November 2006 saw a three-week conference in Geneva to review the operation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972. The BWC undertook to prohibit the development, production and stockpiling of microbial or other biological agents that have no justification for peaceful purposes, and similarly to prohibit the development of biological weapons (BW) and means for their delivery. Delegates from 155 states-parties meet every five years to discuss progress, to strengthen the treaty and to bring remaining countries into the convention. This, the Sixth Review Conference, was expected to be an uphill struggle. What was a beacon of hope in 1972 – almost a generation ahead of its counterpart, the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 – has now dimmed to the point of darkness. Confronted by disagreements, fears of violation and threats of non-compliance, delegates are turning back to first principles; to legal frameworks; and to new proposals for materials safeguards, national enforcement and international oversight. As they do, it is fortunate that they have at their disposal this timely reference – the first, as its editors say, to survey comprehensively the history of BW since the end of the Second World War. Indeed, this is the best account currently available in a single volume.

Deadly Cultures takes up the story where the excellent history by Erhard Geissler and John Ellis van Courtland Moon – published in 1999 by SIPRI – left off. In a similar spirit, Wheelis, Rózsa and Dando pay close attention to ‘verifiable primary sources’ as they trace selected themes. Inevitably, they fare best with countries – principally in the Anglo sphere – where information is most easily obtained. Even in those circles, however, security trumps access. Failed attempts to negotiate protocols, the reorganization of programmes following 9/11 and the scope of current US (and other) biodefence systems are understandably absent. Such considerations daunt all historians of science whose fields have military (or even commercial) bearing. Even so, the editors have done what they can, with the help of a ‘who's who’ of leading scholars, including van Courtland Moon on the US, Brian Balmer on Britain, Donald Avery on Canada, Olivier Lepick on France, John Hart on the USSR, Graham Pearson on Iraq and Chandré Gould and Alastair Hay on South Africa. Added to these are chapters on anti-crop and anti-animal programmes, on allegations of use and on the norms and sanctions that have surrounded states’ activities in this field.

In many ways the book clarifies and counsels. In 1945 ‘BW’ referred to the use of infectious agents and toxins (whether lethal or incapacitating), as such easily distinguishable from the synthetic chemicals that make up chemical weapons. Now, however, we see BW across a spectrum, from chemical gases to infectious diseases, spread across agriculture, husbandry and human populations. Given the ‘dual use’ of biological agents, the boundaries between defensive and offensive research are difficult to police. This alone makes for a security nightmare. Attention focuses on disarmament, but in the absence of workable methods of verification and inspection, which have so far eluded agreement, BW remains one of the greatest challenges affecting international peace – and peace of mind – in our century.

Overall, the authors are cautious in their use of evidence and sober in its assessment. Readers will find much about BW programmes before 1972, but also a good deal about the programmes of Russia and South Africa long after the convention was signed. In examining the art of the possible, the editors test the limits of intelligence and the failures of transparency. Australia and the US have put annual declarations, so-called ‘Confidence Building Measures’, on the Internet. But others have been slow to follow. Information exchange remains irregular and irresolute. And the scandalous absence of an international BWC secretariat (in sharp contrast to the OPCW, which conspicuously monitors the Chemical Weapons Convention) deprives states-parties of an official forum in which to debate and dispel (or confirm) their fears and suspicions.

In a lengthy conclusion devoted to ‘analysis and implications’, the editors set out a range of factors that, in their view, may tend either to encourage or to retard offensive BW programmes. Although the world is not safe from ‘BW terrorism’, the editors see this as likely only if there is ‘leakage’ from state-level programmes. However, offensive combinations could still arise – whether from the discovery of new toxins, or receptor systems, or from the development of ‘non-lethal’ weapons – which, while technically not proscribed by the convention, are so far deemed to fall within the ‘extended understandings’ of states-parties. The editors give little reason to doubt that, under the ‘right’ circumstances, BW could ‘move to the forefront of military thinking’ (p. 369). Were this to happen, it could trigger processes that might eliminate the ‘norms and sanctions’ that have so far contained developments in this field.

With all this material conveyed so well, it is perhaps churlish to cavil at points that deserve fuller treatment. But the political significance of BW (like CW) as the ‘poor man's bomb’ is not fully debated, nor is the possible future of BW among the ‘biological peripheries’ of Africa and Asia. On Iraq and the vexed issue of weapons of mass destruction there is a burgeoning literature that the authors have not cited, and which future scholars must consult. And while the wartime experiences of China and Japan are thoughtfully narrated, there is little new on what is happening in those countries today. Memories are long, and China awaits Japan's apologies for wartime atrocities by units staffed with medics and scientists. Indeed, this experience points to a larger question – whether, to be fully effective, the history of BW must be read in conjunction with the history of contemporary science and its implications. If generals have a tendency to fight the last war (and some politicians, to forget it), it is vital that scientists not lose sight of their responsibility to debate – and to warn of the dangers that will arise if the genie is let out of the bottle, or escapes the Petri dish.