In 1995 Barbara Marinacci edited an anthology titled Linus Pauling in His Own Words. (See The Many Lives of Linus Pauling: A Review of Reviews. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, A210). Now, in association with Ramesh Krishnamurthy, Project Director of The Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers at Oregon State University, Marinacci has issued a complementary anthology of Pauling's nonscientific writings, particularly those relating to world peace. For a man who achieved so much in chemistry and molecular biology, it is astonishing to realize that for more than fifty years of his long life Linus Pauling devoted at least half his time to humanitarian causes. It is futile to speculate what else he might have achieved if he had given himself unreservedly to science. He himself had no regrets.

The present book touches on many of the great national debates of the last sixty years, Pauling having been a vocal participant in most of them. While the debates were at times hectoring, strident, and acrimonious, they were also-in stark contrast to today's political posturing-passionate about issues of great national and international importance. Here we meet the arguments of Fortress America versus the anti-isolationists; of constitutional freedoms and the rights of Japanese-Americans in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor; of the morality of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; of the infringement of individual rights during the brief McCarthy period and the much longer Cold War; of the slow, agonizing march to the Test Ban Treaty; of the still unfinished battle for universal human rights and human decencies and indeed for the very survival of the human race.

Linus Pauling played a major role in all these crusades and he and his family often suffered grievously for their beliefs. In these matters Pauling's wife, Ava Helen, played a coequal part with her husband; in fact it was she who shamed him into taking a more actively liberal role. After all, Pauling had voted for Herbert Hoover in 1932. Many of his colleagues and most of the political right took strong exception to the tone and tenor of many of these efforts. In their extensive interlinking narrative the editors admit that:

Though Pauling liked to believe that he maintained the objective rationality of the scientist, he had an intensely human side that could not be concealed where peace and humanitarian issues were concerned. In fact, this emotionalism, not permitted in the "pure" science that was his livelihood, made his messages particularly influential and appealing to people who shared his concerns. Pauling cared deeply about what happened to humankind and its fragile planet. This self-declared agnostic possessed a depth of spirit that propelled him first into social activism, then into a prophetic role. The simplicity of his vision of achieving peace on Earth was compelling. Yet to some it came across as zealotry, especially when he was driven to frustration by national and world events.

But when are Cassandras measured or prophets reticent?

Pauling retained his talent (and relish?) for provocation virtually to the end of his days. He was, however, at heart an optimist, a friend of and a pattern for youth, and a pantheistic lover of both science and the physical world. A single quotation from one of Pauling's last college commencement addresses must suffice.

"There are many great problems in the world today-encroachment on the environment, the population explosion, the maldistribution of the world's wealth, malnutrition and starvation, contamination of the environment by toxic substances, and especially the misery caused by war and the possibility of the extermination of the human race in a great nuclear catastrophe. These problems and others need to be attacked.

"This is a beautiful world. We must all work to save it. Each of you, as a graduate, has a duty to the human race.

"Each of you must take what action he can to save the world, and also take action to contribute to the development of a better world, a world worthy of man's intelligence. I repeat: Do not think that you are unimportant. You are an important part of the world."

Some of my younger colleagues already seem largely ignorant of the reasons why Linus Pauling received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954. Many others have forgotten why he was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. This book should prove a salutary reminder on the latter score. Besides, along the way, you will bump into Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Bertrand Russell and Charlie Chaplin, Pope John XXIII and Joseph Priestley, and every U.S. President from Harry Truman to George Bush.