David Baker

The war is a war of machines; it will be won on the assembly line. - Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production Just as vital as the battle on land or the struggle at sea, the air war ultimately tipped the balance of power in World War II. Many campaigns rode on the capabilities of their airforce, as British Spitfires were pitted against Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Japanese Zeros. Aerospace expert David Baker explores this battle in the...

"Patriot Acts" is a darkly comedic political satire, wrapped inside a legal thriller. The story, which takes place in the not-too-distant future, centers on the plight of an immigrant teenager, snatched from her mother at a border crossing as part of a cruel family separation program. She's shipped off across the U.S. and threatened with deportation, even though she's receiving critical medical treatment. Her volunteer lawyers, on a whim, attack...

The essays contained in this volume offer a unique and personal perspective on the archival research process in the history of psychology. Celebrating the achievements of John A. Popplestone and Marion White McPherson, founders of the Archives of the History of American Psychology at The University of Akron in 1965, nine leading scholars describe the value, frustration, and satisfaction inherent in the archival process in the history of psychology....

What do Abraham Lincoln, Pablo Picasso, Aretha Franklin and Howard Hughes all have in common? They died without wills, left messy estates and tormented their surviving families who had to lawyer up and fight through the resulting nightmares for years. Whether the reasons for this are death denial, penny-pinching or just too busy to be bothered, the majority of Americans will die in exactly the same predicament-no wills, no planning and nobody lined...

Only 150 years ago, the majority of the world's population was largely illiterate. Today, not only do most people over fifteen have basic reading and writing skills, but 20 percent of the population attends some form of higher education. What are the effects of such radical, large-scale change? David Baker argues that the education revolution has transformed our world into a schooled society-that is, a society that is actively created and defined...

Did you know that the Moon is a ball of rock? Its surface is mostly made up of a type of rock called basalt. Find out more in Moon, one of the titles in the Discovering Space series.

From the first microbial exchanges of DNA to Tinder and sexbots, how did sex begin, and how did it evolve to be so varied and complex in humans? What influence do our genetic ancestors have on our current love lives? And what might sex look like in the future? With acuity, humor, and respect for human diversity, The Shortest History of Sex reveals where the many facets of our sexuality-chemical, anatomical, behavioral, social-come from. Chasing down...

On March 1, 1996, 15-year-old Shafeeq Murrel was killed on the street in South Philadelphia - innocently caught in the crossfire between rival pairs of crack dealers out for revenge. Shafeeq's murder was one of 435 in Philadelphia that year, and it was soon shelved as a cold case. Then, detectives David Baker and Julie Hill took it on- two middle-aged white cops working a Black neighborhood in their battered Plymouth Gran Fury. Filmed like a taut...

Many today find the Old Testament a closed book. The cultural issues seem insurmountable and we are easily baffled by that which seems obscure. Furthermore, without knowledge of the ancient culture we can easily impose our own culture on the text, potentially distorting it. This series invites you to enter the Old Testament with a company of guides, experts that will give new insights into these cherished writings. Features include: -Over 2000 photographs,...

Never has the world been as rich in scientific knowledge as it is today. But what are its main sources? In accessible and engaging fashion, Global Mega-Science examines the origins of this unprecedented growth of knowledge production over the past hundred and twenty years. David P. Baker and Justin J.W. Powell integrate sociological and historical approaches with unique scientometric data to argue that at the heart of this phenomenon is the unparalleled...