A Desperate Passion; An Autobiography

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [8], 366,[10] pages. Illustrations. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Caldicott became a leader in the anti-nuclear movement in the United States through her role in reviving the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility and her role along with Randall Forsberg as one of the leaders of the Nuclear Freeze Movement. She has continued to publicize her concerns, dividing her time between the United States and Australia and lecturing on nuclear energy, weapons and power, notably on the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Norman Cousins Award for peace-making, and the Margaret Mead Award, Helen Caldicott was also the founder of the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND). This candid self-portrait reveals a charismatic and uncompromising woman whose remarkable efforts to save the world continue even today. In 1995, the Physicians for Social Responsibilities umbrella affiliate, The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Derived from a Kirkus review: A maverick's life, told with grace and good humor. Caldicott, famed as an antinuclear activist and as a founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility but less well known as an early researcher of cystic fibrosis, has much to tell. Born Helen Broinowski into a family of Australian social progressives, she was one of the first female medical doctors to practice in her native country. She was also, early on, an outspoken critic and pacifist. ' This is evident in her narrative of her early days as an activist, when she gave talks to Australian ladies' clubs and delivered the feminist gospel according to Germaine Greer-along with frank reminders that venereal disease is a possible outcome of sexual intimacy. Such remarks shocked her staid listeners. In later years, she has crusaded more widely for women's causes, for socialized medicine, for gun control and, of course, for disarmament and the abolition of nuclear testing. One of the highlights of her book is an aside on how she bluffed Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, playing each off against the other, into endorsing her call for arms talks. Closely concerned with the big issues of our time, Caldicott does not often share the details of her own life, but when she does, it is with emotional power, as when she writes affectingly of the dissolution of her long marriage, and of her love for the natural world. A treat for Caldicott's many admirers.