"one of the most important books of the year…"

"…important enough to attract nasty ad hominem review spam from the Jeremy Rifkin crowd!"

So sayeth Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.

The tome in question? Ron Bailey's excellent Liberation Biology. Write-ups, contents, excerpts, sales info here.

Comments

[Stretch]

Bailey, whose work was featured in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004

I knew I had heard his name before I started reading this site regularly. I look forward to picking this up.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Of course the Jeremy Rifkin crowd is pissed. That's a good thing, BTW.

[isildur]

Bailey's book leads me to think about the dangers of modern technological advances. Here's why:

I read the link on Instapundit, wondered why I hadn't seen the book plugged here, and followed the link to Amazon. There, I read about the book, and thought 'I should read this book eventually.'

But in a flash, two things occurred to me.

One, just the night before I'd caught 10 minutes of The Usual Suspects on television. Cut, of course, and edited to include improbable non-profanity profanity. And I'd thought then, 'Why don't I own this fine movie on DVD?'

Two, about a month ago my wife subscribed to Amazon Prime, and made me set up One-Click Ordering.

Before I knew what had happened, I'd constructed a rationalization for buying Bailey's book ('Well, I wanted The Usual Suspects anyway, so as long as I'm here...') *and* The Usual Suspects ('Well, I wanted Bailey's book anyway, so as long as I'm here...') -- both of which *completely* ignored the obvious: that 'as long as I'm here' is irrelevant when you have free 2-day shipping.

That very same free 2-day shipping then enabled the whole process: by the time I could figure out the logical flaws in my consumerist reasoning, I'd already clicked twice, and the deed was done. The order was constructed.

I get both of them, book and movie, this evening. Will transhuman politics win over mindbending crime cinema? I'll let you know tomorrow.

[mediageek]

I didn't see it, so I don't know if I just missed the link or whatever, but I didn't see any ad hominem review spam from the Jeremy Rifkin crowd.

🙁

After all, getting to read stuff from a bunch of apoplectic Jeremy Rifkin adherents has got to be pretty funny.

[anomdebus]

mediageek,
Considering that the only review I see refers to "the ad hominem attack from the first reviewer, whose review seems entirely dictated by political spite", I would have to guess Amazon actually does have an editorial process. That's new to me, too.

[isildur]

Yeah, they removed it. It was the usual 'Ron Bailey is a corporate shill!' crap.

[Tom Crick]

isildur,

I'm using Firefox, and I've got a damn pulldown Amazon search in the upper right hand corner of my browser all the damn time.

...Damn, free 2-day shipping just got all that much closer!

P.S. Yes, I know I can get rid of it!