Books and literature – Page 28 – a sibilant intake of breath

Amazon’s sudden homophobia

In a rather despicable move, Amazon.com seems to have decided that all texts pertaining to homosexuality are somehow obscene. As a result, they have been removed from sales rankings and lists of best sellers. The top result for a search on the term ‘homosexuality’ now leads to A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, followed by several other Christian texts offering to ‘cure’ homosexuality. Farther down, there are some books that are positive towards alternative forms of sexuality, including what I have been read is the most banned book in America at the moment: And Tango Makes Three, the true story of two male penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York who raise a chick together.

Amazon initially claimed that ‘adult’ material had to excluded from “searches and best seller lists.” Obviously, this censorship is deeply inappropriate and Amazon now says it was an error. Until they sort it out, I certainly won’t be buying anything from them.

[Update: 15 April 2009] According to The Globe and Mail, the Amazon rankings have been restored.

Book club, month two

The first month of the non-fiction book club is coming to an end, and I will be posting my review of Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden on Wednesday. As such, it is time to start choosing a second book. I have the following nominees:

1) Speth, Gus. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability.

2) Jaccard, Mark. Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy.

3) Cherry-Garrard, Apsley. The Worst Journey in the World. (About a failed Antarctic expedition)

What else would people consider reading?

Dark Sun

The whole technical and chilling history of atomic weapons is reviewed in Richard Rhodes’ Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Released in 1995, it is based substantially on documents that became available after the end of the Cold War, documenting the development of nuclear and thermonuclear bombs in the United States and Soviet Union, as well as delving into issues of international politics, espionage, and delivery systems.

Most people are likely to find some aspects of the book tedious, while others are fascinating. For instance, I noted all the descriptions of design details of nuclear and thermonuclear issues with interest, but found a lot of the minute descriptions of espionage activities tedious (especially descriptions of nearly every meeting between the atomic spies and their contacts). That said, the book will certainly offer good rewards to anyone with an interest in some aspect of nuclear weapons or the Cold War.

The last few pages really ought to be read by everyone. They document the shocking behaviour of Curtis LeMay and the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the period prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as during it. At the time, LeMay and some of his commanders could use nuclear weapons without presidential authority; they were also obsessed with striking first, and generally convinced that war with Russia was inevitable. Perhaps the most shocking actions detailed are LeMay’s strategy of flying nuclear-capable bombers over targets like Vladivostok, in the Soviet Union. They were running drills and taking photos, but it looked to the Russians exactly like an atomic attack. I don’t think Rhodes is wrong to suggest that, had the Soviets done something similar in America, the SAC would have launched an all-out attack against them. Rhodes marshals compelling evidence that LeMay did, at times, seek to provoke a nuclear war through initiatives like these flights and the provocative American ballistic missile test undertaken during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The book’s closing also laments the enormous amounts of sacrifice made to build up these massive, threatening stocks of weapons. The Oak Ridge and Hanford complexes, producing fissile materials, used more energy than the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Bonneville dams could produce together. One year of expanding the facilities required 11% of US nickel production and 34% of the output of stainless steel. All told, Rhodes estimates that the arms race cost America over $4 trillion, which could have otherwise been put to productive uses. On the Soviet side, the story is far more appalling: with thousands of slaves being terrorized and irradiated in the drive to match the American weapons complex. The irony is that, while generals and arms manufacturers clamoured for ever-more warheads, politicians on both sides of the Iron Curtain had already come to understand that the weapons could never be used. Indeed, Rhodes’ account provides a nice counter-argument to the view that all politicians are short-sighted and lacking in wisdom.

All told, Rhodes’ account is an excellent one: historically rigorous, but alive to the human issues raised inevitably by the subject matter. It’s a book that is deeply relevant in a world where US-Russian tensions are growing, weapons are proliferating, and a terrifying number of bombs are still deployed on 15-minute hair-trigger alerts.

Competitive games and collaborative results

Because it was recommended in a blog I read (though I cannot remember which), I am reading Herb Cohen’s You Can Negotiate Anything. While the book is quite dated in terms of views on race and sex, it does contain some interesting observations, many of which relate closely to politics and international relations. For instance, the author asserts that: “In order to achieve a collaborative result in a competitive environment, you have to play the game.”

What this suggests is that approaches that are superficially unifying, like Obama’s call for post-partisanship, are either naive or ploys in a system where trust is always conditional and ephemeral, as it is between political parties. It also speaks to the game theory reality that, in a situation where one party is considering only their own interests, while the other is trying to strike an equitable balance, the outcome will tilt in the direction of the selfish party: after all, people on both sides of the negotiation are thinking about the selfish party’s interests, while those of their counterparty are only getting half the attention.

When it comes to climate change, it does seem necessary to ‘play the game.’ Voters and politicians have been exposed to the chilling scientific projections ad nauseum, and yet very little real action has been undertaken at a global level. North America and Australia are particularly laggard, when it comes to doing something concrete. Of course, recognizing the need to engage in ‘game playing’ doesn’t put one much closer to having an effective strategy to overcome status quo opposition and bring the behaviour of firms, states, and individuals in line with what basic sanity demands.

