David Bergamini

Prescient on world resources and ugly economics. Commodification of water causes a shortage in the Philippines.

This book was first published in 1962 and updated in 1966. Since I was born in 1965, I bought it at a garage sale because I find it interesting to compare it to more recent astronomy books in my collection, and see how far science has come in my lifetime. Since many of the "mysteries" described in this book have now been solved, it makes me feel like some of today's scientific unknowns, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy for instance, or the lack of a unifying "theory of show more everything" may also be explained in my lifetime, which makes all of this seem much more accessible and interesting. It's not just an academic exercise. We may actually find out the answers! show less

Mr. Bergamini has carefully researched a great deal of material relating to the actions of the Japanese Royal family and the nobility, and some aspects of the murky bits of the Interwar and WWII period in the far East. He can't go back to Japan, so this book has some relationship with Procopius' "Secret History" . Be prepared for controversy if you quote from it.

I cut my teeth on science-for-the-layman with the Time-Life series. Too bad it's not updated once a decade or so. Still a fun read!