Showing results by author "Francis Gavin" in All Categories

Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for US nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.

This book is about the contours and landscapes of mental health. The Unfragile Mind traces some of the routes through mental health that Dr Gavin Francis's patients have shown him over his decades as a physician. The twenty-first century has opened up vital conversations about 'mental weather': moods that bring gusts of panic, others that bring freezing fogs of despondency.

We have a lifetime's association with our bodies, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory. In Adventures in Human Being, Gavin Francis leads the listener on a journey through health and illness, offering insights on everything from the ribbed surface of the brain to the secret workings of the heart and the womb; from the pulse of life at the wrist to the unique engineering of the foot.

It seems obvious that we should use history to improve policy. If we have a good understanding of the past, it should enable better decisions in the present, especially in the extraordinarily consequential worlds of statecraft and strategy. But how do we gain that knowledge? How should history be used? Sadly, it is rarely done well, and historians and decision-makers seldom interact. But in this remarkable book, Francis J. Gavin explains the many ways historical knowledge can help us understand and navigate the complex, often confusing world around us.

Since its birth in 1948, the powers that be have chipped away at the NHS. Now, Britain's best-loved institution is under greater threat than ever, besieged by a deadly combination of underfunding, understaffing and the predatory private sector. In the wake of the pandemic, we have come to accept a 'new normal' of permanent crisis and years-long waiting lists. But, as Gavin Francis reveals in this short, vital book - it doesn't have to be this way, and until recently, it wasn't.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people and infected millions while also devastating the world economy. The consequences of the pandemic, however, go much further: they threaten the fabric of national and international politics around the world. What will be the consequences of the pandemic, and what will a post-COVID world order look like? No institution is better suited to address these issues than Johns Hopkins University, which has convened experts from within and outside of the university to discuss world order after COVID-19.

Some movie ideas should just stay in the writer's room.