The Icepick Surgeon

2021-07-13 True Crime

Author : Sam Kean
Release : 2021-07-13
Genre : True Crime
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 529/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Icepick Surgeon by : Sam Kean

Download or read book The Icepick Surgeon written by Sam Kean. This book was released on 2021-07-13. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets, "a fascinating book [that] deserves a wide audience" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process. The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra’s dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison’s mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren’t all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one another wrong. Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither.

Summary of Sam Kean's The Icepick Surgeon

2022-07-16T22:59:00Z True Crime

Author : Everest Media,
Release : 2022-07-16T22:59:00Z
Genre : True Crime
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Summary of Sam Kean's The Icepick Surgeon by : Everest Media,

Download or read book Summary of Sam Kean's The Icepick Surgeon written by Everest Media,. This book was released on 2022-07-16T22:59:00Z. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Dampier was a brilliant scientist and navigator, but he was also a pirate. He took to sea after being orphaned at age fourteen, visiting Java and Newfoundland before an unhappy stint in the navy. He eventually settled in the Bay of Campeche in eastern Mexico and made his living cutting logwood. #2 Dampier’s preoccupation with wind and weather was born out of his experience as a buccaneer. Buccaneers were a distinct class of pirates, and their home governments scorned them as much as their enemies did. They had no permission to raid anyone. #3 Dampier joined the Jamaica pirates as a navigator, and the subsequent voyage was a rambling adventure. They started off raiding cities in Panama, then sailed up to Virginia, where Dampier was arrested for unknown reasons. They then went to the Pacific coast of South America. #4 Dampier’s travels took him to many different countries, and he took advantage of his time on the open sea to study winds and currents. He became a first-class navigator. He eventually returned to London in 1691, after having promised his new wife he’d be back in twelve months.

The Facemaker

2022-06-07 Biography & Autobiography

Author : Lindsey Fitzharris
Release : 2022-06-07
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 667/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Facemaker by : Lindsey Fitzharris

Download or read book The Facemaker written by Lindsey Fitzharris. This book was released on 2022-06-07. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize | Named a best book of the year by The Guardian "Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery. From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: humankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to reconstructing the burned and broken faces of the injured soldiers under his care. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world’s first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of practitioners whose task was to rebuild what had been torn apart, to re-create what had been destroyed. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits. The Facemaker places Gillies’s ingenious surgical innovations alongside the dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine can be an art, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.

Dignity of Life: Moral Philosophy, Organisational Theory, and Hostage Rescue

2023-08-09 History

Author : Avichal
Release : 2023-08-09
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 740/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Dignity of Life: Moral Philosophy, Organisational Theory, and Hostage Rescue by : Avichal

Download or read book Dignity of Life: Moral Philosophy, Organisational Theory, and Hostage Rescue written by Avichal. This book was released on 2023-08-09. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarly, multidisciplinary, and iconoclastic, this book provides a comprehensive study of human behaviour in organisational setting, discusses the theory and principles of self-organisation, elaborates the strengths of self-organisation over command organisation, and gives a complete roadmap to set up and sustain in any culture and society an exceptionally capable hostage rescue force specialising in mass hostage rescue. However, its numerous valuable insights, relying not on technology but people and employing the force of their intrinsic motivation, are not relevant to the niche of special forces and wider military context alone but can be employed across all occupational settings to build highly efficient organisations where people work voluntarily and deliver responsibly without the supervision and control of command element. Beyond formal organisations, all fields of human activities, including the private lives of individuals too can immensely benefit from radical ideas and useful information contained in it. Besides discussing the deeper questions of life as a whole, of organisational life in general, of mass hostage rescue in particular, and of character, culture, environment, leadership, and communication, it also elaborately explains how we make decisions in crisis, who is an expert and how one can become an expert, how do we learn and how we can learn better, what makes us commit errors and mistakes, what lies behind our failures, and how we can deal with errors and failures both as individuals and organisations. About Author: Avichal is an Indian police officer who has been associated with the world of special forces as a practitioner, instructor, designer, administrator, institution builder, and adviser for over two decades and has operated and trained in many countries of the world.

Decisions for Sustainability

2023-06-08 Law

Author : Thomas Dietz
Release : 2023-06-08
Genre : Law
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 025/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Decisions for Sustainability by : Thomas Dietz

Download or read book Decisions for Sustainability written by Thomas Dietz. This book was released on 2023-06-08. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decisions by individuals, organisations, and nations shape the well-being of humans and other species, the environment, and sustainability. Decisions for Sustainability examines how we can make better decisions concerning our future. It incorporates sociological, psychological, and economic perspectives to highlight our strengths and weaknesses in decision-making, and suggest strategies to influence both individual and societal decisions. Sustainability challenges – from local land use and toxic contamination to climate change and biodiversity loss – illustrate how we can improve decision making and what factors lead to conflict. How we use science in the face of uncertainty is also examined, and a range of ethical criteria for good decisions are proposed. Emphasizing the need for diversity in decision making and clarifying the relationship between reform and societal transformation, this book provides a comprehensive view of what we know about decision-making, and how we can do better in the face of sustainability challenges.

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