Book Review

Bugs in the System: Insects and their impact on human affairs

N Engl J Med 1995; 332:1041-1042April 13, 1995

Article

Bugs in the System: Insects and their impact on human affairs
By May Berenbaum. 350 pp., illustrated. New York, Addison–Wesley, 1994. $25. ISBN: 0-201-62499-0

It is probably great fun to go to lectures by May Berenbaum in her Entomology 105 course, “Insects and People.” I expect she presents a great deal of information and covers a wide range of topics on the biology of insects. I expect there are a few good laughs. Berenbaum's book betrays its origin as a set of notes for those lectures, and the transition has not been completely successful.

It is an enormous task. The sheer numbers and extraordinary diversity of insects make it almost impossible to do justice to them in an introduction. There are perhaps a million species of insects, yet it seemed possible to ask an entomologist to write a paperback of 350 pages as an introduction to entomology. Is it possible to ask a historian to write a similar book describing the past million days? The historian would need to go back about 3000 years and would be less than three quarters finished when he or she reached the birth of Christ.

To make sense of such a short overview of such a huge area of knowledge, you need a guiding theme, an idea that helps readers understand which parts of the topic they are looking at and which remain to be discovered elsewhere. Unfortunately, Bugs in the System does not seem to have a guiding theme. Although the subtitle might suggest that the relation between insects and humans is the theme, it simply is not strong enough. It is difficult to get a sense of the relative importance of locust plagues, insect-borne diseases, and the role of insects in pollination, nutrient cycles, horror movies, and the art of Salvador Dali. The stories roll by, and there is a sense of the enormous impact of the relations between us and them, yet there is no real sense of purpose or of why the readers should carry on reading. There are no links between sections and no attempt to lead the reader out of one section or into another. This problem may betray the origin of the book; lectures that are given weeks apart do not lead into each other.

The style is variable, with changes that can be jerky and irritating. The language can be complex and abstruse and then suddenly switch to American slang — for example, “invertebrate parasites are a grab-bag group.” There are noun stacks that will not be understood by people who do not already understand what is being described. For example, the follicles in the testes are described as “sex cell line production centers.” An understanding of chemistry and biology equivalent to that of an 18-year-old student would be necessary to appreciate easily the variety of material that is covered.

There are lots of jokes, but like the title of the book, they are not all amusing. Jokey anthropomorphisms (e.g., bees are notorious for their short tempers) work much better in a spoken presentation, since a change of voice can indicate a change of style. In writing, jokes do not always work and do not lighten dense text. If anything, they emphasize how dense and unentertaining the discussion is.

The word “titer” appears in one chapter, although it adds nothing that the more common word “concentration” would not convey. The author defines the differences between endocrine and exocrine glands, but this information is not used or referred to again. It seems that not enough work had been done to turn Berenbaum's notes into a book that would appeal to a wide readership. The long lists of references are the clincher, because almost none of the works cited would be available to a reader who did not have access to a university library.

There are some strange omissions in presentation and coverage. First, there are no diagrams, and it is very difficult to describe in words such things as the complex structure of the eye of an insect. Perhaps it would have been better to leave out such descriptions altogether. Second, there is no reference to evolution or use of the theory as an explanation. The evolution of insect structures or lifestyles might have been a unifying theme to guide the reader through the mass of material. More than that, a discussion of how evolution might have led, for example, to several different systems of social organization by several different routes can lead to an exciting intellectual debate, which a book like this should stimulate. It should be possible to provide such a discussion without presenting evolution as dogma; perhaps it was fear of appearing dogmatic that prevented Berenbaum from trying. The third and most tragic omission is the sense of wonder and fun that I am sure Berenbaum enjoys when thinking and talking about and working with insects.

If you are thinking of taking Entomology 105 or a similar course, you should get a copy of this book. If not, you will have to wait until someone who is better served by his or her editors than Berenbaum has been writes a good paperback introduction to insects with better balance and structure.

J.Q. Rowley, M.A., M.Sc.
Oxford OX2 7DZ,United Kingdom