BiblioVault - Books by Wilson, Richard

A Brief History of the Harvard University Cyclotrons

Richard Wilson

Harvard University Press, 2004

In 1937, Harvard University built its first cyclotron, which was subsequently requisitioned by the U.S. Army and taken to Los Alamos in 1943. The second cyclotron, one of the world's longest-running accelerators, was finished in 1949 and operated until 2002. In its first 20 years, the cyclotron's primary use was for nuclear physics, particularly for understanding the interaction between two nucleons. During the next 30 years, the emphasis switched to treating patients with proton radiotherapy. A total of 9,115 patients were treated by this method and the treatment has been copied all over the world. This book describes the work of the Harvard cyclotron during its 50 years of operation and includes references to about 500 publications and 40 student theses from the work.

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Human Rights, Culture and Context

Anthropological Perspectives

Richard A. Wilson

Pluto Press, 1998

In the Name of Humanity

The Government of Threat and Care

Ilana Feldman and Miriam Ticktin, eds.

Duke University Press, 2010

Scientists, activists, state officials, NGOs, and others increasingly claim to speak and act on behalf of “humanity.” The remarkable array of circumstances in which humanity is invoked testifies to the category’s universal purchase. Yet what exactly does it mean to govern, fight, and care in the name of humanity? In this timely collection, leading anthropologists and cultural critics grapple with that question, examining configurations of humanity in relation to biotechnologies, the natural environment, and humanitarianism and human rights. From the global pharmaceutical industry, to forest conservation, to international criminal tribunals, the domains they analyze highlight the diversity of spaces and scales at which humanity is articulated.

The editors argue that ideas about humanity find concrete expression in the governing work that operationalizes those ideas to produce order, prosperity, and security. As a site of governance, humanity appears as both an object of care and a source of anxiety. Assertions that humanity is being threatened, whether by environmental catastrophe or political upheaval, provide a justification for the elaboration of new governing techniques. At the same time, humanity itself is identified as a threat (to nature, to nation, to global peace) which governance must contain. These apparently contradictory understandings of the relation of threat to the category of humanity coexist and remain in tension, helping to maintain the dynamic co-production of governance and humanity.

Contributors. Arun Agrawal, Joao Biehl , Didier Fassin, Allen Feldman, Ilana Feldman, Rebecca Hardin, S. Lochann Jain, Liisa Malkki, Adriana Petryna, Miriam Ticktin, Richard Ashby Wilson, Charles Zerner

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Particles in Our Air

Exposures and Health Effects

John Daniel Spengler

Harvard University Press, 1996

It is no secret that the burning of fossil fuels causes air pollution and adversely affects the health of the human population. Over the last 10 years, research has been providing new insight about the health consequences of particulate air pollution. Generated by the use of fossil energy, respirable-sized particles pose a major threat to our environment and health. In this book the hypothesis that fossil fuels are the primary culprit is examined in detail, including the nature, generation, and transport of particulate air pollution. The authors cite studies on animals and epidemiological studies—those showing acute effects soon after exposure and those exhibiting chronic effects decades later—and include models describing mechanisms by which the effects of fine particulates can be induced. Through its probing inquiry, this book makes clear that present levels of air pollution, even in countries with aggressive environmental controls, are a health hazard that must be contended with.

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Risk-Benefit Analysis

Second Edition

Richard Wilson and Edmund A. C. Crouch

Harvard University Press, 2001

Over the centuries, mankind has slowly reduced the risks and hazards that even as recently as a century ago kept life expectancy to a mere 45 years. Our average lifespan has improved to 77 years by remarkable progress in public health and safety. But with this improvement has come a demand for greater efforts to improve both life expectancy and the quality of life. The first edition of this book, published in 1982, was a pioneer in the development of logical, yet simple, analytic tools for discussion of the risks which we all face. This new edition, revised, expanded, and illustrated in detail, should be of value both to professionals in the field and to those who wish to understand these vital issues.

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Understanding the Age of Transitional Justice

Crimes, Courts, Commissions, and Chronicling

Adler, Nanci

Rutgers University Press, 2018

Since the 1980s, an array of legal and non-legal practices—labeled Transitional Justice—has been developed to support post-repressive, post-authoritarian, and post-conflict societies in dealing with their traumatic past. In Understanding the Age of Transitional Justice, the contributors analyze the processes, products, and efficacy of a number of transitional justice mechanisms and look at how genocide, mass political violence, and historical injustices are being institutionally addressed. They invite readers to speculate on what (else) the transcripts produced by these institutions tell us about the past and the present, calling attention to the influence of implicit history conveyed in the narratives that have gained an audience through international criminal tribunals, trials, and truth commissions. Nanci Adler has gathered leading specialists to scrutinize the responses to and effects of violent pasts that provide new perspectives for understanding and applying transitional justice mechanisms in an effort to stop the recycling of old repressions into new ones.

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