Not entirely convincing, but carries the powerful message that “[t]his long nightmare of neglect and delay and denial needs...
Debut authors Olmsted and Blaxill argue that autism is a “man-made” disease triggered by environmental factors.
While this is a highly controversial subject—many public-health officials question whether the incidence of autism spectrum disorder is actually increasing (or an artifact of diagnosis), and they downplay the importance of environmental factors—the authors have amassed a compelling body of material that suggests that a “complex mix of genetic susceptibility, toxic chemistry and poorly understood events in childhood” are at the root of the disorder. Looking to the history of mercury poisoning, they found many clues to its possible role—occupational illnesses, people treated with medicinal mercury, infants receiving mega doses of vaccines that contain mercury preservative, water and atmospheric pollution, etc. One of the most dramatic instances they cite was the use of mercury’s toxic properties to treat syphilis. While significant side effects were observed—weakness, tremors and even the loss of teeth—more long-term effects were not recognized and were mistakenly attributed to the disease rather than mercury poisoning. Many children routinely given an over-the-counter mercury compound, Calomel, as a teething powder or purgative, suffered from symptoms similar to autism. Only in the late 1940s was a connection made between a mysterious disease, “acrodynia,” and mercury poisoning. Industrial pollution from mercury, toxic waste in oceans and bays that poison the fish we eat and atmospheric pollution from coal dust have been shown to have serious health effects. The use of mercury as a preservative in the vaccines routinely given to infants has begun to come under scrutiny, but the evidence is inconclusive. In the author’s view, the occurrence of autism may be triggered by a number of factors acting together, which trigger the disorder in children who have a genetic predisposition or a compromised immune system.
Not entirely convincing, but carries the powerful message that “[t]his long nightmare of neglect and delay and denial needs to end.”Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-54562-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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