A Portable Cosmos

  • Alexander Jones
Oxford University Press (2017) 9780199739349 | ISBN: 978-0-1997-3934-9

It was once a conundrum in corroded bronze. Now, the Antikythera mechanism has emerged a complex teaching tool for parsing astronomical phenomena. In this scholarly treatise, science historian Alexander Jones argues that its parts plausibly extend functions of known inventions. Touring decades of study using ever more sophisticated imaging technologies (see T. Freeth et al. Nature 444, 587–591; 2006), he pieces together its structure and scientific and cultural context. A nimble, comprehensive survey of a wondrous machine that “brought the stars down to the Greco-Roman world”.

Age of Anger: A History of the Present

  • Pankaj Mishra
Allen Lane (2017) 9780374274788 9780241278130 | ISBN: 978-0-3742-7478-8

In an era shaping up to be one of the most politically tumultuous in memory, political thinker Pankaj Mishra traces the roots of the crisis to patterns of cognitive behaviour born with the Enlightenment. “Ressentiment” looms large: an existential envy arising where high-flown theories of freedom, equality and rationality mask grim realities, from racism to socio-economic inequity stoked by neoliberal economics. What is urgently needed, Mishra argues, are grounded governance and public policies that embrace cooperation, reciprocity and a nuanced understanding of human psychology.

Homo Sovieticus: Brain Waves, Mind Control, and Telepathic Destiny Wladimir Velminski (translated by Erik Butler). MIT Press (2017)

9780262035699

This slim treatise by media scholar Wladimir Velminski wafts us to the wilder shores of Soviet experimentation: cybernetics and telepathy research aimed at controlling society by 'implanting' thoughts. The pseudoscience is extreme, not least in the work of electrical engineer Bernard Kazhinsky, who posited that humans are radio stations, and thoughts electromagnetic waves. Perhaps oddest were the 1989 mass-hypnosis sessions on Moscow television, in which clinical psychotherapist Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky attempted to shape public response to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Can't Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions

  • Sharon Begley
Simon & Schuster (2017) 9781476725826 | ISBN: 978-1-4767-2582-6

We live in an era of “dreads both existential and trivial, societal and personal”, notes science writer Sharon Begley — anxieties that drive compulsive behaviours affecting millions. In this accessible treatment, Begley distinguishes between compulsion (hinging on the avoidance of negative consequences) and addiction (characterized by a hedonic hit, tolerance and withdrawal). In her explication of conditions from hoarding to trichotillomania (hair-pulling), she interweaves compelling historical case studies with the long march of medical and neuroscientific understanding.

Fragile Lives

  • Stephen Westaby
HarperCollins (2017) 9780465094837 9780008196769 | ISBN: 978-0-4650-9483-7

Cardiac surgeon Stephen Westaby's memoir is a window on the gore-spattered drama of the surgical theatre and the lives of people driven to the operating table by heart disease, medical anomalies or devastating accidents. As the narrative ricochets from diagnosis to the visceral details of surgery and aftercare, we meet a handful of patients — including Peter Houghton, who survived for 7.5 years with a Jarvik 2000 artificial heart. As for Westaby, he has finally hung up the rib retractors and moved on to stem-cell research.