Mercury Rising, Jeff Shesol
Mercury Rising, Jeff Shesol
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Mercury Rising
John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War

Author: Jeff Shesol

Narrator: Jim Frangione

Unabridged: 11 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/01/2021

Synopsis

A riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race. If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War—a perilous time when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the United States to every major milestone in space. The race to the heavens seemed a race for survival—and America was losing. On February 20, 1962, when John Glenn blasted into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his mission was not only to circle the planet; it was to calm the fears of the free world and renew America’s sense of self-belief. Mercury Rising re-creates the tension and excitement of a flight that shifted the momentum of the space race and put the United States on the path to the moon. Drawing on new archival sources, personal interviews, and previously unpublished notes by Glenn himself, Mercury Rising reveals how the astronaut’s heroics lifted the nation’s hopes in what Kennedy called the "hour of maximum danger."

About Jeff Shesol

Jeff Shesol is a founding partner of West Wing Writers, a speechwriting and communications strategy firm, and a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. Before he became a speechwriter, Jeff wrote and drew the syndicated comic strip Thatch, which appeared daily in more than 150 newspapers. His book Mutual Contempt was a New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post Critic's Choice. Jeff continues to publish widely under his own byline and appears frequently on television and radio. A Rhodes Scholar, Jeff got his masters in history from Oxford University in 1993 and graduated from Brown University in 1991. He was the 2002 Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies at Princeton University, where he taught a course on the history of the presidential speech. Jeff lives in Washington with his wife, Rebecca, and their two children.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dax on April 14, 2022

Upon picking this one up (after taking a moment to appreciate the fantastic cover), my initial thought was that this was going to overlap too much with "The Right Stuff'- and likely pale in comparison. In actuality, however, it serves as a perfect companion piece to Wolfe's work. Whereas Wolfe focus......more

Goodreads review by Chris on July 25, 2021

I've always been fascinated by the Mercury space program: I loved every page of THE RIGHT STUFF. So, I savored Jeff Shesol's focus on John Glenn and John Kennedy, and what the first orbital mission meant to them -- and, yes, to America. For a story in which we know the ending, there was a lot of ten......more

Goodreads review by Edwin on May 17, 2021

A unique look at a pivotal event in the United States, MERCURY RISING, by Jeff Shesol, looks at the men and the politics of John Glenn's historic first American space orbit on February 20th, 1962. Rather than considering this monumental accomplishment from a scientific and mechanical point of view,......more

Goodreads review by Howard on June 14, 2021

A Memory As a witness to some of the events and opinions presented in this book, I found myself completely returned to my early teens when my dad, Walt Williams, packed us up and moved east to work on Project Mercury. We left our home in Lancaster, California and he left the High Speed Flight Center, the......more

Goodreads review by WM on August 23, 2021

Mercury rising was a good book. Once I started reading it. I realized that I already knew a lot about the space race. A must read for anyone who likes history......more

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