War, Technology, and Experience Aboard the Uss Monitor

Rating:
Summary: Superb war history, human history, literary history
Review: One reviewer called this book, "a gem of a book... promises to be one of those small classics in the history of technology that sets a new standard for how the core questions of the field are framed and addressed." Right on! It's also a small classic in that it brings carefully documented history in the reach of the ordinary literate reader. This book is so well written that it reads like an adventure story rather than a dry history. It also debunks the myths about the Monitor that we learned as children, showing that the designer, the seamen, the politicians all contributed in their own ways to the myths. By referring to the diaries of one of the officers of the ship, the book brings every detail to rich and human life. We share the insights of the famous political and literary figures of the day, from Abraham Lincoln to Nathaniel Hawthorne to Herman Melville. We learn what really happened at Hampton Roads and what it all means for us today. And we learn about how "Smart weapons displace heroism from the field to the laboratory, from warriors to engineers, and from spectacle to secrecy." Everyone interested in the history of technology, the history of war, and the ways writers interpret events of the day will want to read this fine little book.