Barry Werth

In Banquet at Delmonico's, Barry Werth, the acclaimed author of The Scarlet Professor, draws readers inside the circle of philosophers, scientists, politicians, businessmen, clergymen, and scholars who brought Charles Darwin's controversial ideas to America in the crucial years after the Civil War.The United States in the 1870s and '80s was deep in turmoil--a brash young nation torn by a great depression, mired in scandal and corruption, rocked by crises in government, violently conflicted over science and race, and fired up by spiritual and sexual upheavals. Secularism was rising, most notably in academia. Evolution--and its catchphrase, "survival of the fittest"--animated and guided this Gilded Age.Darwin's theory of natural selection was extended to society and morals not by Darwin himself but by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, father of "the Law of Equal Freedom," which holds that "every man is free to do that which he wills," provided it doesn't infringe on the equal freedom of others. As this justification took root as a social, economic, and ethical doctrine, Spencer won numerous influential American disciples and allies, including industrialist Andrew Carnegie, clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, and political reformer Carl Schurz. Churches, campuses, and newspapers convulsed with debate over the proper role of government in regulating Americans' behavior, this country's place among nations, and, most explosively, the question of God's existence.In late 1882, most of the main figures who brought about and popularized these developments gathered at Delmonico's, New York's most venerable restaurant, in an exclusive farewell dinner to honor Spencer and to toast the social applications of the theory of evolution. It was a historic celebration from which the repercussions still ripple throughout our society.Banquet at Delmonico's is social history at its finest, richest, and most appetizing, a brilliant narrative bristling with personal intrigue, tantalizing insights, and greater truths about American life and culture.From the Hardcover edition.

In 31 Days, Barry Werth takes readers inside the White House during the tumultuous days following Nixon's resignation and the swearing-in of America's "accidental president," Gerald Ford. The congressional hearings, Nixon's increasing paranoia, and, finally, the devastating revelations of the White House tapes had torn the country apart. Within the White House and the Republican Party, Nixon's resignation produced new fissures and battle lines--and new opportunities for political advancement.Ford had to reassure the nation and the world that he would attend to the pressing issues of the day, from resolving the legal questions surrounding Nixon's role in Watergate, to dealing with the wind down of the Vietnam War, the precarious state of detente with the Soviet Union, and the ongoing attempts to stabilize the Middle East. Within hours of Nixon's departure from Washington, Ford began the all-important task of forming an inner circle of trusted advisers.In richly detailed scenes, Werth describes the often vicious sparring among two mutually distrustful staffs--Nixon's and Ford's vice presidential holdovers--and a transition team that included Donald Rumsfeld (then Nixon's ambassador to NATO) and Rumsfeld's former deputy, the thirty-three-year-old coolly efficient Richard Cheney. The first detailed account of the ruthless maneuvering and day-to-day politicking behind everything from the pardon of Nixon to why George H. W. Bush was passed over for the vice presidency, to the rise of a new cadre of Republican movers and shakers, 31 Days offers a compelling perspective on a fascinating but relatively unexamined period in American history and its impact on the present.

During his thirty-seven years at Smith College, Newton Arvin published groundbreaking studies of Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, and Longfellow that stand today as models of scholarship and psychological acuity. He cultivated friendships with the likes of Edmund Wilson and Lillian Hellman and became mentor to Truman Capote. A social radical and closeted homosexual, the circumspect Arvin nevertheless survived McCarthyism. But in September 1960 his apartment was raided, and his cache of beefcake erotica was confiscated, plunging him into confusion and despair and provoking his panicked betrayal of several friends.

"Donna Sabia went into labor anticipating the birth of twins. She had two days earlier been told that everything seemed fine. Yet when the babies were born, one was dead and the other barely alive.". "At the urging of a friend, the Sabias filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Humes and Norwalk Hospital. Barry Werth takes us through the seven-year lawsuit, allowing us to see the legal strategy plotted by the Sabias' attorneys, Connecticut's premier medical malpractice law firm. He narrates a tale of doctor, midwife, hospital, and insurance carriers all angling to shift the blame elsewhere, and of rival attorneys searching for medical experts to help them wage battle.". "But Damages is also the immensely moving story of the Sabias, grief-stricken at first, them challenged daily by the extraordinary amount of care Little Tony required. He was unable to eat, talk, walk, or even sit, yet despite the enormous strain on their marriage and the staggering financial cost, they never considered putting him in a home. Nor are they the only victims. Dr. Humes is forced to struggle with the stain of the lawsuit and the financial and psychological burdens it brings. Meanwhile, the experts debate what happened and who, if anyone, is at fault." "In the end, the question of fault recedes behind the shared interest of all parties in avoiding a trial. The Sabias seek financial relief and security for their son's uncertain future while the defendants wish to avoid the expense and uncertainty of a protracted litigation. The risk of losing pushes all sides closer together.". "More than a story of one couple's personal anguish and devotion to their damaged child, Damages is also a timely, thoughtful exploration of what happens when our legal and medical worlds collide."--BOOK JACKET.

The Billion-Dollar Molecule raises the curtain on the fascinating and tumultuous drama of a radically new start-up pharmaceutical company. That company, Vertex, is trying to design a lifesaving new drug that - if it works - will prove the potential of a brand-new drug-making technique and also fulfill the vision of Vertex's founder and chairman, Joshua Boger, one of the most promising scientists of his generation. In early 1989 the thirty-seven-year-old Boger set out to revolutionize the drug industry, the most profitable industry in existence. Trained at Harvard and at Merck, the premier biomedical firm and perennially most admired corporation in America, Boger established Vertex to design drugs atom by atom. Barry Werth takes readers inside Vertex from its first days to profile the driven, obsessive scientists who work around the clock in pursuit of scientific breakthroughs. One member of Vertex's scientific advisory board, Stuart Schreiber, is a full professor at Harvard, younger even than Boger, and determined to win a Nobel Prize and to create new molecules that will elucidate the workings of the human cell. Schreiber, however, soon becomes Boger's chief rival in a competition between emerging scientific titans. The immediate goal for both Vertex and Schreiber is to explore the workings of a new immunosuppressant, a drug that prevents organ transplant rejections and that could have potentially wider uses. Only one approved immune-suppressing drug exists, and it has serious side effects. If Vertex can create a better drug, it will indeed be a billion-dollar molecule. But to succeed, Vertex needs money, lots of it. Every biotechnology story is also a Wall Street story, and Boger spends much of his time raising capital. With the assistance of the dean of venture capitalists, Benno Schmidt, Sr., Boger and his colleagues woo foreign companies eager to find American partners to help expand their presence in the U.S. pharmaceutical market. Eventually Boger decides to take Vertex public in an anxious initial public offering where, characteristically, he dominates his financial advisers. Meanwhile, the scientific story of the elusive target molecule proves to be more complex and surprising than even Boger imagined. This is a no-holds-barred, brilliant and compelling look at one of the key industries of our future.

Exploring the dark side of the theories put forth by such icons as Norman Vincent Peale and Eckhart Tolle by looking to both ancient philosophy and current business theory, Burkeman--a feature writer for British newspaper The Guardian--offers up the counterintuitive idea that only by embracing and examining failure and loss and unhappiness will we become free of it.