GOOD READING

The Future of Nuclear Power by G. Greenhalgh (author of the previously reviewed The Necessity for Nuclear Power, 1980), 213 pp., hdbd., Graham & Trotman, London, and Kluwer Acad. Publ., Nor-well, Mass., $72, is a very good book about nuclear power in general and the unjustified public perceptions about it, though it does not altogether do justice to its title. The mostly British examples are excellent illustrations, but for the US book market it is grossly over-priced, especially for a book that, in the age of word processing, has no index.

Science, Economics and the Spontaneous Order by Prof B.N. Ames, $1 from NCEB, Box 7732, Louisville, KY 40207. A great essay by a great scientist and friend of freedom.

D.J. Mitchell, Tax increases or spending restraints, $3 (?), Citiz. Sound Econ., 470 L'Enfant Plaza SW/#EB-7112, Washington, DC 20024.

P. Smith, "More collectivist cliches," The Individualist (Box 92385, Norwood 21117, South Africa) is a brief and very thoughtful essay on genuine and imagined human rights (available in Fort Freedom's library). The virtually all-English bi-monthly ($7.50/yr?) is very commendable (anti-apartheid, of course).

F.E. Planer, Superstition (377pp., sftbd., $15.95, Prometheus Books, 700 E. Amherst St., Buffalo, NY 14215) is an interesting book on people's fears and beliefs of influences and events that they cannot, or more often will not, explain rationally. The author defines superstition as "the belief affording the relief of an anxiety by means of an irrational notion." But that is not how I use the word: the antinukes are not looking for relief: they are essentially hoping for a calamity, clinging to every picocurie leaked by a nuclear plant as yearned-for proof that it spells disaster. In 1979 I debated the illustrious Sternglass; when he went into a rant of horror fiction that a meltdown would kill millions of people and forever devastate thousands of square miles, his supporters in the audience burst into tumultuous applause as if he had guaranteed them eternal salvation.