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Memorial Volume for Sir Derek Barton
  mperial College Press is planning to publish a memorial volume for Sir Derek Barton — Nobel laureate for chemistry in 1969 — who passed away in early 1998 at the age of 79. Prof. A I Scott, who has since assumed many of Prof. Barton's duties at Texas A&M University, has agreed to be the editor of this volume. The papers, which have yet to be selected, will discuss both the academic achievements and the life of this great scientist.
 Prof. Barton was born in 1918, and entered Imperial College, London in 1938, obtaining his BSc (Hons, First Class) in 1940 and PhD (organic chemistry) in 1942. Throughout his long and varied career, he always maintained an affiliation with Imperial College, and it is only fitting that ICP should publish such a volume in his honour. Some of the awards bestowed upon Prof. Barton in his lifetime include the Fritzsche Medal of the American Chemical Society (1956); the Davy Medal of the Royal Society (1961); the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1969), for his contribution to the development of the concept of conformation and its application in chemistry; and the Longstaff Medal of the Chemical Society (1972).
In 1996, World Scientific published Reason and Imagination, a collection of Prof. Barton's papers on research in organic chemistry, selected and edited by Prof. Barton himself. The book — one of World Scientific's most popular titles — provides an excellent overview of his achievements and contributions to organic chemistry in the latter half of this century. The overall aim of the collected papers is to show how thought can direct original research, and to demonstrate how thought about old or new chemical facts can lead to originality.
New Book Series Focuses on Asian Financial Crisis
  orld Scientific will soon be launching The IMF and the Asian Financial Crisis, the first book in a comprehensive series which intends to trace and hopefully explain the wide ramifications of what began as the financial crisis of Southeast Asia. The crisis marks a profound turning point for large parts of Asia. Not only has it put a premature and dramatic end to the often-touted Asian miracle, it marks the rude awakening from a dream; the dream of an Asian age. The impact on the psyche of Asians will be severe and far reaching, and makes the careful study of the crisis and its consequences vital.
This first book brings together the different theories offered on the genesis of the crisis and examines each of the various proposed remedies. This discussion on corrective measures includes the role played by international organisations, with a particular focus on the IMF. However, before the book plunges into the eye of the financial storm, a section on the economic concepts and conditions which surround the crisis is included to acquaint the general reader with the perennial debates in macro-economics which have featured themselves so prominently in this crisis. These include flexible versus fixed exchange regimes; how open an emerging market should be; and whether capital movements should be regulated.
While it is tempting to view the financial upheaval at a regional level, a balance is struck with the economic particulars of each country caught up in the crisis. The book traces the wide ramifications of the economic crisis as it transfers itself into social dislocation and political uncertainties.
Given the topicality of the subject matter, this publication cannot be better timed. It has been observed that despite what seems to be a limitless array of perspectives on the crisis, there has been little effort made to merge these viewpoints. The rationale behind the book series is therefore to provide the interested general reader with a concise introduction to the main features of the crisis. Other projected books in the series will include an exploration of the role played by the World Bank, and an individual focus on several of the affected countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
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