Immigrants Are Unsung Heroes Of Global Trade And Value Creation

AUTHORS:

BEDASSA TADESSE

PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DULUTH

ROGER WHITE

PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS

WHITTIER COLLEGE

In nearly every country that hosts foreign-born citizens, immigration emerges as a lightning rod for controversy. The economic realities of immigration, however, are far more complex than the negative sound bites suggest.

Far from being a burden, as critics claim, immigrants play pivotal roles in driving innovation, enhancing productivity and fostering economic growth in their adopted countries. They also elevate their adopted and origin countries’ standings in global value chains, contributing to economic resilience.

We are economists who study global trade and migration, and our recent work reveals that immigrants contribute far more to the economic fabric of nations than previously understood.

By facilitating what’s known as “trade in value added,” or TiVA, immigrants play a crucial role in helping countries specialize their production, move up the value chain and significantly enhance trade sophistication.

Moving up the value chain means progressing from producing basic, low-value goods to more complex, higher-value products. This shift involves improving skills, technology and production techniques, allowing a country to capture more economic value and develop advanced industries.

So, what exactly is trade in value added, and why is it important?

In today’s global economy, products are rarely made entirely in one country. Instead, different stages of production occur across multiple nations. TiVA measures each country’s contribution to a final product, providing clearer insight into global value chains. For instance, while an iPhone may be assembled in China, its components come from various countries, each adding value.

Measuring the effect on global value chains

Our study found that a 10% increase in immigrants from a particular country residing in one of the 38 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states leads to a 2.08% increase in the value added from their home country that becomes embedded in their host country’s exports to the world.

This effect was strongest in the services sector, followed closely by agriculture and manufacturing.

To understand how this works, consider Indian software engineers in Silicon Valley. Their understanding of the U.S. tech industry and India’s IT sector can lead to partnerships. These partnerships lead to Indian firms providing specialized coding services for American tech giants. The result? Higher-value U.S. tech exports that incorporate Indian expertise. This perfectly illustrates how immigrants boost trade in value added.

Or take Chinese immigrants in Italy’s fashion industry. Their cultural knowledge might help Italian luxury brands tailor products for the Chinese market and connect Italian designers with highly skilled textile workers in China. The result? Italian fashion exports incorporate Chinese craftsmanship, elevating both countries’ global fashion value chain positions.

Our findings show that immigrants are pivotal bridges in global trade networks. They leverage their unique knowledge, skills and connections to strengthen economic bonds between nations. That’s in line with previous research showing the significant role immigrants play in fostering bilateral trade.

Why immigration matters in the global economy

In an era of increasing skepticism toward globalization and migration, understanding the positive economic impacts of immigration is crucial. Our current and previous research, and the findings from related studies, indicate that rather than “stealing jobs,” immigrants often create value and new economic opportunities that might not otherwise exist.

Immigrants bring diverse skills, knowledge and networks to their host countries that can enhance innovation, fill labor shortages and open new market opportunities. They often possess unique insights into their home country markets, helping host country firms navigate cultural nuances and business practices that might otherwise pose trade barriers.

For home countries, emigrants can serve as cultural ambassadors, creating awareness, showcasing products and services, and helping to integrate their homeland into global value chains. They may also contribute to knowledge transfer, investment flows and business connections that boost their home and host countries’ economic development.

Moreover, immigrants’ ability to enhance trade in value added suggests they play a role in moving countries up the economic value chain. Rather than simply facilitating trade in raw materials or essential manufactured goods, immigrants appear to boost trade in more sophisticated, higher-value products and services. This is crucial for economic development, as countries that position themselves higher in global value chains tend to see bigger benefits.

Rethinking immigration and trade policies

Our observations have important implications for both immigration and trade. For one, they suggest that restrictive immigration policies might have unintended consequences, hindering a country’s trade performance and position in global value chains. Countries that want to become more economically competitive might consider more open immigration policies.

What’s more, our research indicates that immigrants’ economic benefits extend beyond the often-cited labor-market and fiscal impacts – in other words, having more workers who pay more taxes.

The evidence suggests policymakers should take a more holistic view of immigration’s economic effects, considering its role in facilitating sophisticated international trade and value creation.

Our results also align with previous research highlighting the potential value of workforce diversity for businesses, particularly for firms engaged in international trade. Employees from diverse national backgrounds can bring valuable insights and connections that help their companies navigate global markets and value chains.

It’s worth noting that immigrants’ impact on trade in value added varies across countries and sectors. This suggests that rather than one-size-fits-all approaches, targeted policies might most effectively leverage immigration for economic benefit.

Maximizing immigration’s positive impacts on trade and value chains also requires supportive policies and institutions that allow immigrants to use their skills and networks fully. These might include programs to assist with economic integration, language training, credential recognition and support for immigrant entrepreneurship.

A new perspective on immigration

As the global economy continues to evolve, with value chains becoming ever more complex and interconnected, the role of immigrants as facilitators of trade and value creation is likely to grow even more significant. Countries that recognize and leverage this potential stand to gain a competitive edge in the global marketplace.

Our research paints a picture of immigrants not as economic burdens but as valuable assets who enhance their host and home countries’ positions in the global economy. By making sophisticated trade linkages possible, and by boosting participation in global value chains, immigrants contribute to economic growth and development in ways that go far beyond conventional understanding.

As debates around immigration continue, it’s crucial to move beyond simplistic narratives and recognize the complex and often subtle ways that immigrants contribute to prosperity. In an interconnected world, immigrants aren’t just crossing borders – they are helping to weave the fabric of global trade and value creation.

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How The Israeli Settlers Movement Shaped Modern Israel

BY ARIE PERLIGER

DIRECTOR OF SECURITY STUDIES AND 

PROFESSOR OF CRIMINOLOGY 

AND JUSTICE STUDIES, UMASS LOWELL

The increase in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank over the past year has been unprecedented. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and the start of the war, there have been more than 1,000 attacks, according to a new report from the International Crisis Group.

The spike, which has raised international alarm, is often blamed on the permissive policies of Israel’s right-wing government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. According to a U.N. investigation, nearly half of all settler attacks documented in October 2023 were conducted in collaboration with, or in the presence of, Israeli military forces.

I have studied Jewish violent extremism for more than 20 years. I would argue these developments result from long processes tied to the erosion of Israel’s democratic foundations – that the seeds were planted long before Netanyahu came to power.

