Book Description

This is popular science at its best, a great subject, unfolded with the skill of the storyteller; at once a mine of information and a thoroughly good read."
–The Sunday Times (London)

"This well-written book is an examination of the very character of all chemicals."
–The Sunday Telegraph (London)

Discovered by alchemists, prescribed by apothecaries, exploited by nineteenth-century industrialists, and abused by twentieth-century combatants, phosphorus is one of nature’s deadliest–and most fascinating–creations. Now award-winning author John Emsley combines his gift for storytelling with his scientific expertise to present an enthralling account of this eerily luminescent element. From murders-by-phosphorus where the bodies glowed green, to the match factory strike that helped end child labor in England, to the irony of the World War II firebombing of Hamburg, to even deadlier compounds derived from phosphorus today, The 13th Element weaves together a rich tableau of brilliant and oddball characters, social upheavals, and curious, bizarre, and horrific events that comprise the surprising 300-year history of nature’s most nefarious element. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

An Entire Book About One Element?
Now, how could an entire book (over 350 pages no less) about phosphorus be interesting? It glows in the dark, it oxidizes on contact with air, it's an essential element, compounds of phosphorus are used in fertilizers and there was something about pollution several years ago. That about covers it, right? Well, actually not quite. Even though I am a chemist by profession, I was surprised to find out about (among other things) the huge fortunes built on the match business and the connection of these enterprises to the first appearance of organized labour movements. Also, how many are aware that the whole condemnation of phosphate detergents may have been completely misguided?

Emsley has created a thoroughly engrossing tale of the discovery and use of one of the more common elements on our planet as well as being able to include a sizable amount of solid scientific information in a thoroughly engrossing form. Other reviewers have outlined in some detail the contents of this book but let me emphasize that the "science" never gets in the way of the narrative. Anyone who has even a passing interest in natural science should find this book an excellent read. I purchased this book in hardback form some time ago but have given a couple of the paperback copies away to friends and have not gotten a negative response yet.

A melancholy history of a fascinating element
This was first published in Great Britain with the title The Shocking History of Phosphorus. Even with such a provocative title one might wonder how a book devoted to a single chemical element could find commercial success. The fact that the book has now been published in the United States and Canada suggests that author John Emsley knows what he is doing. He reduces the dry chemistry to a minimum and accentuates the sordid details, making this an interesting read.

Emsley begins with alchemy in the seventeenth century and how phosphorus was first manufactured from copious pots of urine, and how the small amounts obtained were used in demonstrations before royalty. By the by we gain some historical insight into the lives of the European alchemists and their methods. Emsley then delves into the medical use of phosphorus, proscribed for ailments as diverse as TB and melancholia, for which it worthless. Indeed it was worthless for all prescriptions. (Maybe this is how homoepathy began: a vanishingly dilute prescription of phosphorus would be an improvement on the standard dosage!) Phosphorus was even seen as an aphrodisiac.

The production of phosphorus really took off in the early nineteenth century with invention of the phosphorus match, aptly named "the lucifer." I thought this was the most interesting part of the book, bringing to mind a world before we had matches and fires had to kept going or started with flint and tender, or perhaps borrowed from your neighbor. Emsley writes that by the end of the nineteenth century "three trillion phosphorus matches were being struck every year" (p. 65). He emphasizes the word "trillion." Next Emsley tells the sad, ugly tale of how the matches were manufactured by children and women sixty hours a week in sweat shop conditions at subsistence wages (if that), and how many of the workers contacted phossy jaw, a disease caused by phosphorus that rots the teeth and jaw and can lead to deformity or death. Then comes the story of Annie Besant and the Salvation Army whose efforts greatly improved the conditions of the workers.

Ah, but the worst is to come. As World War I approached we clever people discovered that poisoned gas and incendiary bombs could be made from phosphorus, and so a new horror was ushered in. Finally though, in the latter chapters we see how phosphorus is used in fertilizers and dishwashing detergents. Emsley discusses some of the problems associated with their use. He also goes into how and why our bodies need phosphorus and its role in nutrition. The "phosporus cycle" is discussed and the rather bizarre phenomenon of "spontaneous human combustion" is looked into.

Bottom line: this is eye-opening read about an element that has had a major impact on human history for both good and evil, a history that is continuing. (Incidentally, phosphorus was the thirteenth element discovered, element fifteen of the periodic table, thus the somewhat misleading title.)

If you teach chemistry, you must read this book!
Fascinating reading about the mysteries of phosphorus. This covers everthing you wanted to know about phosphorus and more! By the time you finish this book you'll know how phosphorus was discovered, how it contributes to eutrophication (and what exactly eutrophication is, anyway), the symptoms of "phossy jaw", how a match is made, and many other fascinating facts about phosphorus. The author has resisted making this a "fact a page" list, and has put together the history of phosphorus in an ejoyable, coherent fashion. If you love books about chemistry, you'll have trouble putting this one down.

From alchemy to soap powder.
In this well-researched and very readable book, Mr.Emsley describes the initial discovery of elemental phosphorus by alchemists with an initial production of ounces per year from urine! at an exorbitant cost, to WWII production of thousands of tons per month.
Of course, it was immediately put to use as a medicine - something that powerful MUST be good for what ails you... fortunately only the rich could afford to be poisoned that way!
The perils of working with raw phosphorus (eg, while making lucifers) gradually became obvious and are graphically described, as well as some horrific accidents while transporting the stuff.

Products such as pesticides, incendiaries, smoke screens and nerve gas show its aggressive uses, while other chapters show the benefits of fertilizers, preservatives and detergents.

On a side-track, phosphorus's involvement in spontaneous human combustion is investigated - also explaining will o'wisps and graveyard apparitions.

Immensely readable and crammed full of facts and figures, I recommend this as a welcome addition to any amateur science historian's library. *****

An Entire Book About one Element?
Now, how could an entire book (over 350 pages no less) about phosphorus be interesting? It glows in the dark, it oxidizes on contact with air, it's an essential element, compounds of phosphorus are used in fertilizers and there was something about pollution several years ago. That about covers it, right? Well, actually not quite. Even though I am a chemist by profession, I was surprised to find out about (among other things) the huge fortunes built on the match business and the connection of these enterprises to the first appearance of organized labour movements. Also, how many are aware that the whole condemnation of phosphate detergents may have been completely misguided?

