In one sense, our book--due out in mid July--has been complete for some time. We started writing the basic text well over a year ago, and originally filed a draft back in October/November 2008. However, the editing process has been a long one (although one of the *best* such processes I've ever been through), and it only just completely ended yesterday, when I emailed off the completed index of the book to the publisher. Whew. We're not revealing too much yet about the book's contents, but perhaps I may make a few remarks here about how I've come to think about it (although these aspects were not necessarily at the front of our minds when we began):
1. It is a fairly unique collaboration between a scientist and a journalist, and it wouldn't have come to exist in its current form without two very different (but complementary minds) coming together to work on it. 2. It attempts to provide a 50 year updating of C.P. Snow's "two cultures" argument for 21st century America. 3. It is, I now also see, the sequel to The Republican War on Science, written for the Obama administration--a context in which the science community has been restored in Washington, but still has a long way to go to reach all of America.
I guess that's enough for now. We'll be releasing additional info on the book soon enough, and are starting to make some of its arguments in our talks....for more, see here.