Since the late 1970s, the future of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank has been the country’s most divisive debate. Yet the once-fringe settler movement has arguably become the most influential actor in Israeli politics.

Ideological origins

Israel took over the West Bank, then ruled by Jordan, during the 1967 Six-Day War against its Arab-majority neighboring countries.

Afterward, Israel imposed martial law in the region, yet Jewish settlement in the occupied area began immediately afterward. The first settlements were erected illegally and were allowed to stay on a temporary basis. Eventually, after the right-wing Likud party came to power in 1977, the settlements gained legal status and their number expanded rapidly. Most countries, however, consider them a violation of international law.

The first groups of settlers, and still the majority of them, are part of the larger religious Zionist movement, which aspires to combine dedication to a Jewish nation-state with religious orthodoxy. These Israelis consider the emergence of the Zionist movement, the establishment of the state of Israel and its subsequent military victories as phases in a holy redemption, which will end with the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a Jewish kingdom.

Many believe this process can be expedited by restoring a Jewish presence in the West Bank, which is part of the biblical kingdoms of Judea and Israel.

In 1989, West Bank settlers made up less than 2% of Israel’s total population. Today, they constitute close to 6%, despite the fact that the country’s population has doubled.

About 150 settlements are scattered throughout the West Bank, in addition to unauthorized outposts – undermining the possibility of a viable Palestinian state with an undivided, continuous territory. As the government intensified efforts to promote settlement via various subsidies and the development of infrastructure, a growing number of Israelis have moved to the West Bank to improve their quality of life and for financial reasons rather than ideological ones.

Gaining influence

Settlers traditionally had limited representation in Israel’s Parliament. But that changed, thanks to a combination of several strategies.

Historically, the majority of the secular Israeli public was not willing to support Israel’s control over the West Bank for religious reasons. The left’s position is that settlements are an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians and are morally problematic.

In order to build support, the settlers movement adopted a complementary narrative, focusing on their communities’ contribution to national security. Activists magnified the settlements’ role as a buffer zone between the Palestinian population living under occupation and the main Israeli population centers. Today, nearly half of Jewish Israelis believe they help strengthen national security.

In addition, the movement likened West Bank settlers to the Zionist pioneers who arrived in Palestine at the turn of the 20th century and founded modern Israel – although many of those original Zionists were staunchly secular. Thus, settlers legitimized their cause by portraying themselves as followers of Israel’s founding fathers.

Simultaneously, the settlers gained power within influential Israeli institutions, including the military. Today, settlers hold prominent positions in the army’s leadership, which may partially explain the often weak response to settlers’ illegal activities.

Settlers’ political standing also rose as a result of their ability to gain positions within the government. They achieved this with the help of sympathetic ministers, by using party primaries to extract appointments and by winning existing officeholders to their cause. As right-wing governments became more the norm, some settler leaders became cabinet members.

A case in point is Uri Ariel. After leading the Yesha Council – a forum of mayors of West Bank settlements – Ariel became minister of construction, as well as minister of agriculture and rural development. Before stepping down in 2019, he promoted the expansion of settlements, as well as initiatives to specifically serve the Jewish population in the region, such as roads, tourist sites and industry.

Legitimizing violence

In the past decade, a militant stream gained increasing popularity within the settlers movement.

Known as “Hardalim” – a combination of the words “ultra-Orthodox” and “nationalist” in Hebrew – this group adopts a more Orthodox religious lifestyle. Adherents are less committed to Israel’s liberal and democratic traditions, prioritizing religious and nationalist values.

Furthermore, its leaders have embraced the followers of Kahanism, a racist ideology promoted by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the 1970s and ‘80s. Kahane proposed extreme policies to promote Jewish supremacy in Israel and the West Bank, such as calls to expel all Arabs from the country or prohibit marriage between Jews and Muslims.

Kahane’s followers also justified violence against Palestinians, teaching that harm to a Jew is a desecration of God’s name and must be avenged.

Today, some settler leaders – including past and current Parliament members such as Michael Ben Ari and Zvi Sukkot – have also promoted support for extreme policies to secure Israel’s ongoing control and eventual annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. These include population transfer – a form of ethnic cleansing – as well as mass punishment of Palestinian communities.

Ultimate victory

Following 2022 elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu included extremist settler leaders in his cabinet, which signaled to many settlers that violent and illegal acts against Palestinians would be considered legitimate.

In addition, the appointments have further politicized government bureaucracy. The minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir – a former member of the Kahanist movement – has transformed the police force, employing aggressive measures against Palestinians and demonstrators opposing Netanyahu’s government.

Bezalel Smotrich, the political leader of the Hardali stream of the settler movement, now serves as minister of the treasury. Smotrich has pushed to direct more funding to settlements, approve expansions and legalize unauthorized outposts.

Both ministers and their parties have pressured the government to escalate the military campaign in Gaza. Meanwhile, they have expanded restrictions on West Bank Palestinians, such as limiting permits to work in Israel and increasing limitations on movement – reflecting how far Israel must go to restore its democratic ethos.

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What James Earl Jones Can Teach Us About Activism And Art In Times Of Crisis

James Earl Jones

BY DOMINIC TAYLOR

ACTING CHAIR OF THEATER, SCHOOL 

OF THEATER, FILM AND TELEVISION

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

LOS ANGELES

The death of James Earl Jones has forced me to consider the end of an era.

Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Jones were giants in my industry. They were Black performers whose ascents to stardom occurred in the tumultuous 1960s, when I was an infant. All three were politically active, although each operated in a significantly different way.

In 1967, there were more than 150 riots fueled by racial tensions in U.S. cities. Many Americans worried that the nation would implode over racial conflict, and President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to study the sources of racial turmoil.

At the time, Jones was an actor of growing renown on television and the theatrical stage. He had performed in “Danton’s Death” on Broadway and was featured on NBC’s “Tarzan,” among other projects.

Jones found himself grappling with a question that has roiled many artists, then and now: In troubling times, what is an artist to do?

He didn’t give rousing speeches, as Belafonte did. Nor did he hand-deliver cash to student activists in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer, as Poitier had done.

Instead, Jones decided to work on a play about a boxer, “The Great White Hope,” which had been written by Howard Sackler at Arena Stage, a Washington-based theater company in the growing regional theater movement.

