A rich mix of sociocultural history detailing how marketing transformed beliefs about cleanliness.
A wide-ranging study that shows how cleanliness was not always next to godliness.
A staff writer for the Atlantic and lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health, Hamblin notes that for centuries, bathing was viewed as suspect in Western culture, in which Christianity celebrates baptism but otherwise lacks the ritual washings of other religions. Germ theory changed all that, launching a hygiene revolution that followed the Industrial Revolution. Entrepreneurs made millions creating an ever expanding soap and skin care industry promising baby-soft, germ-free skin. The author believes we have gone too far. The skin that shields us from the outside world is also home to trillions of bacteria. Like their kin in the gut, the bugs are useful, aiding the skin’s protective and immune functions. Wash them away and you throw the immune system out of whack, so it attacks the body’s own cells in a frenzy that gives rise to allergies, eczema, and other conditions. To demonstrate that less is better, Hamblin gave up showering while writing the book. (He did wash his hands.) He did not become a public nuisance, he writes, and his skin improved. As he admits, this is not for everyone. Indeed, the very lack of clean water, soap, and sanitation among impoverished groups across the globe leads to needless disease and death. Hamblin, however, is not a righteous crusader exposing marketers of skin lotions and potions as phonies. He does call out some products, but most are benign. Cosmetics, which are not subject to safety and efficacy rules, can often cause dangerous side effects. Ultimately, Hamblin argues for more skin microbiome research and greater biodiversity in all aspects of our lives, underscoring the value of pets and plants and parks to enhance our lives—and those that live in and on us.
A rich mix of sociocultural history detailing how marketing transformed beliefs about cleanliness.Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53831-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
An enthusiastic appreciation of a spectacular astrophysical entity.
A short, lively account of one of the oddest and most intriguing topics in astrophysics.
Levin, a Guggenheim fellow and professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College, knows her subject well, but her goal is appreciation as much as education, and there is much to admire in a black hole. Before Einstein, writes the author, scientists believed that the force of gravity influenced the speed of moving objects. They also knew that light always travels at exactly the speed of light. This combination made no sense until 1915, when Einstein explained that gravity is not a force but a curving of space (really, space-time) near a body of matter. The more massive the matter, the greater it curves the space in its vicinity; other bodies that approach appear to bend or change speed when they are merely moving forward through distorted space-time. Einstein’s equations indicated that, above a certain mass, space-time would curve enough to double back on itself and disappear, but this was considered a mathematical curiosity until the 1960s, when objects that did just that began turning up: black holes. Light cannot emerge from a black hole, but it is not invisible. Large holes attract crowds of orbiting stars whose density produces frictional heating and intense radiation. No writer, Levin included, can contain their fascination with the event horizon, the boundary of the black hole where space-time doubles back. Nothing inside the event horizon, matter or radiation, can leave, and anything that enters is lost forever. Time slows near the horizon and then stops. The author’s discussions of the science behind her subject will enlighten those who have read similar books, perhaps the best being Marcia Bartusiak’s Black Hole (2015). Readers coming to black holes for the first time will share Levin’s wonder but may struggle with some of her explanations.
An enthusiastic appreciation of a spectacular astrophysical entity.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-65822-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An oft-ignored but fully convincing argument that “we cannot prevent the next pandemic without creating a healthy world.”
The Covid-19 pandemic is not a one-off catastrophe. An epidemiologist presents a cogent argument for a fundamental refocusing of resources on “the foundational forces that shape health.”
In this passionate and instructive book, Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, writes that Covid emerged because we have long neglected basic preventative measures. “We invest vast amounts of money in healthcare,” he writes, “but comparatively little in health.” Readers looking to learn how governments (mainly the U.S.) mishandled the pandemic have a flood of books to choose from, but Galea has bigger issues to raise. Better medical care will not stop the next epidemic, he warns. We must structure a world “that is resilient to contagions.” He begins by describing the current state of world health, where progress has been spectacular. Global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900. Malnutrition, poverty, and child mortality have dropped. However, as the author stresses repeatedly, medical progress contributed far less to the current situation than better food, clean water, hygiene, education, and prosperity. That’s the good news. More problematic is that money is a powerful determinant of health; those who have it live longer. Galea begins the bad news by pointing out the misleading statistic that Covid-19 kills less than 1% of those infected; that applies to young people in good health. For those over 60, it kills 6%, for diabetics, over 7%, and those with heart disease, over 10%. It also kills more Blacks than Whites, more poor than middle-class people, and more people without health insurance. The author is clearly not just interested in Covid. He attacks racism, sexism, and poverty in equal measure, making a plea for compassion toward stigmatized conditions such as obesity and addiction. He consistently urges the U.S. government, which has spared no expense and effort to defeat the pandemic, to do the same for social injustice.
An oft-ignored but fully convincing argument that “we cannot prevent the next pandemic without creating a healthy world.”Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-757642-7
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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