Genentech launched in 1976 to commercialize recombinant DNA technology. Ever since then, biotech has played an increasingly prominent role in the US healthcare industry. A flood of startups has explored every nook and cranny of the possibilities. Venture capitalists and medical researchers...
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Every country has its foundation myth, and the United States no less than any other. Here, settlers fleeing religious persecution and poverty in Europe flooded our shores. They founded thriving colonies on the Eastern seaboard dedicated to freedom. After gaining their independence, they drove...
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A review of A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. @@@@ (4 out of 5). It’s easy to get the impression that science has answered all the big questions and is spending more and more time and money focusing on the little ones. Read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and you will quickly be disabused of that illusion. Truth to tell, the human race is still abysmally ignorant of some of the most fundamental matters that determine how, why, and where we live.
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The surprises start on page three. “If one of our distant ancestors hadn’t been infected by a virus hundreds of millions of years ago,” Jonathan Kennedy writes, “humans would reproduce by laying eggs.” In Pathogenesis, Professor Kennedy sketches the often-decisive...
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The seemingly unstoppable orgy of murder called the Holocaust probably didn’t end when or how you thought it did. What really happened has come to light in mutually inconsistent accounts in some of the books written about World War II’s final months. But, as best I can tell, none of...
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In the four seasons of the award-winning HBO drama, Succession, the sons and daughter of billionaire media mogul Logan Roy fight like children in a sandbox for their father’s favor—and the nod to succeed him in controlling the family business. Now, in a brilliant new book by two...
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The surprises start on page three. “If one of our distant ancestors hadn’t been infected by a virus hundreds of millions of years ago,” Jonathan Kennedy writes, “humans would reproduce by laying eggs.” In Pathogenesis, Professor Kennedy sketches the often-decisive...
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Thousands of books and millions of words have been written about the tit-for-tat battle of the KGB and the CIA during the more than four decades of the Cold War. Some factual accounts and a smattering of novels offer genuine perspective on the two spy agencies and their interaction. But only...
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You probably don’t need another terrifying book about the climate crisis to convince you that global “warming” is real. Chances are, you’ve known that for years. Or, at the very least, it became clear to you from the recurring floods, killer storms, and deadly heat waves...
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A review of The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, by Rich Cohen. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). The extraordinary story of the man who added bananas to America’s diet, helped establish the State of Israel, and brought down the government of Guatemala.
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A little more than three decades ago, a British-American historian named David Christian introduced a fresh new approach to history. He was teaching then at Macquarie University in Sydney. There, he introduced the concept of Big History. Merging historical study with insights from physics,...
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A Harris Poll released in November 2022 by U.S. News & World Report revealed just how deeply divided Americans are about race. Forty-seven percent of Americans—and 71 percent of White Americans—said they were “unconvinced that systemic racism exists in the U.S.” And in a YouGov...
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Early in his career as a rising provincial official, people locally viewed him “as a cautious and somewhat nondescript administrator, one who preferred working by the book and avoiding decisions that could backfire later.” But, as Wall Street Journal reporter Chun Han Wong makes clear...
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Elizabeth Taylor, she wasn’t. Nor was she the Cleopatra of Shakespeare’s imagination, or of Plutarch’s. Cleopatra was, simply put, one of the ablest and most powerful women in history. She ruled unchallenged the richest kingdom of the Western world for more than two decades. In...
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You might expect a book with the title Nazi Billionaires to feature the Krupp family, who manufactured steel and armaments for the Third Reich, and the men behind the chemicals giant I G Farben, notorious for producing the Zyklon B gas used to murder millions in the death camps. But both firms had...
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Odds are strong that you first became fully aware of the term “Western Civilization” through an introductory survey course in college or AP history in high school. And you’ve lived your life since then believing that “the West” boasts “a common origin resulting...
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Globalization is puzzling. That iPhone you may have at hand contains parts manufactured in forty-three countries on six continents—and that doesn’t even count the raw materials. But how did all that stuff get to the factory in China or India that fit them together into your phone?...
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Most Western historians view the years between about 500 CE and 1500 CE as the Middle Ages, and they typically divide the period into three sections of 500 years each. The bookmarks for the period are the collapse of the Roman Empire and the “discovery” of the Americas. But this is a...
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If you wonder who wrote the playbook for the lunatic fringe in today’s Republican Party, look no further than the John Birch Society. Established in 1958, the Society terrorized moderate and liberal Republicans as well as Democrats in the 1960s and early 70s. Its founder, Robert Welch...
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Ask just about any American at random to describe the Chinese political system, and the answer is likely to be “Communism.” It’s a convenient label that results from Mao Zedong’s 1949 revolution and seven decades of reporting by and about the Chinese Communist Party. Not to...
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Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.