Embodying Black power

While cities were burning all over America, why would an actor hoping to make a difference sign on to play a boxer? If they aren’t willing to put their life on the line, shouldn’t they at least work on a play about the Civil Rights Movement, racism or police brutality?

However, “The Great White Hope” wasn’t a simple, sentimental sports drama. Sackler based the play’s protagonist, Jack Jefferson, on boxer Jack Johnson, who became the first Black heavyweight champion in 1908.

African Americans riotously celebrated Johnson, who had captured the title just 45 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. In the face of virulent Jim Crow racism, Johnson stood as a man who, if given a fair shot, could beat anyone.

In his book “A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927,” theater historian David Krasner argues that Johnson’s victory was one of the key events that fueled the Harlem Renaissance, the Black intellectual and cultural movement that birthed jazz music, the poetry of Langston Hughes, the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and the sculptures of Augusta Savage.

The confidence Johnson inspired was contagious: If a Black man could handily beat a white man in a boxing ring, there was no reason Black artists and writers couldn’t fashion groundbreaking works, plumbing their lives and their histories – as Hurston did – to become champions of Black culture.

The play is written in three acts, and it follows Jefferson and his fictional white lover, Eleanor Bachman, from 1908 to 1915. After Jefferson wins the title, the government hounds the couple, in part because of their interracial romance. Officials eventually detain them as they enter Ohio under the Mann Act, a law ostensibly enacted to halt prostitution but often used to intimidate interracial couples. The government tells Jefferson that it will drop the charges if he’s willing to throw a fight to an inferior white boxer.

Jones won a Tony Award for his portrayal of a Black man possessed with talent, confidence and strength, whose biggest problem was that he simply refused to stay in his lane.

A different kind of fighter

Boxer Muhammad Ali was also a big fan of Jones’ performance.

Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight title in 1967 because he was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, refusing to enlist after being drafted. When Ali saw “The Great White Hope,” he felt like he was looking in the mirror.

“You just change the time, date and the details and it’s about me!” Life magazine quoted him saying.

It’s strange to think about how historical events can be distilled into emotions like fear, love, jealousy and righteousness. But James Earl Jones was somehow able to hold a Black boxer who loved a white woman in conversation with someone unable to bring himself to fight in Vietnam.

Jones probably knew that a performance on a stage seen by a few thousand people would do little to end the Vietnam War, racial inequality or police brutality.

But I think Jones was looking to change the culture. He was trying to change the country’s understanding of what it means to fight – and what a freedom fighter is.

Is a fighter someone who knocks out their opponent? Or someone who follows their heart? Is a fighter someone who takes up arms at the behest of their government? Or is a fighter someone who’s willing to risk their livelihood for their values?

Sometimes, activism can be as simple as making art to the best of your abilities – or, as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “to use beauty to set the world right.”

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Pagers And Walkie-Talkies Over Cellphones – A Security Expert Explains Why Hezbollah Went Low-Tech For Communications

BY RICHARD FORNO

PRINCIPAL LECTURER IN COMPUTER 

SCIENCE AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING,

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY

Electronic pagers across Lebanon exploded simultaneously on Sept. 17, 2024, killing 12 and wounding more than 2,700. The following day, another wave of explosions in the country came from detonating walkie-talkies. The attacks appeared to target members of the militant group Hezbollah.

The pagers attack involved explosives planted in the communications devices by Israeli operatives, according to U.S. officials cited by The New York Times. Hezbollah had recently ordered a shipment of pagers, according to the report.

Secretly attacking the supply chain is not a new technique in intelligence and military operations. For example, the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted computer hardware bound for overseas customers, inserted malware or other surveillance tools and then repackaged them for delivery to certain foreign buyers, a 2010 NSA internal document showed. This differs from accessing a specific person’s device, such as when Israel’s Shin Bet secretly inserted explosives into a cellphone to remotely kill a Hamas bombmaker in 1996.

Hezbollah, a longtime adversary of Israel, had increased its use of pagers in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. By shifting to relatively low-tech communication devices, including pagers and walkie-talkies, Hezbollah apparently sought an advantage against Israel’s well-known sophistication in tracking targets through their phones.

Cellphones: The ultimate tracker

As a former cybersecurity professional and current security researcher, I view cellular devices as the ultimate tracking tool for both government and commercial entities – in addition to users, criminals and the mobile phone provider itself. As a result, mobile phone tracking has contributed to the fight against terrorism, located missing people and helped solve crimes.

Conversely, mobile phone tracking makes it easy for anyone to record a person’s most intimate movements. This can be done for legitimate purposes such as parents tracking children’s movements, helping you find your car in a parking lot, and commercial advertising, or nefarious ends such as remotely spying on a lover suspected of cheating or tracking political activists and journalists. Even the U.S. military remains concerned with how its soldiers might be tracked by their phones.

Mobile device tracking is conducted in several ways. First, there is the network location data generated by the phone as it moves past local cell towers or Stingray devices, which law enforcement agencies use to mimic cell towers. Then there are the features built into the phone’s operating system or enabled by downloaded apps that may lead to highly detailed user tracking, which users unwittingly agree to by ignoring the software’s privacy policy or terms of service.

This collected data is sometimes sold to governments or other companies for additional data mining and user profiling. And modern smartphones also have built-in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities that can help with locating and tracking user movements around the world, both from the ground and via satellites.

Mobile devices can be tracked in real time or close to it. Common technical methods include traditional radio direction-finding techniques, using intelligence satellites or drones, deploying “man in the middle” tools like Stingrays to impersonate cellular towers to intercept and isolate device traffic, or installing malware such as Pegasus, made by Israeli cyberarms company NSO to report a device’s location.

Nontechnical and slower techniques of user tracking include potentially identifying general user locations from their internet activity. This can be done from website logs or the metadata contained in content posted to social media, or contracting with data brokers to receive any collected location data from the apps that a user might install on their device.

Indeed, because of these vulnerabilities, the leader of Hezbollah earlier this year advised his members to avoid using cellular phones in their activities, noting that Israel’s “surveillance devices are in your pockets. If you are looking for the Israeli agent, look at the phone in your hands and those of your wives and children.”

Researchers have shown how these features, often intended for the user’s convenience, can be used by governments, companies and criminals to track people in their daily lives and even predict movements. Many people still aren’t aware of how much their mobile devices disclose about them.

