Brushing up on your winter reading
August 31Can't figure out how to spend your winter break? Pick up a book written by one of Tufts' own faculty. Each of these three books can be found in the bookstore - and the authors can also be found not too far away.Animal ER by Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine with Vicki Croke, Plume, October 2000 Even if you've never had a pet, the stories in this book will touch you. Croke, a Boston Globe reporter, puts you right in the midst the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Tufts' Vet School in North Grafton, Mass.: a round-the-clock, frenzied, and often, painful world that outsiders rarely glimpse.The endearing and uplifting stories of Croke's characters trace the stoic and forgiving patients - be they hairy, feathery, or scaly - to the committed veterinarians, and the worried pet owners. For example, it's hard not to become emotionally attached to Misty, a pooch undergoing a critical stomach operation at the ICU or Glover, a tiger cat facing a life or death with a blood transfusion.Equally compelling are those who devote their lives to this nerve-wracking work. Veterinarian Nick Dodman tells the story of escaping the operating room when a 1,000 pound bull emerged from anesthesia - before the operation even started - and went berserk. After locking the door, the surgeons realized that two of their friends were left inside, stuck on top of a swing gate - their faces "blanched white."No less fascinating is the fact that these stories occurred here - to doctors and fresh-out-of-college residents any Tufts student could meet and talk to relatively easily. Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by Richard W. Wrangham and Dale Peterson, Mariner Books (Houghton Mifflin Co.), November 1997 When Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson drove through Rwanda in 1994 to reach a remote patch of rainforest, home to a group of rare bonobo apes, the conflict hadn't yet reached the area. However, blood was already being spilt in ethnic conflicts around the world, - in Burundi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, and India.In a shockingly similar occurrence, a community of chimpanzees observed by Jane Goodall in Tanzania in the '70's split into two divided subgroups. The groups soon began raiding each other's territory and attacking members of the opposing faction, until, after several years, one group killed the other group - consisting of their relatives and former playmates.Was it a coincidence that the species that deliberately killed off its own kind were chimps, humans' closest genetic relative? And, what did these scientists make of the fact that those chimps committing the killings were disproportionately male, as with humans?"The big problem for us [as people] to deal with is human violence, which is very much male violence," Peterson said, since statistical male to female criminal ratio is "way higher than chance."Based on his longtime interest in primate study, Peterson, a lecturer in the English department, teamed up with the leading biological anthropologist Wrangham to try to discover the nature of violence across times, cultures, and even species.Rather than discuss their findings in the usual small circle of eager specialists, Peterson and Wrangham popularized their research through this book, profoundly influencing the mainstream dialogue on human nature. Though painstakingly detailed, Demonic Males is a fascinating read. According to Peterson, the book counts Hillary Clinton and the wife of former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld among its fans. Peterson suggests that, for the two First Ladies, part of the fascination could come from their very powerful and highly competitive husbands - typical Alpha males.Storyville, USA, by Dale Peterson, University of Georgia Press, September 1999 Have you ever wondered how some little towns, like Belchtown, Mass., or Big Shanty, Penn., got their unusual names? So did Dale Peterson - the same Tufts lecturer who usually spends his time writing about apes and Jane Goodall.With his two kids in tow, Peterson trekked 20,000 miles of US roads, beginning at Start, La. and finishing at Roads End, Ala. They collected the curious and often quirky stories about the names of almost 60 small American towns and the people who live there.They discovered a refrigerator, which, along with two churches, makes up the center of communal life in Noodle, Tex. and a portrait of Ish Tak Ha Ba, a Dakota chief with a droopy eye for whom Sleepy Eye, Minn. is named.For Peterson, Storyville was a project he always wanted to do with his kids. "I wanted them to have the experience of writing a book with me," he said. So, they traveled together, wrote parts of the book together, and even found the publisher, UGa Press, together. It was quite an adventure, and, for Peterson, a somewhat nostalgic and sentimental trip to places in the US like the ones in which he and his mother grew up. It's no adrenaline rush, as life in small town America usually isn't, but Peterson's book is certainly a quirky, funny, and insightful read.
