Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises(Report of the Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, National Research Council). Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2002. The text concludes that abrupt climate change might occur sometime in the future, triggered by mechanisms not yet understood, and that in the meantime more research is needed. Surely no one could object.
Adam, Barbara, Ulrich Beck, and Jost Van Loon. The Risk Society and Beyond. London: Sage Publications, 2000.
Altheide, David L. Creating Fear, News and the Construction of Crisis. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2002. A book about fear and its expanding place in public life. Overlong and repetitive, but addressing a highly significant subject. Some of the statistical analyses are quite amazing.
Anderson, J. B. and J. T. Andrews. "Radiocarbon Constraints on Ice Sheet Advance and Retreat in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica."Geology 27 (1999): 179-82.
Anderson, Terry L., and Donald R. Leal. Free Market Environmentalism. New York: Palgrave (St. Martin's Press), 2001. The authors argue government management of environmental resources has a poor track record in the former Soviet Union, and in the Western democracies as well. They make the case for the superiority of private and market-based management of environmental resources. Their case histories are particularly interesting.
Arens, William. The Man-Eating Myth. New York: Oxford, 1979.
Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt, eds. In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age . Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND National Defense Research Institute, 1997. See particularly part III on the advent of netwar and its implications.
Aunger, Robert, ed. Darwinizing Culture . New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. See especially the last three chapters, which devastate the trendy concept of memes. There is no better example of the way that trendy quasi-scientific ideas can gain currency even in the face of preexisting evidence that they are baseless. And the text serves as a model for the expression of brisk disagreement without ad hominem characterization.
Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Trans. Mark Ritter. London: Sage, 1992. This highly influential text by a German sociologist presents a fascinating redefinition of the modern state as protector against industrial society, instead of merely the ground upon which it is built.
Beckerman, Wilfred. A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth. Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 2003. A short, witty, stinging review of sustainability, climate change, and the precautionary principle by an Oxford economist and former member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution who cares more about the poor of the world than he does the elitist egos of Western environmentalists. Clearly argued and fun to read.
Bennett, W. Lance. News: The Politics of Illusion. New York: Addison-Wesley, 2003.
Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls, 2003. The history of the eugenics movement in America and Germany is an unpleasant story, and perhaps for that reason, most texts present it confusingly. This book is an admirably clear narrative.
Bohm, R. "Urban bias in temperature time series--a case study for the city of Vienna, Austria."Climatic Change 38 (1998): 113-28.
Braithwaite, Roger J. "Glacier mass balance: The first 50 years of international monitoring."Progress in Physical Geography 26, no. 1 (2002): 76-95.
Braithwaite, R. J., and Y. Zhang. "Relationships between interannual variability of glacier mass balance and climate."Journal of Glaciology 45 (2000): 456-62.
Briggs, Robin. Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Brint, Steven. "Professionals and the Knowledge Economy: Rethinking the Theory of the Postindustrial Society."Current Sociology 49, no. 1 (July 2001): 101-32.
Brower, Michael, and Warren Leon. The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999. Of particular interest for its advice on mundane decisions: paper vs. plastic shopping bags (plastic), cloth vs. disposable diapers (disposable). On broader issues, the analysis is extremely vague and exemplifies the difficulties of determining "sustainable development" that are pointed out by Wilfred Beckerman.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. I am old enough to remember reading this poetic persuasive text with alarm and excitement when it was first published; it was clear even then that it would change the world. With the passage of time Carson's text appears more flawed and more overtly polemical. It is, to be blunt, about one-third right and two-thirds wrong. Carson is particularly to be faulted for her specious promotion of the idea that most cancer is caused by the environment. This fear remains in general circulation decades later.
Castle, Terry. "Contagious Folly." In Chandler, Davidson, and Harootunian,Questions of Evidence.