Career
He has published more than thirty books across a variety of topics, including histories, biographies, and books for children. He lives in Connecticut.
( Rumspringa is Tom Shachtman's celebrated look at a litt...)
Rumspringa is Tom Shachtman's celebrated look at a littleknown Amish coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa―the period of "running around" that begins for their youth at age sixteen. During this time, Amish youth are allowed to live outside the bounds of their faith, experimenting with alcohol, premarital sex, revealing clothes, telephones, drugs, and wild parties. By allowing such broad freedoms, their parents hope they will learn enough to help them make the most important decision of their lives―whether to be baptized as Christians, join the church, and forever give up worldly ways, or to remain in the world. In this searching book, Shachtman draws on his skills as a documentarian to capture young people on the cusp of a fateful decision, and to give us "one of the most absorbing books ever written about the Plain People" (Publishers Weekly).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865477426/?tag=2022091-20
(A fresh exploration of the scientific pursuits of the Fou...)
A fresh exploration of the scientific pursuits of the Founding Fathers that reveals their science as critical to the great political "experiment" of the day
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1137278250/?tag=2022091-20
(Eloquence is vanishing from society, so claims Thomas Sha...)
Eloquence is vanishing from society, so claims Thomas Shachtman. Today's new commentators employ a lexicon of 5000 words, down from 10,000 in 1963, sound bites have taken the place of speeches, crudeness has replaced wit, and movie heroes shoot first and ask questions later. But the crisis of articulate expression is much deeper than we realise, for we have also lost our ability to respond to other points of view - to argue - without coming swiftly to blows. In this work, the author attempts to identify the causes of this decline - from the increasing presence of technology in our lives and the proliferation of jargon-spouting "specialists" to political and corporate double-speak - and he proposes a concrete, multi-faceted programme for rehabilitating eloquence through the constructive use of media together with political and educational reform. Although current trends towards an ever greater flow of information are unlikely to reverse themselves, Shachtman argues that we must use available technology to facilitate - rather than short circuit - debate about important public issues.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416576797/?tag=2022091-20
( In Around the Block, Tom Shachtman makes Adam Smith's "...)
In Around the Block, Tom Shachtman makes Adam Smith's "invisible hand" visible in the daily life of a number of small businesses in an ordinary, middle class block in New York City. Looking at The Block's economic life over the course of a year, Shachtman explores the everyday tragedies and triumphs hidden from view behind the shop windows and in offices. Behind the abstractions of economists, a single block in the Chelsea section of Manhattan is the stage for the personal commitments and risks of small business-a father commits suicide so that his business can avoid bankruptcy; a Korean liquor store owner finds himself caught between tow worlds; a computer game programmer leaves her job and risks her career for an idea of her own. Shachtman puts a human face on the challenges that businesses weather every day. We see how small business is integral to America's national health, responsible for job growth while building social ties in a country mired by polarization. In this very human story about work and community, Tom Shachtman writes not the economics of textbooks and graphs buth the stuff of our lives.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0151000778/?tag=2022091-20
(The dreadful global conflagration known as the Second Wor...)
The dreadful global conflagration known as the Second World War was more than the clashing of great armies on bloody battlefields. A different kind of war was being waged in the secret laboratories on both sides of the conflict -- a war that would alter the course and determine the outcome of the bitter hostilities, forever changing our world and future. In a stunning amalgam of science and history, Tom Shachtman, the critically acclaimed author of Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold and The Phony War, 1939-1940, gives us a riveting chronicle of World War II's forgotten combatants: the engineers, physicists, chemists, and academics whose contributions to the war effort were as important as the noble sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who bravely risked their lives. While it is a widely accepted fact that America's development and employment of the atomic bomb ended the Pacific struggle -- and that the failure of Hitler's scientists to develop their own A-bomb helped to doom Germany -- little note has been made of the other remarkable scientific accomplishments of this dark and terrible epoch. Beginning with a fascinating overview of the Depression-era struggle to establish scientific and military alliances that would ultimately enable the Allies to catch up to the Axis's early dominance, Terrors and Marvels offers an eye-opening history of the furious battles for technological superiority covertly waged by the world's most brilliant minds. From the creation of faster, deadlier jets and rockets to the development of biological, chemical, and electronic warfare -- from astonishing advances in medical science to breakthroughs in radar and decoding -- the incredible successes and failures that occurred in top-secret facilities around the world in the early 1940s never made headlines but often determined triumph and defeat. Here, also, are the intensely human stories of the architects of the terrifying war machines -- men and women of rare intelligence and integrity torn by the conflicting demands of conscience and country, haunted by their roles in the use and abuse of powerful science. Edifying, enthralling, startling, and sobering, Terrors and Marvels is a masterful work that sheds light on the astonishing achievements of a remarkable few and the great and terrible technology that swung the pendulum of victory in the Allies' direction.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380978768/?tag=2022091-20
(In this biography, historian and social analyst Tom Shach...)
In this biography, historian and social analyst Tom Shachtman offers the clearest and most detailed examination to date of one of America's most influential thinkers. Known as the "longshoreman philosopher," Eric Hoffer was a beloved and controversial figure with veiled origins. Using Hoffer's never-before-seen archives, Shachtman uncovers the steps by which this unschooled migrant field hand and dockworker created himself as an artist and thinker, and how his background and occupations were reflected in his published books.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933435380/?tag=2022091-20
(An account of the adventures of a sea lion, including his...)
An account of the adventures of a sea lion, including his experiences with man in a sea laboratory and his assumption of the role of beachmaster or head of the tribe.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080500498X/?tag=2022091-20
He has published more than thirty books across a variety of topics, including histories, biographies, and books for children. He lives in Connecticut.
( In Around the Block, Tom Shachtman makes Adam Smith's "...)
( Rumspringa is Tom Shachtman's celebrated look at a litt...)
(In this biography, historian and social analyst Tom Shach...)
(An account of the adventures of a sea lion, including his...)
(A fresh exploration of the scientific pursuits of the Fou...)
(The dreadful global conflagration known as the Second Wor...)
(Describes the daily activities of two young members of th...)
(Eloquence is vanishing from society, so claims Thomas Sha...)
(Absolute Zero : And the Conquest of Cold by Tom Shachtman...)
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