Choice Review

Radio astronomers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, VA, compiled materials documenting the observatory's founding and first 40 years. The result is a "scrapbook" that combines contributions from two unpublished symposia (1987 and 1995) with excerpts from internal newsletters and memos, photographs, cartoons, and official documents. This rather unlikely combination results in a very readable book that historians and scientists alike should appreciate. Some authors enriched their original texts with additional explanatory material. The initial efforts to fund and build the observatory are well documented, including the problems that caused long delays with the 140-foot telescope construction. Eyewitness reports of the collapse of the 300-foot telescope are followed by the technical assessment report. Among the unique contributions are articles about the first USA-USSR cooperative project during the height of the Cold War. From important discoveries to (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to use a jet engine to remove snow from the radio telescopes, the book is an unusual but entertaining series of snapshots of the people and the telescopes at the first national observatory for radio astronomy in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. M.-K. Hemenway University of Texas at Austin