I wanted to alert you all to an important new book and an upcoming symposium on it. It is Dan Kevles' THE BALTIMORE CASE: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character, published by W. W. Norton. The symposium information is below.

Dan will also be my guest on Science Talk Wednesday September 30 from 6-7pm on KPCC, 89.3FM, then will be doing a book signing at Vroman's bookstore from 7-8pm, located 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. If you cannot make the symposium or book signing, be sure to pick up a copy of the book. It is sold everywhere and has been widely reviewed quite positively. The book is based on Dan's original piece in the New Yorker, in which he exposed the Baltimore case as a classic example of a witch hunt in science. It's a great read and an excellent analysis of the politics of big science. Dan is one of the preeminent historians of science of our time (see his books THE PHYSICISTS and IN THE NAME OF EUGENICS) and did extensive interviews with everyone involved to get the inside story. A must read.

Los Angeles Public Library, "Hot Off the Press" presents Daniel J. Kevles, author of The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character moderated by William R. Clark, prof. of biology, UCLA

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 7 p.m.
Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium
630 W. Fifth St.
Los Angeles (Fifth and Flower)

Admission Free
Reservations: 213/228-7025
Parking: 524 S. Flower St.

"You read it with a rising sense of despair and outrage, and you finish it as if awakening from a nightmare that only Kafka could have conceived." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times

"... a brilliant, unsparing and meticulously researched account of a controversy that has helped reshape how science" "... a splendid study of a major contemporary scientific scandal." Roy Porter

Prof. D. J. Kevles
California Institute of Technology (228-77)
Pasadena, CA 91125
KEVLES_D@CALTECH.EDU