Larrie D. Ferreiro

"Bridging the Seas portrays the rise of naval architecture as an integral part of the Industrial Age, describing how shipbuilders, ship owners and navies sponsored and incorporated ship theory into design and engineering in order to gain a competitive edge over their adversaries. It picks up the history of naval architecture where his previous book, Ships and Science, left off: at the turn of the 19th century, when the structures of Europe's Scientific Revolution came crashing down as the result of the Napoleonic Wars, while a new British-dominated Industrial Revolution was restructuring commerce and empires around the world. Bridging the Seas frames these developments around the fundamental change in shipbuilding from sail and wood to steam, iron and steel. Bridging the Seas shows that the introduction of steam, iron and steel required new rules for designing and building ships, which meant that characteristics of performance had to be first measured (e.g., horsepower), followed by new theories developed to predict them. The book then explores how ship theory led to quantifiable standards that would ensure adequate safety and quality as demanded by industry and governments, and how this in turn led to the professionalization of naval architecture as an engineering discipline. The book considers the changeover from laissez-faire research in naval architecture in the 19th century, to more structured approaches in government-sponsored testing tanks and laboratories in the 20th-century. Finally, it shows how computer-aided design has altered the social order of engineering design and project management, and how those changes will likely affect the discipline of naval architecture at the dawn of 21st-century Information Age."

"The remarkable untold story of how the American Revolution's success depended on substantial military assistance provided by France and Spain, and places the Revolution in the context of the global strategic interests of those nations in their fight against England. In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded. France and Spain provided close to the equivalent of $30 billion and 90 percent of all guns used by the Americans, and they sent soldiers and sailors by the thousands to fight and die alongside the Americans, as well as around the world. Ferreiro adds to the historical records the names of French and Spanish diplomats, merchants, soldiers, and sailors whose contribution is at last given recognition. Instead of viewing the American Revolution in isolation, Brothers at Arms reveals the birth of the American nation as the centerpiece of an international coalition fighting against a common enemy"-- Pulitzer Prize Finalist in History.

"In the early eighteenth century, at the peak of the Enlightenment, an unlikely team of European scientists and naval officers set out on the world's first international, cooperative scientific expedition. Intent on making precise astronomical measurements at the Equator, they were poised to resolve one of mankind's oldest mysteries: the true shape of the Earth. In Measure of the Earth, award-winning science writer Larrie D. Ferreiro tells the full story of the Geodesic Mission to the Equator for the very first time. It was an age when Europe was torn between two competing conceptions of the world: the followers of Rene Descartes argued that the Earth was elongated at the poles, even as Isaac Newton contended that it was flattened. A nation that could accurately determine the planet's shape could securely navigate its oceans, giving it great military and imperial advantages. Recognizing this, France and Spain organized a joint expedition to colonial Peru, Spain's wealthiest kingdom. Armed with the most advanced surveying and astronomical equipment, they would measure a degree of latitude at the Equator, which when compared with other measurements would reveal the shape of the world. But what seemed to be a straightforward scientific exercise was almost immediately marred by a series of unforeseen catastrophes, as the voyagers found their mission threatened by treacherous terrain, a deeply suspicious populace, and their own hubris. A thrilling tale of adventure, political history, and scientific discovery, Measure of the Earth recounts the greatest scientific expedition of the Enlightenment through the eyes of the men who completed it--pioneers who overcame tremendous adversity to traverse the towering Andes Mountains in order to discern the Earth's shape. In the process they also opened the eyes of Europe to the richness of South America and paved the way for scientific cooperation on a global scale"-- Provided by publisher. "This book tells the story of an international scientific expedition during the European Enlightenment to measure the length of a degree of latitude at the equator, and to thereby determine the exact shape of the earth. The leaderships in France and her ally Spain put together an expedition to travel to the equator and measure a degree of latitude there; compared with the degree already measured in Paris, this new measurement would yield the exact shape of the earth. The Geodesic Mission to the Equator departed for colonial Peru (modern-day Ecuador) in 1735, with a motley team that included three French scientists, two Spanish naval officers and their assistants. When the expedition finally returned almost ten years later--battered by even more unexpected hardships and self-inflicted tragedies--all of Europe was waiting with bated breath. Using their measurements, the scientists successfully revealed the true figure of the Earth: a slightly flattened sphere, a conclusion that vindicated Newton's followers"--Provided by publisher.