Biography of the inventor of the birth control pill.

Contains excerpts from "Free to choose: a personal statement" (c1980) and "Tyranny of the status quo" (c1984) by Milton & Rose Friedman, and "Ceremonial chemistry: the ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers (c1985) by Thomas S. Szasz.

Never Lose Your Nerve! chronicles the ups and downs of a Nobel Laureate's life. Professor Alan J Heeger was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 together with Professor Alan G MacDiarmid and Professor Hideki Shirakawa. Filled with humor, this book tells Professor Heeger's story -- his love for his family, especially how his wife's love has always been his guiding light, his progress from a young student to an eminent scientist, his passion for the theatre and its impact on his science, his adventures as a successful entrepreneur, and his personal losses. Many think of scientists as risk-adverse individuals but Professor Heeger shows the absolute necessity of risk in research and that scientists are, in fact, risk-addicted, as taking the first, risky step into unfamiliar territory is a step in the right direction towards creativity and great discoveries. Never lose your nerve and you will be rewarded. Life is an exciting adventure and this book clearly demonstrates it, and is for those who are looking to impact others.'Perhaps the greatest pleasure of being a scientist is to have an abstract idea, then to do an experiment (more often a series of experiments is required) that demonstrates the idea was correct; that is, Nature actually behaves as conceived in the mind of the scientist. This process is the essence of creativity in science. I have been fortunate to have experienced this intense pleasure many times in my life.'Alan J Heeger

Responding to the controversy surrounding drug use and drug criminalization, Thomas Szasz suggests that the "therapeutic state" has overstepped its bounds in labeling certain drugs as "dangerous" substances and incarcerating drug "addicts" in order to cure them. Szasz shows that such policies scapegoat certain drugs as well as the persons who sell, buy, or use them; and 'misleadingly pathologize the "drug problem" by defining disapproved drug use as "disease" and efforts to change the behavior as "treatment." Readers will find in Szasz's arguments a cogent and committed response to a worldwide debate.

"Rich and intriguing."— Kirkus Reviews on The Last of All Possible Worlds "Convincing and haunting."— Publishers Weekly on The Temptation to Do Good Best-selling author Peter F. Drucker wrote just two novels. Here for the first time in paperback are both. In The Last of All Possible Worlds , royalty, bankers, lovers, and wives intertwine to create a vivid portrait of Europe in the early 1900s. We meet wise and worldly Prince Sobieski, Vienna’s ambassador in London, his enchanting wife, her English lover, and her enigmatic lifelong companion, Josefa. When Sobieski’s illegitimate daughter makes a demand of her influential father, the unspoken rules of the family are challenged. Sobieski’s world is further upset when two powerful merchant bankers, the tragic McGregor Hinton and the ambitious Julius von Mosenthal, arrive in London—both with their own requirements of the prince. The Temptation to Do Good tells the story of Father Heinz Zimmerman, the well-regarded president of an American Catholic university. When he attempts to help a chemistry teacher who has been denied tenure he accidentally opens the door to the underlying tensions in the university.

Alfred Bader's achievements—as the founder of one of the most important companies in its field in the world, as a collector and dealer in Old Master paintings, and as a legendary philanthropist—make for fascinating reading. This book begins where Alfred Bader's first autobiography, Adventures of a Chemist Collector, ended: with the boardroom coup in which he was dismissed from the chemical company he had built up from the ground. Bader now turns his enormous energy to Old Master paintings, in which he had become interested at a young age and in which he by now has the means to invest. The chapters that follow are roughly chronological, with some devoted to particularly meaningful paintings or groups of paintings, memorable auctions, mysteries, or discoveries relating to the artworks in the Bader Collection, while others are dedicated to friends, family, love, religion, charity, and, occasionally, chemistry.