4. Understanding Nanotechnology - Scientific American (Fritz, Sandy, Ed.). I strongly and unequivocally recommend this collection of essays. This is a simply easily accessible reading matter for the dense subject of nanotechnology. There are moments, however, when one is left wondering whether the lack of technical language is of any help as the subject matter is no less dense, anyhow.

5. Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Future Abundance - B.C. Crandall, Editor. This volume is a little bit dated, but some of the essays in it are visionary and quite detailed. It would be best to read this book before reading the previous title as the previous title's essays presume some technical background. The subject matter as presented by the authors of the essays in this volume is easily accessible, even facetious, in at least one case.

6. The Chastening - Inside the Crisis that Rocked the Financial World and Humbled the IMF - Blustein, Paul. Written in a refreshingly anecdotal style, and probably a simple yet illuminating introduction to international economics, this book seeks to address the causes, IMF's solutions and the failures of the contagion that felled several market economies in the 90s. My personal feeling is that the treatment of Brazil and Russia could be at least as thorough as that granted Korea and perhaps Thailand. In any event, as an exposé on the workings of the IMF, this is pretty good reading. I personally think we ought to get rid of the IMF and the World Bank, heck, any institution that propagates the western philosophy of sustaining and increasing the indebtedness of developing countries, effectively enslaving them to generations upon generations of debt because of certain bailouts of the rich. They want to both reap the rewards of high risk investments (high interest rates, open markets and no capital controls) presented by the developing market economies - which are such, by definition - and structural adjustments of the same when these leeches' risk taking comes home to roost (bilateral, corporate and international loans with conditions, many of which are untenable and insensible on the ground) but no price to pay for the already risk-loving rich. Now, I do not mind wealth; in fact, I believe that open markets and the free flows of capital are good for the future of developing markets. I think that unrestrained flows of capital and free reigning capitalism, as embodied by the highly specualtive bets placed on developing countries by foreign investors, is not the answer in dire straits. In that case, controls are the key, and one must be shameless in protecting the natives.« | »