Books like Farm Mechanization — picked by fans

Gene Kranz gave a precise and concise description of historic events around the creation of America’s manned space program and presented the key players at the forefront of NASA’s space exploration Missions. His participation in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission was dramatically documented in this book to my admiration. A fascinating firsthand account by a veteran mission controller of one of America’s greatest achievements, this book reflects on what has happened to the space program and offers his own bold suggestions about what we ought to be doing in space now.

I fell in love with this book because of the author’s personal involvement and perceptions in some of the Mission programs. The graphic description of different explorations kept me spellbound to read each exploration to the end. Again, the book was written with simple and easy-flowing English grammar… show more.

The recommendation should have lots of “This book is what you need when space exploration is your passion. I have a passion and love for spacecraft systems and space explorations, which this book explicitly gives accounts of.

I enjoyed reading about the Apollo space missions and the ingenuity of the spacecraft designs and features, which many consider obsolete compared to today's standards.

I love this book because of the author’s choice of words in tracing the genealogy of solutions to age-long diseases ravaging the early man, as well as some habitual practices that could cause disease infestation.

The book explicitly navigated through these practices through the Neolithic ages to the Italian Alps, Bronze-ages, and to the present day Big Pharma conglomerates spending billions of dollars on state-of the art laboratories well equipped with knowledgeable personnel to discover blockbuster drugs. 

The title of the book is so catchy and fact-filled, providing narrative history of solution to human health challenges. The author infuses the book with so much expertise in finding solutions to life-threatening situations.

I love this book because it brought to the fore my childhood memories of stories and fantasies about space exploration and alien wars in the zeniths in the early 1970s. It revealed the secret behind-the-scenes stories of the fierce battles that launched the world superpowers into space. It gave a succinct description of the spy planes that drove Nikita Khrushchev crazy each time the Americans pried into the Soviet Union air space.

The characters perfectly depicted the scientists and astronauts prior to the launching of Korolev's satellite in October 1954, giving rise to the emergence of Sputnik adventures that led to the historic moon landing, the invention of cell and mobile communication gadgets, and, ultimately, the internet revolution.

Matthew Brzezinski critically explored the nitty-gritty of the Kremlin, the White House, secret military facilities, and the halls of Congress in this book, simplifying the exploits of the rival Russians and American… show more.

Ramtin’s bizarrely underread book may be read as a sequel to Braverman. This is the first Marxist text to engage directly and in a sustained manner with the concept of automation. Automation is distinguished from mechanization, a history is provided, and great attention to technical detail is evident. Ramtin also explores the (contentious) argument that automation must ultimately lead to the collapse of capitalism.

Jackson has devoted his career to reforming agriculture by applying ecological principles garnered from prairie lands of the Bread Basket of North America. Based in Kansas, Jackson has worked toward generating perennial crops that don’t need to be seeded annually, and could be grown in mixtures (a grain, an oil seed, and a legume), to support healthy soils that will sustain food production for many generations. This book lays out the arguments for his approach and challenges the basis of our agricultural systems. 

The importance of this book is less about human diets, and more about the food system itself. Keith explains in great detail that agriculture — the growing of annual monocrops — is the single most destructive activity humans have ever undertaken. Much of the planet’s surface, formerly teeming with wildlife, has now been cleared, drained, plowed, fertilized, and dedicated to one species: humans.

This doesn’t mean all food production is destructive; Keith distinguishes between agriculture and other methods of growing food, like horticulture, wild-tending, and pastoralism. But the conclusion is simple. We’re in overshoot, and agriculture is a big part of the problem.

In this book, Australian farmer Charles Massey takes a ‘big picture’ view of regenerative agriculture. It’s full of personal stories but it also goes deep into the history of industrial agriculture, the damage it continues to do, and how we can heal the planet. Massey lays out an inspiring vision for a new agriculture and the vital connections between our soil and our health. It’s a story of how a grassroots revolution can help turn climate change around and build healthy communities, pivoting on our relationship with growing and consuming food. 

Foodtopia tells us about people and communities who taking control of their own food production.

Throughout US history, many groups have sought alternatives to the dominant food culture, including Thgoreau, the Nearings, and, more recently, millennials. While many of us would like to have food alternatives, it can be difficult to figure out how to do this.

Kelley’s book provides details and descriptions of how these back to the land movements worked against the grain and the choices they made in doing so. These stories and examples help us see that there are alternatives to existing food systems, then and now. 

Like Pollan’s book, this one offers a sharp critique of the increasingly standardized and vulnerable global food system. After a paean to the attributes of the soil on which that system depends, Monbiot draws on practical experiments that seek to produce fruit and nuts, cereals, and protein and fats in less damaging ways.

These include regenerative forms of horticulture, no-drill agriculture, and growing microbial protein by precision fermentation. His main concern is to avert climate and ecological breakdown by exploring alternatives to ‘agricultural sprawl’. In turn he argues that this could open space for biodiversity recovery through rewilding, the subject of one of his earlier books.