Modern medicine is one of the most successful branches of science, with a distinguished history of conquering many of the twentieth century's deadliest diseases. Yet today people are turning in record numbers to alternative therapies that have little or no scientific basis. Herbalists, homeopaths, crystal therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and countless other unconventional practitioners are enjoying thriving businesses. What accounts for this flight from reason in the face of hard evidence that medical doctors do a better job of treating disease and alleviating suffering than their alternative counterparts? In Magic or Medicine? Dr. Robert Buckman and Karl Sabbagh offer a response to this question by critically evaluating both alternative and conventional medical approaches to patient care. Drawing on some of the earliest written medical sources as well as their own investigations into current alternative therapies, the authors argue that healing has always been partly the science of clinical treatment (medicine) and partly an art (magic). Medicine may make the patient get well, but often it is magic that makes the patient feel well. With all the pressures under which they work, modern medical doctors often neglect the magic in their dealings with patients. Alternative therapists, however, frequently offer nothing but magic. Buckman and Sabbagh look closely at the claims made for both medical science and alternative treatments and discover a gap between the promises and the reality of each approach. Magic or Medicine? is a fascinating exploration of healing in the late twentieth century and vital reading for anyone concerned about the effective delivery of health care.

"[Sabbagh's] memoir offers a vital yet unfamiliar perspective on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a heartfelt, judicious invitation to dialogue." --Publishers Weekly Palestinians feature regularly in news headlines, but their country is much less known. In this humane and deeply compelling book, Karl Sabbagh traces Palestine and Palestinians from their roots in the melange of tribes, ethnic groups, and religions that have populated the region for centuries, and describes how, as a result of the interplay of global power politics, the majority of Palestinians were expelled from their home to make way for the new Jewish state of Israel. Palestine: A Personal History offers a sympathetic portrait of the country's rich heritage as well as evidence of the long-standing harmony between Arabs (Muslim and Christian) and the small indigenous Jewish population in Palestine. Karl Sabbagh has written both a transporting narrative and a meditation on a region that remains a flashpoint of conflict--a story of how past choices and actions reverberate in the present day.

Science is full of surprises: the peculiar peepshow beginnings of baby incubators; the unexpected positive fallout from the H-bomb; the dinosaurs that caused sonic booms; the irrational nature of the number pi; the fifth taste sensation lurking in everyone's taste buds which nobody knew about (except for the Japanese). Whilst shedding light on these conundrums, Karl Sabbagh shows that seemingly trivial queries or assumptions lead to a deeper understanding of how science works. Who would have thought that scientists would turn to the hypothesis 'All swans are white' to determine the stability of the entire universe? Or that if we choose to spend our hard-earned money on other people it might make us happier than if we spend it on ourselves?

Since 1859, when the shy German mathematician Bernhard Riemann wrote an eight-page article giving a possible answer to a problem that had tormented mathematical minds for centuries, the world's greatest mathematicians have been fascinated, infuriated, and obsessed with proving the Riemann hypothesis. They speak of it in awed terms and consider it to be an even more difficult problem than Fermat's last theorem, which was finally proven by Andrew Wiles in 1995.
In "The Riemann Hypothesis," acclaimed author Karl Sabbagh interviews some of the world's finest mathematicians who have spent their lives working on the problem--and whose approaches to meeting the challenges thrown up by the hypothesis are as diverse as their personalities.
Wryly humorous, lively, accessible and comprehensive, "The Riemann Hypothesis" is a compelling exploration of the people who do math and the ideas that motivate them to the brink of obsession--and a profound meditation on the ultimate meaning of mathematics.

"A Rum Affair" is an absorbing tale of scientific chicanery and academic intrigue--critically acclaimed and a finalist for the "Los Angeles Times"Book Prize. In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: Species of plants on the islands off the west coast of Scotland, he said, had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of evidence that the last advance of the ice sheets extended well south of mainland Scotland, but he said he had proof--the plants and grasses found on the Isle of Rum--that would make his name in the scientific world. Harrison didn't anticipate, however, the tenacious John Raven, an amateur botanist who boldly questioned whether these grasses were truly indigenous to the area, or whether they had been transported there and planted. What seems at first a minor infringement of academic honesty soon becomes an enthralling tale of rival scientists and fraudulent science, a skillful whodunit that, in the hands of the talented Sabbagh, joins the ranks of the best narrative nonfiction.