A companion to a five-part PBS series takes a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of New York City skyscraper Worldwide Plaza--from the architects who designed it, to the construction workers who built it, to the community it transformed

Skyscraper: The Making of a Building

Arts & Photography

Sabbagh, Karl

Architecture

Penguin??Books

A Rum Affair (Allen Lane Science)

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Penguin Books, Ltd.

How reliable is memory? For most of us, accurately remembering the details of a novel we read six months ago, or a conversation we had last week, is a difficult task. How much more daunting, then, to recall events from early childhood? This is not an academic question. The alarming rise, over the past two decades, in criminal convictions for child abuse based on "recovered" memories makes clear the need for a solid, scientifically based understanding of the nature and trustworthiness of childhood memories. In this fascinating and often disturbing book, Karl Sabbagh looks at psychologists' present understanding of how memory works--and fails to work--particularly in terms of childhood recollections. He shows that, in cases of "recovered memories," the unreliability of memory has had tragic consequences. Many people firmly believe that they can recall scenes from their infancy. But what does science tell us about the childhood memory? Through closely examining memories culled from his interviews, as well as psychologists' and neuroscientists' studies of memory, it becomes clear that, whatever individuals might claim, memories of the first two years of our lives are simply not accessible to us. Even later memories are fragile, yielding to suggestion and our desire for neat stories. Sabbagh goes on to examine real cases where causal remarks by children in nurseries, memories "recovered" in therapy, wild claims of satanic rituals, animal sacrifices, and grisly infant murders, have produced wrongful arrests and destroyed careers and families. Drawing on extensive research, including transcribed interviews presented at court, Remembering Our Childhood presents a scientific understanding of memory and a compelling argument for the critical role of scientific evidence in cases involving the memory of witnesses.

Remembering Our Childhood: How Memory Betrays Us

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Oxford University Press

In this fascinating and sometimes disturbing book, the well-known writer Karl Sabbagh looks at psychologists' present understanding of the nature of memory, especially recollections of childhood, and how, in cases of so-called 'recovered memories', the unreliability and flexibility of memory has led to tragic consequences, destroying the lives of whole families. All of us have memories of childhood - that special trip to the fair, or impressions, such as dappled sunlight through rustling leaves seen from the pram. Some people firmly believe that they can recall scenes from the time they were babies. But what does science tell us about the nature of memory, and memories of childhood? In the first part of this book, Sabbagh begins gently with examples he has collected from many interviews of earliest memories, and goes on to look at psychologists' and neuroscientists' understanding of memory. It becomes clear that, whatever individuals might claim, memories of the first two years or so of our lives are simply not accessible to us, while later memories are fragile, yielding to suggestion and our inclination towards a neat story. All too often, our 'memory' of an event arises from what we have been told by a relative. The book then turns to darker territory. A casual remark by a child at a nursery leads to detailed and suggestive questioning of a number of children, resulting in the arrest of a teacher accused of child abuse. She was subsequently released. Some patients with eating and mood disorders undergoing therapy have come to believe, or have been led to believe by the therapist, that their problems stem from being sexually abused as a child - memories allegedly repressed and only 'recovered' under the guidance of the therapist. Such claims have again resulted in wrongful arrest, subsequently overturned, though the damage done to the families is irreparable. Sabbagh has interviewed the distinguished psychologist Elizabeth Loftus and others involved in blowing the whistle on the 'recovered memory' movement. Throughout, the book is full of quotations from interviews and extracts from transcribed interviews presented at court, making this a powerful and vivid account. While other books have been written on the dangers of the concept of recovered memory, Sabbagh here puts the story in the wider perspective of our growing scientific understanding of memory, and argues strongly for the critical role of scientific evidence in cases involving the memory of witnesses.

Remembering our Childhood: How Memory Betrays Us

Self-Help

Memory Improvement

A Rum Affair is an absorbing tale of scientific chicanery and academic intrigue—critically acclaimed and a finalist for the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize. In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: Species of plants on the islands off the west coast of Scotland, he said, had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of evidence that the last advance of the ice sheets extended well south of mainland Scotland, but he said he had proof—the plants and grasses found on the Isle of Rum—that would make his name in the scientific world. Harrison didn't anticipate, however, the tenacious John Raven, an amateur botanist who boldly questioned whether these grasses were truly indigenous to the area, or whether they had been transported there and planted. What seems at first a minor infringement of academic honesty soon becomes an enthralling tale of rival scientists and fraudulent science, a skillful whodunit that, in the hands of the talented Sabbagh, joins the ranks of the best narrative nonfiction.

A Rum Affair: A True Story Of Botanical Fraud

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Da Capo Press

Skyscraper.

VIKING

21st Century Jet: The Making of an Aeroplane (A Channel Four Book)

Pan/Macmillan

The Riemann Hypothesis: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics

An engaging, informative, and wryly humorous exploration of one of the great conundrums of all time In 1859 Bernhard Riemann, a shy German mathematician, wrote an eight-page article giving an answer to a problem that had long puzzled mathematicians. But he didn’t provide a proof. In fact, he said he couldn’t prove it but he thought that his answer was “very probably” true. From the publication of that paper to the present day, the world’s mathematicians have been fascinated, infuriated, and obsessed with proving the Riemann Hypothesis, and so great is the interest in its solution that in 2001 an American foundation put up prize money of $1 million for the first person to demonstrate that the hypothesis is correct. The hypothesis refers to prime numbers, which are in some sense the atoms from which all other numbers are constructed, and seeks to explain where every single prime to infinity will occur. Riemann’s idea—if true—would illuminate how these numbers are distributed, and if false will throw pure mathematics into confusion. Karl Sabbagh meets some of the world’s mathematicians who spend their lives thinking about the Riemann Hypothesis, focusing attention in particular on “Riemann’s zeros,” a series of points that are believed to lie in a straight line, though no one can prove it. Accessible and vivid, The Riemann Hypothesis is a brilliant explanation of numbers and a profound meditation on the ultimate meaning of mathematics.

Mathematics

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Examines the discovery of several species of rare plants a by British scientist on the Isle of Rum, and questions the veracity of whether or not these plants were actually indigenous to the island. 12,500 first printing.

A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud

History

Europe

Since 1859, when the shy German mathematician Bernhard Riemann wrote an eight-page article giving a possible answer to a problem that had tormented mathematical minds for centuries, the world's greatest mathematicians have been fascinated, infuriated, and obsessed with proving the Riemann hypothesis. They speak of it in awed terms and consider it to be an even more difficult problem than Fermat's last theorem, which was finally proven by Andrew Wiles in 1995.
In The Riemann Hypothesis, acclaimed author Karl Sabbagh interviews some of the world's finest mathematicians who have spent their lives working on the problem--and whose approaches to meeting the challenges thrown up by the hypothesis are as diverse as their personalities.
Wryly humorous, lively, accessible and comprehensive, The Riemann Hypothesis is a compelling exploration of the people who do math and the ideas that motivate them to the brink of obsession--and a profound meditation on the ultimate meaning of mathematics.

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Books by Sabbagh, Karl