Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation - Brossura

Fagin, Dan

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1610915917 ISBN 13: 9781610915915

Casa editrice: Island Pr, 2015

Riassunto

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE · Winner of The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award
A new classic of science reporting.”—The New York Times

The true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, Toms River won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize and has been hailed by The New York Times as "a new classic of science reporting." Now available in paperback with a new afterword by acclaimed author Dan Fagin, the book masterfully blends hard-hitting investigative journalism, scientific discovery, and unforgettable characters.

One of New Jersey’s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest environmental legal settlements in history. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town’s namesake river. The result was a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution.

Fagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary tale. He brings to life the pioneering scientists and physicians who first identified pollutants as a cause of cancer and the everyday people in Toms River who struggled for justice: a young boy whose cherubic smile belied the fast-growing tumors that had decimated his body from birth; a nurse who fought to bring the alarming incidence of childhood cancers to the attention of authorities who didn’t want to listen; and a mother whose love for her stricken child transformed her into a tenacious advocate for change.

Rooted in a centuries-old scientific quest, Toms River is an epic of dumpers at midnight and deceptions in broad daylight, of corporate avarice and government neglect, and of a few brave individuals who refused to keep silent until the truth was exposed.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

'This hard-hitting account of cancer epidemiology in the New Jersey town of Toms River is a triumph.' - Nature

'It's high time a book did for epidemiology what Jon Krakauer's best-selling Into Thin Air did for mountain climbing: transform a long sequence of painfully plodding steps and missteps into a narrative of such irresistible momentum that the reader not only understands what propels enthusiasts forward, but begins to strain forward as well, racing through the pages to get to the heady views at the end. And such is the power of Dan Fagin's Toms River, surely a new classic of science reporting. . . a sober story of probability and compromise, laid out with the care and precision that characterizes both good science and great journalism.' - The New York Times

'Dan Fagin's narrative of the arrival and explosive growth of a chemical plant in New Jersey in the 1950s weaves a complex tale of powerful industry, local politics, water rights, epidemiology, public health and cancer in a gripping, page-turning environmental thriller.' - National Public Radio

'Immaculate research . . . unstoppable reading . . . Fagin's book may not endear him to Toms River's real estate agents, but its exhaustive reporting and honest look at the cause, obstacles, and unraveling of a cancerous trail should be required environmental reading.' - The Philadelphia Inquirer

'Absorbing and thoughtful.' - USA Today

A thrilling journey through the twists and turns of cancer epidemiology, 'Toms River' is essential reading for our times. Dan Fagin handles topics of great complexity with the dexterity of a scholar, the honesty of a journalist, and the dramatic skill of a novelist. --Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

L'autore:

Dan Fagin is an associate professor of journalism and the director of the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. His work has been recently published in Nature, The New York Times, Scientific American, and Slate and he is also the co-author of Toxic Deception. Visit danfagin.com for more information.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Island Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1610915917
• ISBN 13: 9781610915915
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 542