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Netsurfer Recommendations

Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another
Philip Ball
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; ISBN: 0374281254

This book is all about the application of the laws of physics to the social sciences. One of the great goals of social scientists has been to discover laws that predict human behavior as coherently as the laws of the natural sciences predict events in that realm. Human behavior is, of course, far more complex than the motion of billiard balls, and until the last 50 years or so, social scientists have not had the tools to deal with it effectively. Advances in physical sciences, in particular the mastering of complexity, have finally placed the mathematical and theoretical tools from those domains into the hands of social scientists, and this has led to a better understanding of the complexity that rules human interactions. This book briefly lays out the history of social and economic study, then goes on to explain how concepts borrowed from the hard sciences - self-organization, phase transitions, flocking behavior, chaos, networking effects, evolutionary game theory - are applied to human behavior today.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything
Joe Trippi
Regan Books; ISBN: 0060761555

The 2004 Presidential campaign is the first major American political campaign in which the Internet has played a major role. In large part, this is due to the author of this book, Joe Trippi, who managed Howard Dean's Presidential bid. Trippi was the first campaign manager to harness the networking power of the Internet not only to rally supporters to his candidate's cause but, more importantly, to raise huge amounts of money. Money talks, as they say, and nowhere is this true more than in politics, so Trippi's pioneering work is being adopted and expanded by just about every political campaign out there. Trippi writes of the rise and fall of the Dean campaign, and specifically of the role played by the Internet. As an insider's account of the Net as a political phenomenon, the book is a must for political junkies, but it also works for all as a colorful account of what is already one of the most partisan presidential campaigns in recent history.

The New World of Martin Cortes
Anna Lanyon
Da Capo Press; ISBN: 0306813645

This is a doughnut of a book. Lanyon's first book, " Malinche's Conquest", was a biography of Malinche, the native woman who accompanied Hernan Cortes as interpreter and lover on his conquest of the Aztec empire. Malinche gave birth to Cortes's son, Martin Cortes, who was the first mestizo - a child of mixed native Mexican and European heritage - in recorded history. This time around, Lanyon focuses on that son, but therein lies the doughnutty quality of the book. Few records remain of this Martin Cortes - this Martin Cortes, we write, because he shared that name with a younger, more famous, and less illegitimate brother. As a result, Lanyon's book studies Martin Cortes much the way astronomers study the sun during an eclipse. Without much direct history to rely on, Lanyon focuses on his parents, his siblings, and his environment. She sprinkles vignettes of her own travels in her subject's footsteps, effectively weaving her modern perceptions into the historical biography. This short book fits the dictionary definition of "evocative", and will keep you reading till the end.

The Witches of Karres
James H. Schmitz
Baen; ISBN: 0743488377

Kudos to publisher Bean Books for re-issuing this absolutely delightful tongue-in-cheek space opera, originally published in 1966. It has aged most gracefully. This is one of those wonderful frothy concoctions from the second golden age of science fiction, when plucky little merchant ships navigated the dangerous, pirate-ridden spaceways of galactic empires. The story revolves around Captain Pausert who, through no fault of his own, manages to acquire as passengers three young witches. Pausert's passengers raise havoc for themselves and the good-hearted Captain with just about anybody they come into contact with. The story is an action-packed ride around the galaxy in flight from Imperial Police, strange aliens, and assorted shady characters, all of whom want a closer look at the magical Sheewash Drive the witches have bestowed on their good captain. It's all lots of fun and just about everybody who has ever read the book remembers it fondly. We're quite sure you will too.