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James E. McWilliamsThe World of insects is one we only dimly understand. Yet from Mrs. Ellis's Housekeeping Made Easy, the nineteenth-century guide to using arsenic, cobalt, and quicksilver to kill household infiltrators, to the sophisticated tools of the Orkin Man, America has fought to eradicate the bugs it has learned to hate. Inspired by the still-revolutionary theories of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, James E. McWilliams argues for a more harmonious and rational approach to our relationship with insects, one that does not harm our environment and, consequently, ourselves along the way. Beginning with the early techniques of colonial farmers and ending with the modern use of chemical insecticides, McWilliams deftly shows how America's war on insects mirrors its continual struggle with nature, economic development, technology, and federal regulation. He reveals a very American paradox: the men and women who settled and developed this country sought to control the environment and achieve certain economic goals; yet, at the same time, their methods of agricultural expansion undermined these very efforts and linked them even closer to the inexorable realities of the insect world. As told from the perspective of the often flamboyant actors in the battle against insects, American Pests is a fascinating investigation into the attitudes, policies, and practices that continue to influence our behavior toward insects. Asking us to question, if not abandon, our reckless (and sometimes futile) attempts at insect control, McWilliams convincingly argues that insects, like people, have an inherent right to exist and that in our attempt to rid ourselves of insects, we compromise the balance of nature.
Paul A. Offit, M.D.A researcher in London was the first to assert that the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine known as MMR caused autism in children.
Following this "discovery," a handful of parents declared that a mercury-containing preservative in several vaccines was responsible for the disease.
If mercury caused autism, they reasoned, eliminating it from a child's system should treat the disorder. Consequently, a number of alternative therapies arose, and in one such treatment,
a doctor injected a five-year-old autistic boy with a chemical that bound to mercury, only to stop his heart instead.
Children with autism been placed on stringent diets, subjected to high-temperature saunas, bathed in magnetic clay, asked to swallow digestive enzymes and activated charcoal, and injected with various combinations of vitamins, minerals, and acids. Instead of helping, these therapies often hurt those who are most vulnerable, and particularly in the case of autism, they undermine childhood vaccination programs that have saved millions of lives. In this book, Paul A. Offit, a national expert on vaccines, challenges the modern-day false prophets who have so egregiously misled the public—and exposes the opportunism of the lawyers, journalists, celebrities, and politicians who support them. Offit recounts the history of autism research and the exploitation of this tragic condition by advocates and zealots. He considers tha manipulation of science by the media and the courtroom, and he explores why society is susceptible to the junk science and dangerous therapies put forward by anti-vaccination activists.
Siddharth KaraSiddharth Kara first encountered the horrors of sexual slavery in a Bosnian refugee camp in 1995. Since then, he has traveled to India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Albania, Moldova, Mexico, and the United States to learn the mechanics of this brutal business and to take stock of its devastating human toll. This book provides a rare business analysis of sex trafficking, focusing on the local drivers and global macroeconomic trends that gave rise to the industry after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Kara quantifies the size, growth, and profitability of sex trafficking and other forms of modern slavery-metrics that have not been published before-and locates the sectors that would be hardest hit by specifically designed interventions and penalties. Kara bolsters his analysis with a riveting account of this unconscionable industry, sharing the stories of victims and revealing the shocking conditions of their exploitation. He concludes with a plan for aggressive measures that would sharply increase the costs of exploiting sex slaves, thereby reducing their aggregate demand among slave owners and consumers.
Lynn HarrisA sweeping novel about mothers and sons, football and beauty shops, secrets and lies, Just Too Good To Be True has all the ingredients that have made E. Lynn Harris a bestselling author: family, friendship, faith, and love.
Herve This An internationally renowned chemist, popular television personality, and bestselling author, Herv? This heads the first laboratory devoted to molecular gastronomy -- the scientific exploration of cooking and eating. By the testing recipes that have guided cooks for centuries, and the various dictums and maxims on which they depend, Herv? This unites the head with the hand in order to defend and transform culinary practice.
