"The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll and author of classics like 'Johnny B. Goode,' 'Maybellene,' 'You Never Can Tell,' and 'Roll Over Beethoven.' Chuck Berry long ago earned a reputation as a person who gave nothing away. He could be a difficult man to be around off-stage, and was extremely closed off in interviews. There was the work, and then there was the man, who was not easily given to describing...

Over the course of the 20th century, unionization and innovation totally reshaped the centuries-old maritime shipping industry. Beginning with a rich portrayal of life as a longshoreman in the early 1900s, this program chronicles organized labor's long-fought battles for respect and good wages-gains ultimately stripped of their meaning by the introduction of a whole new way of moving cargoes between land and sea: the container. The intertwined biographies...

What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point; Blink; and Outliers....

Composer John Cage is often described as the most influential musician of the last half-century. He has defined - and continues to define - our whole concept of "avant-garde", not just in music but increasingly as writer and visual artist. "The Roaring Silence" is the first full-length biography of Cage. It documents his life in unrivalled detail, interweaving a close account of the evolution of his work with an exploration of his aesthetic, political...

Filled with broken hearts and black ravens, Edgar Allan Poe's ghastly tales have delighted readers for centuries. Born in Boston in 1809, Poe was orphaned at age two. He was soon adopted by a Virginia family who worked as tombstone merchants. In 1827 he enlisted in the Army and subsequently failed out of West Point. His first published story, The Raven, was a huge success, but his joy was overshadowed by the death of his wife. Poe devoted his life...

"A brilliant portrait of two American giants, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, and America entering the automobile age, told through the fascinating but little-known narrative of the summer road trips taken by Edison and Ford" --

"Tells the story of the American scientists, tinkerers, and nerds who solved one of the biggest puzzles of World WarII-and developed one of the most powerful weapons of the war"--Provided by publisher.

"The epic road trips-and surprising friendship-of John Burroughs, nineteenth-century naturalist, and Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, inventors of the modern age"--

He introduced the lowly peanut to big business and changed the course of Southern agriculture. He turned soybeans into plastic and carved his place in history as one of the 20th century's greatest scientists. George Washington Carver was a slave set free with a microscope and a vision: this is his story.