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Sputnik: The Shock of the Century [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Paul Dickson (Author)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 543 pages
Publisher: Thorndike Press; Lrg edition (January 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 078389760X
ISBN-13: 978-0783897608
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.9 x 3 cm
Shipping Weight: 830 g

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Dickson (The Electronic Battlefield) chronicles in detail the Soviet satellite Sputnik. The Soviet Union was propelled into international prominence on October 4, 1957, by becoming the first nation to successfully launch a satellite, beating the American program by several months. The Soviet spacecraft panicked Americans, who constantly looked up into the sky, spoke in hushed tones and feared that the satellite presaged an atomic attack. President Eisenhower remained calm and tried to lead the country through the media-generated crisis, but the Sputnik "debacle" helped the Democrats in the next election. Dickson chronicles the history of rocket research, including Nazi successes during WWII. American and Soviet troops vied to seize German scientists and hardware. Dickson examines the feuding between the services for control of the space program and candidly exposes the reasons for the lag in American research. Eisenhower gets high marks for his quiet mastery of the situation, pleased that the Soviets were first into space, since that set off a race to improve American education, even as it fueled an outbreak of UFO hysteria. Dickson, whose bibliography runs to 19 pages, completely understands the lure and lore of Sputnik and has done a solid job of synthesizing prior books on the subject.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Space exploration is often portrayed as a U.S.-U.S.S.R. race, with the Soviet Union winning the initial lap by launching Sputnik, the earth's first artificial satellite. Yet as Dickson (The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary) reveals, for the United States, the race was also an internal competition, with the military (particularly Wernher von Braun's rocket team) and the Eisenhower administration grappling for control of the national space program. Eisenhower, who sought to demilitarize space and thereby open the skies to U.S. espionage satellites, eventually triumphed, establishing NASA as a civilian agency and successfully testing a clandestine satellite launch. Focusing on internal rivalries and including pre-Sputnik material, Dickson's book complements Robert A. Divine's The Sputnik Challenge (LJ 3/1/93), which considers the aftermath of Sputnik; James Killian's personal Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower: A Memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (LJ 1/15/78. o.p.); and the scholarly Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite (Harwood Academic, 2000; also issued as NASA Technical Memorandum 113448). For public and academic libraries. Nancy R. Curtis, Univ. of Maine Lib., Orono
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Shock Is Still With Us, April 22 2003

James L. Srodes "Author" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sputnik: The Shock of the Century (Mass Market Paperback)

If you want an understanding of how the United States endede up as the 800-pound gorilla for the rest of the world, you should begin with Paul Dickson's meticulously researched and cleanly written account of how we were jump started into supremacy in the space race more than forty years ago. Just ignore the ... and get this book; it should be a civics textbook that is required reading. Dickson's tale should be a PBS documentary, but don't wait till then.
Lula Srodes

Washington DC

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2.0 out of 5 stars No cited sources, written by a journalist?, Jan 6 2003

Andrew J. Porwitzky (Havre de Grace, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sputnik (Hardcover)

As a historian of the space race I have read a good deal about the space program. This book is nowhere on my top list of choices. The text of the book contains no citations to sources, you are supposedly directed to the 18 page bibliography to determine where the author got his information. With some of the questionable things stated in this book, I would like to read the appropriate source, or at least know if it came from a book, magazine, or dinner side chat with an uncle.

If you know nothing of the early days of the space program, this book does an adequate job of filling you in. However, if you know anything about this period you will find little of interest. The author is, after all, not a space historian, nor did he have an active part in the space age. The author is described in the book jacket as an investigative reporter. I would not recommend this book for someone seriously interested in the history of the space program, US or Soviet.

This book contains surprisingly little about Sputnik.

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2.0 out of 5 stars A good topic but questionable facts, Nov 1 2002

mx5mike (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sputnik (Hardcover)

As a longtime space buff, I looked forward to reading this book about an event that happened before I was born. I found two factual errors that unfortunately left me questioning the authenticity of other facts in the book.

On page 41, the book reads "In 1968, as Apollo 11 lifted off for the Moon..." and on page 236 it states "When the space shuttle was first launched in 1982..." These events, of course, happened in 1969 and 1981, and rank among the most important space events ever (along with Sputnik's launch, certainly). How these two dates could be incorrect makes me just a little skeptical that other things I read in the book might just be a little off as well. What if a book on early US history listed Jefferson as the 4th President?

I really wanted to like this book, and altough it tended to be a little dry at times, I found many interesting stories and details, but two blatant factual inaccuracies that made it past however many people they made it past before the book's printing left me a little wary of the rest of the content. I don't want to malign the entirety of the author's work for what might be no more than typos, but I just could not get past those two.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Everything but Sputnik
If you're looking for a careful analysis of the development of Sputnik and its implications for Russian space science, skip this book. Read more

Published on Oct 10 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars excellently researched...detail detail detail
The author has spent many years searching for any reference no matter how small involving Sputnik. He links words like beatnik, vietnik, and refusenik to the influence of... Read more

Published on Feb 4 2002 by Susan Gerbic-Forsyth

5.0 out of 5 stars Capturing the Essence of an Era
Greetings:

I would like to congratulate Paul Dickson on an outstanding presentation of one of the most complex and exciting events in world history. Read more

Published on Jan 25 2002 by Ted Spitzmiller

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely interesting
This isn't really a book about Sputnik at all. Initially it's a history of rocketry and then it turns into a book about and American science and culture in the 50s and onwards... Read more

Published on Jan 4 2002 by sigfpe

5.0 out of 5 stars Shock, Fear, Challenge, Mistakes and Successes!
To date in my life there have been just a few events that caused me to sit back and rethink everything. Read more

Published on Dec 11 2001 by Donald Mitchell

5.0 out of 5 stars Oprah forget Jonathan Franzen.. put your stamp on this book!
I was 11 years old when Sputnik beeped across the sky and I stood with my father in our back yard, night after night, staring at the stars. Read more

Published on Nov 6 2001 by Bonnie West

4.0 out of 5 stars Over Stating & Over Reacting to the Inevitable
Overall, Mr. Dickson has written a very readable book for a subject that could have very easily gotten lost in technologic trivial and minutia. Read more

Published on Nov 2 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Sputnik is Still Flying
On 4 October 1957, the world woke up in the space age. The first artificial satellite (people were originally calling it an artificial moon) had been successfully launched by the... Read more

Published on Oct 29 2001 by R. Hardy

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for President Bush and his advisers
Paul Dickson's "Sputnik" should definitely be read by President Bush, his advisers and staff. Read more