Emsley has created a thoroughly engrossing tale of the discovery and use of one of the more common elements on our planet as well as being able to include a sizable amount of solid scientific information in a thoroughly engrossing form. Other reviewers have outlined in some detail the contents of this book but let me emphasize that the "science" never gets in the way of the narrative. Anyone who has even a passing interest in natural science should find this book an excellent read. I purchased this book in hardback form some time ago but have given a couple of the paperback copies away to friends and have not gotten a negative response yet. ... Read more

Amazon.com

This book delivers exactly what its title promises: a straightforward and comprehensive account of the electronic digital computer's first five decades. Starting with the historic ENIAC of 1945, Ceruzzi moves nimbly through one epochal generation of computing technology after another: the gargantuan, vacuum-tube-filled mainframes of the early '50s; the sleeker, transistorized minicomputers of the '60s; the personal computers conjured up by hobbyists in the '70s; and the computer networks that have come to span offices and the globe in the last 10 years.

Ceruzzi places all of these developments in the context of the social phenomena that shaped them: the imperatives of Cold War research, the evolving needs of information-swamped businesses, and the quirks and dreams of counter-cultural computer hackers. But unlike some popular books about computing history, this one refuses to acknowledge any particular individual, group, or institution as its protagonist. The tale it tells is complex: a weave of high-level projects, lowbrow tinkerings, and sweeping socioeconomic transformations, with a crash course in the basics of computer architecture tossed in for good measure. The mix doesn't make for great drama, but it does offer something perhaps more valuable--the sober, subtle feel of real history unfolding. --Julian Dibbell ... Read more

Reviews (10)

useless for software
I looked up the people I knew and knew of. None of them were in. Gradually, I realized this is a hardware history, and a US-based one at that. Hardware is important, but software is more important.

4 STARS for Ceruzzi
Very informative and exciting.
Ceruzzi made it simple for all to understand how computers came about from 1940s untill today.

USA-centric and flawed
Here in America we say that books are Eurocentric.We have no name for a phenomenon that is useful to our cultural life, and "American-centric" is therefore my term of art for books that narrate culture and technology as if no interesting developments happen beyond our shores.The consequences of this ignorance, as we have seen, can be deadly, for one of the reasons for non-Western extremism is our instinct to treat non-Western participation in our culture and technology with disdain.

Thus, as Ceruzzi fails to narrate, Algol is really the only common ancestor of usable programming languages, yet Ceruzzi dismisses Algol because it was not a commercial success.Algol was not a commercial success because IBM failed to support it in the decade from 1954 to 1964, and then attempted to usurp it with vaporware PL/I, for which IBM's programmers failed to develop an adequate compiler until the mid-1970s.Nonetheless, the block structure of Algol was found to be the only rational way of thinking about program structure as opposed to Fortran.

But Ceruzzi not only naturalizes American technical praxis along the dimensions of geography, he also naturalizes it along a temporal axis in which the mainframe era was a failed try at modern praxis.

Thus the "colorful" Herb Grosch does get his picture in Ceruzzi's book...and with his goatee poor Herb looks slightly fraudulent.

Grosch's law was so obviously self-serving from the standpoint of Herb's employer IBM; it was that the larger the computer, the power delivered increases exponentially.Herb left IBM in the late 1960s, and the history of how men like Herb were compromised (by the occlusion of their feelings and thoughts with corporate goals) is unwritten.

Herb's law was falsified by the discovery in the late 1960s that large computers (such as MIT's Multics) required such complex software that their promise could not be delivered, and today's law is Moore's law, which declares that microchip power will instead exponentially increase as the micros get smaller.

Common to both "laws" is the naturalizing error of neoclassical economics, which acts as if history does not exist.While it does appear today that Moore's law is still true as chip designs deliver what is miscalled computer "power" (the "power" to deliver wrong answers at high speed should be deconstructed) and is actually mere clock speed at an exponentially increasing rate, an historical perspective should remind usthat this too, shall pass.

Making smaller chips is a labor process which has damaged the water-table of places like Silicon Valley and which represents the personal choices of venture capitalists to fund, entrepreneurs to entrep, and employees to choose to work in moon suits that are damned itchy at the end of the day.

Moore's law, like so many "laws" of neoclassical economics, declares that in 1971 we stumbled upon a fact of nature, like Parson Malthus observing the lads cavorting with milkmaids.It is secretly normative (like so many laws of the dismal science) in that it commands us to conform to this fact of nature as a ticket to adulthood.

Perhaps "computers are takin' over." But a critical history of technology, which to me is the only study worthy of the name of history, would read against the grain.It would narrate world praxis in hardware and in software as did a 1999 IEEE Transactions (in the History of Computers) which showed how the Swedes got by in the 1960s without IBM mainframes.It would narrate victim history, including the very interesting history of computer programmers who, it seems, have been an invisible class because they represent, all the way down, a counter-narrative to the dominant narrative of an autonomous technology to which we have to conform (for example, the biography of computer pioneer Ted Nelson is more interesting than that of John von Neumann.)

A very useful result of such a history would be applied, retro computing, for while mainstream historians like Ceruzzi are laying the past to rest, libraries, universities and other institutions are losing data through losing the software that formats and reads older data files.The XML (eXtended Markup Language) notation tries to address this problem as did Ted Nelson's Xanadu system but technical innovations, useful as they are, by definition do not address existing Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets (or the moldering Algol compiler I discovered at Princeton.)

I look to a book and software system on CD-ROM that would preserve, not the physical realization of outdated systems like the IBM 7090 or TRS-80, but their important features, which was the "architecture" they presented to their actual programmers.While building a retro computer encyclopaedia would be a formidable task, it would be made easier by describing the architectural interface of the computer in a form that a modern system can "compile" to a program that simulates the old computer, thereby presenting the user of the encyclopaedia with actual running examples of old software.

