A high-octane polemic against cars--which are ruining the world, while making us unhappy and unhealthy--from a talented young writer at the Economist The automobile was one of the most miraculous inventions of the 20th century. It promised freedom, style, and utility. But sometimes, rather than improving our lives technology just makes everything worse. Over the past century cars have filled the air with toxic pollutants and fueled climate change. Cars have stolen public space and made our cities uglier, dirtier, less useful, and more unequal. Cars have caused tens of millions of deaths and injuries. They have wasted our time and our money. In Carmageddon, journalist Daniel Knowles outlines the rise of the automobile and the costs we all bear as a result. Weaving together history, economics, and reportage, Knowles traces the forces and decisions that normalized cars and cemented our reliance on them. He takes readers around the world to show the ways car use has impacted people's lives--from Nairobi, where few people own a car but the city is still cloaked in smog, to Houston, where the Katy Freeway has a mind-boggling 26 lanes and there are 30 parking spaces for every resident, enough land to fit Paris ten times. With these negatives, Knowles shows that there are better ways to live, looking at Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and New York City. CARMAGEDDON features original reporting from: Chicago Detroit Houston Las Vegas Los Angeles New York Paris, France Mumbai, India Nairobi, Kenya Tokyo, Japan London, Birmingham, and Coventry, England &nbsp; CARMAGEDDON also covers: Atlanta Cincinnati Louisville Memphis St Louis Amsterdam, Netherlands Copenhagen, Denmark Lagos, Nigeria Sao Paolo, Brazil Singapore &nbsp;

Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It

Engineering & Transportation

Knowles, Daniel

Automotive

Harry N. Abrams

Referred to by Winston Churchill as ‘the Beast’, ‘Tirpitz’ was Germany’s last great battleship and was one of the largest and heaviest battleships ever constructed by a European navy. Sister ship to the infamous ‘Bismarck’, ‘Tirpitz’ may be referred to as ‘the Lonely Queen of the North’. Laid down in 1936 and commissioned in 1941, ‘Tirpitz’ spent most of her operational life lurking as a ‘fleet in being’ amongst the fjords of Norway. Such was the threat posed to the sea lanes, and with that the Allied war effort, and so obsessed was Churchill and the Admiralty with her destruction that twenty-four operations, ranging from the foolhardy to the ridiculous were undertaken against her. It was in November 1944 that the ‘Tirpitz’ was finally sunk, not by the Royal Navy, but by the aircraft of RAF Bomber Command. Using a variety of sources this book begins by looking at the military and political situation in Germany that led to the decision to build the ‘Tirpitz’ before going on to analyse the life and death of Germany’s last great battleship.

Tirpitz: The Life and Death of Germany’s Last Great Battleship

History

Military

Fonthill Media

For over twenty years the battlecruiser HMS 'Hood' toured the world as the most iconic warship in the Royal Navy. Unmatched in her beauty and charisma, ‘Hood’ is one of history’s greatest warships. During the twilight years of the British Empire the 'Hood' toured the world showing the flag as a symbol of British power. As the Royal Navy’s show-ship, 'Hood' came to command a special place in the hearts and minds of the British public. Such was the regard for HMS ‘Hood’ that her destruction in the Denmark Strait on the morning of 24 May 1941 by the German battleship ‘Bismarck’ created dismay across the world. Within minutes of entering battle ‘the Mighty Hood’ as she was affectionately known, was destroyed by a catastrophic explosion which had echoes of Jutland a quarter of a century earlier. Out of a crew of a crew of 1,418, only 3 survived. The sinking of HMS 'Hood' was the single largest disaster ever sustained by the Royal Navy. This book charts the life and death of this legendary battlecruiser in both peace and war from her early origins, through the interwar years, to her destruction.

