Physician Weissmann (The Doctor with Two Heads, 1990, etc.) takes on the role of social historian in this rather disjointed exploration of the philosophical roots of molecular biology. As Weissmann sees it, those roots lie in meliorism, the belief that when reason is applied to human actions, the social order can be improved. Claiming as his model Oliver Wendell Holmes's The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and relying heavily on quotes from the literature of the times, Weissmann offers a series of bookish essays that meander selectively through the meliorist tradition from the Flowering of New England to today's ``Flowering of DNA.'' Katherine Lee Bates, social reformer and author of America the Beautiful, Dr. Holmes, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, editor and writer Margaret Fuller, and others, are seen as links in a chain leading from 19th-century abolitionists and sanitarians to today's molecular biologists. Parallels are drawn between New York City's Central Park and its new Bellevue Hospital: The park was created in the mid-19th century by the US Sanitary Commission, a group of reformist doctors, theologians, and laymen bent on preventing disease by bringing clean water, fresh air, and open space to the crowded city. The hospital was built in the 1970s by such modern-day meliorists as mayors Robert Wagner and John Lindsay, and Dr. Lewis Thomas, committed to conquering disease and treating the poor. *linespacing 2* *linespacing 1* Weissmann has little patience for critics of meliorism or for defenders of homeopathy or other New Age remedies. Progress, he argues, has been made not by shamans but by scientific medicine fueled by the spirit of meliorist reform. In the end, the author asserts rather than demonstrates the influence of meliorism on those doing DNA research today. Weissmann labels Dr. Holmes's Breakfast Table essays ``the unstructured products of a magpie mind.'' The same might be said of the present work, which, however, is not likely to establish its author's literary reputation.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8090-9305-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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