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About the Author

Cornelia Dean is science editor of the New York Times, where she writes frequently on coastal issues. She lives on the islands of Manhattan and Chappaquiddick

Works by Cornelia Dean

Associated Works

The Best American Science Writing 2010 (2010) — Contributor — 102 copies

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Common Knowledge

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female

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Reviews

Not really useful, because alternately skeptical and credulous. Some good advice, might be a good entry point for someone who has not already read other books of this type. A long bibliography, probably containing some more compelling books.
 
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themulhern | May 10, 2018 |
The world has never more needed public understanding of science than it does now, and those of us in science education have a special obligation in this regard. The answers to health care, climate change, conservation of the environment, and so forth are not going to be found in science alone, but if they are to be addressed rationally, science literacy will be necessary. Cornelia Dean has helped to make it easier for all of us to be effective when we are given an opportunity, or when we make our own opportunity to communicate to the public. This nice little handbook (it is even the size of your hand) provides excellent specific guidance for writers and speakers, from public lectures and debates to TV or radio "sound bites", letters to the editor, or writing for the Web. This book will help you make the most of those occasions. I intend to consult it regularly.… (more)
 
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hcubic | 2 other reviews | Feb 17, 2013 |
Beachfront property is some of the most desirable real estate in the world, and some of the least stable. It’s the nature of ocean beaches and barrier islands to move, and the nature of people who build on or near them to want them to stay put. Governments, from the local to the federal level, have traditionally supported the developers and property owners, subsidizing flood insurance that rebuilds homes claimed by the sea, and providing funds and engineering expertise for seawalls, jetties, groins, and other engineered structures designed to protect the beaches from erosion. The long-term result of these efforts is a litany of unintended consequences: seawalls accelerate the erosion of the beaches in front of them, groins and jetties built perpendicular to the shore starve down-current beaches of sand, and offshore structures designed to trap sand create hazards for swimmers and boaters. None of them, moreover, do their intended job of “saving” the beach for those who have, unwisely but at great expense, built on it.

Against the Tide is a book about the science of why beaches move, and why human attempts to control them are miserable, costly failures. Cornelia Dean was science editor of the New York Times when she wrote it, and it is – as she says in the introduction – “a journalist’s book:” one built on scores of interviews, detailed and precise in its explanations, and as even-handed as the material allows. Dean is scrupulously careful not to demonize those who build on the beach, or to dismiss the intensity of their desire to save their homes and their property, but she is also unwavering in her respect for science and its conclusions. She deftly avoids science journalism’s classic pitfall: seeing “two sides” to a controversy in which the data supports only one. Her conclusion – calmly articulated and bolstered by reams of evidence from all three U. S. coasts – is unambiguous: All our efforts to control the beaches have failed, doing far more harm than good in the process, and it is time to learn to live with the beaches on their terms, rather than ours.

A decade-and-a-half after it was written, Against the Tide remains the definitive book on the science and politics of human interactions with the shore. The damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina (2005) and “Superstorm Sandy” (2012) suggest how tragically far we as a society (still) are from absorbing its lessons.
… (more)
 
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ABVR | 2 other reviews | Jan 26, 2013 |

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Works
4
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Rating
3.8
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ISBNs
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