The Elements of Murder – John Emsley ****

This darkly framed book is subtitled “a history of poison”, which on its own is a bit misleading, as it’s actually a history of elements that have been used as poisons, omitting many poisons that aren’t based on pure elements and some highly poisonous elements (such as plutonium) that haven’t been used as such (unless you count the TV show, Heart of Darkness).

In niggle mode, I was slightly surprised to be told that molten antimony has the unique property of expanding as it solidifies – the same is, of course, true of molten ice.

However, that shouldn’t distract from the fact that this is a very readable and intriguing plunge into the history of our relationship with these darkly dangerous chemicals.

John Emsley is at his best when he is plunging with gusto into a historical tale of poisoning and intrigue – for example the romantic if gruesome story of the lengthy (and eventually successful) attempts to poison Sir Thomas Overbury in the early 1600s, not for some Machiavellian political end but because he was interfering with the marital intentions of Frances, the daughter of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, and she was not a woman to be trifled with.

Sometimes a little less effective are the details of the poisons themselves and how they work, which can get a little repetitive, but Emsley brings us back to the stories with enough regularity that there’s always a little more you’d like to read.

It may seem that the detail of murder stories isn’t exactly in the best interests of popular science – but books like this have to be readable, and the inclusion of these stories makes this an even more effective book than still interesting but occasionally a little worthy study of the effects of arsenic, Venomous Earth.

Hardback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

David Spiegelhalter Five Way interview

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter FRS OBE is Emeritus Professor of Statistics in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He was previously Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and has presented the BBC4 documentaries Tails you Win: the Science of Chance, the award-winning Climate Change by Numbers. His bestselling book, The Art of Statistics , was published in March 2019. He was knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics, was President of the Royal Statistical Society (2017-2018), and became a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority in 2020. His latest book is The Art of Uncertainty . Why probability? because I have been fascinated by the idea of probability, and what it might be, for over 50 years. Why is the ‘P’ word missing from the title? That's a good question. Partly so as not to make it sound like a technical book, but also because I did not want to give the impression that it was yet another book

The Genetic Book of the Dead: Richard Dawkins ****

When someone came up with the title for this book they were probably thinking deep cultural echoes - I suspect I'm not the only Robert Rankin fan in whom it raised a smile instead, thinking of The Suburban Book of the Dead . That aside, this is a glossy and engaging book showing how physical makeup (phenotype), behaviour and more tell us about the past, with the messenger being (inevitably, this being Richard Dawkins) the genes. Worthy of comment straight away are the illustrations - this is one of the best illustrated science books I've ever come across. Generally illustrations are either an afterthought, or the book is heavily illustrated and the text is really just an accompaniment to the pictures. Here the full colour images tie in directly to the text. They are not asides, but are 'read' with the text by placing them strategically so the picture is directly with the text that refers to it. Many are photographs, though some are effective paintings by Jana Lenzová. T

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on

Search This Blog