Flying Blind is a fascinating yet uncomfortable look at the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes that occurred in 2018 and 2019 and their aftermath. Robison tells a compelling and accessible tale of the corporate culture, design mistakes and shortcuts, and the regulatory failures that led to the deaths of almost 350 people.
NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS BESTSELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX.
An "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" (New York Times Book Review), from the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg.
Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as…
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom is an excellent primer into the Taiping Civil War, a massive and sprawling series of events that is criminally understudied in the west. The Taiping Civil war was the deadliest war of the 19th century, and to date the deadliest civil conflict in human history. Platt reminds the reader of China's importance to global events in the 19th century. Specifically, Platt makes clear that both the US Civil war and the Taiping Civil War greatly affected the calculations and decision making of the British Empire.
In the early 1850s, during the twilight of the Qing dynasty, word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces. The leader of this movement - who called themselves the Taiping - was Hong Xiuquan, a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and the brother of Jesus Christ. As the revolt grew and battles raged across the empire, all signs pointed to a Taiping victory and to the inauguration of a modern, industrialized and pro-Western China.
Soon, however, Britain and the United States threw their support behind the Qing, rapidly quashing the Taiping and…
The Last Emperor of Mexico recounts a story in Mexican history that is both tragic and farcical. For a brief period of time, a member of the Habsburg European royal dynasty reigned as Emperor of Mexico, with the backing of a French army. If that sentence sounds improbable, confusing, and intriguing, then this book is well worth a read. Shawcross will take you through a series of events that are full of arrogance, hubris, willful deception, miscalculation, and bad luck.
The true operatic tragedy of Maximilian and Carlota, the European aristocrats who stumbled into power in Mexico—and faced bloody consequences.
In the 1860s, Napoleon III, intent on curbing the rise of American imperialism, persuaded a young Austrian archduke and a Belgian princess to leave Europe and become the emperor and empress of Mexico. They and their entourage arrived in a Mexico ruled by terror, where revolutionary fervor was barely suppressed by French troops. When the United States, now clear of its own Civil War, aided the rebels in pushing back Maximilian’s imperial soldiers, the French army withdrew, abandoning the young…
A lot of Questions, with no Answers? is a collection of six essays. Each essay is devoted to examining and questioning different subjects, like politics and statecraft, to the interpretation and understanding of history, to religion and belief. As the title suggests, the book is meant to pose questions and hopefully encourage the reader to ask their own questions, all while examining what they believe and why.
