Howdy HN - I'm wondering if folks have any recommendations for books about the early days of companies/industries outside of tech/silicon valley? For example is there something similar to "Hackers" but about the space program, or "Masters of Doom" but about a rock band? Thanks!
For the Space Shuttle part of the space program specifically, Rowland White's Into the Black is a great recounting of how that program got started and came to fruition with the first flight:
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Into-Black-Extraordinary-Columbia-Astronauts/dp/1501123637" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Into-Black-Extraordinary-Columbia-Ast...</a><p>Haven't read my copy yet, but for the origins of the (extremely important) container shipping industry, Marc Levinson's The Box comes highly recommended:
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691170819" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econom...</a><p>Another one high on my to-read list; the story of the 19th century telegraph system and its impact (figure this is early enough to fall outside the traditional tech category):
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth-line/dp/162040592X" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...</a>
Two rather old autobiographies might be interesting to you:<p>"Slide Rule" by Nevil Shute [0]<p>A large part of this recounts the development of the R100 airship in Britain.<p>"Jet: The Story of a Pioneer" by Frank Whittle [1]<p>A substantial part of this is about the invention of the Jet engine.<p>Obviously they're both focused on the individual but hopefully that's ok.<p>---<p>[0] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107298.Slide_Rule" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107298.Slide_Rule</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29565586-jet" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29565586-jet</a>