change of Use," and "Interaction." First it lays out the fundamentals and design principles of kinetics in architecture, technology, art, and nature in a structured manner. In a third section, forty movable elements are shown in action, each on a double page – with specially prepared phase drawings and organized by type of movement, including rotation, sliding, folding, and transformation. The international examples from noted architects range from window mechanisms to solar protection and light redirection systems, movable walls and roofs, and movable civil engineering structures.

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The two volumes provide an overview of dynamic and adaptive building components in architecture, a field of growing importance in view of the complex demands placed on today's buildings. The focus is on the following challenges: How can the energy demand of buildings be reduced? How can usage possibilities be expanded? How can dynamic movements in buildings be mapped, absorbed and controlled? The spectrum of designs presented ranges from movable elements for the use of solar energy or dynamic light designs to components that can be swivelled, rotated, folded or flapped. The contributors show innovative solutions from leading architects worldwide.

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