Public Intelligence Blog

Amazon Page

Robert Peckham

Book Description

April 2, 2013

Imperial Contagions argues that there was no straightforward shift from older, enclavist models of colonial medicine to a newer emphasis on prevention and treatment of disease among indigenous populations as well as European residents. It shows that colonial medicine was not at all homogeneous “on the ground” but was riven with tensions and contradictions. Indigenous elites contested and appropriated Western medical knowledge and practices for their own purposes. Colonial policies contained contradictory and cross-cutting impulses. This book challenges assumptions that colonial regimes were uniformly able to regulate indigenous bodies and that colonial medicine served as a “tool of empire.”

Review

Europeans in Asia developed powerful anxieties about contagion and made many plans to keep it at a safe distance. Commercial ventures depended on mobility of people and goods, yet for the personal safety of their members, the Europeans in Asia wished to stabilize and control the spaces they inhabited and the behaviors of those around them. By exploring the tensions and contradictions that arose from these efforts to stay safe, the authors — among the best authorities now writing — offer not only fascinating accounts of historical events but fresh views of the processes often termed colonial or imperial.

(Harold J. Cook, author of Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age )
This substantial collection greatly enriches our understanding of medicine, disease, and policy in colonial Asia. The contributors, from a range of disciplines, grapple fruitfully with questions surrounding medical space and the shift from enclavism to public health. In doing so, they make important theoretical and empirical contributions to medical and imperial history.

(David Arnold, author of Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India )

About the Author

Robert Peckham is codirector of the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine and an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong.

David M. Pomfret is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong.

Amazon Page

Ralph Peters

5.0 out of 5 stars Equal to Cain at Gettysburg, Takes Fact-Based Fiction to New Level, May 13, 2013

I started this book, having given a rave review to Cain at Gettysburg convinced that the sequel would disappoint, as most sequels do.  Although I counted only five goosebump moments in this new book (Cain had six, The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War By Michael Shaara only had one), I have to rate it the equal of the earlier book, and also the linch pin book in what should be a series of at least four books, each – as the first two have been – a detailed study of men at war at all four levels (strategic, operational, tactical, technical). The concluding sentence in this book is brilliant, and it left me with precisely the sense of angst and anticipation for the next campaign as the author no doubt intended. If Cain was the thunderclap of divine providence, then Hell is the tough hard slog through mud during which the North adapts and learns lessons while Lee’s health worsens substantially, his weakness all the more grave because Longstreet is wounded and Stuart killed, leaving Lee with no bench, less Gordon as a late bloomer too easily ignored by his elders.

There is little doubt that with this book Ralph Peters has established a nearly impregnable position as the leading practitioner of historical fiction, taking it to a new level of accuracy and relevance to the military and political professionals who wage war, setting the gold standard for factual historical fiction that reveals the soul of those making history.

If I were to sum up the book in three words it would be leadership, logistics, and learning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds’ new book, “Classified Woman,” is like an FBI file on the FBI, only without the incompetence.

The experiences she recounts resemble K.’s trip to the castle, as told by Franz Kafka, only without the pleasantness and humanity.

I’ve read a million reviews of nonfiction books about our government that referred to them as “page-turners” and “gripping dramas,” but I had never read a book that actually fit that description until now.

The F.B.I., the Justice Department, the White House, the Congress, the courts, the media, and the nonprofit industrial complex put Sibel Edmonds through hell. This book is her triumph over it all, and part of her contribution toward fixing the problems she uncovered and lived through.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

John Mack

By The Guardian TOP 500 REVIEWER

As Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School, John Mack had the highest possible academic credentials. He was also a Pulitzer Prize-winning author for his biography of T. E. Lawrence, ‘A Prince of our Disorder.’

‘Passport to the Cosmos’ (PTTC) was Mack’s second and final book on the alien abduction issue, before his death in September 2004. It’s a thoughtful, coherent and readable essay; a more absorbing narrative than his earlier 1994 book “Abductions: Human Encounters with Aliens”. Whereas the earlier book episodically recounted the experiences of 13 different abductees in their own words but seemed reluctant to draw conclusions – beyond the obvious fact that the phenomenon was not psychiatric but (in some way) external to the experiencer and physically real – “PTTC” explores what it all might mean in terms of human consciousness and why our accepted “ontological notions of consensus reality” need to be expanded to accommodate this subversive intrusion into our world.

