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Title: History that's fun, engaging and readable.
Review: In Sputnik, Paul Dickson takes a single historic event and uses it as a spot from which to take a look around and see what can be learned. When applied cleverly, that writing strategy leads to some great books. This is one of them.Dickson covers the history of rocketry and missiles, taking a look at the science and the scientists that led up to the launch of Sputnik. He captures the mood of the Cold War and gives you a sense of the rude awakening the United States experienced when the USSR beat it into space. Then the book ranges into the responses of the US and the USSR to Sputnik, covering the space race to its end on the moon.All of the material is carefully brought together and conveyed in such a way that you keep reading long after you needed to put the book down and do something else.Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys history. This one is very well done.
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