HMS Hood: Pride of the Royal Navy

Europe

Dawn, 24 May 1941. Two groups of ships, one British, one German meet in the Denmark Strait. Here, two giants of maritime history, HMS Hood and the Bismarck, meet. Within minutes of the battle beginning HMS Hood blows up with a catastrophic loss of life. Out of a crew of 1,418 only three survive. Coupled with this, the Royal Navy's newest battleship is outfought. While this is a cause of celebration for the Germans, Bismarck has been wounded curtailing her Atlantic raiding sortie. Despite the wealth of documentary information and photographic evidence available on the battle, there continues to be controversy as to how the conflict was actually fought. This book analyses the events of 24 May 1941 to both shed new light and provide clarifications on how the battle was fought, the damage that different ships sustained, and how it was that the pride of the Royal Navy was destroyed in such a catastrophic manner.

The Battle of the Denmark Strait: An Analysis of the Battle and the Loss of HMS Hood

The ‘Yamato’ and her sister ship the ‘Musashi’ represented the ultimate development in the battleship. Together, the two ships were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed. Named after the Yamato Province, Yamato was designed to counter the numerically superior fleet of the US Navy. Built amongst a shroud of secrecy and deception and commissioned shortly after the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, she was present at a number of engagements including the Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Despite having been designed to engage and sink enemy surface vessels, the Yamato would only fire her unrivaled 18.1 inch guns at an enemy surface target on one occasion, in October 1944 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In the final months of the war, as Kamikaze aircraft targeted American landing fleets off Okinawa, the Yamato herself embarked on a one way mission of sacrifice, in a last desperate roll of the dice in an attempt to wreak havoc on the landing forces around Okinawa, the last stepping stone prior to an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Despite being products of war from the moment of their construction the Yamato and Musashi occupied a unique place which continues to this day.\nTable of Contents\nAcknowledgements; Introduction; 1 Naval Arms Race; 2 Anatomy of the Yamato-Class; 3 Ships of the Yamato-Class; 4 Battleship Number One; 5 Hotel ‘Yamato’; 6 The Hunter and the Hunted; 7 The Battle of Leyte Gulf; 8 Operation Ten-Gō; 9 ‘Will you take them or shall I?’; 10 Aftermath; 11 Intelligence on the ‘Yamato’; 12 The 1:10 ‘Yamato’; Appendix A; Appendix B; Appendix C; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index.

Yamato: Flagship of the Japanese Imperial Navy

Americas

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the United Kingdom was described as one vast aircraft carrier anchored off the coast of Europe. During a seven year period 500 airfields were constructed to serve the needs first of the RAF and later the USAAF as they carried the war to German-occupied Europe. The airfields that were constructed took many different forms from training airfields and Advanced Landing Grounds to grass fighter airstrips and vast complexes used to accommodate heavy bombers.\nThis book charts the history of each Second World War airfield in and around the UK providing a unique insight in to the construction, operational life and post-war history of each airfield. Alongside detailing the history of each airfield, this work comprehensively records the details of each unit that operated from airfields around the UK.\nThe information provided in this meticulously researched book is supported by a wealth of 629 photographs providing an illustration into the life of each wartime station.

