IN GLOBAL SICKNESS AND HEALTH
The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age, NATHAN WOLFE, '92; Times Books, $26.
His interest in how chimpanzees self-medicate led biologist Wolfe to seek a greater understanding of infectious disease. He soon became a microbe hunter on the front lines of global health—an expert on how viruses evolve and spread. Viral Storm looks at the transmission of novel diseases from animals to humans (Wolfe has worked to discourage consumption of African bushmeat and to improve food security for African hunters who rely on it) and the need for flexible systems that can prevent or mitigate pandemics. A visiting professor in human biology, Wolfe is founder and CEO of Global Viral Forecasting, a research institute in San Francisco.
The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb, PHILIP TAUBMAN, '70; Harper, $27.99.
Bipartisanship—rare in many governmental arenas—is at the heart of the nuclear-security efforts described by Taubman, a former New York Times reporter who is now a consulting professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He describes the vigorous campaign conducted by former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former defense secretary William Perry, '49, MS '50, former senator Sam Nunn and Stanford physicist Sidney Drell to keep the globe's nuclear weapons and fissile material away from rogues and terrorists.
Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong, RAYMOND BONNER, JD '67; Knopf, $25.95 (February).
Interviewing a 56-year-old convict who believed in Santa Claus was one of the galvanizing experiences that persuaded Bonner to investigate capital punishment. This book is about motiveless Edward Lee Elmore, a deferential 23-year-old black handyman with nearly every disadvantage of upbringing society could muster, who was quickly convicted in 1982 of the murder of an elderly white woman. Only 28 years later would the case be sorted out enough so that Elmore could be deemed retarded and moved off South Carolina's Death Row.
Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide, JOSHUA S. GOLDSTEIN, '74; Dutton, $26.95.
A professor at American University, war scholar Goldstein offers a heartening survey of data that indicates warfare (or at least non-civil-war warfare) is in decline. He also finds that global peacekeeping efforts generally have been effective. Readers disinclined to believe this are reminded that having more news coverage about war and atrocity is not the same as having more of them. For example, war deaths in the past decade were half those of the '90s.
What You Least Expect: Selected Poems 1980-2011, (LOU) REBECCA RADNER, '61; Class Action Ink, $12.95.
Conclusions to draw from this wry collection? It's not easy being Buddhist. Or feminist. Or aging. Or savvy. The little bones in your feet may forgive that high-heel abuse but they can still trip you up. And how far the distance from the "right livelihood hell realm" to the "finally grasping the nature of impermanence bliss neighborhood, where all the best people live"?
Rush, alumnus JEREMY IVERSEN; Simon Pulse, $11.99.
College junior Bret Stanton feels compelled to observe his fraternity's ritual of consuming 21 units—customary-sized servings—of alcohol on his 21st birthday. Each drink occasions a chapter containing a contemporary event or an unsettling memory that reveals Stanton's hollowness. Iversen, an actor, model and writer in Santa Monica, researched this cautionary tale at his alma mater and other campuses, and has promoted it at the nation's 21 foremost party schools
"Even Dorothy can't click her heels and get Dead tickets."
—by Paul Grushkin, '74; in Dead Letters: The Very Best Grateful Dead Fan Mail; Voyageur Press, $29.99