To modern-day crowds, trooping through the Smithsonian, computers are physical objects.But actual programmers know that computers are ideas in the mind, and a retro encyclopaedia would be a fascinating narrative of how Turing's idea created the postmodern era.It would also make clear that the old fraud, Marx, was right, for the value computers has created for society consists in a deep labor of understanding architectures enough to craft problem instructions, including the most despised yet most valuable instruction: "computer, here is a language in which I shall speak, and here is how you shall translate that language."

This is a grand yet critical narrative, for it shows that Leibniz was wrong.Let us not calculate (sir) let us communicate.I probably expect too much of poor Mr Ceruzzi, who appears to be of the tribe of people with which I made acquaintance at Princeton; the humanists who honestly apply their narrative skills to technology.But it appears that in America, no-one has answered Derrida's 1978 call for a critical reading of technology.

Insightful!
Paul E. Ceruzzi, curator of the National Air and Space Museum, describes the development of computing, starting with its earliest history. He examines the beginnings of commercial computing from 1945 to 1956 and traces the history of computer hardware and software, dividing these developments into five- to 10-year time periods. His book emphasizes technical development, rather than personalities or business dynamics, a focus that contributes to its fairly dry, academic style. With this caveat, we [...] recommend the book primarily to those with a technological bent, such as professionals in operations and computer sciences, and academics in the field. However, if you are interested in the subject, you'll love this. Ceruzzi provides an informative and comprehensive saga including extensive footnotes and a bibliography that runs about 80 pages.

Good history, but buy Rheingold's book
This book makes a nice thorough reference of the history of computing post 1945, and is great for use on a course. However it is a little dry and unanalytical. Buy Howard Rheingold's "Tools for thought" if you want a generally more human, enjoyable read which provides almost as good a technical account. ... Read more

Book Description

The term 'biology' first appeared in a footnote in an obscure German medical publication of 1800, but a century of subsequent activity was needed to create a thriving science. This book offers a concise yet comprehensive examination of essential themes in this development. To one group of nineteenth-century biologists, largely comprised of anatomists, histologists and embryologists, the appearance and constituent structures of the plant or animal body seemed all-important; they studied organic form and the means by which it was brought into being. A second group concentrated on the vital processes diversely exhibited by all living creatures. They studied function, their self-assigned task as physiologists being to understand the innermost workings of the body. To a third group of workers the greatest concern was the relationship, past and present, between the various kinds of plantsand animals and between living things and their changing environment; in studying the transformation of life over vast spans of time, they largely recast the scientific objectives of natural history. Form, function, and transformation thus offer useful vantage points from which to observe the development of the life sciences during the nineteenth century, and it is on a discussion of these themes and their interactions that Professor Coleman's account is based. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A good book.
This book gives you a very complete overview of how people two centuries ago discovered the Cell theory, natural selection theory, many aspects biochemistry and a lot of other very fascinating things. I was amazed that what we are learning within 45 minutes today costed a century of hard work to discover. This book vividly describs how people's understanding about ourselves, about our history and our natural environment changed and changed again and again as new instruments become available, more knowleges were collected and more resources were poured into the study of the science of life.This book is well written, a pleasure read in my standard. It give me a much better understanding of myself. Just so you know, this book is one in a series.

Physical Science in middle age.The construction of modern science: Mechanism and Mechanicsand one other book that is out of print. For people want to know more about how biology used to be and how many hard works have been done for its study, it is a really good book to buy. ... Read more

Book Description

In the bestselling tradition of The Map that Changed the World and Longitude comes the tale of a seventeenth-century scientist-turned-priest who forever changed our understanding of the Earth and created a new field of science.

It was an ancient puzzle that stymied history's greatest minds: How did the fossils of seashells find their way far inland, sometimes high up into the mountains?Fossils only made sense in a world old enough to form them, and in the seventeenth century, few people could imagine such a thing. Texts no less authoritative than the Old Testament laid out very clearly the timescale of Earth's past; in fact one Anglican archbishop went so far as to calculate the exact date of Creation...October 23, 4004, B.C.

A revolution was in the making, however, and it was started by the brilliant and enigmatic Nicholas Steno, the man whom Stephen Jay Gould called "the founder of geology." Steno explored beyond the pages of the Bible, looking directly at the clues left in the layers of the Earth. With his groundbreaking answer to the fossil question, Steno would not only confound the religious and scientific thinking of his own time, he would set the stage for the modern science that came after him. He would open the door to the concept of "deep time," which imagined a world with a history of millions or billions of years. And at the very moment his expansive new ideas began to unravel the Bible's authoritative claim as to the age of the Earth, Steno would enter the priesthood and rise to become a bishop, ultimately becoming venerated as a saint and beatified by the Catholic Church in 1988.

Combining a thrilling scientific investigation with world-altering history and the portrait of an extraordinary genius, The Seashell on the Mountaintop gives us new insight into the very old planet on which we live, revealing how we learned to read the story told to us by the Earth itself, written in rock and stone. ... Read more

Reviews (17)

a class act
Seashell on the Mountaintop intrigued me from page one. The work brings to life a fascinating time in the history of science that seems far different from our own. That rocks grow, or are in fact spontaneously generated seems absurd, ridiculous,.. but Cutlers's investigation into the life and times of Nicholas Steno seems to acurately portray a time and people who nearly held these ideas as inevitable. In Steno we find a man both spiritual and scientific whose independent, open minded, study and observations led to different conclusions. No revolutions, no public outcries, just a different set of conclusions from the same hard facts. The result, a new science of the past, present and future, called geology. That Steno, unlike other great scientists of the 17th century better known to us today, did not run a foul of the Catholic Church, and towards the winter of his life leaves science behind to become a priest, later saint, suggests that neither science nor religious belief hold firm precedence when interpreting the world. A view lacking today, and one impeding politics, society and civilization. Cutlers book is an excellent read, scholarly without heaviness and like Steno, intriguing with humble relevance.

