Scientists Causing Trouble!

Kaplan, Matt.  I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being 

        Right.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2026.  ISBN: 9781250372277

 

 

Science is supposed to be a process governed by logic and evidence.  A hypothesis is presented, evidence is gathered and folks try to disprove the idea.  If they can't disprove it,  the hypothesis is accepted as fact.  That is the idealized view of science. But Matt Kaplan's latest title - I Told You So! - focuses on the contrast between how science is supposed to work versus how science is practiced in the real world.   

 

Matt Kaplan opens the book with a description of him attending the 72nd meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in North Carolina as the science correspondent for The Economist (he had been paleontologist before becoming a journalist).  There he encountered numerous scientists in an uproar because a PhD student named Allison Moyer had the gall to present a poster session that challenged some semi-deeply held beliefs about dinosaur color and how we could know what color the dinosaurs were.  Luckily, Alison had Mary Schewitzer and Jack Horner, two established scientists backing her up.  As Kaplan goes on to state in the opening, this is not an isolated occurrence, rather, this is almost normal because scientists are people before they are scientists and people let emotions, cherished beliefs, and prestige shape their responses to challenges.

 

Kaplan looks at issues of bullying, bias, fabrication, sexism, personality conflicts, and other issues that plague science by interweaving the stories of a number of scientist, doctors, and other researchers (both historical figures and more recent scientists) into a coherent story.  Among those discussed is Ignaz Semmelweis who advocated the use of carbolic wash to prevent puerperal fever in Austria, Alexander Gordon, who was chased out of Aberdeen, Scotland, for suggesting that medical staff was spreading puerperal fever, Pierre Louis who created the medical trial by accident while investigating bloodletting in France during the 1800s and one of his students Oliver Wendell Holmes (the father of the Supreme Court justice) who got chased out of medicine because of his views on puerperal fever.  Holmes got his revenge on his critics by becoming a teacher of anatomy and physiology at Harvard who helped train the next generation of doctors on his theories. Then there is Louis Pasteur who played fast and loose in regard to his claims and would go out of his way to sabotage those he felt might claim his fame.  Carl Woese changed the classification of bacteria.  Katalin Kariko created mRNA which led to the Covid-19 vaccine and other possible vaccines but faced numerous challenges as immigrant scientist  before she found success.  Joseph Lister was another who used a microscope to start to identify bacteria in the 1850s.  Then there is Charles Darwin and Galileo Galilei who each had strong allies that helped defend them from attack.  Kaplan rounds off the book with brief discussions of authorship, power dynamics, and funding in relation to how science currently practiced.

 

So if you have an interest in science, read this title!  I Told You So! will get the reader thinking about how science could work if scientists were not people first.  A highly recommended book!  

Is It Just a Pain in the Head?

Zeller, Jr., Tom.  The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction --- and a Search for 

         Relief.  New York: Mariner Books, 2025.  ISBN: 9780358507758

 

Do you ever have headaches?  Since the answer is likely, yes, Tom Zeller then wants to know if you ever have had not the normal run-of-the-mill headaches that can be cured with an aspirin, an Excedrin, or Tylenol, but rather the head-splitting pain of a migraine or head-banging pain of a cluster headache since these are the focus of The Headache.

 

Tom Zeller, an American journalist and cluster headache sufferer, opens with his own personal struggle with cluster headaches and his search for relief.  He then launches into a quest to discover why he has this debilitating reoccurring headache problem. He explores the science of headaches, focusing on the confusing and confounding science of the head.  Over centuries folks have been searching for cures and causes behind these head pains with limited success.  All sorts of reasons are suggested as to how the pain starts and what may cause it to die away for awhile, but the best minds in science are still acting like blind men examining an elephant and arguing over their findings.  Since each person experiencing these head pains are unique, what may be a trigger for one person does not bother another.  Likewise a cure for one can be a dud for another.   And often over time the seemingly wonderful cure stops working for particular individuals.  To compound things more, since the science of headaches is not a highly regarded field of study, funding for research is limited.  In all, this adds up to a very frustrating mess for headache sufferers  who are still desperately hoping for some relief.

 

If you suffer from migraines or cluster headaches, know someone who does, or are just interested in exploring aspects of neurological science, pick up The Headache and join Tom Zeller on his journey!  

 

Talking Marines!