The author writes in Chapter One:

“…marshalling evidence that might conceivably satisfy the physical sciences `on their own turf’ has proved to be an elusive task. I will document experiencers’ reports with physical evidence where applicable, but my principal interest is in their pattern, meaning and potential implications for our understanding of reality and knowledge of ourselves in the universe.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

Paul Hellyer

By Gerald MacLennon

Unlike our Asian counterparts, the West often fails to accord our wise elders the honor they deserve – the status they have earned by devoting their lives to love of, and service to humankind. Paul Hellyer of Canada is one such man. Born in 1923, he is very much a hero of the 20th century; yet he continues his vigorous momentum into the new century, preparing youth for the hopes and challenges that lie ahead.

As former Minister of Defense for Canada and cabinet member during both the Pearson and Trudeau administrations, Hellyer is certain that technology currently exists to replace the ecologically-destructive world oil economy. He argues that, while difficult and financially threatening to “big oil,” a gradual transition can, and must be implemented post haste, warning that ten years is just about all the time we have left before the ecological damage to our planet becomes irreversible.

“Failure to disclose a clean energy alternative to fossil fuels,” he writes, “is worse than a crime against humanity. It’s a crime against creation and the Creator.”

His book speaks volumes about crimes against planet Earth. He investigates them from many perspectives, laying out charges against perpetrators, and in his wisdom, offers rehabilitation plans to assure today’s youth that they will inherit a world redeemed from near destruction.

Minister Hellyer reminds his American readers of the long-standing economic dirty tricks, the incessant meddling in the internal affairs of other nations and myriads of injustices carried out by the United States government under the banner of democracy, freedom and, ironically, peace – also that, because of U.S. news media collusion, such outrages rarely reach the eyes and ears of the average Yankee.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

Charles James Hall

5.0 out of 5 stars Another testimony of TW visitors February 3, 2011

My summoned review of this book: “the most interesting one of the MH saga”.

In this book you can find the most revealing information about this human race.  While I was reading this book, a long sleeping memory re-ignited in my head: I ALSO met these people !! No joke I swear, this fisonomy matches exactly to that of 4 people that came across my hometown about 35 years ago:

On july 1975 (perhaps 1976) my family spent vacations in a little village named “Chera”, here in Spain located some 70 km inland from East coast (Valencia).
My uncle startled stood up during the street-laid supper and voiced: “what the heck is that thing”, spotting what he said “looked like a flying bus”.
Effectively all of us could see about 3000 feet high and 3 miles away, an strange object cruising from east to west in utter silence.  This sighting was at roughly 11 pm and lasted for no more than 30 secongs. This place is sorrounded by mountains and the object soon hid behind a ridge.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

Philip Corso

4.0 out of 5 stars Glimpse into government’s handling of UFO resources April 11, 2006

Before I begin my review, let me clarify that I have only a moderate curiosity in UFO’s and such. I’m not a skeptic or a believer, but someone who sees a field of study that’s intriguing, impossible to flat-out dismiss, and at the very least entertaining. Nevertheless I did pick up this book and read it. Here are my thoughts:

Many skeptics ask, “If the government DOES know something about aliens and UFOs, why, and how, do they keep it secret from everyone else?”

Col. Corso’s book gives a sober and convincing explanation for this. Rather than giving a broad overview, however, he wisely sticks to a specific description of his own hands-on experience and how he did the job he was asked to do. Specifically, as head of the Army’s Foreign Technology Desk in the Pentagon, Corso alleges he was in charge of “getting something useful” out of alien artifacts collected from the Roswell UFO crash in 1947.

Corso was faced with a challenge: How do you gather funding and personnel (many of whom are low-ranking) for a US Army R&D project on the Roswell UFO artifacts, while using “normal,” visible administrative channels, and keep it a secret from other branches of the government and even many of the individuals directly involved?

