In the ``Environmental Issues'' series, this overview of the science, technology, and politics of hunger suffers from an excess of definitions and from muddy thinking. Spencer defines ``biotechnology,'' for example, as ``Changing plant and animal genetic structure by scientific methods,'' stating that the basic principles have been known for thousands of years: ``Noah used them to make wine from grapes to celebrate the landing of the ark on dry ground.'' How does fermentation alter the genetic structure of grapes? The author indicates that ``governments must either find ways to slow down population growth or to increase the food supply. They cannot do both'' (why not?), but gives little information on either and concludes that ``the U.N., since its membership includes all nations, large and small, rich and poor, can deal on a global basis with global problems.'' He celebrates the 1990 U.N. conference that encouraged people to ``light a candle for the future of children everywhere.'' Candles are no more nourishing than platitudes. Glossary; further reading; organizations for further information; index. Photos not seen. (Nonfiction. 10-12)*justify no*
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-89490-283-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Enslow
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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