by David Wolman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2005
A nicely balanced blend of pop science and personal essay, and just the thing for the family southpaw.
Science journalist Wolman offers a spirited defense of left-handedness, which he takes to be one more sign of the wondrous diversity of nature.
Sinister, gauche, leftist: What’s a self-respecting southpaw to do in the face of so much semantic freight, and the world’s misunderstanding generally? Well, writes Wolman, it’s not necessarily true that all southpaws are born curve-ball pitchers, but the 10–12 percent of humans who are left-handed are interestingly different—“not starkly different…but not trivial in their differences either”—from their right-handed peers. The left and right sides of the human brain are separate, bridged by the corpus callosum, which passes information between the two halves. Yet, early science to the contrary, right-handers don’t do all their thinking on the left side and lefties on the right; there’s a lot more to it than that, even if Wolman favors a gods-for-clods approach, for beyond the two facts that the brain halves are distinct and joined by the corpus callosum, he writes, “there’s no need to be weighed down with more brainy lingo.” Aspiring brain surgeons need not fear, however: Even though written at a lay-accessible level, Wolman’s narrative is robust, treating all kinds of conjectures as to what causes the distinction between right and left—likely, in the end, some little evolutionary jog that permits lots of asymmetry in a species that prizes the adaptive advantages of symmetry, such as having two legs and two eyes that are more or less equal. Happily for lefties, who are “cool because they allow you to un-confound two hypotheses,” there’s no evidence that handedness relates to intelligence or ability, or that lefties are bewitched or weird or doomed, or that all those other prejudices of yore have any foundation.
A nicely balanced blend of pop science and personal essay, and just the thing for the family southpaw.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-306-81415-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
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by Wendell Steavenson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2009
A tenacious attempt to answer the question, “How do ordinary little human cogs make up a torture machine?”
Through the grim travails of one of Saddam Hussein’s top generals, journalist Steavenson (Stories I Stole, 2003) examines the dictator’s edifice of totalitarianism and moral corruption.
Taking her title from a verse of the Koran promising to mete out justice even to the “weight of a mustard seed,” the author weaves a fascinating account of how good men went terribly wrong. Steavenson worked as a journalist in Baghdad in 2003–04 and continued her interviews of exiled Iraqis in London and elsewhere, probing deeply into the stories of former Baath Party officials. Through a high-level Iraqi doctor who had served in the medical corps during the course of four Iraqi wars, the author was put in touch with the surviving family of Kamel Sachet, a commander of the special forces and general in charge of the army in Kuwait City during the Gulf War. The general was shot as a traitor by order of the Iraqi president in 1998. Born to an illiterate family in 1947, Sachet became a policeman and then joined the special forces, rising through the ranks to major. He distinguished himself during the Iran-Iraq war, gaining Hussein’s trust but also his occasional ire, which led to prison and torture. Sachet led the assault into Kuwait, but with the retreat and subsequent scourge by the United States, he became disillusioned with the violence and bloodshed and retired as a devout Muslim. Steavenson ably explores his and others’ obedience in fulfilling the dictator’s grisly demands, echoing works by Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi and Stanley Milgram.
A tenacious attempt to answer the question, “How do ordinary little human cogs make up a torture machine?”Pub Date: March 17, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-172178-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Collins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009
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by Chris Alexander ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 2011
Alexander, a former UN deputy special representative in Afghanistan, offers his view of the pathway to a resolution in that nation.
The author proposes a regional solution to the ongoing conflict, one in which both Afghanistan and Pakistan both become “subject to international supervision” as part of a settlement—a “Central Asian version of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.” Alexander devotes significant attention to the source of the present conflict, Britain's 19th-century strategic “great game” against Russia, and Pakistan's adaption of the tradition to its own purposes through backing Afghanistan's Taliban and other surrogate terrorists. The components of a possible regional agreement are identified in Afghanistan's 2005-6 bilateral treaties with the U.S., UK, EU, China and Pakistan, and in the March 2009 opium interdiction program adopted by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on the very same day Obama announced his strategic review of Afghanistan policy. Whether such an agreement can be achieved, by way of the destruction of what Alexander calls the “shadow government” of Afghanistan inside Pakistan border provinces, without resulting in the outbreak of another full-scale war in the area or further aggravating relations between Pakistan and India, is questionable. In the meantime, the author is an enthusiastic advocate of the adoption of long-term visions along with benchmarks for their achievement in such areas as the management of the Afghan government's finances and the development of food exports through private enterprise. He is also a supporter of World Bank counterinsurgency investment through the “National Solidarity Programme” estimated to produce 20 percent per annum returns. A controversial account that provides much historical background, along with special insight into current developments.
Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202037-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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