Pagers, however, unlike mobile phones, can be harder to track depending on whether they support two-way communication.

Why go low-tech

A pager that only receives messages does not provide a signal that can facilitate tracking its owner. Therefore, Hezbollah’s use of pagers likely made it more challenging to track their operatives – thus motivating Israeli intelligence services’ purported attack on the supply chain of Hezbollah’s pagers.

Using low-tech tactics and personal couriers while avoiding the use of mobile phones and digital tools also made it difficult for the technologically superior Western intelligence agencies to locate Osama bin Laden for years after the 9/11 attacks.

In general, I believe the adversary in an asymmetric conflict using low-tech techniques, tactics and technology will almost always be able to operate successfully against a more powerful and well-funded opponent.

A well-documented demonstration of this asymmetry in action was the U.S. military’s Millennium Challenge war game in 2002. Among other things, the insurgent Red forces, led by Marine General Paul van Riper, used low-tech tactics including motorcycle couriers instead of cellphones to evade the Blue forces’ high-tech surveillance. In the initial run of the exercise, the Red team won the contest in 24 hours, forcing exercise planners to controversially reset and update the scenario to ensure a Blue team victory.

Lessons for everyone

The preference for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and al-Qaida to avoid using smartphones is a reminder for everyone that you can be, and likely are being tracked in various ways and for various purposes.

Israel’s purported response to Hezbollah’s actions also holds a lesson for everyone. From a cybersecurity perspective, it shows that any device in your life can be tampered with by an adversary at points along the supply chain – long before you even receive it.

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An Ancient African Tree Is Providing A New ‘Superfood’ But Local Harvesters Are Barely Surviving

The sun sets behind a baobab tree, known as the tree of life in Mudzi, Zimbabwe, Thursday, August 22, 2024, (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.

Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops. Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.

Bhitoni wakes before dawn to go foraging for baobab fruit, sometimes walking barefoot though hot, thorny landscapes with the risk of wildlife attacks. She gathers sacks of the hard-shelled fruit from the ancient trees and sells them on to industrial food processors or individual buyers from the city.

The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children’s school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe. Now, it’s a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

“We are only able to buy corn and salt,” Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. “Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”

The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.

Tens of thousands of rural people like Bhitoni have emerged to feed the need. The African Baobab Alliance, with members across the continent’s baobab producing countries, projects that more than 1 million rural African women could reap economic benefits from the fruit, which remains fresh for long periods because of its thick shell.

The alliance’s members train locals on food safety. They also encourage people to collect the fruit, which can grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and 21 inches (53 centimeters) long, from the ground rather than the hazardous work of climbing the enormous, thick-trunked trees. Many, especially men, still do, however.

Native to the African continent, the baobab is known as the “tree of life” for its resilience and is found from South Africa to Kenya to Sudan and Senegal. Zimbabwe has about 5 million of the trees, according to Zimtrade, a government export agency.

But the baobab’s health benefits long went unnoticed elsewhere.

Gus Le Breton, a pioneer of the industry, remembers the early days.

“Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident,” said Le Breton, recalling years of regulatory, safety and toxicology testing to convince authorities in the European Union and United States to approve it.

“It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years,” said Le Breton, an ethnobotanist specializing in African plants used for food and medicine.

Studies have shown that the baobab fruit has several health benefits as an antioxidant, and a source of vitamin C and essential minerals such as zinc, potassium and magnesium.

The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU. But getting foreign taste buds to accept the sharp, tart-like taste took repeated trips to Western and Asian countries.

“No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time,” Le Breton said. The tree is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.

Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder’s biggest markets. The Dutch government’s Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027. Le Breton says his association projects a 200% growth in global demand between 2025 and 2030, and is also looking at increasing consumption among Africa’s increasingly health-conscious urbanites.

Companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi have opened product lines promoting baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is hyped by some as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavor beverages, cereals, yogurt, snack bars and other items.

A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the United Kingdom, a 100-milliliter (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch 25 pounds (about $33).

The growing industry is on display at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are turned into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to make organic compost

Harvesters like Bhitoni say they can only dream of affording the commercial products the fruit becomes. She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby.

“The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack,” Bhitoni said. “I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”

Some individual buyers who feed a growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe’s urban areas prey on residents’ drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-liter (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.

“People have no choice because they have nothing,” said Kingstone Shero, the local councilor. “The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”

Le Breton sees better prices ahead as the market expands.

“I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth,” he said. “I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”.

Zimtrade, the government export agency, has lamented the low prices paid to baobab pickers and says it’s looking at partnering with rural women to set up processing plants.

The difficult situation is likely to continue due to a lack of negotiating power by fruit pickers, some of them children, said Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

On a recent day, Bhitoni walked from one baobab tree to the next. She carefully examined each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — an age-old tradition.

“It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.

For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

What To Know About The Two Waves Of Deadly Explosions That Hit Lebanon And Syria

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, MICHAEL BIESECKER, SARAH EL DEEB and SARAH PARVINI

NEW YORK (AP) — Just one day after pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people.

Both attacks, which are widely believed to be carried out by Israel, have hiked fears that the two sides’ simmering conflict could escalate into all-out war. This week’s explosions have also deepened concerns about the scope of potentially-compromised devices, particularly after such bombings have killed or injured so many civilians.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened across these two waves of attacks?

On Tuesday, pagers used by hundreds of Hezbollah members exploded almost simultaneously in parts of Lebanon as well as Syria. The attack killed at least 12 people — including two young children — and wounded thousands more.

An American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — where small amounts of explosives hidden in the pagers were detonated. The Lebanese government and Iran-backed Hezbollah also blamed Israel for the deadly explosions. The Israeli military, which has a long history of sophisticated operations behind enemy lines, declined to comment.

A day after these deadly explosions, more detonations triggered in Beirut and parts of Lebanon Wednesday — including several blasts heard at a funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by Tuesday’s explosions, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.

At least 20 people were killed and another 450 were wounded, the Health Ministry said, in this apparent second attack.

When speaking to troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made no mention of the explosions of electronic devices, but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies and said “we are at the start of a new phase in the war.”

What kinds of devices were used?

A Hezbollah official told the AP that walkie-talkies used by the group exploded on Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Lebanon’s official news agency also reported that solar energy systems exploded in homes in several areas of Beirut and in southern Lebanon, wounding at least one girl.