Mysteries in moutaintops
This engaging and informative little book traces the life of the founder of the science of geology. One of the intitial voices of the Enlightenment, Nicholas Steno spent a life wandering over the face of Europe. In this biography, Cutler's luminous prose takes the reader back to the mid-17th Century intellectual environment. He eloquently describes the rise of "the new science" in the face of traditional dogma. It wasn't a straightforward confrontation, however. Personalities and ideas alike clashed, sometimes savagely. Cutler ably shows how science struggled to find its feet in this time, with Steno's career and heritage providing the exemplary model.

Nicholas Steno, born in Lutheran Denmark, led a peripatetic erratic life. He was an anatomist, geologist, innovator and a proponent of empirical science. In an age steeped in ancient philosophy, in which tradition substituted for measurement and experiment, Steno rejected what could not be observed or proven. He mingled with Dutch merchants and the many religions existing in that Calvinist, yet commercial republic. Later, in Florence, he noted the stability provided by the well-established Church. In an age of inquiry, the Church tolerated the emerging science, so long as published works didn't directly challenge Scripture. The Galileo episode, says Cutler, cast a long shadow, and the Vatican didn't want a reprise. Steno not only evaded Church censorship, notes Cutler, he was encouraged to further his studies. Thus, his later conversion to Roman Catholicism shocked many, not least because he abandoned his studies for an ascetic life and attempts to convert Protestants.

In Florence, Steno was championed by the ruling Medici family. He took up the question of fossil seashells, a topic that had intrigued the Greek philosophers and Leonardo alike. Were they "spontaneously generated" in the deep earth, remnants of ancient life, or evidence of Noah's cataclysmic Flood? Steno's solution was not novel in itself. His real contribution was his explanation of how these shells and "tonguestones" were found on high mountain locations. Although published in a brief volume, his "De solido", would ultimately become the foundation stone of modern geology. Indirectly, writes Cutler, Steno's ideas and meagre publications led to the greatest idea of all - Darwin's concept of evolution by natural selection.

Cutler has encompassed many and varying themes in this book. It is one of the finest presentations of the issues addressed by the Englightenment in print. The names of such notaries as Newton, Leibnitz, and Boyle flit through the narrative. Even Thomas Jefferson makes an appearance - with lines that may surprise. Just enough graphics are used to illuminate the characters or a point. Highly recommended for many reasons, not least of which is the persistence of centuries-old dogmas in the face of the revelations of science. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The founder of geology was a devout Christian
This well-written and mercifully brief account of the life of Nicholaus Steno helps demonsrate yet again that Christians can be very fine scientists. The issue that Steno resolved was the organic origin of fossils. Steno was trained as an anatomist, and he was extremely gifted with a scalpel. When a very large (2,800 pound) shark was caught by Italian fisherman, Steno's patron, Ferdinando de Medici had the head sent to Steno for disection. Steno noted the uncanny resemblance of the shark's teeth to fossils called "tongue stones" found in greatest abundance on the Island of Malta. Steno argued that "tongue stones" looked like sharks' teeth because they were sharks' teeth that had been buried in sediment, the sediment subsequently hardening into stone.

This seems obvious today, but it was anything but obvious in Steno's time. Many argued that the earth had some sort of "plastic power" that produced stones in the shapes of sea creatures, or anything else. It didn't seem possible that fossils found on mountaintops many miles from the ocean could be the remains of real sea creatures, no matter how closely they resemble those creatures. And then there was also the problem of extinct forms, fossils that didn't correspond to any living creatures. The idea that God would allow any of his creatures to die out completely was unacceptable to many thinkers of Steno's day.

The fossil problem led Steno to meditate on question of how any solid object, like a fossil, could be found with another solid object, like a layer of rock. He concluded that the fossil must have been hard first, and must have been carried along by waterborne sediments that subsequently came to rest, creating a layer of mud, enclosing the fossil and later hardening into rock. Hence, a solid fossil came to be enclosed within a layer of solid rock.

An interesting fact that emerges from this book is that Steno, essentially a creationist who never wrote anything that contradicted Scripture, laid the foundations for the science of geology. Cutler seems at pains to try to claim Steno's legacy for modern long-ages geology, but the age of the earth was never any part of Steno's argument. Moreover, the person who did the most to popularize Steno's view of the organic origin of fossils in the English-speaking world (without giving Steno proper credit) was John Woodward, an even more outspoken creationist who argued that the fossils had been buried in Noah's flood. Meanwhile, the famous skeptic Voltaire argued that fossils were spontaneously generated within the earth. In fact, Voltaire was still making that argument many decades after Steno had proven the contrary case. Meanwhile, Steno abandoned science and spent his final years ministering to the small Roman Catholic minority in northern Germany. It just goes to show that religious faith does not a bad scientist make, nor does skepticism make a good one.

Fascinating Portrait
One of the most hotly debated topics of 17th century science concerned a naturally occurring riddle. Why do seashell fossils appear in mountainous areas so far away from the sea? The great flood that created the need for Noah's arc might be one explanation, but scientists quickly noted that a flood of 40 days duration was not enough time for clams to move to such distant and elevated locations. This problem engendered a number of interesting hypotheses, among them that the earth somehow created the shells.

The riddle was finally solved, at least for the scientifically minded, through the careful observations of a Danish scientist named Nicolaus Steno. Steno traveled far from his native Copenhagen and ultimately moved to Italy where he observed fossilized seashells in the Italian Mountains. Already famous for his work in anatomy, Steno was a true Renaissance man with a passion for collecting and understanding items from nature. His observations led to his theory that the earth has a history and that this history includes periods of changing seas and powerful geologic forces that deposit rocks, minerals, and fossils far inland. His pioneering work has earned him the title of founder of geology among contemporary scientists.