Free book on the oil sands

Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent is a book written by Andrew Nikiforuk, a Calgary journalist. The publisher, Greystone Books, has decided to make it available as a free PDF until Friday, March 20th. The book’s description suggests that it is very critical of the oil sands industry, overall:

This out-of-control megaproject is polluting the air, poisoning the water, and destroying boreal forest at a rate almost too rapid to be imagined. In this hard-hitting book, journalist Andrew Nikiforuk exposes the disastrous environmental, social, and political costs of the tar sands and argues forcefully for change.

Getting the PDF requires that you give them your email address. Of course, you can always buy the book if you prefer.

More about this is on Gristmill.

Book club logistics

I must say that I am surprised with the number of positive responses to my post about starting a book club. Of course, it is encouraging to see that so many people would be interested in the coordinated reading of non-fiction.

It seems to me that two things need to be decided: the dates on which book reviews should be written up and posted, and the first book we should all read. I propose that we answer these, at least for the first month, by means of an opaque participatory, but not entirely democratic, process. Namely, I propose that people nominate dates and books and, once a good number of people have commented, I will select something that doesn’t seem too far out of line with the consensus.

For dates, I nominate either the 7th of every month, or the 15th of every month, starting in April. For books, I nominate the following, in no special order:

Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.
Speth, Gus. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability.
Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

I may suggest some others while the discussion is ongoing.

‘Book club’ idea

If you count the time spent reading, my book review posts are certainly the ones that have the most effort invested in them. Yet, they generally fail to spawn any substantive discussion. Generally, this is because most readers won’t have read most of the books in question. As a result, any discussions are based around things I happen to mention in my post, rather than the overall content of the book in question.

As a solution, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a monthly non-fiction book club, to be operated through this and other blogs. We would choose a book per month, read it, and then all write posts and/or comments about it. That way, some substantive discussion of the material could take place. I would be most keen about books in subject areas covered on this site, but am not fundamentally averse to trying something more unusual. Even fiction might be considered, provided it is of a practical variety.

Would anyone be interested?

Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet

Oliver Morton’s exploration of the nature and consequences of photosynthesis makes for a remarkable and informative book. It is divided into three sections: one covering the span of a human life and covering the scientific investigation of photosynthesis; one on a planetary timescale, describing the evolution of the climate, atmosphere, and life; and one on the timescale of a tree’s life, covering the changes humanity has induced in the carbon cycle, and the ways through which the climate change crisis can be overcome. The book is strongest when it comes to putting scientific information into a poignant and comprehensible form that is almost poetic. Arguably, it is weakest in terms of its analysis of what needs to be done in response to climate change.

Eating the Sun contains many sections that are highly technical: descriptions of the biochemistry of photosynthesis, the geological and climatological processes that have taken place over billions of years, the scientific methods through which both have been explored, and more. It can also be quirky, philosophical, and personal. For instance, there are asides in which the author explains his aesthetic preference for one or another scientific theory, such as how photosystems I and II in plants came to be integrated. The combination is not unlike that found in Michael Pollan’s work, where an educated non-expert with a talent for writing adopts the task of explaining technical issues and making their significance clearly felt.

The book features a great deal of discussion of the Earth as an integrated chemical and energy system, including consideration for many different forms of ‘Gaia hypotheses’ – most of them far less teleological than James Lovelock’s earliest work, which (probably wrongly) attributed a kind of agency to the planet as a whole. Of particular interest, among the non-telelogical variants, is combination of the anthropic principle with the idea of systems that self-regulate. It may well be that there are planets where physical and chemical processes do not remain constrained between life-compatible bounds over the long term. Of course, there are no living and intelligent observers on these planets to make note of them.

On climate change, Morton fails to appreciate the rapidity with which mitigation must occur. He contemplates what would be necessary to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, whereas we will actually need to make great strides towards stabilizing concentrations by then. Rather than the seven Pacala-Socolow wedges required to produce a flat emissions profile, many more will be needed to begin the decline towards zero net emissions. His calm descriptions of global concentrations of carbon dioxide passing 500 parts per million (ppm), with associated temperature increases of up to four degrees Celsius, fails to portray what a catastrophic outcome this would be. These days, those committed to avoiding change of more than two degrees are advocating concentration targets around 350 ppm.

Morton’s discussion of mitigation technologies also offers scope for criticism; in particular, his discussion of nuclear fusion, fission, and hydrogen fuel cells is fairly superficial and fails to take into consideration some of the major limitations associated with each technology. In particular, he fails to consider the practical and economic issues associated with hydrogen as a fuel. That being said, he strongly makes the point that, in the long run, it will be necessary to move from an economy powered by the built-up solar reserves in fossil fuels to one largely powered by the current energy available in sunlight: whether that energy is directed towards the production of electricity, biomass, or fuels.

