Tom Shachtmanhas published forty books, most recentlyThe Memoir of the Minotaur(MadvillePublishing,2020). His histories include The Day America Crashed, Skyscraper Dreams, Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold, and The Founding Fortunes; his social analyses, Rumspringaand The Inarticulate Society; non-fiction children’s books such as Growing Up Masai; and an eclectic trilogy of short novels about sealions, Beachmaster, Wavebender, and Driftwhistler. His award-winning documentaries have aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and BBC. He holds degrees in experimental psychology and in drama and has taught writing at NYU and lectured at Harvard, Georgia Tech, the Library of Congress, Stanford, and other institutions.