While details are still emerging from Wednesday’s attack, the second wave of explosions targeted a country that is still reeling from Tuesday’s pager bombings. That attack appeared to be a complex Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah, but an enormous amount of civilian casualties were also reported, as the detonations occurred wherever members’ pagers happened to be — including homes, cars, grocery stores and cafes.

Hezbollah has used pagers as a way to communicate for years. And more recently, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group’s movements.

Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, which usually makes them more resilient in times of emergency. And for a group like Hezbollah, the pagers provided a means to sidestep what’s believed to be intensive Israeli electronic surveillance on mobile phone networks in Lebanon — as pagers’ tech is simpler and carries lower risks for intercepted communications.

Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based veteran and a senior political risk analyst who says he has had conversations with members of Hezbollah and survivors of the attack, said that the newer brand of pagers used in Tuesday’s explosions were procured more than six months ago. How they arrived in Lebanon remains unclear.

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday it had authorized use of its brand on the AR-924 pager model — but that a Budapest, Hungary-based company called BAC Consulting KFT produced and sold the pagers.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said that it had no records of direct exports of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon. And Hungarian government spokesman later added that the pager devices had never been in Hungary, either, noting that BAC had merely acted as an intermediary.

Speculation around the origins of the devices that exploded Wednesday has also emerged. A sales executive at the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese walkie-talkie maker Icom told The Associated Press that the exploded radio devices in Lebanon appear to be a knock-off product and not made by Icom.

“I can guarantee you they were not our products,” said Ray Novak, a senior sales manager for Icom’s amateur radio division, in an interview Wednesday at a trade show in Providence, Rhode Island.

Novak said Icom introduced the V-82 model more than two decades ago and it has long since been discontinued. It was designed for amateur radio operators and for use in social or emergency communications, including by people tracking tornadoes or hurricanes, he said.

What kind of sabotage would cause these devices to explode?

Tuesday’s explosions were most likely the result of supply-chain interference, several experts told The Associated Press — noting that very small explosive devices may have been built into the pagers prior to their delivery to Hezbollah, and then all remotely triggered simultaneously, possibly with a radio signal. That corroborates information shared from the U.S. official.

A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device has five main components: A container, a battery, a triggering device, a detonator and an explosive charge.

“A pager has three of those already,” said the ex-officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he now works as a consultant with clients on the Middle East. “You would only need to add the detonator and the charge.”

This signals involvement of a state actor, said Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert. He added that Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, was the most obvious suspect to have the resources to carry out such an attack. Israel has a long history of carrying out similar operations in the past.

The specifics of Wednesday’s explosions are still uncertain. But reports of more electronic devices exploding may suggest even greater infiltration of boobytrap-like interference in Lebanon’s supply chain. It also deepens concerns around the lack of certainty of who may be holding rigged devices.

How long was this operation?

It would take a long time to plan an attack of this scale. The exact specifics are still unknown, but experts who spoke with the AP about Tuesday’s explosions shared estimates ranging anywhere between several months to two years.

The sophistication of the attack suggests that the culprit has been collecting intelligence for a long time, explained Nicholas Reese, adjunct instructor at the Center for Global Affairs in New York University’s School of Professional Studies. An attack of this caliber requires building the relationships needed to gain physical access to the pagers before they were sold; developing the technology that would be embedded in the devices; and developing sources who can confirm that the targets were carrying the pagers.

Citing conversations with Hezbollah contacts, Magnier said the group is currently investigating what type of explosives were used in the device, suspecting RDX or PETN, highly explosive materials that can cause significant damage with as little as 3-5 grams. They are also questioning whether the device had a GPS system allowing Israel to track movement of the group members.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an expert in military arms who is director of the Australian-based Armament Research Services, added that “such a large-scale operation also raises questions of targeting” — stressing the number of causalities and enormous impact reported so far.

“How can the party initiating the explosive be sure that a target’s child, for example, is not playing with the pager at the time it functions?” he said.

Associated Press journalists Johnson Lai in Taipei, Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island contributed to this report.

BOOK REVIEW: Connie Chung Signed Off, But She Isn’t Done Talking

Connie Chung

BY MARGARET SULLIVAN

In a frank and entertaining new memoir, the TV newscaster recounts how sexism, and Dan Rather, sidelined her groundbreaking career.

The day she was named co-anchor of the “ CBS Evening News” alongside Dan Rather, Connie Chung felt that she had reached the pinnacle of broadcast journalism.

“Thursday, May 14, 1993, was the best day of my professional life. … I had my dream job,” she writes in an entertaining and revealing memoir that traces the triumphs and disappointments of her prominent career.

The anchor appointment meant even more because she was a Chinese American woman, brought up by strict parents; in accordance with tradition, she lived with them until she was nearly 30, even as she was climbing the ladder — often wearing stiletto heels.

In “Connie,” Chung writes breezily and with irreverent humor about the scoops, the internal politics and the pure hustle that eventually got her to the top. She worked the Watergate beat for CBS in Washington in the 1970s and moved to Los Angeles to anchor the CBS-owned local station before her big break came — and big, it certainly was.

In her era, network newscasts ruled the airwaves, cable news was just beginning its rise and news flooding in via smartphone was more than a decade away. The evening anchors were household names.

Rather had been named the immediate successor to the revered Walter Cronkite at what was nicknamed the Tiffany Network, so the promotion of an Asian American woman to work alongside him was quite a breakthrough.

But Chung’s seat at the anchor’s desk would be short-lived.

In a chapter titled “The Ax,” she describes the life-changing, if not entirely unexpected, call from her agent just as she was about to go on the air one evening. That telecast, only two years after her appointment, would be her last on the “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and Connie Chung.”

Rather again would anchor solo. Years later, he too would famously be ousted from the anchor chair, and eventually from CBS altogether, after his involvement in a controversial story about George W. Bush’s Vietnam-era service in the National Guard.

As Chung persuasively maintains, sexism shadowed her career.

“Many men in television news, especially those who became anchormen, contracted a disease: big-shot-itis,” she writes. “It was characterized by a swelling of the head, an inability to stop talking, self-aggrandizing behavior, narcissistic tendencies, unrelenting hubris, delusions of grandeur and fantasies of sexual prowess.”

Network bosses stuck her with frothy reporting assignments. Instead of covering wars like the guys, she was relegated to stories like the ice-skating scandal involving Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.

