Newton Arwin was a prominent American literary critic of the 1940s and '50s who was vilified for his homosexuality. Werth employs measured, cautious phrases in his new account of Arwin's life. He avoids extended analysis, as if afraid the...
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Barry Werth, Author . Doubleday/Talese $26 (398p) ISBN 978-0-385-51380-7
Two heavy hitters in the current administration—Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney—played roles of minor importance in the vital 31 days separating Richard Nixon's resignation and Gerald Ford's decision to pardon the disgraced...
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Barry Werth, Author . Random $27 (362p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6778-7
In this fascinating study, Werth (The Scarlet Professor
) shows how the idea of social Darwinism, as codified by Herbert Spencer, took hold in the United States, underpinning the philosophy of the Gilded Age’s social, cultural and financial...
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Barry Werth, Author Simon & Schuster $16 (464p) ISBN 978-0-671-51057-2
A startup pharmaceutical company is the focus of this intriguing look at the nexus of biotechnology and high finance; features a new epilogue by the author. (Mar.)
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Barry Werth, Author Simon & Schuster $25 (400p) ISBN 978-0-684-80769-0
In this powerful tale of a medical malpractice suit, the villains are not doctors, lawyers, nurses, midwives, hospitals or victims, though all were deeply involved. Instead, one of the lawyers in the case pointed to ""the system"" as the culprit of...
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Barry Werth, Author Simon & Schuster $25 (448p) ISBN 978-0-671-72327-9
Freelance writer Werth has taken two complex industries--biotechnology and high finance--and woven them into an intriguing story. The subject of his book is Vertex, a start-up firm headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., that set out to be among the...
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Barry Werth. Simon & Schuster, $30 (448p) ISBN 978-1-4516-5566-7
With page-turning pace and action, Werth returns to the biotech company Vertex, spinning readers through the ups and downs of pharmaceutical research in its current state nearly 20 years after first visiting it in The Billion Dollar Molecule. Werth...
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Barry Werth, read by Sean Pratt. Tantor Media, unabridged, 13 CDs, 16.5 hrs., $44.99 ISBN 978-1-4526-1988-0
Werth explores the history of Vertex, a pharmaceutical company founded in the 1980s, in order to understand today’s world of Big Pharma, with its impressive breakthroughs, cutting-edge technology, heavy regulation, and questionable practices. Though
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Barry Werth. Simon & Schuster, $30 (448p) ISBN 978-1-5011-5397-6
Journalist Werth (The Antidote) offers a riveting account of a “botched and blown” spy mission during the Korean War and the subsequent 21-year imprisonment of CIA agent Jack Downey (1930–2014), “America’s longest-held captive of war.” In 1952,...
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