Geologist Alan Cutler paints a fascinating portrait of Steno. Given various elements of Steno's personality and the time in which he lived, this is no small feat. Steno was a deeply religious man, and Cutler doesn't miss the irony involved with his formulating theories that were at odds with the officially sanctioned explanations of the earth. The fact is that as he aged Steno became more concerned with religion than with science. He eventually converted from the Lutheranism of Denmark to Catholicism and died a Bishop at the age of forty-eight. Although his fame as a clergyman never matched that of his fame as a scientist, the Catholic Church beatified Steno in 1988. In writing about Steno as a scientist and as a religious figure, Cutler gives us an entertaining and balanced look at the life of a little known but influential thinker.

An interesting life
I read this book for a Geology project. I love a good biography and Cutler delvered a good biography. Was his portrayal of Steno accurate? I don't know. Part of the problem seems to be that much of Steno's work has never been available in English. We should at least give Cutler credit for trying to make Steno more accessible to English readers.

One of the parts covered in the book is Steno's conversion from Lutheranism to Romanism. Since other reviewers have not covered this aspect I thought it might be helpful to do so.

Cutler gives quite a few details about is Steno's Christianity. Cutler describes Steno's Lutheran upbringing, his exposure to the religious pluralism afforded by the enterprising Dutch Calvinists (pg. 35), and finally his embrace of the Italian Catholics. Particularly noted by Cutler are two aspects of Steno's conversion to Roman Catholicism. First was his rejection of the Bible as the literal word of God (pg. 144). Secondly, Steno seemed to be "emotional[ly]" drawn to Romanism by its ceremony, or maybe more accurately, by its superstition. (pg. 91) Eventually, Steno became a Roman Catholic priest, and then the titular Bishop of Titiopolis. This sounds impressive but it is actually rather tragic. The Bishopric was of an area long abandoned to Muslims, and in the region where Steno was sent to minister he was rejected by most of his fellow Catholics as being too serious. His life ends with him starving himself into poor health, and eventually death. It was a sad end to a brilliant man. ... Read more

Book Description

Many people believe that during the Middle Ages Christianity was actively hostile toward science (then known as natural philosophy) and impeded its progress. This comprehensive survey of science and religion during the period between the lives of Aristotle and Copernicus demonstrates how this was not the case. Medieval theologians were not hostile to learning natural philosophy, but embraced it. Had they had not done so, the science that developed during the Scientific Revolution would not--and could not--have occurred. Students and lay readers will learn how the roots of much of the scientific culture of today originated with the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages. ... Read more

Book Description

The dramatic story of the discovery that forever changed man's perception of his place in the universe.

In 1812, the skeleton of a monster was discovered beneath the cliffs of Dorset, setting in motion a collision between science and religion and among scientists eager to claim supremacy in a brand-new field. For Reverend William Buckland, an eccentric naturalist at Oxford University, the fossil remains of a creature that existed before Noah's flood inspired an attempt to prove the accuracy of the biblical record. Gideon Mantell, a naturalist who uncovered giant bones in a Sussex quarry, also became obsessed with the ancient past, risking everything to promote his vision of the lost world of reptiles. Soon the eminent anatomist Richard Owen entered the fray, claiming the credit for the discovery of the dinosaurs.

In a fast-paced narrative, Terrible Lizard reveals a strange, awesome prehistoric era and the struggle that set the stage for Darwin's shattering theories-and for controversies that still rage today. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Witness the Birth of A New Science
The story of how a few great and nimble minds knocked relentlessly at the doors of established scientific thought and were, by dint of excellent work and bold imagination, eventually admitted.
From the painstaking, earnest and underappreciated Gideon Mantell to the flamboyant and eccentric Dean Buckland. From Sir Richard Owen, perhaps the finest comparative anatomist of his time, to the poverty-stricken fossilist Mary Anning here is a tale of fortunes won and lost and discoveries celebrated and forgotten, where brilliance walks hand in hand with heartache and madness...
Best of all, its true.

Interesting story about the first dinosaur hunters
An absorbing account of the pioneer 19th-century British geologists and fossil collectors. Our hero is Gideon Mantell, of a noble family long fallen on hard times. The son of a shoemaker, Mantell was smitten with fossils at an early age. Without resources but recognized as a prodigy, he was apprenticed to a surgeon and became a doctor in London. For the rest of his life he would balance his unenthusiastic practice of medicine with a passionate devotion to fossils. Enter one Mary Anning, who supported her family by gathering fossil "trinkets" from the dangerous coastal cliffs of Dorset to sell to tourists. Her keen eye led to her recognition as a prime "fossilist" among geologists and collectors, including Mantell. One of her major finds was the fossil remains of a giant sea lizard; little by little, other huge reptilian bones were unearthed by Mary and others, but not without controversy. Mantell waited years before the eminent Baron Cuvier in Paris agreed that he had found the remains of a huge herbivorous land reptile (reversing his earlier opinion that the fossil was mammalian). But the plot thickened with the appearance of the wicked Richard Owen, who rose to pinnacles of power within the Royal Society and the Geological Society, became a social lion, and was an intimate of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. At every step of the way he did his best to discredit and ridicule Mantell, at the same time claiming some of Mantell's fossils as his own. His comeuppance (and the recognition of Mantell's true worth) was the result of both his egregious behavior and his being on the wrong (creationist) side of the evolutionary debate as the scientific tide turned to Darwinian theory. "He lied for God and for malice," an Oxford don declared. "A bad case." A scholarly account infused with a rare drama and suspense: read it not only for the science, but to learn what happened to all these wonderful characters.

Bitter bones
Deborah Cadbury does the burgeoning genre of popular science proud with this book. It has all the necessary elements. A human interest story with heroes and villians, an interesting historical setting and a good scientific foundation. The history and science revolves around the gigantic fossilized bones that were being discovered throughout southern England in the early 19th century. Paleontology and Geology were just beginning as sciences. Evolution was a concept but not yet a theory as this was pre-Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Indeed in 1812 when an uneducated and simple villager named Mary Anning found a gigantic skeleton on a beach under the Dorset cliffs, there was nothing else to call it but a monster. The word "dinosaur" didn't exist. It was coined in 1842 by Richard Owen, one of the principal characters in this story.

