by Greg Campbell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2002
Readers of Campbell’s horrific tale—from killing fields to corporate boardrooms and all the seedy, murderous, and pathetic...
The sorry role the diamond has played in the history of Sierra Leone, stunningly told by journalist Campbell (The Road to Kosovo, 1999).
Sierra Leone is “a vacuum of violence, poverty, warlords and misery, a tiny corner of western Africa where the wheels have fallen completely off,” writes Campbell, its politics as raw and unrelenting as the natural environment. But the country has lots of diamonds: it’s “diamondiferous.” It was also home, until the beginning of this year, to a civil war, fueled by diamonds, wherein the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which is neither revolutionary nor united, killed 75,000 people and mutilated another 20,000, turning 80% of the 5 million civilians into refugees. The war involved much murder, dismemberment, and gouging, and diamonds kept it going, gems destined to go not just to the De Beers consortium, but to Al Qaeda as well, a handy liquid asset that couldn’t be frozen and travels well: “Three hundred grams of diamonds are equal in value to 40,000 pounds of iron ore, but only one of those commodities can be successfully smuggled in one’s bowels.” Campbell follows the murky trail of the gems from mine to mainstream as they’re taken from grubby pits in the rainforest—mined by what can only be called slave labor—carried by mule to Liberia, The Gambia, and Guinea, thence to the great diamond centers in New York, Israel, and the Netherlands. Campbell travels the breadth of Sierra Leone to gather his story—a savvy blend of history, mercenary operations, corporate shenanigans, and war reporting—surely putting himself in as much danger as Doug Farah, the Washington Post reporter who uncovered the Al Qaeda connection and had to leave West Africa hastily.
Readers of Campbell’s horrific tale—from killing fields to corporate boardrooms and all the seedy, murderous, and pathetic characters that fall between—who don’t demand proof-of-source on any diamond purchase ought to have their ethics examined. (10 b&w photographs)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8133-3939-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
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by Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell
by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Marion Lignana Rosenberg
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Erica Segre & Simon Carnell
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