TECHNOLOGY IN WAR

As a change of pace, I read a couple of nonfiction books that I have been interested in reading for a while. Both books deal with the development and usage of war technology. In Mr. Lincoln's High-Tech War: How the North Used the Telegraph, railroads, surveillance Balloons, Iron-Clads, High-Powered Weapons, and More to Win the Civil War, the authors Thomas B. Allen and Roger Macbride Allen explain the development of these various items and how they were used. I was fascinated by the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a great supporter of these new technologies but his generals preferred to wage war without them. With many photographs, cartoons, and diagrams you feel like you are right in the midst of the Civil War.

My second nonfiction choice was Steve Sheinkin's Bomb - The Race to Build-and Steal- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon. The book tells the development of the atomic bomb and its use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. I learned that Albert Einstein communicated with President Franklin Roosevelt urging him to sponsor the development of the atomic bomb. I learned how Robert Oppenheimer was chosen to run the project and gathered his team. And I learned about the spying by the Soviet Union, our ally, to gain this new technology that led to the Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s. Here also photographs and diagrams help you follow the progress of "the gadget" and meet the people involved. This book is also a nominee for the 2015 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award.

Look for both of these books in the Blogged Book display when you come back to school next week.