With this new book, Herv? This's scientific project enters an exciting new phase. Considering the preparation of six bistro favorites -- hard-boiled egg with mayonnaise, simple consomm?, leg of lamb with green beans, steak with French fries, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate mousse -- he isolates the exact chemical properties that tickle our senses and stimulate our appetites. More important, he connects the mind and the stomach, identifying methods of culinary construction that appeal to our memories, intelligence, and creativity. By showing that the creation of a meal is as satisfying as its consumption, Herv? This recalibrates the balance between food and our imaginations. The result is a revolutionary perspective that will tempt even the most casual cooks to greater flights of experimentation.
Stephen PhillipsFor serious yoga practitioners curious to know the ancient origins of the art, Stephen Phillips, a professional philosopher and sanskritist with a long-standing personal practice, lays out the philosophies of action, knowledge, and devotion as well as the processes of meditation, reasoning, and self-analysis that formed the basis of yoga in ancient and classical India and continue to shape it today.
In discussing yoga's fundamental commitments, Phillips explores traditional teachings of hatha yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, and tantra, and shows how such core concepts as self-monitoring consciousness, karma, nonharmfulness ( ahimsa), reincarnation, and the powers of consciousness relate to modern practice. He outlines values implicit in bhakti yoga and the tantric yoga of beauty and art and explains the occult psychologies of koshas, skandhas, and chakras. His book incorporates original translations from the early Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutra (the entire text), the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and seminal tantric writings of the tenth-century Kashmiri Shaivite, Abhinava Gupta. A glossary defining more than three hundred technical terms and an extensive bibliography offer further help to nonscholars. A remarkable exploration of yoga's conceptual legacy, Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth crystallizes ideas about self and reality that unite the many incarnations of yoga.
Ted StriphasStriphas investigates the everydayness of books that he claims is intimately bound with: "a changed and changing mode of production; new technological products and processes; shifts in law and jurisprudence; the proliferation of culture and the rise of cultural politics; and a host of sociological transformations" (5). His main argument is that books had been integral to the making of modern consumer culture in the 20th century, as they were one of the first commercial Christmas presents, and today are responsible in part for the fall of that consumer capitalism into a society of controlled consumption, a term that he borrows from Henri Lefebvre. He convincingly shows that book publishing pioneered the rationalization and standardization of mass-production techniques in that the massive quantities of book production required efficient production processes and the move toward an hourly wage. Ultimately, The Late Age of Print investigates how books have become ubiquitous social artifacts entrenched with the everyday. His book successfully proves that book circulation is, and has always been, a political act because the circulation of books embody specific values, practices, interests, and worldviews (13). And as such, the practice of circulating books embody struggles over particular ways of life.
What does this mean for the late age of print (a term coined by Jay David Bolter to characterize the current dynamic era of book history instigated by media convergence where books remain central to shaping dominant and emergent ways of life)? Well, for some, like Sven Birkerts, author of Gutenberg Elegies, this is a crisis, a decline in the quantity (and the quality) of literature being read and it poses a real threat to culture in general.
R. Glenn Hubbard, William Duggan PhDHubbard and Duggan, respectively dean and lecturer at Columbia Business School, make the case that current foreign aid and Third World projects—particularly in Africa—aren't working and that the developed world must rethink how it allots aid money. The authors dissect (and disagree) with the U.N.'s Millennium Goals strategy for attacking poverty, pet project of Jeffrey Sachs and a host of celebrities. They condemn the strategy as a charity trap, that perverts local economies and keeps corrupt leaders rich. The authors contend that poor countries can attain prosperity and self-sufficiency only if aid money goes to cultivating a functioning business sector. Microfinance, they say, is working but stops short; they propose something much more ambitious: a new Marshall Plan, an almost prohibitively daunting task given the vast differences among developing countries, the controls each puts on business and the input required from other developed nations. But the plainly stated thesis and the authors' willingness to confront conventional wisdom and examine and energetically attack the problem are refreshing and necessary. (Sept.)
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Toby TalbotThe nation didn't know it, but 1960 would change American film forever, and the revolution would take place nowhere near a Hollywood set. With the opening of the New Yorker Theater, a cinema located at the center of Manhattan's Upper West Side, cutting-edge films from around the world were screened for an eager audience, including the city's most influential producers, directors, critics, and writers.