Worse, though, was the network’s handling of her 1995 interview with Newt Gingrich’s mother, an incident that would become known in TV circles as “Bitchgate.” During a face-to-face exchange, the new House speaker’s mother confided to Chung, in a whisper, that her son had called Hillary Clinton a derogatory name; when CBS released a brief, out-of-context clip of the recorded interview, it gave the false impression that Chung had tricked her.

But it’s Rather who is most directly in Chung’s cross hairs. She portrays him as controlling, unwilling to share the spotlight and even as the perpetrator of a stealth campaign to TV critics and colleagues about how her journalism didn’t measure up.

After she was dumped from the evening newscast, CBS offered Chung various less prestigious roles. As she struggled with whether to accept, fate intervened. Over the years, Chung had suffered several miscarriages, and she and her husband, the well-known talk show host Maury Povich, had been trying to adopt. Only two days after she tumbled from the journalistic heights, word came that a baby boy had been born and would come to them as adoptive parents.

Approaching 50, Chung walked away from CBS News, and into life as a mother. She describes the happiness that her long marriage and new baby brought, and brings candor and vulnerability to her later efforts to revive her career.

“I succeeded in having it all, although at different stages of my life,” she reflects. “First a career, then a baby. … Surely, the topsy-turvy order is not for all.”

What sweetens the memories is that another consolation prize would come along. In 2019, she writes, a young reporter named Connie Wang got in touch. As it turned out (and was later documented in a 2023 New York Times Opinion piece, “Generation Connie”), a remarkable number of Asian American parents had proudly named their baby daughters after her.

For Chung, who felt great pressure to bring honor to the family name — she sometimes wished she were a man and thus better able to do so — this discovery had great meaning. “I had always perceived my career as rocky,” she writes. “Dare I rethink my life’s work was worthy after all?”

Chung’s heartbreaking career was also groundbreaking — not only in the moment and on the air, but in the “sisterhood of Connies” who form a living legacy.

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Health Care Under Harris Versus Trump: A Public Health Historian Sizes Up Their Records

BY ZACHARY W. SCHULZ

LECTURER OF HISTORY

AUBURN UNIVERSITY

Health care is a defining issue in the 2024 election – Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican contender Donald Trump have starkly different records on the issue. Rather than focusing on what they promise to do, let’s examine what their past actions reveal about their approaches to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, public health infrastructure, drug policy and child abuse and domestic violence prevention.

As a specialist in public health history and policy, I have carefully examined both candidates’ records on American health care. With years of experience in the health care field and being a cystic fibrosis patient myself, I have developed a deep understanding of our health care system and the political dynamics that shape it.

For me, as for many other Americans, health care is more than just a political issue; it is a deeply personal one.

Medicare

During Harris’ time in the Senate, she co-sponsored the Medicare for All Act, which aimed to expand Medicare to all Americans, effectively eliminating private insurance.

At the presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024, Harris clarified her former support of “Medicare for All” by emphasizing her prior legislative efforts to preserve and expand protections for patients’ rights and access to affordable health care.

Harris’s legislative efforts, primarily around the 2017-2020 period, reflect a commitment to broadening access to Medicare and reducing costs for seniors. During that time, Harris advocated for the Medicare program to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.

Later, as vice president, Harris cast a tie-breaking vote on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, allowing the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare with pharmaceutical companies.

In contrast, during Trump’s presidency, he made several attempts, some of which were successful, to cut funding for Medicare. The 2020 budget proposed by his administration included cuts to Medicare totaling more than US$800 billion over 10 years, primarily by reducing payments to providers and slowing the growth of the program.

The proposed cuts did not take effect because they required Congressional approval, which was not granted. The plan faced significant opposition due to concerns about potential negative impacts on beneficiaries.

Affordable Care Act

Harris has been a staunch defender of the Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA or “Obamacare.” As a senator, Harris consistently voted against any efforts to repeal the ACA. She advocated for expanding its provisions, including supporting legislation that aimed to strengthen protections for people with preexisting conditions and increase funding for Medicaid expansion.

Harris’ record shows a clear commitment to ensuring broader health coverage under the ACA. And, in the recent debate, Harris noted this record and reasserted her commitment to the act.

During his presidency, Trump led multiple efforts to repeal the ACA, including the 2017 American Health Care Act, which would have significantly reduced the scope of Medicaid expansion and removed individual mandates.

Although these efforts ultimately failed in the Senate, Trump succeeded in weakening the ACA by eliminating the individual mandate penalty through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In the debate against Harris, Trump reiterated his position that the Affordable Care Act “was lousy health care,” though he did not ultimately offer a replacement plan, stating only that he has “concepts of a plan.”

Public health infrastructure

Harris’ tenure in the Senate, from January 2017 to January 2021, shows a consistent pattern of supporting public health infrastructure. She co-sponsored several bills aimed at increasing funding for community health centers and expanding access to preventive care.

Harris also advocated for more federal funding to address public health emergencies, such as the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic.

During Trump’s presidency, however, he made significant cuts to public health programs. The Trump administration proposed budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health agencies, arguing that they were necessary for fiscal responsibility. These proposals drew criticism for potentially undermining the nation’s ability to respond to public health emergencies, a concern that was underscored by the CDC’s struggles during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump frequently has responded to these criticisms by asserting he “cut bureaucratic red tape” rather than essential services.

Drug pricing policy

Harris has also supported legislation to lower drug prices and increase transparency in the pharmaceutical industry. She co-sponsored the Drug Price Relief Act, which aimed to allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare directly. She also supported efforts to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. Her record reflects a focus on reducing costs for consumers and increasing access to affordable medications.

Trump’s record on drug policy is mixed. While Trump took credit for some decreases in prescription drug prices during his presidency, his administration’s most significant regulatory changes favored pharmaceutical companies. The administration’s attempts to implement a rule allowing the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada faced significant hurdles and did not lead to immediate changes.

Trump also ended a rule that would have required pharmaceutical companies to disclose drug prices in television ads, citing concerns over its legality.

Child abuse and domestic violence

Harris has a strong record of advocating for the prevention of child abuse and domestic violence. During her time as California’s attorney general and as a senator, Harris pushed for legislation that increased funding for domestic violence prevention programs and expanded legal protections for survivors. She has consistently supported measures to enhance child welfare services and improve coordination among agencies to protect children.