Mary's discovery started the great quest to identify, categorize, name and date these bones. We meet Gideon Mantell, the poor son of a shoemaker who by dint of hard work and education became a country doctor and a member of the scientific community. He is the sympathetic character this story revolves around and the author wants us to embrace him. Mantell was one of THE DINOSAUR HUNTERS which is in fact the more appropriate title used for this book's edition in Britain. Mantell was typical of these amateur paleontologists who were combing southern England in the hopes of making some great discovery. It's true that only some were eccentric but it's also fair to say they all shared an obsession for bones. Mantell filled his home with fossils, developing one of the finest private collections in England. His devotion to the world of dead creatures came at a cost. It drained all the life out of his marriage and his wife left him in 1839. Mantell did at least have some success, discovering the skeleton of what would later be named the Iguanadon. That's about the only success he had though and his life story as told here is one of disappointment and bitterness with a sad ending.

If Mantell is the sympathetic character then the opposite emotional responses should be directed towards Richard Owen. Cadbury paints a very unflattering portrait of the man (Sir Richard eventually) who founded the Natural History Museum, invented "Dinosauria", and was consulted by royalty, prime ministers, and academia on all things fossilized. The author says he was "instinctively predatory" and if Cadbury rather than her publishers chose the title for the book, then it's very appropriate as it's quite clear from her writing who she sees as the TERRIBLE LIZARD.

Mantell is reminiscent of William "Strata" Smith in THE MAP THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. The same disdain as shown by the scientific elite and similar financial difficulties. Smith's story however had an ultimately redeeming end. Not so here. Mantell had to sell his fossil collection to the Natural History Museum and following a carriage accident which badly damaged his spine and left him with severe backaches he declined rapidly. He died from an ovedose of the opiates that he took to relieve the pain. Owen's success had been at the direct expense of Mantell as he had been quite willing to claim Mantell's work as his own. From his well connected position within the scientific community Owen was very effective in preventing recognition for others and garnering it for himself. A bit of poetic justice arrived by way of Thomas Huxley who discredited some of Owen's work (specifically his view on the differences between human and ape brains). In doing so Huxley did in large measure what Owen had done to Mantell. Owen had also argued that Dinosaurs were proof against evolution. He reasoned that since evolution said life progressed it was impossible then that ancient and extinct creatures should be more splendid than those living today. Since fossils proved that dinosaurs were in fact many times more magnificent that the reptiles Owen saw around him, then evolution must be wrong he said. If Huxley embarrassed him then Darwin's stunning and well reasoned theory of evolution published in 1859 pretty much put paid to Owen's arguments. He outlived Darwin but only to his chagrin as he finally accepted the reality of Darwinism and the sting of being bettered scientifically.

Would make a fascinating film
An excellent read, an excellent *story*, told by a very capable author. I actually picked up TERRIBLE LIZARD on a fluke, but I'm glad I did; while a little too light on the science for even my non-scientific tastes, it reads as well as many novels. The story of Gideon Mantell, in particular, is a page-turner, and ultimately a depressing one, while William Buckland's sad and desperate attempts to reconcile reality with Biblical myth is almost funny. I finished the book particularly disliking Richard Owen, and you probably will, too.

I can see this tale, as it's told here, making an interesting film.

My absolute must read of 2001!!!
If you have an interest in fossils, the Regency/Georgian period of English history, or anything Darwin - then I think you will enjoy this book as much as I did. This is my definite must read of 2001.

I picked up the story because of my fascination for Georgian and Regency England, and that is where this book begins. I kept reading because Cadbury has a wonderful style - and tells the story (and it is quite a story) without drama. It unfolds beautifully in fact. From the first discoveries and theories of the rocks and geology of Britain to the final acceptance of a world beyond the bible's theory of creationism.

I just loved how Cadbury refrained from turning this into some kind of tabloid/overly dramatic presentation. The story itself is dramatic enough and has tension, jealousy, pride, and a fair amount of mystery in it to keep the reader thoroughly absorbed. There are 4 main characters in this book - beginning with Mary Anning who without training or even education began to uncover the most amazing fossil shapes in and around Lyme Regis - following in her father's footsteps. Until this time the fossils had been sold without really knowing what they were - but in 1812 she uncovered what could only be the skeleton of a monster and the search for an explanation of what it was and how it got there began. Even at this stage the research was done with rudimentary knowledge of geology and formations - and any explanations conflicted with the accepted church teachings that god created earth in a week. After all - how could monsters have ever roamed the earth in another time? God created all things perfectly in 7 days.

The main defence for the church, the man who tried to marry religious doctrine with the increasing evidence of other generations of strange prehistoric creations, was William Buckland. His role became increasingly more difficult as evidence mounted both in England and in France.

However this is mainly the story of two men - Gideon Mantell, a rather poor English Doctor who dedicated all his spare time to trying to piece together the past from his obsessive fascination with fossils - and his rivalry with the pathologically jealous Richard Owen.

That in itself makes a story to rival the worst excesses of an Aaron Spelling TV series. Owen's strange behaviour and jealous protection of what he felt was his territory ended up crippling more than one avid researcher to the period, and certainly ended up crippling Mantell.

The story comes together so well. Cadbury has carefully pieced together each stage of the journey to discovery of our Dinosaur age, and its influence on later thinkers such as Darwin - as well as deftly writing of the personal troubles of all the main characters in the book. I found this book compulsive reading and highly recommend it. ... Read more

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Though they met just once, and even then didn’t know what to make of each other’s work, Einstein and Freud had more in common than they might have imagined. Each ran out of evidence using the traditional scientific methods that had worked well since the dawn of the scientific revolution and each adopted new scientific methods that opened up unprecedented intellectual landscapes—relativity in Einstein’s case, the unconscious in Freud’s. In this brilliant, elegant book, renowned science writer Richard Panek traces the creation of two new sciences—cosmology and psychoanalysis—that have allowed us for more than a hundred years to explore previously unimaginable universes without and within.

