Openings

The introduction I read and found engaging was Philip Alcabes’ opening in “The Bioterrorism Scare: A Historical Perspective.”
In it, Alacabes starts off by countering the opinions and warnings of the Fed. He lists the several disease scares that never happened and biological threats that never took place. Then he mentions that some in Washington want the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be transferred from the Department of Health and Human Services to Homeland Security. He uses the list of things that never happened to justify his questioning of the Fed’s proposals.
He takes all the talk of “biopreparedness” and really examines the logic behind it. He questions whether we should really take drastic action by turning our public health into a matter of civil defense or if we as Americans are just being fed a bunch of lies.
I liked the intro because he doesn’t present his personal opinion off the bat. He simply introduces the information of his topic and then questions what is right or wrong. It lets you easily transition into the next paragraph with questions to think about.
The introduction that I found non enjoyable was Hannah Ardent’s opening in “Deportations from Western Europe.
It starts off by mentioning the names of immediately unrecognizable people, places and events. It also has that long segment in parenthesis that confuses the reader in the beginning.
Also the information that is present is present all at once so it is hard to comprehend from the first reading and hard to put into historical context.
You don’t really know what she is talking about in the mass of detail from the opening paragraph until the end. However even at the end of the introduction, there’s no real thesis to the essay and you don’t know where it’s headed.
Half the time during the introduction I also had trouble keeping up with which country he was referring to. Who’s evacuating and who’s evacuating them?
She should have mentioned specifically something about the Jews having to migrate during and before WWII illegally through Europe instead of leaving it to the end. You’re lost most of the way through unless you know what she is talking about before hand.