British historian Wood (The Magician's Doubts, 1995, etc.) absorbingly recreates Alexander the Great's epic conquests, in a tie-in to a series to air on PBS in early 1998. Alexander ascended the Macedonian throne at the age of 20, conquered much of the world known to the ancients by 30, and died aged 32. Born in 356 b.c., Alexander was shaped by barbarian and classical forces: His mother, Olympias, was intensely devoted to strange religious cults, but Alexander was tutored by one of the great philosophers of all time, Aristotle. When Alexander succeeded to the throne in 336 b.c. after his father's assassination, he became the master of a kingdom that already dominated a Greece exhausted by the war between Athens and Sparta. Shortly after becoming king, he ruthlessly suppressed an uprising by the city of Thebes, then invaded Persia, Greece's ancient enemy. Wood retraces Alexander's astounding victories over Darius at Granicus and Issus; his easy victories over Phoenicia and Egypt, where the oracle of Zeus declared him ``son of God'' and where he founded Alexandria, destined to become one of the great cities of the ancient world; his invasion of Babylonia and his completion of the destruction of Darius' army at Arbela and Persepolis; and subsequent conquests of central Asia and India. Wood meditates on the transformed landscape of Alexander's world, his frequent atrocities (like the sacking of Persepolis and the massacre of the Branchidae), and his lasting legacy of destruction. To this day, in many countries Alexander touched, the name Iskander is a byword for destruction, ambition, and greed. Nonetheless, Wood points out, although Alexander's conquests were transient and his empire short-lived, his rule was a critical turning point for the ancient world, generating creative energies and contacts between East and West that would never have occurred otherwise. Wood has thoughtfully recreated one of ancient history's most fascinating periods. (56 color, 56 b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-520-21307-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
A lively work on a somewhat arcane topic, and an important prehistory of our environmentally conscious, biologically...
An engrossing, unusual social narrative, documenting the close ties between chemical weapons development and “peaceful” applications in insect warfare.
Russell’s debut views the predominantly military history of the world wars and the Cold War as a metaphor for similarly volatile technological developments in the private sector. He explores how, despite the horror of indiscriminate gas warfare promulgated by all sides in WWI (here termed “The Chemists’ War”), a clique of ambitious scientists and soldiers in the Chemical Warfare Service created an advocacy culture that portrayed the frightening new technology as safer and more humane than the era’s gruesome trench-war stalemates. Such “gas boosterism” was checked by Depression-era public hostility towards the “merchants of death,” and by FDR’s horror of chemical warfare, evident in his “no-first-use” policy. This altered the service’s priorities, towards development of incendiary devices such as napalm, flame throwers, and cluster bombs; ironically, this shift made Allied bombing of German and Japanese cities especially devastating, much more so than gas warfare would have been. The most ingenious element of Russell’s approach may be seen in his even-handed exploration of how chemical warfare science influenced the civilian pest-eradication industry. He unearths startling cultural histories, such as how the military need to combat typhus and malaria fed the American enthusiasm for DDT, how the imagery and language of insect extermination fused with conceptions of “total war” to inure soldiers to massive killing (particularly regarding the Japanese), and how postwar science exploited Nazi development of organophosphates (powerful insecticides related to nerve gasses) for great profits and terrifying new weapons. He concludes by addressing the Cold War–era unease epitomized by Eisenhower’s warnings about the “military-industrial complex” and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), seeing both as warnings that an “elite class [had] lost sight of what they were ostensibly trying to protect” through endorsement of chemical warfare’s many forms.
A lively work on a somewhat arcane topic, and an important prehistory of our environmentally conscious, biologically threatened era.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-521-79003-4
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
A fascinating study of how Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and James Madison applied science to their political thinking. In terms of scientific competence, Cohen (History of Science/Harvard Univ.) finds much to praise in Jefferson and Franklin. Jefferson the polymath persuaded George Washington to adopt his method of apportioning members to the House of Representatives rather than one proposed by Alexander Hamilton. The Declaration of Independence pays homage to Isaac Newton with its ``self-evident truths'' (i.e., axioms) and its opening lines concerning the ``Laws of Nature and Nature's God.'' Franklin's contributions to the field of electricity go well beyond flying a kite in a thunderstorm, Cohen shows. The French idolized him as a scientist and a self-made man, making him extraordinarily effective in ensuring French aid in 1776. Franklin also anticipated Malthus with statements about population growth in relation to sustenance, and he provided powerful demographic arguments as to why England should annex Canada after the French and Indian War. Adams, while well taught and an aficionado of science, got his physics wrong; he thought he was referencing Newton's laws of motion in speaking of the ``balance of powers'' or ``checks and balances'' in the Constitution, but the correct analogy is to laws of statics and equilibrium. Still, he foresaw a future for America in which his sons should master mathematics and practical sciences so that their children in turn could study painting, poetry, and music. In brief comments on The Federalist, Cohen notes that Madison's science metaphors were largely medical—a ``nerveless empire,'' an ``ailing government,'' etc. At times the text is repetitious; at times, Cohen wields a heavy hand in attacking earlier commentators (including Woodrow Wilson). Nevertheless, the founding fathers appear in an interesting new light, thanks to Cohen's fresh, not to say iconoclastic, vision.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03501-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
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