Rat City

Rat City is two books. One is a biography of John B. Calhoun, the researcher behind a series of experiments designed to study the effects of overcrowding in rat populations. Calhoun set up artificial warrens, eventually called "universes," designed to cause the rats to live in a crowd that would nat......more

This is probably one of those average level books. The topic is interesting enough to entice me to borrow it from the library, but the content is not as engaging as I had expected. Part of the reason is that I don't feel shocked by Dr. Calhoun's main findings (overpopulation leads to behavior proble......more

Fascinating! This was an insightful look at an intriguing scientist from a different era, when iconoclastic scientists had considerably more freedom to explore their passions. While Calhoun started with studies of rats, the implications for public policy were immense, whether they have been heeded o......more

A sad story of how a miscellaneous group of idealists showed how different environments could affect the development of society, but eventually had to abandon their experiments in the face of cost constraints and big-pharma opposition.......more

Honestly the rat stuff was pretty interesting. The scientist stuff less so.......more