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

Susan Landau

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive text on the topic July 8, 2011

Ben Rothke

Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies is a hard book to categorize. It is not about security, but it deals extensively with it. It is not a law book, but legal topics are pervasive throughout the book. It is not a telecommunications book, but extensively details telco issues. Ultimately, the book is a most important overview of security and privacy and the nature of surveillance in current times.

Surveillance or Security? is one of the most pragmatic books on the topic is that the author never once uses the term Big Brother. Far too many books on privacy and surveillance are filled with hysteria and hyperbole and the threat of an Orwellian society. This book sticks to the raw facts and details the current state, that of insecure and porous networks around a surveillance society.

In this densely packed work, Susan Landau, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University details the myriad layers around surveillance, national security, information security and privacy. Landau writes that her concern is not about legally authorized law enforcement and nationally security wiretapping; rather about the security risks of building surveillance into communications infrastructures.

Amazon Page

Joseph G. Bock

5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneering Work, Deserves a Great Deal of Attention, April 29, 2013

I am shocked that there are no reviews of this book. Brought to my attention by Berto Jongman, one of the top researchers in Europe with a special talent at the intersection of terrorism and related violence (e.g. genocide) and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), he knew this is an area that is of very high interest to me.

The book passed my very first test, with more than ample references to Dr. Patrick Meier, a pioneer in crisis mapping, SMS translations and plotting by diasporas, and humanitarian ICT generally. I strongly recommend his blog and expect him to produce a book of his own soon.

The primary focus here is on social media via hand-held devices. It assumes a working Internet and does not have a great deal of focus on the urgency of achieving an Autonomous Internet, and more fully exploiting Liberation Technology and Open Source Everything (OSE), the latter my special interest along with M4IS2 (Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making).

Use Inside the Book to see the chapters and appendices. The author makes clear two major points early on:

01 Grassroots is where its at, not top down macro

02 Technology alone is not enough, organizing — the hard long road of grassroots organizing — is essential.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Page

Shlomo Sand

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Complement to First Book! December 6, 2012

“The Invention of the Land of Israel” is the follow up to the fascinating and controversial “The Invention of the Jewish People“. This excellent book serves as a complementary addition to the aforementioned book and fills gaps left behind. Historian and outspoken professor, Shlomo Sand does it again with this enlightening and educational book that reveals the history behind the Land of Israel. This 304-page book is composed of the following five chapters: 1. Making Homelands: Biological Imperative or National Property?, 2. Mytherritory: In the Beginning, God Promised the Land, 3. Toward a Christian Zionism: and Balfour Promised the Land, 4. Zionism Versus Judaism: The Conquest of “Ethnic” Space, and 5. Conclusion: The Sad Tale of the Frog and the Scorpion.

Positives:
1. A well-researched and well-cited book that takes you into the always fascinating world of Jewish history.
2. As candid and forthright a book as you will find. Professor Sand provides solid and well-cited evidence in support of his arguments.
3. Enlightening and thought-provoking book to say the least.
4. An excellent complement to his best-selling book “The Invention of the Jewish People”.
5. The myth that was the forced uprooting of the “Jewish people.”
6. The book does a wonderful job of explaining how the dissemination of a formative historical mythos occurred. “Never did I accept the idea of the Jews’ historical rights to the Promised Land as self-evident.”
7. Clarifies some of the misunderstood points made in his previous book.
8. Professor Sand takes pride in his historical scholarship and it shows. The quest for primary sources. The author does a good job of letting the readers know what he does have a good handle on and what he doesn’t.
9. Explains what really precipitated the establishment of the State of Israel.
10. The book achieves its goal of tracing the ways in which the “Land of Israel” was invented.
11. The book achieves the main goal of disparaging the official historiography of the Zionist Israeli establishment.
12. The notion of “homeland” in perspective. “It is important to remember that homelands did not produce nationalism, but rather the opposite: homelands emerged from nationalism.” The concept of territorial entity.

Read the rest of this entry »