Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries--panic, exhaustion, heat, noise--and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 06/07/2016
ISBN: 9780393245448
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.70w x 0.80d

Review Citations: Shelf Awareness 06/10/2016
Library Journal Prepub Alert 01/01/2016 pg. 67
Publishers Weekly 04/04/2016
Booklist 04/15/2016 pg. 5
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2016
Library Journal 05/01/2016 pg. 90
BookPage 06/01/2016
School Library Journal 12/01/2016 pg. 128
Choice 01/01/2017
Library Journal 01/01/2016