Trump’s record on these issues is less defined, but his administration did sign into law the Family First Prevention Services Act, which aimed to keep more children safely at home and out of foster care by providing new resources to families. However, critics argue that the Trump administration’s broader cuts to social services and health programs could indirectly undermine efforts to combat child abuse and domestic violence. In addition, some experts suggest that Trump’s family separation policies on the southern border contributed to an increase in child trauma during his administration.

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‘They’re Eating Pets’ – Another Example Of US Politicians Smearing Haiti And Haitian Immigrants

Immigration was a big Donald Trump talking point in his Sept. 10, 2024, presidential debate against Kamala Harris. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

BY NATHAN H. DIZE

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF FRENCH,

ARTS & SCIENCES AT WASHINGTON

UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance continues to defend the false claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been abducting and eating area cats and dogs.

That outlandish idea has been thoroughly debunked since former President Donald Trump repeatedly raised it as an anti-immigrant talking point in the Sept. 12, 2024, presidential debate. Trump never mentioned where the migrants allegedly “eating the pets” came from, but many viewers understood it as a reference to Haitians, a population that Trump has previously degraded.

As debate moderator David Muir stated in his real-time fact check, there is no evidence that any pets in Springfield have been taken or consumed. NPR and other media outlets have also declared the rumor, which began with local right-wing advocates and officials in Springfield decrying the city’s disorganized response to an influx of Haitian migrants in recent years, to be false.

The Republican ticket’s untrue rumors about Haitians in Springfield reflects a long history of prejudice toward Haitians in the United States. As a scholar of Haitian history and literature, I have identified three anti-Haitian ideas prevalent in the United States that will help put the Springfield story into context.

1. The unfitness of Haitians ‘to govern themselves’

In July 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson invaded Haiti under the guise of restoring order and economic stability following the assassination of Haitian President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.

Five years into what would become a 19-year military occupation, the American diplomat and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson was sent by the NAACP to investigate the supposed benefits of the occupation. His resounding takeaway: “The United States has failed Haiti.”

In related pieces for The Nation and The Crisis, Johnson chronicled abuses ranging from extra-judicial killings of Haitian citizens – U.S forces killed 15,000 Haitians between 1915 and 1934 – to the harassment and rape of Haitian women. Johnson said the U.S. occupation amounted to nothing more than a belief in the “unfitness of the Haitian people to govern themselves.”

By undermining Haitian sovereignty, Wilson’s administration had successfully created a justification for seizing control of Haitian banks, rewriting its constitution and importing American Jim Crow-style segregation into the capital city of Port-au-Prince. This was a clearly racist presidential administration that hosted White House screenings of D.W. Griffiths’ anti-Black film “Birth of a Nation,” as historian Yveline Alexis demonstrates in her book “Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte.”

“Racism,” Alexis writes, “was at the core of the seizure of Haiti and all interactions with Haitians.”

2. The ‘4H disease’

In June 2017, Trump reportedly “stormed into a meeting” on immigration from Haiti and repeated a slanderous anti-Haitian claim: “They all have AIDS,” he said.

The account, from author Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, shows the then-president repeating a falsehood that has circulated since HIV erupted in the 1980s.

Ever since a number of Haitians fell ill while at a Florida immigrant detention center in June 1982, Haitians became part of what the late public health expert Paul Farmer called the “geography of blame” that linked this highly communicable disease to certain places and people.

The federal government turned a small disease cluster into a migration policy designed to keep Haitians out of the U.S.

Betweeen 1981 and 1991, more than 27,000 Haitian asylum-seekers fleeing Jean-Claude Duvalier’s dictatorship were intercepted off the coast of Florida and detained. The vast majority were repatriated, in part because of a deportation agreement with Duvalier and in part because stopping Haitians at sea was a “screening strategy” to prevent HIV/AIDS from spreading in the U.S.

The Reagan administration called the virus the “4H disease,” referring to Haitians, hemophiliacs, homosexuals and heroin users. This designation spread harmful lies about four groups, but Haitians were the only nationality singled out as an “at-risk” population for contracting HIV/AIDS.

By the time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed Haitians from its list of highest-risk groups in 1985, the damage had been done. Haitians in the U.S. were effectively vilified as vectors of a deadly virus.

As a young Haitian man in Port-au-Prince remarked to writer Martha Cooley in 1983, “This 4H thing is just one more way to keep us out.”

3. Haiti’s problems are homegrown

Haiti’s occupation by foreign forces has continued on and off in different forms since the U.S. invasion of 1915.

United Nations troops were stationed there for nearly two decades following the the 2004 ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide. After the devastating 2010 earthquake, they were joined by the Red Cross and Oxfam. As all three organizations have since acknowledged, their humanitarian interventions left numerous crises in their wake, including cholera, chronic corruption in rebuilding projects and a market for sexually exploiting young girls.

Still, Haiti has long faced the accusation that its instability is homegrown. It is widely portrayed in the U.S. as a basket-case nation incapable of managing its own affairs. Trump, as president, once dismissed the entire country as a “shithole.”

At present, Haitians are coping with overlapping crises that have U.S. fingerprints.

After President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, the Biden administration hand-picked Haiti’s interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, as its new leader. This undemocratic decision was such a resounding failure that in March 2024, Haitian gangs revolted against Henry’s administration, unleashing a wave of gruesome violence that ultimately forced Henry out of office.

So many catastrophes in Haiti over the past four decades have created an overwhelming sense of insecurity among its people. Many hundreds of thousands have fled the country for the U.S., Dominican Republic, Brazil and beyond.

In July 2024, the Biden administration granted temporary protected status to 500,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S., allowing them to stay in the country, in recognition of the life-threatening conditions back home.

The people Trump insists are “illegal aliens” are in fact authorized U.S. residents from a country buffeted by American meddling in its politics.

A very old pattern

In barking about cats and dogs in Springfield, Trump, Vance and their right-wing supporters are spreading the same kind of anti-Haitian rhetoric that has sown a harmful distrust of Haitian migrants for over a century.

“This is not the first time that we [Haitians] have been the victims of ‘yon kanpay manti,’” said the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad in a press release following the debate, using the Haitian Creole phrase for “a campaign of lies.”

The result of such misinformation, it added, is “mistreatment, hatred, and misunderstanding in the interest of politics.”

