It's a probing, thrilling, deeply researched and revealing treasure trove of city images, historical and modern, some pulled from archives and others filmed by Kirchheimer himself (the black-and-white ones, shot with his longtime friend Walter Hess, who's also interviewed in "We Were So Beloved").
The study thrilled the research world, prompting scientists from the government's Human Genome Project, to hail the approach as "revolutionary," while others dubbed it "a new gene therapy for the 21st century".
Fraser has been lauded for his meticulous research, thrilling plotting and sensitivity to the realities of history and human nature, as well as his refreshingly non-PC attitudes.
"Krakatoa" (the book) is, also like its subject, deserving of superlatives: It is thrilling, comprehensive, literate, meticulously researched and scientifically accurate; it is one of the best books ever written about the history and significance of a natural disaster.
Like David Cameron, he would probably be thrilled to cut research in the social science and humanities, an exceedingly small slice of the current federal budget, to unsustainable levels.
But it's thrilling to imagine that future, and to feel that my research might be a small step on the route that gets us there.
At the time of the book's publication, de Waal told me, he could sense that not everyone in the world of bonobo research was thrilled for him, "even though I think I did a lot of good for their work.
The results of his dogged research, compulsive travel and hard thinking are exemplary, useful and sometimes thrilling.
