A seriies of maps depicting the course of the war over the entire world ordered by month. Provides a useful perspective of simultaneity during the course of a world straddling conflict. There are better campaign maps for the details, but here we can better glimpse what the war looked like at the highest levels.

The classic and immensely popular account of the early explorers of microbiology. The chapter length vignettes of Leeuwenhoek, Spallazani, Redi, Pastuer (who rates two chapters), Koch, and others have a strong narrative based on the remarkable characters who opened the field at a time when both science and the scientific method itself were being shaped. I particularly treasure the excitement that the stories provide and the accounts of both successes and failures. Who has not marveled at the diligence and care of Leeuwenhoek in making his observations, or the battles that Spallazani fought over whether microbes had parents --- dealing with the "theory" of spontaneous generation. I particluarly marvel at the Pastuer whose failures (almost destroying the silk worm industry while trying to save it) are almost as spectacular as his successes, such as the rabies vaccine. My copy of this book is falling apart, likely purchased from the Scholastic Book Service in the mid 60s for 35 or 45 cents, as entertaining and inspiring as when I first read it: science as an exciting hunt for truth and even glory, and scientists, fumbling at times, yet engaged on what was clearly an engaging enterprise. An excellent read.

An extended essay on the differences between the United States and Japan, written at a time when Japan and Japanese methods appeared to be the prototype of the future. Rather than attempt to be second best imitators of the Japanese, we should be "more like ourselves" and utilize the cultural strengths that we do possess: the willingness to change, to remake ourselves, and to uproot ourselves.

This book does not explicitly consider immigration, but twenty five years after publication it is noteworthy that an additional difference between ourselves and the Japanese is a willingness to accept immigrants. The population in Japan is now declining and the Japanese population is aging, while amid the rancorous debated here about immigration our population continues to grow, in large part from immigration.