RAF and USAAF Airfields in the UK

Mills, Geoff

Following the First World War the major naval powers entered into an agreement restricting the construction of capital ships and limiting the numbers that signatories were allowed to maintain, so numerous ships were scrapped or disposed of and the majority of planned vessel were either canceled whilst being built or never laid down. By the late 1920s the Royal Navy’s battle force comprised of the two Nelson-class ships, the battlecruisers ‘Hood’, ‘Renown’ and ‘Repulse’, and ‘Revenge’ and Queen Elizabeth-class ships, all designed before the First World War. In 1928 the Royal Navy began planning a new class of battleships which was put on hold with the signing of the Treaty of London. In 1935, realizing its battle fleet was becoming dated as other nations laid down new classes of battleships, the Royal Navy recommenced planning capital ships within treaty limitations. The result was the King George V-class battleships. Regarded by some as the worst new-generation battleships in the Second World War the King George V-class were Britain’s most modern battleships during the conflict and saw action in some of the most famous engagements from the sinking of the ‘Bismarck’ in 1941 to the surrender of Japan in 1945. This book charts the story of the King George V-class from its conception and design through to the operational history of the ships in the class.\nTable of Contents\nAcknowledgements; Introduction; 1 Treaty Battleships; 2 Anatomy of the King George V-Class; 3 HMS ‘King George V’: Construction and Work Up; 4 HMS ‘Prince of Wales’: Construction and Work Up; 5 The ‘Bismarck’; 6 The Atlantic Charter; 7 Mediterranean Interlude; 8 The Singapore Strategy; 9 The Loss of HMS ‘Prince of Wales’; 10 ‘We Are All in the Same Boat Now’; 11 The Arctic Convoys; 12 ‘The Severest Test of Any’; 13 Operation Husky; 14 North Cape; 15 Tungsten; 16 The Eastern Fleet; 17 Goodwood; 18 The British Pacific Fleet; 19 Operation Iceberg; 20 Victory Over Japan; 21 After the War; 22 The Wreck of HMS ‘Prince of Wales’; Epilogue; Appendix I: Commanding Officers; Appendix II: King George V-Class and North Carolina-Class: A Comparison; Appendix III: HMS ‘Prince of Wales’ Battle of the Denmark Strait Roll of Honour; Appendix IV: The Atlantic Charter; Appendix V: Admiral Pound’s Minute; Appendix VI: HMS ‘Prince of Wales’ Roll of Honour, 10 December 1941; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index.

King George V-Class Battleships

In February 1942, six Swordfish armed with torpedoes encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire in the English Channel and were shot down but not before two torpedoes were launched at a German battleship sailing at high speed. This attack was part of a wider British effort to stop the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from making their way back to Germany. The Scharnhorst is one of the most famous capital ships to have served with the Kriegsmarine. Yet she and her sister ship Gneisenau have been largely overshadowed by the Bismarck and Tirpitz, despite the fact that they played a more proactive role in the Second World War and were Germany’s most successful battleships. This book provides an authoritative and informative look at the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the first capital ships of the Kriegsmarine, from their conception through the first successful years of the Second World War to their respective losses. This is a detailed account of naval warfare against the Royal Navy off the coast of Norway and the war against Allied commerce from the German perspective.\nTable of Contents\nAcknowledgements; Kriegsmarine Ranks; Introduction; Chapter 1: In the Shadow of Versailles; Chapter 2: Anatomy of the Scharnhorst-Class; Chapter 3: Gneisenau: Construction and Sea Trials; Chapter 4: Scharnhorst: Construction and Sea Trials; Chapter 5: To War; Chapter 6: Operation Juno; Chapter 7: Operation Berlin; Chapter 8: At Brest; Chapter 9: Operation Cerberus: The Channel Dash; Chapter 10: Deployment to Norway; Chapter 11: The Hunters and the Hunted; Chapter 12: Ostfront; Chapter 13: ‘Scharnhorst Will Ever Reign Supreme’; Chapter 14: ‘On the Field of Honour’; Chapter 15: Fate of the Gneisenau; Chapter 16: Wreck of the Scharnhorst; Paint Schemes of the Scharnhorst; Paint Schemes of the Gneisenau; Epilogue; Appendix I: Commanding Officers; Appendix II: Ships Sunk by the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst During Operation Berlin; Survivors of the Scharnhorst; Scharnhorst Roll of Honour; Gneisenau Roll of Honour; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

In November 1923, the Royal Navy dispatched what was named the Special Service Squadron on a ten-month tour around the British Empire. Led by the battlecruiser HMS Hood--the pride of the Royal Navy and the largest ship in the world at the time--and comprising of the battlecruiser Renown and the First Light Cruiser Squadron, the role of the Special Service Squadron was to 'show the flag' during a public relations exercise and to strengthen ties across the empire. Much publicized, the cruise served as a subtle reminder that in the aftermath of the First World War, Britannia still ruled the waves. Empire Cruise charts the situation faced by Great Britain and the Royal Navy in the years immediately after the First World War, detailing the origins of the cruise before charting the course of the expedition.

Empire Cruise: The Special Service Squadron, 1923–24

Disasters, Fires, and Rescues: The Multiple-Alarm Fire That Destroyed the Old Kann's Building in Washington, Dc in the 1980's

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Xlibris US

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