Book of the week

A biography of a secretive scientist comes with a cast worthy of a le Carré novel, says Jon Turney

John Gilbey is fascinated by the unseen fibre-optic communications cables that gird the globe

The lows and highs of a ‘rock star’ scholar cracking an impossible problem enthral Noel-Ann Bradshaw

A history of the steps humans took to explain how and why things work delights Cait MacPhee

Isabelle Szmigin on the not-so secret formula underpinning a highly profitable global model

Call it a ‘hypercane’ or a ‘weather bomb’, we’re as much at its mercy as ever, writes Philip Hoare

Helen Bynum admires a physician’s quest to distinguish alternative medicine from quackery

It’s not machines but rather man that makes us dread the clock’s tick, Stina Lyon discovers

A cross-class relationship burns bright in a study of an experiment in ethical living, says Nadia Valman

A tale of the priest, the boy, his aunt and her arrest in 1762 is first-rate micro-history, says Alec Ryrie

Paul Bernal admires an analysis of the sanctified ‘neutrality’ of the encyclopedia we all love to hate

Roger Morgan lauds a biography charting Labour statesman’s rise from a colliery to the Cabinet

Giulia Miller writes on the weird backstory to a female superhero, from women’s suffrage to lie detectors

The history of vaccinations in the US has as much to do with politics as medicine, says Helen Bynum

One-way secrets in a gripping exchange between a Kenyan and an Africanist trouble Joanna Lewis

Most people receive from the welfare state what they pay in taxes, argues Danny Dorling

Philip Hoare admires a terrifying portrait of our impact on the sands that protect us from danger

Those who masqueraded as white scarred more than just themselves, finds Catherine Clinton

K. E. Gover assesses the case for the continuing relevance of Platonic thinking to modern life

First-person accounts add complexity to popular notions of East Germany, writes Ulrike Zitzlsperger

Biancamaria Fontana on the tangled connections between historical events and mental illness

Lynne Segal on an Israeli scholar’s persuasive arguments against his country’s myths of identity

Rachel Moss praises an elegant account that sets a charismatic Maid of Orleans in political context

Resisting sexual temptation is one thing, forgoing sweets another. Natalie Gold on a study of restraint

Shahidha Bari savours a celebration of our relationship with food across genres and cultures

Sharon Wheeler on an ambitious investigation of crime fiction and its relation to modern society

A. W. Purdue on a British institution that changed lives but has been largely ignored by historians

Niamh Gallagher on the women who challenged the consensus of who could serve at the front

Despite popular wisdom, time did not stop in the Most Serene Republic after all, says Kate Ferris

Kerstin Hoge on a manifesto correcting the view that the language we speak affects how we think

Vera Troeger on a persuasive, if gloomy, look at the dangerous paradoxes at the heart of neoliberalism

Considering different timescales is a fun way to digest serious science, finds Graham Farmelo

Virginia Trimble on the search for the mysterious, magical secret ingredient of the universe

Seven men rule the Middle Kingdom, but why them? Jonathan Mirsky on a study of Party potentates

Alison Stokes on a 19th-century volcanic eruption that caused a global climate disaster

Robyn Arianrhod on a compelling tale of Jesuits, geometry and heresy in the turbulent 17th century

Danny Dorling lauds an impassioned call to tame the UK’s ever more toxic worship of money

Tony Mann enjoys a fresh application of complex mathematical thinking to commonplace events

Tiffany Taylor on a thought-provoking exploration of alcoholism from an evolutionary perspective

Lynne Segal on an analytic philosopher’s first-hand account of sexual violence and its aftermath

Dick Hobbs on how the intense nature of policing creates secondary casualties in poor communities

Luna Centifanti welcomes a disentanglement of popular confusions over brain and behaviour

A good grasp of basic statistics will help us to make the right life choices, finds Omar Malik

Elena Lombardi lauds a persuasive invitation to everyone yet to be beguiled by the Divine Comedy

New data enrich an account of the activists who refused to be counted in 1911, says June Purvis

Laurence Coupe admires scholarly insights of a kind the REF could never hope to measure

What will we need to know to reboot civilisation after the apocalypse?, asks Alison Stokes

Ascertaining the truth behind events is what matters, says Robert Gellately, not hypotheticals

Richard Williams on architectural criticism and how its narrowness affects our built landscape

Shahidha Bari delights in a lucid and graceful philosophical probing of self-consciousness

Virginia Doellgast finds workers pay dearly when big firms devolve oversight of pay and conditions

Athene Donald agrees that scientists, although not infallible, do know better about some things

Our use of housing as an asset to be traded is a collective failure that is preserving inequality, finds Tim Hall

Michelle Baddeley on an exploration of what makes us tick

Silicon Valley’s stars ceaselessly shape their image to a neoliberal ideal, Finola Kerrigan discovers

Post-war history from East and West perspectives creates vivid impressions for Roger Morgan

Beset by turmoil, an inimitable critic wrote as if from the future. Joanna Hodge on a material force

David Toop is charmed by an exploration of the pains and pleasures of the noises around us

Is utilitarianism the best way to resolve disputes in the global village? Natalie Gold investigates

Sarah Semple on the ritual and romance of this island story’s early chapters