If you are a fan of thinking that the world is, by and large, safe and that we have weathered the storm of the cold war without any major apocalypses happening, then this book will shatter that thinking.

Broad and Miller look at the bioweapons programs of the US, Russia, and Iraq, and how bioweapons featured prominently in geopolitical posturing from the end of WW2 on. Along the way, they scare the bejeezus out of the reader, though with good reason.

We all know the stories about how close the world came to nuclear annihilation, and how many times we came that close. Well, we came much much MUCH closer to a biological apocalypse, and came that close many many more times. And since bioweapons don't have the cachet of nuclear weapons, the stories are relatively hidden. Up until this book, that is.

Nuclear weapons require a certain amount of expertise and equipment, and every intelligence agency in the world is on the lookout for suspicious transactions that could lead to nuclear weapons. But bioweapons are so easily concealable as agricultural or medical research that it is much harder to see whether the intentions of people doing that research are good or not. And bioweapons are no less deadly than nuclear weapons--in fact, they may be more so, especially with the advent of recombinant organisms that are resistant to conventional antibiotics or vaccines.

Adding to this problem is the fact that, ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, scientists who have expertise in making bioweapons and distributing them have been unemployed and their facilities have lost state protection. This has led to a black market where rogue states and organizations can essentially buy talent and expertise to make bioweapons, and I fear this will lead to something very bad happening in the future.

But there is hope. The book also details the efforts of both the US and Russia to curb the spread of bioweapons. While there is still research going on, it seems to be better monitored, and I hope this trend continues through the rest of the century.

Overall a very good read about something I didn't know much about before. ( )

Germs. Viruses. Nasty little things made even nastier by scientific manipulation. This book, published in early 2001, explores the United State's efforts in germ and biological warfare from the 1950s onward. Special attention is paid to the little-known food bar poisoning attack by the Rajneeshees in Oregon in the early 1980s, Soviet advances and the subsequent degrading of their program after communism's collapse, Iraq and the first Gulf War, and battles in Washington D.C. over funding and ethical problems.

I was reading this book for novel research, and I did place sticky tabs on various points of interest. However, I was more interested in the science itself and the creations and preventative measures more than the battles for funding or the see-saw regarding weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s. There's also the issue of the book's timing of publication in mid-2001. The final chapter on the future had ominous notes about the potential for attacks by figures such as Osama bin Laden. I have a feeling this book would have had a different focus if it had come out six months later, after the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax mailing scare. Still, it made for an interesting (in parts) if slow read--it took me two weeks to finish it. ( )

Largely just a repeat of Richard Preston's works, but interesting none the less. ( )

3513. Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad (read 18 Dec 2001) This is a book of serious import, tho not too well organized, which may be because there are three authors. The subject matter made this an non-enjoyable book. ( )