“Thought-provoking. . . . [Allen] writes without sanctimony and never simplifies the people in his book or the moral issues his story inevitably raises.â€â€•Wall Street Journal Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice; it afflicts the dispossessed―refugees; soldiers; and ghettoized peoples―causing hallucinations; terrible headaches; boiling fever; and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl. In the 1920s; Weigl had created the first typhus vaccine using a method as bold as it was dangerous for its use of living human subjects. The astonishing success of Weigl’s techniques attracted the attention and admiration of the world―giving him cover during the Nazi’s violent occupation of Lviv. His lab soon flourished as a hotbed of resistance. Weigl hired otherwise doomed mathematicians; writers; doctors; and other thinkers; protecting them from atrocity. The team engaged in a sabotage campaign by sending illegal doses of the vaccine into the Polish ghettos while shipping gallons of the weakened serum to the Wehrmacht.Among the scientists saved by Weigl; who was a Christian; was a gifted Jewish immunologist named Ludwik Fleck. Condemned to Buchenwald and pressured to re-create the typhus vaccine under the direction of a sadistic Nazi doctor; Erwin Ding-Schuler; Fleck had to make an awful choice between his scientific ideals or the truth of his conscience. In risking his life to carry out a dramatic subterfuge to vaccinate the camp’s most endangered prisoners; Fleck performed an act of great heroism.Drawing on extensive research and interviews with survivors; Arthur Allen tells the harrowing story of two brave scientists―a Christian and a Jew― who put their expertise to the best possible use; at the highest personal danger. 35 illustrations
#1068020 in Books Roger L Ransom 2006-10-17 2006-10-17Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.30 x 1.00 x 5.50l; .70 #File Name: 0393329119368 pagesThe Confederate States of America What Might Have Been
Review
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful. The Last Hurrah?By Joseph R. GoldmanThis is a solid; well-thought out "what might have been" study that goes beyond the sensational or the mythical. Here the reader is treated to the political history of the Confederate States of America as it might evolve. Almost 50 years ago McKinley Kantor penned one of the best pioneering works on the question "what if the South won in 1865?" (he has the North and South reunited by 1915 in the face of WWI and the growing threat to both side-by-side Americas); it also was an excellent political and military "first cut" to a fascinating subject not only for Civil War buffs but any one interested in "Alternative History".Ransom's book is plausible in its projections based on the facts of the early formation and struggle by the CSA to become independent. He provides controversial thinking on what might happen if the CSA were successful; but his line of reasoning is what makes the book engaging and thoughtful. Ransom writes a good read; and the scholarship is of the quality to be quoted in other similar; high-quality studies.Joseph Richard Goldman0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy richgreat book3 of 5 people found the following review helpful. The Whole PictureBy BugwarDid a good job of bringing the probable effects of real world developments in social; political; and economic issues on the future development of the Confederacy.
