RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewOffit is a good storyteller, and he has some terrific stories to tell. He also draws important lessons ... I think that Offit also pulls out an even deeper and more provocative moral from this history ... Whenever an innovation threatens to cause harm, we should be exceedingly cautious before we allow it. Offit’s examples, and the history of medical advances, demonstrate that in its most extreme forms, the precautionary principle is self-defeating. Simply put, precautions kill ... We might have to start with speculation and guesswork, and learn in real time. We might have to roll the dice with our lives. As Offit shows, there’s heroism in that.
Lisa Duggan
PositiveThe New York Review of BooksDuggan offers a pointed account of Rand’s influence ... Duggan is less than sure-footed in her lamentations about neoliberalism ... But she is sharp, engaging, and funny when writing about Rand, whose magnetism, determination, grandiosity, desperation, and galloping narcissism Duggan captures beautifully ... Duggan convincingly shows that Rand’s enduring influence comes from the emotional wallop of her fiction—from her ability to capture the sheer exhilaration of personal defiance, human independence, and freedom from chains of all kinds.
David Jaher
RaveThe New York Review of BooksDavid Jaher’s stunning and brilliantly written account of the battle between the Great Houdini and the blond Witch of Lime Street illuminates a lost period in American history. Improbably, it also offers significant lessons about the formation of people’s beliefs and the sources of social divisions—scientific, political, or otherwise.