At times, the level of detail in Eating the Sun can be overwhelming. In particular, I found that some of the passages about biosphere-atmosphere interaction or long-term geological trends required close and repeated reading to be understood. For the non-practitioners at whom this book is aimed, such knowledge is not likely to be long-lasting. At the same time, by providing such clear and vivid detail, Morton grants a worthwhile understanding of the history and nature of the scientific processes through which we have uncovered so much about the world. As with the very best scientific writing, this book makes you feel both awed about the complexity and power of the world and impressed with the ingenuity that has gone into better understanding it. The book is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the history of the planet, the nature of the carbon cycle, or science generally.

The Man Who Loved China

Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China is a competent and sometimes compelling biography of the scientist and sinologist Joseph Needham: a man who started off as a Cambridge biochemist and later devoted his life to documenting the scientific history of China. While it contains a lot of interesting narrative and information, it does sometimes feel more like a catalogue of achievements, written by an admirer, than a substantive examination of either Chinese scientific history or Needham’s own work.

The book is essentially divided into two phases: one describing Needham’s life and explorations within China, in the period of the Second World War, and a second describing the process of writing his masterwork: Science and Civilization in China. More accurately, it must be said that he began his masterwork, as he was only able to produce the overall plan and the first few volumes before dying as an elderly man. During the first section, Needham is serving as a kind of official scientific liaison between the British government and the Chinese nationalist government during the period of Japanese occupation. During the second, he is principally installed in Cambridge as an academic, though he did return to China to lead an easily-duped team of weapons inspectors, investigating claims that the United States had used biological weapons during the Korean War.

The book is a somewhat odd one to read at this point in history. Needham’s work was published long enough ago to have become the mainstream understanding: namely, that a great many critical inventions and discoveries happened earlier in China than elsewhere. Most members of the public are probably able to identify gunpowder and the compass as Chinese inventions. Those with knowledge in other fields – from engineering to nautics – are probably similarly familiar with early Chinese contributions. By not providing much evidence about the prevailing view beforehand, the book makes it a bit awkward to assess Needham’s own contribution, aside from the indirect evidence provided by all of his subsequent academic recognition.

The book does a fairly comprehensive job of expressing Needham’s curious personal characteristics: his polyamory (spending most of his life within reach of both wife and mistress, both well aware of one another), his socialism, his love of trains and boats, and his overwhelming dedication to China. The strength of the latter is revealed through his inability to appreciate the problems with Mao’s revolution, at least, nor until the man himself had been dead for some time. Needham is portrayed as quite a dashing figure: scientist, activist, diplomat, and adventurer. In terms of the sheer number and variety of experiences, his life is one that must be envied by anyone who is curious about the world.

The so-called ‘Needham question’ of why scientific innovation in China stalled, prior to exploding in the West, gets surprisingly brief and superficial treatment in this volume – just a few pages in the epilogue. This is a curious way for a biographer to treat the central subject of his subject’s fascination. It would have been interesting to see various hypotheses discussed more thoroughly, with a focus on the evidence supporting and challenging them that arose from Needham’s investigations and subsequent scholarship.

For me, this book didn’t manage to be as compelling as Winchester’s history of the Oxford English Dictionary. Nonetheless, it would probably be of interest to those who enjoy reading about people who lived notable and unusual lives. It certainly tends towards inspiring a person to wonder what more exotic and worthwhile things they might be doing themselves.

The Kindle and electronic books

In a recent article about Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, The Economist declared that:

It seems likely that, eventually, only books that have value as souvenirs, gifts or artefacts will remain bound in paper.

Despite being a big fan of electronic content delivery systems, I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment. There are considerable advantages to having a personal library of physical books, and there are big disadvantages to taking your books in electronic format.

Physical books possess the many advantages of immediacy. One can display them and quickly glance through the whole collection. One can take notes in them, mark pages, stack them, pass them to others, and so forth. Collections of books are also physical representations of the reading a person has done. I often find that, when I first find myself in someone’s house, flat, or bedroom, their collection of books is the first thing I scrutinize. There is a reason why the personal libraries of intellectuals and political leaders are objects of interest, and I don’t think they would retain the same importance if they consisted of a bunch of PDF or text files.

Electronic books have the same disadvantages as other electronic media: you can’t be confident that they will be intact and accessible decades from now. Furthermore, they are often hobbled with digital rights management (DRM), which means you can never be sure that you can use them on future devices, or in various ways you might wish to. A library stored on a small device may be easier to transport, but it is a lot less trustworthy, durable, and reliable than one that you need to cart around in a heavy collection of boxes.

Electronic books can certainly complement physical ones. It would, for instance, be very valuable to be able to search electronic copies of books you own. A custom search engine, containing all the books in one’s library and that one has borrowed, would be excellent for tracking down particular passages or conducting general research. Partly for these synergistic reasons, and partly for the reasons listed above, I don’t think physical books are ever likely to become rare.

I do see much more promise for electronic periodicals. Hardly anybody wants to keep physical copies of their newspaper or magazine subscriptions on hand: especially when they are available in an easily searchable form online. If I got a Kindle, it would be for the wireless newspaper and Wikipedia access, not for the $10 book downloads.