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A review by greatlibraryofalexandra
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from the Inside by the Man by Stephen Handelman, Ken Alibek
3.0
Ken Alibek originated the Biodefense program at George Mason University. I'm currently finishing my master's degree in the program (which now called Global Health Security, as of 2017), and I am probably the last student in my cohort to get around to reading this.
None of the information in this was exactly new to me. Of course, the book was published in 1999, so I was not expecting revelations, but given my work in my program - I'd already learned and discussed most of what Alibek revealed here. It is, of course, chilling and alarming; biological warfare is a much scarier threat to confront than kinetic warfare. It is truly fighting an invisible enemy, and in some ways a book like this fits in the horror genre in ways which Stephen King could never dream up.
I appreciated reading Alibek's experiences in Alibek's own words (and find myself still stunned that he lived to tell the tale). The book, though easy for a layperson to follow, was at times dull and emotionless, which was either a product of Alibek being uncomfortable in the English language, or a sign of his own scientific detachment from the horror of what he was discussing. At other times, it was gripping and sensationalist, but it all balanced out to be somewhat of an average read -- a good place for people interested in the biological phantoms of the past to start, but not a great book to read if one is genuinely interested in the complex, dynamic, and diverse bioware/biodefense landscape that exists today.
I was disappointed in the lack of attention Alibek gave to his own philosophical grappling with what was going on, which frankly led me to think in the end that he only defected because he was tired of the bureaucracy of the (failed) Soviet Union, and was keenly interested in the money he could make in the U.S. Given his reputation today as somewhat of a chicken little, my opinion there is reinforced - but it's an opinion and in no way does Alibek tout this novel as a personal examination of his morals and reasons for leaving. I simply was a little put off by the lack of in-depth attention he gave to his apparently conflicting motives as a doctor versus a good Soviet.
None of the information in this was exactly new to me. Of course, the book was published in 1999, so I was not expecting revelations, but given my work in my program - I'd already learned and discussed most of what Alibek revealed here. It is, of course, chilling and alarming; biological warfare is a much scarier threat to confront than kinetic warfare. It is truly fighting an invisible enemy, and in some ways a book like this fits in the horror genre in ways which Stephen King could never dream up.
I appreciated reading Alibek's experiences in Alibek's own words (and find myself still stunned that he lived to tell the tale). The book, though easy for a layperson to follow, was at times dull and emotionless, which was either a product of Alibek being uncomfortable in the English language, or a sign of his own scientific detachment from the horror of what he was discussing. At other times, it was gripping and sensationalist, but it all balanced out to be somewhat of an average read -- a good place for people interested in the biological phantoms of the past to start, but not a great book to read if one is genuinely interested in the complex, dynamic, and diverse bioware/biodefense landscape that exists today.
I was disappointed in the lack of attention Alibek gave to his own philosophical grappling with what was going on, which frankly led me to think in the end that he only defected because he was tired of the bureaucracy of the (failed) Soviet Union, and was keenly interested in the money he could make in the U.S. Given his reputation today as somewhat of a chicken little, my opinion there is reinforced - but it's an opinion and in no way does Alibek tout this novel as a personal examination of his morals and reasons for leaving. I simply was a little put off by the lack of in-depth attention he gave to his apparently conflicting motives as a doctor versus a good Soviet.