Davis, Scott.  The Last of the Old Breed: An Oral History of the Final Marines From World 

        War II.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2026.  ISBN: 9781250429933 

 

How much do you know about the Marines in World War II?  Besides the Marine Monument In Washington, DC, which celebrates Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.  Well, if you want to hear from actual WW II Marines, Scott Davis has a volume for you in The Last of the Old Breed.  He spent ten years interviewing veterans and their families and then weaving their individual tales into this book.

 

Scott Davis opens the book with what various individuals were doing before World War II came to American soil at Pearl Harbor and the reaction to this attack and the preparation by the Marines to get into action.  There are chapters on Guadacanal, New Georgia, Tarawa, New Britian, Kwajalein, Saipan, Guam, Peleliu, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa interspersed with chapters on Marines spending time in Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, and the home front.  Scott Davis would provide the individual's name, age at the time of the interview, and their unit and then a snippet of their tale relevant to the particular chapter.  He closes the book with three chapters - "Home Alive by '45," "Life After War," and "In the Shadow of War" which provides context for the veterans' lives after they came home and what they did along with some interactions with family members.  At the tail end of the book is an appendix listing all the Marines who contributed to the book, an appendix of various awards given to the Marines in the book, and an appendix discussing the 121st Naval Construction Battalion - the Seabees - attached to the Fourth Marine Division.

 

If you are looking for first-hand accounts of WW II Marine veterans, pick up Scott Davis's The Last of the Old Breed and listen to their tales.  

Hunting for Traitors!

Harding, Stephen.  G. I. G-Men: The Untold Story of the FBI's Search for American Traitors, 

         Collaborators, and Spies in World War II Europe.  New York: Citadel Press, 2026.  

         ISBN: 9780806544137 

 

How much do you know of the FBI's role in hunting down spies during World War II?  Did you know of the FBI's activities in South America and the Caribbean islands early in the war? Did you know that Director Hoover had an obsessive belief that the FBI was the best tool to root out American traitors in Europe instead of the Oh-So-Social (OSS) that President Roosevelt favored?  In G.I. G-Men, Stephen Harding lays out the story of what Director Hoover managed to extract from the President and what they accomplished.

 

After the United States joined the fighting in World War II, the FBI sent some agents over to England to liaison with the British on  domestic and foreign security practices.  It was brought to the FBI's attention that there were certain American individuals such as Ezra Pound who were aiding and abetting the Axis powers against the United States.  Since the FBI was the domestic lead for counter-intelligence within the USA, and had been authorized by the President to work covertly in Central and South America in 1940, why not allow a small group of FBI special agents to be embedded with the US military to assist with the apprehension and processing of any Americans found aiding the Axis powers who had been indicted by the Department of Justice while also investigating those other Americans who had stayed in occupied Europe to see if they merited an indictment.  So the Army Liaison Unit (ALU) was formed and operated in France, Italy, Austria, Hungry, and Germany from 1943 until 1945.  They helped capture Ezra Pound in Italy, investigated W. Dawson who had ties to both Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, hunted for dirt on Florence Gould, the wife of one of the richest Americans, and a host of others.  Some were indicted, others were not ultimately charged due to lack of evidence.  The ALU worked diligently until the OSS and the US Military Forces in European Theater intelligence chief managed to get their authorization revoked at the end of 1945.  Harding ends the book with a discussion of what the ALU accomplished and what the agents did after the war.

 

G.I. G-Men provides a look into a part of World War II history and FBI history that is not well known.  If you have an interest in the nuts and bolts of World War II history or of the FBI, do pick up this book!  

The Creator of the Skunk Works!

Dean, Josh.  The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the 

        Lockheed Skunk Works, America's Innovation Machine.  New York: Dutton, 2026.  

        ISBN: 9781524745516 

 

So how much do you know of aviation history?  Can you name any American airplanes form the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, or any recent ones?  Have you heard of "The Skunk Works" and do you know where the term originated?  Even if you can name the airplane, can you name the aircraft designer?  If any of this catches your eye, pick up and read Josh Dean's The Impossible Factory which tells the story of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, a poor boy from Michigan who fulfilled his dream of creating and building iconic airplanes!

