New, from editors Joseph Stiglitz, J. Bradford DeLong, and Aaron S. Edlin:

What's really going on with social security and the price of real estate?

How much does it really cost to go to war, and how much would it cost to reduce global warming?

This book answers those questions and more, from the world's most respected economists.

Praise:

Exceptionally insightful ... very accessible ... relevant and timely ... valuable ... fascinating.

The Economists' Voice: Top Economists Take On Today's Problems

Francis Fukuyama says:

Larry Diamond, one of the most preeminent students of democracy today, explains why this system of government remains an achievable goal for most countries around the world, despite recent setbacks in places like Russia and Venezuela. The Spirit of Democracy is a worthwhile corrective to America's post-Iraq pessimism about the future of democratic ideals throughout the world.

Diamond is the author of What Went Wrong in Iraq:

It is going to be costly and it will continue to be frustrating. Yet a large number of courageous Iraqi democrats, many with comfortable alternatives abroad, are betting their lives and their fortunes on the belief that a new and more democratic political order can be developed and sustained in Iraq. The United States owes it to them -- and to itself -- to continue to help them.

Watch Diamond talk about his new book.

The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World

People often bemoan the spread of malls, suburban strips, subdivisions, and other sprawling places in contemporary America. But are these places as bad as critics claim? In Sprawling Places, David Kolb questions widely held assumptions about our built environments.

Interact with the hypertext form of the book:

Are contemporary places as bad as some critics claim?

Are we building "non-places"?

Are we imprisoned in a universal Disneyland?

In this text I argue against the concepts used to attack contemporary places as inauthentic or unreal or totally commodified. I develop a new critical perspective that emphasizes the need for complexity in places and fights against oversimplification. We can get beyond criticisms that concentrate on the problems of place today without also seeing their new possibilities.

Do our new kinds of places make room for new kinds of community? With places being themed and the past thinned for easy consumption, what can be done?

Contemporary places can be improved if we understand their new modes of unity and linkage. Besides exposition and argument, this site also contains narrative scenes of places today, and reflections about philosophical issues lurking in the background.

Sprawling Places

Deindustrialization is not simply an economic process, but a social and cultural one as well. The rusting detritus of our industrial past--the wrecked hulks of factories, abandoned machinery too large to remove, and now-useless infrastructures--has for decades been a part of the North American landscape. In recent years, however, these modern ruins have become cultural attractions, drawing increasing numbers of adventurers, artists, and those curious about a forgotten heritage. Through a unique blend of oral history, photographs, and interpretive essays, Corporate Wasteland investigates this fascinating terrain and the phenomenon of its loss and rediscovery.

Steven High and David W. Lewis begin by exploring an emerging aesthetic they term the deindustrial sublime, explaining how the ritualized demolition of landmark industrial structures served as dramatic punctuations between changing eras. They then follow the narrative path blazed by urban spelunkers, explorers who infiltrate former industrial sites and then share accounts and images of their exploits in a vibrant online community. And to understand the ways in which geographic and emotional proximity affects how deindustrialization is remembered and represented, High and Lewis focus on Youngstown, Ohio, where residents and former steelworkers still live amid the reminders of more prosperous times.

Corporate Wasteland concludes with photo essays of sites in Michigan, Ontario, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania that pair haunting images with the poignant testimonies of those who remember industrial sites as workplaces rather than monuments. Forcing readers to look beyond nostalgia, High and Lewis reinterpret our deindustrialized landscape as a historical and imaginative challenge to the ways in which we comprehend and respond to the profound disruptions wrought by globalization.

Have you seen Manufactured Landscapes?

Corporate Wasteland: The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization

Marine ecologist writes book, fights terror.

Paleobiologist meets neoconservative, spawns book.

Arms races among invertebrates, intelligence gathering by the immune system and alarm calls by marmots are but a few of nature's security strategies that have been tested and modified over billions of years. This provocative book applies lessons from nature to our own toughest security problems--from global terrorism to the rise of infectious disease to natural disasters. Written by a truly multidisciplinary group including paleobiologists, anthropologists, psychologists, ecologists, and national security experts, it considers how models and ideas from evolutionary biology can improve national security strategies ranging from risk assessment, security analysis, and public policy to long-term strategic goals.

Read the first chapter, then visit the companion web site, Darwinian Security (not much there yet).

Recent news coverage is collected at the author's web site, although the link to a recent interview instead (mysteriously, obscurely) points to a simply named Thai Cafe near Duke.

Some of this analysis seems like overkill:

A biological assessment of the TSA’s methods found that the agency’s well advertised screening procedures may lead to a kind of natural adaption by terrorists.

Was such an "assessment" really necessary to reach that conclusion?

Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World

In 1876, a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England’s most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds, planted around the world in England’s colonial outposts, gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century -- an explosion of entrepreneurial and scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds -- a sought-after prize for which many suffered and died -- is the stuff of legend. In this utterly engaging account of obsession, greed, bravery, and betrayal, author and journalist Joe Jackson brings to life a classic Victorian fortune hunter and the empire that fueled, then abandoned, him.

In his single-minded pursuit of glory, Wickham faced deadly insects, poisonous snakes, horrific illnesses, and, ultimately, the neglect and contempt of the very government he wished to serve. His idealism and determination, as well as his outright thievery, perfectly encapsulate the essential nature of Great Britain’s colonial adventure in South America. The Thief at the End of the World is a thrilling true story of reckless courage and ambition.

Have you seen Fitzcarraldo?

