The Sea Around Us

by Rachel Carson

Oxford University Press, $45

Although Rachel Carson is best remembered as the author of Silent Spring, it was this natural history of the oceans that established her reputation as a science writer. The book was first published in 1951, so Carson was not able to include the subsequent discoveries of seafloor spreading and deep-ocean exploration. These events are included here in an introduction by Robert Ballard and an afterword by Brian Skinner.

America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918

by Alfred W. Crosby

Cambridge University Press, £42.50 (hbk), £15.99 pbk

With bird flu and SARS regularly in the news, publication of this second edition of Alfred Crosby's account of the American pandemic of Spanish Influenza is very timely. In 1918–19, Spanish flu killed more people across the world than the World War that preceded it. Since its first publication in 1976, this account of the devastation wrought by this disease has taken on more contemporary relevance, as the author reminds us in a new introduction.

The Piltdown Forgery

by J. S. Weiner

Oxford University Press, £8.99, $14.95

The discovery in the early 1900s of Piltdown Man, the fossilized remains of an ape-like human, was greeted by much excitement. But a re-examination of the fossils in the 1950s revealed them to be forgeries. Joseph Weiner was one of three scientists who exposed this hoax, and his fascinating detective story, first published in 1995, remains the definitive account of the affair. As Chris Stringer points out in a new introduction and afterword, the identity of the hoaxer(s) is still not certain.