Microbial Life Book

The book opens with the mass poisoning of thousands of people in Bangladesh by drinking water contaminated with arsenic. This book has a very important current environmental message for all of us because environmental arsenic is not just a problem facing Bangladesh. There is a USGS map on page 161 showing the states in the U.S. where acquifers used for drinking water contain dangerously high levels of arsenic. As a cancer patient, I have often wondered why I keep meeting people who are being treated for cancer but are in none of the high-risk groups. I was surprised to read in this book that years of exposure to water contaminated with non-lethal levels of arsenic causes lung cancer. Unfortunately, this surprising information is floating around in a hodge-podge of history and unrelated anecdotes.

I would have assumed that a major publishing company like Macmillan still employed editors in 2005 but, apparently, I was wrong. The author is obviously extremely knowledgeable, and the separate topics he addresses are all interesting but the book is totally disjointed.

I imagine that the author wrote a long academic article addressing the arsenic contaminated well water in Bangladesh, a medium length exposé on the history and ethics of William Morris & Company. Someone remarked "You have almost enough material for a book." The author tossed in a short popular article on the worldwide problem of environmental arsenic, and several short sensational anecdotes about murders committed using arsenic and mailed the separate articles to Macmillan. His publisher dropped the articles on the floor, told an intern to put them back in order and then published them.