Steven Vogel's Prime Mover provides a natural history of muscles and how they work, from exploring artificial and natural muscles in other creatures and in man's creations to understanding the power and limitations of the human muscle. Biomechanics comes alive in a discussion blending science, health, history, and mechanical insights.

This is a very good book. It is interesting and written with the lay person in mind, yet, is able to present an overview of a very complex field of study. It comes as somewhat of a surprise that muscle physiology is so complex and yet to be understood by modern science. This makes our everyday understanding of muscles all the more important. Vogel's book is a good place to start in this quest.

Vogel tackles the paradox that, as the neo-liberal revolution sweeps through world markets, new forms of regulation are called for to avoid the excesses of unfettered global competition.

He draws his empirical evidence primarily from the UK (a key country) and Japan (which is still resisting full liberalization) - while also focussing on the telecoms and financial services sectors.

He has a chapter analysing developments in all the other key economies.

Although it would have been good if he could have given developments in the USA as much space as he gives the UK and Japan, there is enough material in this rich book to satisfy anyone interested in the relationship between economic liberalization and new regulatory needs.

This book is an excellent text on the physiology of the body, told in a very approachable style. The book is readable by non-scientists, and can be read like a pleasure book. It is complete enough to use in a real physiology course (at the med school level) while still being readable. I would reccomend this book for anyone interested in the cardiovascular system, biology or physics. One note, is that the footnotes are integral to the story, and should be read along with the text; I thought they were references, until I discovered they contained important information.

This book contains numerous examples of design, from an engineering perspective. The theme is on comparing the design of evolution with that of technological invention. Although the book is almost precisely 50% natural and 50% artificial, you get the impression that the author is slightly biased in favour of technology. He acknowledges they are different: nature abhors using straight lines, engineers love them; nature has not been able to employ metals, yet they are commonly used in our constructions.

I for one would never be critical (as this guy sometimes is) of nature by saying that it never utilises metals or whatever. It doesn't need to - it isn't required. To favour an I-beam over a tree limb is foolish and misguided. Is a piece of metal or lump of concrete alive? Certainly not. The astonishing feature of nature is that it manages to evolve these things, that are inherently living entities, which can grow and replicate themselves with no awareness or foresight!
So the trouble with this book is that it doesn't address the fact that a tree does way more than just support itself: a tree is not just a vertical structure; it is an extremely complex photosynthesis machine. It is self-powered AND self-generating. It would take a tremendous amount of technology to create a very minuscule and seemingly simple creature such as an amoeba, let alone an extremely complex multicellular organism such as a hummingbird - currently, it is totally impossible. Yet nature does it for free and that is some accomplishment.

There are many obvious observations in the book, and in places it can be a little dull. I really don't think there are many people who will thoroughly enjoy this book. Either you'll be the type of person who prefers natural evolution, or you'll prefer technological invention, and so either way half of the book will not be very appealing.

A similar book is called "Diatoms to Dinosaurs". I think that book is a much more interesting read - it is predominantly concerned with nature, not with technology, and some of the examples are just so much more alluring/enticing/intriguing.

A wonderful book. Steven Vogel has the skill to to grasp attention of the reader and to mantain it over the whole book. And he can explain the way many very complex mechanical items work or many phisical law in a very clear way and with great rigour.Really, a wonderful book everyone must read.

What a pleasurable and stimulating book! Vogel is one of those rare authors who can communicate the essence of a complex technical field without either dumbing it down or making it so complex as to be unapproachable to the lay reader. "Cat's Paws and Catapults" is just full of elegant, clear text and beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations that make the difficult clear.

Vogel begins by comparing nature's solutions to problems of structure, propulsion and so forth with the creations of man, illustrating the differences and the similarities in how the two evolve. He differs with those philosophers who have argued that within nature might be found the ideal solutions to the problems of engineering and design, and gives convincing examples to support his case. He works though issues in structure, transport, proplsion and so on showing the differnt ways in which nature and man arrive at solutions, and argues why each may or may not be optimal.

One chapter is devoted to the question of scale, and how it influences design. For example, the houses built by humans are, despite all their nails and other fasteners, mainly held together by gravity. Things like nails and mortar serve mainly to keep bits from sliding off each other. That's not possible when building something the size of a bacterium; at that scale, gravity is essentially negligible.

Scale is similarly important in building a flying machine. Aircraft and insects fly in very different environments. Airplanes must fly fast to overcome gravity, whereas insects fly slowly, in an environment where drag is the main force to be overcome.

And that's just one small section. There are chapters on surfaces and angles, on soft versus hard, on pulling versus pushing, on the problem of making copies and many other topics as well.

As I read "Cat's Paws" I found myself making a tremendous number of penciled notes in the margin, arguing with some points and agreeing with others. It's not that there was that much I disagreed with, but rather that the book engaged me to the point that I felt I was in a dialogue with the author. It's that good.

If you're the kind of person who can't resist taking something apart to see what makes it work, buy this book. If you're fascinated by the workings of the natural world, buy this book. If you're just looking for a really good example of non-fiction writing in the best traditions of John McPhee, Tracy Kidder or Jeremy Bernstein, buy this book. You will not be disappointed.

