Harris, Robert & Paxman, Jeremy. A higher form of killing; the secret history of chemical and biological warfare.Random House. 301p. illus, notes, index, c1982, 2001. 0-8129-6653-8. $13.95. A Early in the 1980s, journalists Harris and Paxman produced a BBC television BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which began in 1932. The British Broadcasting Corporation has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. documentary on gas and germ warfare from WW I to the fall of the Soviet Union and followed it up with this compelling book in 1982. The new final chapter surveys developments over the past two decades, including the mysterious anthrax anthrax (ăn`thrăks), acute infectious disease of animals that can be secondarily transmitted to humans. It is caused by a bacterium (Bacillus anthracis mailings in the United States in fall 2001. Fritz Haber, Nobel Prize Nobel Prize, award given for outstanding achievement in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, peace, or literature. The awards were established by the will of Alfred Nobel, who left a fund to provide annual prizes in the five areas listed above. winner and inventor of chemical warfare in WW I, claimed that "poison gas poison gas, any of various gases sometimes used in warfare or riot control because of their poisonous or corrosive nature. These gases may be roughly grouped according to the portal of entry into the body and their physiological effects. ... is a higher form of killing." His justification, that by shortening wars poison gas was more humane than guns and bombs, has been echoed by militaries ever since. Despite treaties forbidding the first use of chemical and biological weapons, secret research and production of these weapons continues--as the authors demonstrate--in many countries; and, as recent events have shown, dictatorships and terrorists have few scruples about using them. Using interviews and British and American government archives, Harris and Paxman show how these horrifying "weapons of mass destruction Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons, but exclude the means of transporting or " have affected both individual lives and the course of world history (Hitler was gassed as a soldier in WW I). Sadly, current events make this a necessary purchase for high school, college, and public libraries. Karen Reeds, Princeton Research Forum, Princeton, NJ |
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