The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility

  • Gregory Clark
Princeton University Press (2014)

Bloody revolutions, policy upheavals and a deluge of social-science theories have been sparked by social inequality. So how porous is the class divide? Not very, reveals economic historian Gregory Clark in this audacious study based on tracking family names through history. Examining names in areas as far-flung in time and space as today's Sweden, Qing Dynasty China and medieval England, Clark shows how little social mobility has altered in 800 years. The solution to the status lottery, he argues, is for society to rectify the imbalance in rewards given to rich and poor.

Plague and Cholera

Patrick Deville (Translated by J. A. Underwood). Little, Brown (2014)

In 1894 Alexandre Yersin, a protégé of Louis Pasteur, discovered the bacillus behind a disease that had ravaged Europe for centuries: bubonic plague. It was dubbed Yersinia pestis in his honour. Patrick Deville's novel — a French best-seller now translated into English by J. A. Underwood — eloquently chronicles Yersin's eventful life. Starting with the scientist's flight out of Paris during the Second World War, the story swerves back in time to chronicle his explorations of Vietnam, the Philippines and “the new frontier of microbiology” in the tumult of the twentieth century.

The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic

  • Jonathan Rottenberg
Basic Books (2014)

Depression, avers psychologist Jonathan Rottenberg, is an evolved trait: a way of stopping us in our tracks so that we can perceive the hurdles facing us. But in today's relatively safe environment, he argues, this useful adjunct of self-analysis can ramp up in severity — and strictly biological approaches and talking cures are not universally effective. Rottenberg brings clinical findings, experimental research, anecdotal evidence and personal experience of depression to his study of triggers, exacerbating factors, psychobiology and evidence for routes to recovery.

Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes

Joyce F. Benenson with Henry Markovits. Oxford University Press (2014)

In this provocative treatise, psychologist Joyce Benenson overturns the prevalent social-science theory that women are the more sociable sex and men more competitive. Benenson posits that the sexes exhibit the strongest differences in behaviours that support their long-term survival. The tendency among girls to discuss others is linked to the evolutionary need to sift out people who will help with childcare, she argues, but women often compete over men. Men, by contrast, cooperate in competing against other groups.

Heimlich's Maneuvers: My Seventy Years of Lifesaving Innovation

  • Henry J. Heimlich
Prometheus Books (2014)

Forty years ago, a thoracic surgeon first described a technique to halt choking by administering abdominal thrusts. Henry Heimlich's manoeuvre is now a globally recognized first-aid intervention. In this matter-of-fact memoir, Heimlich lays out a life spent crafting pragmatic health-care innovations. Along with inventions such as a 'flutter valve' to drain chest fluids, he touches on more controversial potential treatments, such as fighting HIV by inducing infection with malaria.