Like a nonfiction version of Einstein’s Dreams, Panek’s The Invisible Century is a story of a revolution in thought that altered not only what or how much we see, but also the very nature of seeing. ... Read more

Book Description

Einstein looked up to him, the Nazis tried to abduct him, his institute in Copenhagen hosted just about every Nobel prize winner in physics you can name (and then some), and Winston Churchill considered him a dangerous, dangerous man. His friends and enemies agreed: Niels Bohr was more than the father of quantum mechanics - he was one of the most important figures of the 20th century. The Tony Award-winning Broadway play "Copenhagen" barely scratched the surface... Suspended in Language tells the complete story of Niels Bohr's amazing life, discoveries, and his pervasive influence on science, philosophy, and politics. Told in an engaging and accessible mixture of text and comics, it includes a full color supplement on how to teleport just like the pros do-and why you might not want to! ... Read more

Book Description

Toby Huff examines the long-standing question of why modern science arose only in the West and not in the civilizations of Islam and China, despite the fact that medieval Islam and China were more scientifically advanced.Huff explores the cultural contexts within which science was practiced in Islam, China, and the West.He finds major clues in the history of law and the European cultural revolution of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as to why the ethos of science arose in the West and permitted the breakthrough to modern science that did not occur elsewhere.First Edition Hb (1993): 0-521-43496-3First Edition Pb (1995): 0-521-49833-3 ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Best on subject
Huff sees science as a social practice which cannot flourish without a social niche for the person who would investigate nature, and covers a long span of history looking at the ways societies create or fail to create those social roles. I have read a good many books on this subject, and Huff's is the most fair-minded, cogent and satisfying. Recommend highly. ... Read more

Book Description

Michael Maier was a 17th-century alchemist and physician to the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. Between 1614 and his death in 1622, Maier published a number of alchemical works, of which Atalanta Fugiens was undoubtedly the richest and most important. First published in 1617, it is one of the finest alchemical emblem books and unique in its own right. Michael Maier's work is richly illustrated with original prints by M. Merian; each of the 50 emblems presented consists of a motto, print, epigram, and a three-part musical setting of the epigram, followed by an exposition of its meaning. In the new publication of this important 17th-century work, Dr. H. M. E. de Jong translates the mottos and epigrams of the original 50 emblems and provides a summary of both Maier's exposition and a commentary on each emblem. She discuisses the meaning and importance of the Atalanta Fugiens, the sources Maier used, and the mutual relationships between the emblems. She also includes an additional 30 alchemical engravings that explain her research, including several hard-to-find foldouts reproduced here in this volume. De Jong shows how Maier borrowed mottos from old alchemical sources and that the emblems have a number of meanings and express ideas from alchemy, medicine, and the Rosicrucian system. The inter-relationships that can be shown to exist between the emblems give an added depth to the meaning of each. ... Read more

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Amazon.com

In Soul Made Flesh, Carl Zimmer reveals the strange and complicated history of the discovery of the human brain. Amid the turmoil of 17th century England, with religious leaders and monarchs battling for control of the country, an elite group of thinkers used every scientific means at their disposal to figure out that the unassuming putty in our heads was crucial to human health and wisdom.Primary among these Oxford scholars was Thomas Willis, whom the Royal Society affectionately called "our chymist." Soul Made Flesh is as much a biography of Willis and the men who shaped him as it is a medical history. Zimmer admirably sets the stage for what would become a metaphysical revolution and spark arguments that continue to this day about what the mind is and where, if anywhere, the human soul resides:

Thomas Willis... isolated the soul from stars and demons and made the chemical workings of the brain the key to sanity and happiness. Just as important, he helped make the brain a familiar thing.

Reviews (14)

Did the firing of my neurons make me do it?
As a Christian who upholds the truth of Scripture and Science, I find that Carl Zimmer has written a wonderfully engaging, yet disturbing, introduction to the 17th century beginnings of neuroscience.Zimmer is wonderfully engaging in that he is a gifted story teller. He makes the world of Thomas Willis' 17th century Europe come alive.Tying in the ancient views of Aristotle and Galen, Zimmer leads us quickly into the advent of modern anatomical observation as the basis for Rene Descartes' and William Harvey's approach to natural philosophy and medicine.The stage is set for Thomas Willis and his colleagues, such as Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle, to revolutionize Western thought about the soul.

However, this surely isn't dry medical history.The story is filled with fascinating descriptions of other leading natural philosophers of the early Enlightenment, interwoven with social and political tales of the English Civil War and Restoration, and spiced with colorful details about the Christian devotion and theology of the time.

Aside from Willis, my other favorite in the story is Robert Boyle.Like Willis, Boyle was a devout Christian who combined his love for God's Word in the Bible with his love for God's Word as revealed in Creation.For Boyle, he was able to see God's truth and glory in both Holy Scripture and Nature.This is right in line with Francis Bacon's principle of the "Two Books," Scripture and Nature, that God has used to reveal his glory to humankind.In our time where many people see only warfare between science and religion, it is a relief that Zimmer shows us several portraits of great people who sought to find harmony between faith and scientific reason.Right from the start of the Scientific Revolution, Evangelical believers were advocates of the new scientific methods.

Nevertheless, Zimmer's book is disturbing.Concerns of atheism loomed on the horizon of the Anglican natural philosophy of Willis and Boyle.Willis and other Royal Society members struck a moderate position between extreme Puritan biblicists, Quaker spiritualists, and materialists like Thomas Hobbes.However, it was the challenge of the materialists that has proved to be the greatest threat.Willis, in many ways, was a victim of his own success.By granting that some of the soul's traditional characteristics can be explained in purely physical terms, this opened the door to modern skepticism.

Historically, Christians have championed either a trichotomist (spirit-soul-body) or dichotomist (spirit/soul -- body) view of the human person.Thomas Willis' anatomical research has led us to the 21st century tendency to eliminate the spirit or soul from the human person.Thisphysicalist account of human reason, emotions and will challenges a literalist reading of the Scriptural soul and/or spirit of the human person.For example, in Matthew 12:34, Jesus says that it is "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."If the heart is no longer the seat of the soul, then would it be right for us to retranslate this as "out of the abundance of neurons in certain parts of the brain that the mouth speaks?"