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Book Review: A Neurosurgeon’s Inside Look At The Brain

BY ERICA GOODE

Many years ago, I read a book about neurosurgery by a journalist who had undergone an operation for a brain hemorrhage. One anecdote is still vivid in my memory: a story about a neurosurgical resident who was slowly drilling a burr hole in a patient’s skull when the drill suddenly jammed and then broke through, plunging the equipment into the brain and killing the patient.

No such misadventure is included in “Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery,” although the author, Theodore H. Schwartz, cautions that neurosurgeons wielding power drills must develop enough skill “to know exactly when to stop” to avoid just such disastrous accidents from occurring.

But there are other medical mishaps and misjudgments described in this sprawling book, examples that Schwartz, a neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, uses to underscore both the risks of mucking around in the brain and the scientific and medical advances that have emerged from doing so.

In an early chapter, Schwartz, who specializes in brain tumors and epilepsy and is known for his expertise in minimally invasive neurosurgery, describes making a serious mistake himself: As a first-year resident, he accidentally grabbed a vial of potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, and handed it over to be injected into a patient’s IV, triggering a cardiac arrest. He quickly admitted his error to the senior resident, he writes — “Don’t tell anyone what you just told me,” he reports that she said — allowing her to save the patient’s life.

“Gray Matters” is not quite a memoir, not quite a history, not quite a medical thriller, not quite an anatomy text, but at different points it seems to aspire to each of these things.

Virtually everything that can harm the human brain is contained in the book’s more than 500 pages, from tumors and gunshot wounds to sports injuries, shaken baby syndrome, aneurysms, and psychosurgery.

In the prologue, Schwartz ushers his readers into the operating room, where he is about to operate on a patient who has a tumor just behind the left eye. He intends to take out the malignancy not in the traditional manner — with a craniotomy, removing a slab of bone from the side of the patient’s skull — but by accessing the brain through the eye socket.

A few days before, he had met with the man to discuss the surgery. “My goal is to project calmness and confidence,” he writes, “like an airline pilot letting the passengers know they are headed into a bit of turbulence but that everything will be fine.”

In fact, Schwartz had never performed this novel procedure before. His patient had consulted several other specialists, “all of whom recommended — no, more like insisted,” that a craniotomy was the only way to go, he writes. But if the surgery is successful, it will allow the patient a faster recovery, and minimize any of the potential damage a craniotomy might do to the brain.

Drilling through bone and cutting a small hole in the covering of the brain, he removes the tumor “with just a few scoops of the curette,” a process that takes only 10 or 15 minutes. “Dare I say it was … easy?” he asks readers.

Indeed, if there is an overarching goal of “Gray Matters,” it may be to deconstruct the common saying “It’s not brain surgery,” an aphorism Schwartz returns to more than once in the book, sometimes to refute it, sometimes to show how it applies.

Moving from chapter to chapter, he details the rigorous and lengthy training that neurosurgeons undergo. He cites the relatively recent arrival to the field of women, minorities, and people with disabilities and reviews the portrayals of neurosurgeons in movies and television shows.

Readers are introduced to a roster of the field’s most noted practitioners, including Harvey Cushing, who practiced in the early 1900s and is known as “the undisputed founding father” of neurosurgery; Walter Dandy, a student of Cushing’s at Johns Hopkins and later Cushing’s rival; and Wilder Penfield, who pioneered a neurosurgical treatment for epilepsy, mapping of the brains of patients while they were awake. And after an extended look at brain-computer interfaces, he ends the book with a philosophical discussion of free will, personality, and the concept of self.

Sprinkled through “Gray Matters” are case histories — historical and contemporary — many of which involve people who made headlines for problems that are of interest to neurosurgeons. In a section on penetrating head trauma, for example, Schwartz analyzes the bullet wounds that killed Presidents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, and those that allowed James Brady and Gabby Giffords to live.

He recounts the fatal 2009 skiing accident of the actress Natasha Richardson, who felt fine for about an hour after she fell and hit her head, a period of time that neurosurgeons refer to as “the lucid interval” — before dying from a brain hemorrhage. And in a section on so-called second impact syndrome, or SIS, he writes about four teenage football players who died or had severe brain damage after receiving blows to the head during games spanning from 2006 to 2010, cases that led to the passage of laws requiring that students with suspected concussions be examined and then cleared by a doctor before being allowed back on the field.

Schwartz uses the football example, as he does with other cases throughout the book, to underline a broader point: The controversy over the deaths of the football players — originally thought to occur after a prior concussion — led to a better understanding of the causes of such fatal injuries.

The term SIS and the focus on prior concussions, Schwartz notes, turned out to be misleading. “Trying to create a disease by lumping together a hodgepodge of symptoms and imaging findings can sometimes do more harm than good,” he writes. “Although the intent is to protect patients and make the doctors’ jobs easier, until the real cause of the problem is understood, it may be best to just describe the findings and treat them individually rather than concern ourselves with whether a case is manifestation of a syndrome such as SIS.”

And throughout the book, he is not shy about giving voice to unpopular opinions. In a section on psychosurgery, the field’s “dark chapter,” as he calls it, he argues that not every frontal lobotomy performed in the mid-1900s to treat mental illness was disastrous for the patient. Although the lobotomy, developed as a treatment in the 1930s by Antonio Egas Moniz, caused damage not just to patients but to the reputation of the field, he writes, many people “were indeed better off after the procedure,” and it led to the development of the more precise and sophisticated psychosurgeries used today.

As a writer, Schwartz is no Oliver Sacks, and he is prone to periodic dips into clunkiness: “People ask me all the time, ‘What’s it really like to be a brain surgeon?’ and I never have a good answer. I mean how much time have you got?” he writes at one point. But neither does he succumb to the cookbook “reader-friendly” prose found in many aspirational books by doctors. His tone is conversational, and his narratives easy to read, if not paragons of writerly style.

Yet who the audience is for this book remains a question. In some parts, Schwartz seems to be speaking to colleagues, in others to students, in others to a more general readership. Those with a strong interest in medicine or the workings of the brain will find “Gray Matters” engaging, despite its length and overambitious list of topics. Others may not.

In the end, though, Schwartz makes a persuasive case for the field’s remarkable technological advances. “We are standing on the precipice of the next great leap in human evolution, and if my hunch is correct, neurosurgeons will play a pivotal role in the forthcoming transformation of our species.”

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