false 1619803 1 A breathtaking ride through the highs and lows of one spectacular, pivotal year in American history.<P><P>As the earth turned toward the sun on the first morning of 1908, human flight remained, for most Americans, in the realm of myth and dream. But before the darkness fell on New Year's Eve at the end of the year, the Wright brothers would be worldwide celebrities, heralded as the first people in all of human history to conquer the sky.<P><P>It was the year Teddy Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet on a voyage around the globe, Robert Peary began his courageous dash to the North Pole, six automobiles left Times Square on an epic twenty-thousand-mile race to Paris, and Henry Ford introduced an oddly shaped new automobile called the Model T.<P><P>It was a time of seemingly boundless innovation - everything was bigger, better, fast, and greater than ever before. In New York and Chicago, banks of high-speed elevators zipped through vertical shafts in the tallest buildings on earth. Pneumatic tubes whisked mail between far-flung post offices in minutes. Women cleaned their homes with amazing new devices called vacuums. And as American engineers cut a fifty-mile canal through the Isthmus of Panama, the very air buzzed with the imagined potential of new technology, including a "portable wireless telephone" that would someday allow people to talk while they walked.<P><P>Meanwhile, the New York Giants battled the Chicago Cubs in one of the most thrilling seasons in baseball history, and a reluctant William Howard Taft was elected twenty-seventh president of the United States.<P><P>By turns gripping and humorous, shocking and delightful, Jim Rasenberger's <I>America, 1908</i> brings to life our nation as it was one hundred years ago, at a moment of delirious optimism and pride, a time when Americans believed that even the most intractable problems would soon be solved and that the future was bound to be better than the past.<P><P>"What will the year 2008 bring us?" pondered the <I>New York World</i> on New Year's Day of 1908. "What marvels of development await the youth of tomorrow?" As Thomas Edison said later that year, "Anything, everything, is possible."<P><P>Shedding new light on stories we thought we knew and telling fresh stories we can't believe we've never heard, <I>American, 1908</i> is a rousing chronicle of a country on the brink of greatness - and a timely, thought-provoking glimpse at a younger America, even as we wonder what awaits us in the century ahead. <P><P> 1613724 6 11 2007 America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation total:40|5:5|4:15|3:15|2:5|1:0| 40 140 82 13 3 0 false false Tue May 12 12:45:02 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 12:52:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 05 21:27:56 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 11 06:35:53 -0800 2008
He focuses on the Wright brothers improving the airplane to where they routine...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Oct 09 18:11:21 -0700 2008 Wed Dec 17 11:46:22 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 03 14:36:29 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 14:54:24 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun May 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 07:59:36 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 08:02:03 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Feb 07 18:35:23 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 18:37:24 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Wed Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 12:57:39 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 12:59:10 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Dec 07 20:58:25 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 07 20:58:51 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 18 08:00:34 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 18 08:03:59 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Feb 06 09:26:57 -0800 2009 Wed Oct 07 10:31:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 07 14:11:58 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 14:13:29 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sat Apr 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 18:57:40 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 12 18:06:13 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Mar 11 05:46:30 -0700 2009 Wed Jan 09 09:24:33 -0800 2008 Wed Mar 11 05:46:30 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Oct 13 12:08:02 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 12:08:19 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 06 14:21:26 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 14:21:26 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Oct 03 07:40:26 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 07:40:26 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Oct 28 10:04:46 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 16:54:08 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 28 10:04:46 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 05 17:35:35 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 02 19:39:26 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Wed Aug 19 05:04:28 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 19 05:04:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Aug 15 20:06:43 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 20:06:50 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1619803