A good introduction to aspects of fluid dynamics among living creatures such as plants and animals. Generally the book covers the material well with good explanations although I found that at times the concepts demonstrated were very well explained and at others not so well. Some of these fluid dynamical ideas are quite non-intuitive and I feel that a course covering this material really requires experiments to give the student a feel for the movements inherent in fluids and the various forces which act to produce the types of drag or filter feeding etc. Naturally such a course could use this book as a theoretical introduction along with maybe some sort of lab manual accompanying it. I did feel that it would have been good to have this together in one text rather than spread over two or more. Having said this I must note that this book is probably not intended in this way and possibly fits into the niche left open by the gap between a serious student text and an introduction which can be read purely for interest's sake as I did. It accomplished this second task quite well maintaining interest even though it dealt in mechanical laws and left out much of the biology, which would, if not directly, have added to the explanation offered yet, provide a link both as a source of the physics and as a means to connect the now separate streams of physics and biology, which is unfortunately nowadays always considered as completely disconnected. Darcy Thomson would have been dismayed at this process. Nonetheless some very beautiful drawings accompany the book and provide much needed sense of the plant and animal world. Altogether a fine introduction.

This is a great book to start with when getting in to the field of bio-fluid dynamics. Not only does it explain the basic concepts of fluid dynamics, but it also illustrates a large number of cases where the life different plants and animals are affected by the fluids of their environment and their interior.

"Life in Moving Fluids" is a well-written and entertaining, as well as technically accurate, introduction to the behavior of fluids. It explains many of the concepts of fluid dynamics in terms of biological examples, and is my first choice of book to recommend to biologists who want to understand the design and behavior of a wide range of plants and animals that live, as most do, in moving air or water -- our two most common fluids.

That would be quite enough distinction for a book, but the utility of Vogel's book goes farther: it is one of the best introductions to the subject of fluid dynamics for those interested in physics, such as the nature of lift and drag, or the design of buildings or wind tunnels (sometimes the same thing). It also is helpful in physical chemistry where diffusion and convection must be understood -- to say nothing of how fluids move through the pipes and junctures of our equipment.

I was inspired to write this review because I had just recommended the book to a colleague who was designing a wind tunnel to work at Reynolds numbers in the 10,000 range and whose previous sources were from aerodynamicists, whose designs are generally not appropriate at this scale. If you don't know what a Reynolds number is or why it is interesting, this book has the best explanation I've seen. It does not assume that you remember much, it teaches what you need as it goes along.

Many are the times I've recommended "Life in Moving Fluids" to students and co-workers, and in each case, I have been warmly thanked. This review allows me to thank Dr. Vogel in a practical manner for his outstanding book. He also has a penchant for the occasional pun and keeps a light tone throughout, which makes the book suitable as pleasure reading for those who enjoy the popular science magazines, but don't mind a bit more depth.

If you work in fields where fluid dynamics counts (see the section on prairie squirrels), or just fly model planes, the book is also a handy refresher/reference work. It'll blow you away.

This is an excellent book for those that are interested in learning more about how life developed on this planet. It engages the reader with a variety of examples, stimulating thought as how complexs life is and how it's bound to our physycal universe. I recommend it!

One of the most readable biology books I've ever come across. While it can easily be used for an undergraduate course in animal physiology and evolution, Vogel's text is humorous, (obscure references, funny quotes, and puns abound, adding to the text rather than detracting from it), but also covers a wide range of topics with clear explainations. The chapters are well structured and the table of contents suggests some of the more interesting highlights: why an ant might bite but can't hit, reinflating squid, plumbing the common features of the pipes within organisms, etc. While there is a strong emphasis on fluids in biology, (the author's specialty), it's an amazingly readable, well-written, and informative book on the entire subject of the physical constraints on animals for the interested laymen or undergrad. Table of contents: Constraints & Oppertunities, A Variety of Variables, Size & Shape, Dimensions Gradiaents & Summations, Gases & Liquids, Viscosity & Flow, Pressure & Flow, Diffussion vs Convection, A Matter of Materials, Arranging Structures, Insinuations About Curves, Systems of Support, Mechanics of Mobility, Staying Put & Getting Away, Energy & Afterthoughts. Also has an extensive and well-prepared bibliography, a great jumping off point for further adventures in the field.

In this book, published in 1992, a group of academics from the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy have written a series of brilliant and provocative essays on the economic foundations of the next security system, that is, of the XXI century. They define three broad scenarios: a) Controlled multilateralism; b) coexistence of blocks; and c) neomercantilism.

So far, it seems that they were right in predicting that the most likely and desirable outcome would be some form of controlled multilateralism. Certainly, it could be said that coexistence of blocks is also a reality, but we are seeing a lot more interrelation between these blocks than what the scenario took into account. Some countries have built institutional bridges across the blocks, like Mexico, which belongs to NAFTA, but also has a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union, several Latin American countries, Israel, and is now negotiating one with Japan, beyond its membership in APEC.

The security system seems to stay also within controlled multilateralism, as actions on the former Yugoslavia and Irak show. Summing up, the book's arguments and points are still relevant to analyze the world's options regarding this new century. The interplay between the economic and the security systems are clearly defined, and the tone of the book is objective, neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic. It's good analysis, even if not each and every detail is still accurate. Recommended for students of very different specialties: international economics, national security, prospective studies, etc.