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Netsurfer Recommendations

Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
Robert K. Massie
Random House; ISBN: 0679456716

In his earlier history, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War, Robert Massie told the tale of how Britain, Germany, and other nations came to develop those massive pinnacles of 19th-century naval technology, the dreadnoughts. Massie continues the story with 800 pages that analyze how the treasury-breaking dreadnoughts fared in naval operations during the Great War. Don't think that this is just a military history only of interest to war buffs. As in his previous book, Massie manages to make what could be a dry military subject come vividly alive. His sense of time and place and the analysis of significant issues of the time are impeccable. His deft portraits of the major characters who shaped the course of naval history bring them to life on the written page - no mean feat when so many of them were larger than life. Those who have read Massie's previous book will know exactly what to expect - a vivid and compelling story told by a masterful historian. Those who have not will want to begin with the earlier Dreadnought before moving on to this book - and rest assured, you will want to keep reading.

Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World
Bruce Schneier
Copernicus Books; ISBN: 0387026207

Bruce Schneier is one of the most lucid and common-sensical modern thinkers on the subject of security. The problem domains of computer and national security are complex and do not lend themselves to simple solutions. On the other hand, they are not intractable. It's just that the pursuit of security requires some intelligent tradeoffs. One of the key points of this book is that we should all be better security consumers. Schneier writes that only through open and informed national discussion can we arrive at the right balance of security and inconvenience. Schneier seeks to help the reader understand the issues at stake, and touches on a number of concrete examples of security systems such as airline security, national ID cards, and e-commerce. He shows how they work, why they work or don't, and what social trade-offs they entail. Schneier is a gifted writer who has a flair for making what could be an esoteric subject immediate and understandable. Given the pervasive presence of security issues in the modern world, this is a timely and thoughtful book. It's fair to say that reading it will make you a more enlightened security consumer.

The Abuse of Man: An Illustrated History of Dubious Medical Experimentation
Wolfgang Weyers
Ardor Scribendi; ISBN: 189335721X

The history of medicine is rife with questionable medical experiments on human beings. This book comprehensively reviews the subject from roughly the mid-18th century to modern times. Beyond simply cataloguing the many shocking instances of unethical research, this book delves deeper to describe the slow evolution of the modern ethical and legal codes that govern human medical experiments. What struck us is that until late in the 20th century, there was little resistance to human experimentation, particularly when the subjects did not know they were serving as guinea pigs. Weyers covers many of the well known misuses of medical research, such as the infamous Nazi experiments on prisoners and the Tuskegee syphilis study, but also a vast array of other lesser known medical travesties. While this is indeed a profusely illustrated book, most of the illustrations are not of medical atrocities but are portraits of the doctors who perpetrated them. This is an exceptionally powerful book on the subject of bio-ethics, and certainly timely at the dawn of what many think will be the age of bioscience.

Let It Be... Naked
The Beatles
Capitol; ASIN: B0000DJZA5

It's hard to find a dispassionate opinion about this album, which took the Beatles tapes recorded for Let It Be, their last original album, and used them to construct the experience of being in the studio with the Fab Four as they recorded. Producer/accused murder Phil Spector's lush wall-of-sound production was to be stripped away, leaving just the naked Beatles sound. "Let it Be" itself was famously controversial, recorded as the band was breaking up and working under less than ideal conditions. The Beatles were being filmed for a TV special while they tried to come up with the album's original material; stress bubbled to the surface and finally tore the band apart. The Beatles ended with a last, famous, live rooftop concert and the in-studio masterpiece that became "Abbey Road". All this is in the liner notes, but what of the music? Here's where the fans are divided. This is indeed the Beatles in a raw musical mode. Some people, including us, think the remix works - it's a different and frequently better album. Others think the tracks here are nothing special, stuff that already was better covered on Anthology. Either way, audiophiles should grab this rare opportunity to judge the effect of a producer on an album's final sound. For Beatles fans, this is just another step closer to the soul of their music.