Kelly Johnson was an iconic airplane engineer who graduated from the University of Michigan and moved out to California to work for Lockeed in 1933 and helped launch the Lockheed Electra.  During this time Kelly Johnson helped build planes for Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, and Amelia Earhart.  He also worked with Howard Hughes to build the Constellation passenger plane for TWA which was used as the C-69 by the Army Air Corp during WWII.  Then England came calling and Kelly Johnson sold them the Hudson anti-sub/bomber plane which he redesigned over a weekend. This achievement was followed by the P-38 Lightning - a twin-engine design that was a radical departure from current aircraft, but was a great fighter plane that made history, especially in the Pacific campaigns.  And the Skunk Works was born when Kelly Johnson got the go-ahead to create the first American jet fighter in  June 1943 and the prototype flew in January 1944 as Lulu Belle (aka P-80 Shooting Star).  In 1953, Kelly Johnson and Lockheed built the F-104 Starfighter for the US Air Force.  Then in 1954, Lockheed and Kelly Johnson got involved in creating spy planes.  They did the U-2, then in 1961, the A-12 Blackbird which morphed into the SR-71.  The final project that Kelly Johnson was involved with at Lockheed was another secret project - the F-117  - a design he did not like it could fly but worked due to its mathematically created shape.  Josh Dean includes the interesting details that bring the stories he tells to life.

 

In The Impossible Factory, Josh Dean provides a look into aviation design history embodied in one man, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson who helped shape some of the most iconic aircraft for the United States and Lockheed!  Read and enjoy! 

Where is a David When You Need One?

Kemp, Luke.  Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.  New York: Alfred A. 

        Knopf, 2025.  ISBN: 9780593321355

 

Are you ready for another book about how civilizations collapsed in the past?  Maybe you are ready to move beyond Jared Diamond's Germs, Guns, and Steel.  If so, Luke Kemp has a tome to weigh down your reading pile in Goliath's Curse.  

 

Luke Kemp opens with in into to terms - a Goliath is used as a synonym for civilization and just as we use civilization to mean specific cultures and the concept of culture, Kemp does the same with"Goliath."  Next Kemp gets into a disagreement with Thomas Hobbes and his "social contract" theory of government followed by a number of chapters dealing with how early hunter-gathers and early farmers dealt with authority figures.  Then Kemp spends several chapters looking at various "Goliaths" such as China, Rome, Greece, Egypt, and the like.  Kemp then moves into the endgame where we dwell and looks at how we have to deal with a global goliath that may or may not spell the end of civilization as we know it when it collapses.  But he does end with some hopeful scenarios.  We will just have to see if he is overly optimistic.

 

So if you are in the mood for some heavy reading that presents a different light on the past, pick up Luke Kemp's Goliath's Curse and settle in. 

Just Read the Title - Hollywood vs Nazis!

Benson, Michael.  Hollywood vs Nazis: How the Movie Studios Took on Nazis Infiltrating Los Angeles.  New York: Citadel Press, 2026.  ISBN: 9780806544786

 

Welcome to the land of greed and glitter where the dream factories reside - AKA Hollywood!  In the 1930s, the movie studios were very big in Hollywood making pictures that were shown world wide.  Hitler and the Nazis wanted into that action so they sent folks over to California to infiltrate the movie studios and shift their focus to movies more to their liking.  Michael Benson takes the reader along for the ride into this bit of little-known history in Hollywood vs Nazis!

 

In twenty-four chapters, an epilogue, and an interesting appendix, Michael Benson sets the stage of Los Angeles in the 1930s where corruption, oil, and movies ruled.  When Goebbels sent folks to America they did not quite know the ground rules in play.  The Friends of New Germany started meeting in 1933 and opposition to these meeting started soon after.  In Hollywood, a Jewish lawyer named Leon Lewis started an organization to infiltrate the infiltrators and spy out their secrets to be revealed at an opportune time.  Lewis also got together with Jewish organizations and various movie moguls such at the Warner Brothers who provided monetary support for the spies.  Lewis's organization uncovered Nazis plans for harassment, armed uprisings, and general mayhem.  At various times the organization worked with the LA cops, the California government, and occasionally the U.S. House UnAmerican Activities Committee to thwart the Nazis plans and derail various white supremacist organizations as well.  In the end, Hollywood won and the Nazis never did get the foothold they wanted in California.

 

So, if you are interested in a popular telling of the little known history of Hollywood during the 1930s to early 1940s, pick up Michael Benson's Hollywood vs Nazis and be entertained while learning.