The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire

Forthcoming from David Attenborough, narrator of Planet Earth.

Advance Praise:

Admirably illustrated ... fascinating detail ... a treasure trove ... delightful ... excellent, outstanding, informative and beautiful.

About the book:

Life in Cold Blood offers a rare glimpse into the peculiar world of amphibians and reptiles, the first vertebrate creatures to venture forth from the primeval waters millions of years ago, yet which today include species that are the most at risk of extinction. Join acclaimed naturalist Sir David Attenborough as he travels to the far corners of the Earth to tell the epic story of these animals in this companion to the television series. Discover the secrets of their astounding success -- and the profound implications of their uncertain future.

Amphibians and reptiles once ruled the planet, and their descendants exhibit some of the most colorful variety and astounding behavior known to the animal kingdom. What are the origins of these creatures? How have they transformed themselves into the beautiful and bizarre forms found today? In this gorgeously illustrated book, Attenborough gets up close and personal with the living descendants of the first vertebrates ever to colonize the land, and through them traces the fascinating history of their pioneering ancestors. He explains the ways amphibians and reptiles have changed little from their prehistoric forebears while also demonstrating how they have adapted and evolved into diverse new forms, some of them beyond our wildest imaginings. And Attenborough raises awareness of the threats global warming and other man-made environmental changes pose to many of these creatures. Life in Cold Blood inspires a genuine sense of wonder about amphibians and reptiles and the marvels of the natural world around us.

Life in Cold Blood

For scientifically minded fans of The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory.

Having caught, by chance, the broadcast of a multi-car NASCAR crash on television, Nebraska University physics professor Diandra Leslie-Pelecky found herself compelled to understand why it happened. Soon, a growing list of scientific questions ("How do you build an engine...that can run at 9,000 rpm for three hours without blowing up?") steer her to meetings with engineers, ground crews and drivers who work together "at the limits of what we understand about aerodynamics, structural engineering and even human physiology." The first part of the book deals with materials, and looks at how combustion, power and aerodynamics work together to maximize speed. But it's the driver and his crew who win the race, and Leslie-Pelecky gets plenty of time with the men behind the machines, joining Ray Evernham's crew to watch him race, and taking a turn behind the wheel herself. Along the way, the nanotech specialist becomes an unlikely racing fan; this fun physics primer should give any NASCAR aficionado a similar appreciation for science.

See also the companion web site, Stock Car Science, or check out the book blog (only a week old, though).

The Physics of NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed

Apropos of recent events:

Patrick Norris responds to the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age the launch of Sputnik 1 with a review of the most important historical applications of space science for the benefit of the human race during that half century, focusing particularly on the prevention of nuclear war. The author addresses the oft quoted conclusion that the Moon landings and the race to the Moon between the two superpowers were a side effect of the Cold War, by describing what he believes was the more important event the use of satellites by military to prevent the Cold War becoming a hot war. In developing the story the author casts a spotlight on a little-known aspect of the Space Age, namely the military dimension. Today military satellites represent 25 percent of all satellites in orbit, and they are just as important now in preventing regional nuclear war as they were in preventing global Armageddon more than 30 years ago.

Beginning with a discussion of Sputnik 1, and the impact of its launch, both on the Soviets and on the West, the book continues to show the social, economic and scientific benefits of satellites today in our daily lives some 50 years later. The author introduces the concept of the Cold War nuclear stand off and mutually assured destruction and shows how spy satellites developed, and the problems of using them to verify arms limitation treaties. He identifies the significance of the ABM Treaty and of SALT and demonstrates how satellites were used to underpin such agreements. He then discusses fringe nuclear powers, such as the UK, France and China and the concept of nuclear non-proliferation. He concludes by looking at the regional tensions of today, including Israel and Arabic nations, India and Pakistan and the threat posed by North Korea, and looks ahead to what the future holds.

The author recently gave a talk, Spy Satellites in the Cold War - The Real Space Race, to the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Spies in the Sky: Surveillance Satellites in War and Peace

To be considered in view of the $30 billion "cyber security" program:

I attended a fascinating talk yesterday at Blackhat given by Sinan Eren from Immunity in which he described a recent for-hire Information Operation.

In the talk he took pains to differentiate between a standard penetration test and the kinds of things they were doing; the primary differences being time scale and scope. In this case the time scale was long (though undisclosed) and the goal was compromise of some particularly sensitive data. He didn't say but it was probably product design or source code.

To maintain a stealthy ingress they decided to avoid easily exploited client side weaknesses and instead found something much more difficult to detect, a poorly implemented anti virus scanner on the mail transfer agent. After fingerprinting, building an equivalent MTA in their lab, and coding a unique one-time exploit of the poorly implemented AV file parser, they were in. Consolidation and expansion was done at a leisurely pace, greatly aided by the social engineering benefits of the MTA's access to all of the email traffic. Within a reasonable period of time they were able to relationship map many of the target's personnel, expand to the other side of the firewall, quietly exploit a number of client machines, and gain a good understanding of who was likely to have access to the information they were looking for.

Then interesting stuff happened.

From the Blackhat speakers page:

IO in the Cyber Domain, Immunity Style
Sinan Eren, VP of Research, Immunity

This presentation will discuss techniques to attack secure networks and successfully conduct long term penetrations into them. New Immunity technologies for large scale client-side attacks will be demonstrated as will a methodology for high-value target attack. Design decisions for specialized trojans, attack techniques, and temporary access tools will be discussed and evaluated.

Getting Owned Across the Air Gap