Nevertheless, the data is not completely in yet.Granted, harmonizing the insights of neuroscience with the revelation in Holy Scripture is not easy.Yet despite the tension, we can still speak of our ourselves as "souled" beings.The function of the soul needs review but it has not been eliminated totally. The full replacement of the immaterial soul with nothing but a material soul would undoubtedly scandalize Thomas Willis as well.Oddly enough, even though Zimmer celebrates this scientific movement towards physicalism, in the final analysis Zimmer yearns for some type of return to an immaterial soul, along the lines of the Quaker, Anne Conway, or the Romanticism of William Blake.Yet the trend is still there and Christian apologists are faced with the exciting challenge of speaking of the soul in meaningful, biblical terms while being consistent with the findings of today's neuroscience.Those who do not share a Christian faith are faced with somehow finding a way to think about "soul" without falling into meaninglessness talk or else making up something as they go along.

There are a few problems to point out in the book:

(1) Zimmer suggests that "many Puritan sects" rejected the discovery of truth through human reason (p. 114-115).This is a broad overstatement.John Calvin, the primary architect of what would become Puritan theology argued that while reason does not save a person, truth can still be found to some degree through reason.Reformed theologians call this "common grace" which is extended to elect and non-elect alike. In other words, reason does not save but it is not opposed to revelation.Reason compliments revelation.The difference with the Anglicanism of Thomas Willis is that he saw a more significant role for reason as a prerequisite to salvation.

(2)Zimmer finds Darwin's evolutionary theory as being in conflict with the theory of divine purpose and design of Thomas WIllis.Sure, Darwinianism has been used that way to justify a pure naturalistic materialism.But the basics of evolutionary thought hardly rule out design and purpose altogether.Maybe this is why Zimmer is continually speaking out against "Intelligent Design" in his other writings.This is terribly unfortunate.Just because contemporary neuroscience has mapped out the brain does not mean that the soul is simply eliminated.The immaterial soul can and should be thought of in a new way, but to this Christian the God-designed and God-purposed place for the soul is far from gone.

The search for consciousness
Ths book is an excellent historical background to man's attempts to understand his own mind. It's also a great primer for some of the theories man has held about his own anatomy and
consciousness.

The author keeps it interesting by tracking the story to the lives Thomas Willis and his buddies at Oxford who must skillfully skate through a minefield of intellectual dogma and even civil war to lay the foundations for scientific mehtod.

The author does a fine job of turning history into a story and ends up teaching the reader quite a bit.

As a bonus the author gives us a short but thoughtful conclusion. Showing how modern researchers continue the quest for the answer to the question what is "man".

Excellent study of pioneer neurologist
The American writer Carl Zimmer has written a brilliant book on Thomas Willis (1621-75), the founder of neurology. Willis discovered the human brain's role and importance, and was the first to examine how it worked.

Willis was part of the remarkable generation of Britons who founded the Royal Society, aiming to understand the physical world: William Harvey, who by discovering the circulation of the blood had, as Willis said, created `a new foundation of medicine', Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and William Petty, whom Karl Marx called the father of political economy.

To keep the Restoration Stuart state on side, they excluded from the Society the materialist Thomas Hobbes, who had said that the mind was `matter in motion'. As the Platonist Henry More realised, `No spirit, no God'.

Willis' book `The Anatomy of the Brain and Nerves' mapped the brain, and was the first unified treatment of the brain and the nerves. The new science combined anatomical study of the human brain with comparisons to animal brains, experiments and medical observations. He identified the loop of arteries that supplies the brain, which became known as the Circle of Willis. The 20th century neurologist Lord Brain described Willis as `the Harvey of the nervous system'.

Willis "created a material explanation of the soul and its disorders. ... He had transformed the traditional three-part soul, which had existed since Plato, into the corpuscular chemistry of the nervous system. The soul was not just moved to the brain but limited to it, and only through the nerves could it experience the world."

But the idealist philosopher John Locke attacked Willis' materialist approach, holding back neurology's development. Zimmer explains, "Locke also influenced the way philosophers pondered the mind itself. He dismissed details of neurology and concerned himself with ideas and how they fit together, and generations of philosophers followed his lead. It would take neurologists 150 years to show that Willis was right, that studying the anatomy and chemistry of the brain can indeed reveal the workings of the mind, that they can map the geography of passion, reason, and memory."

Paradigm Shifts
Not only does Zimmer trace the history of medicine down from Hippocrates and Galen, but provides a personalized account of 1600s England's politics. He describes in appalling detail the mis-treatments inflicted on patients by `doctors' back then. He similarly describes the dissection of cadavers that eventually led to a better understanding of the human body's functioning and its diseases.

What struck me was the parallel between the paradigm shift back then in medicine from concepts based on philosophy and theology, to concepts based on observation and science; and the paradigm shift going on today in `religion' from concepts based on the supernatural, to concepts based on nature and science. If you have an interested in this latter paradigm shift, you might explore my book, "Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics."

Finding and treating the "soul"
Debates about the "soul" have raged for millennia.Because we tend to think these debates are confined to the realms of philosophy and theology, we ignore the contribution medicine has made to our perception of the "self".Carl Zimmer's examination of the debate and its significant participants enlarges our outlook.His depiction of the life of Thomas Willis in tumultuous 17th Century Britain reveals the pioneering research that lead to a new view of the body's functions.The "soul", so long a mysterious concept, began to be exposed in the brain and its relation to the rest of the body.The study of illnesses, particularly those associated with behaviour, disclosed how false traditional views truly were.

The ancients, Zimmer explains, had varying ideas about the body's workings.He summarises the many views, noting how certain ancient thinkers, particularly Galen, came to be adopted by Christianity.Once admitted within the Church's fold, their teachings became part of the established dogma.Orthodoxy substituted for observation, inhibiting learning.The number of lives lost is incalcuable, but dissent through evidence was perilous.Even the Greeks, Zimmer reminds us, considered dismembering cadavers distasteful.Real medicine was thus kept in check for centuries.

While Protestantism overthrew many dogmas, medicine remained a restrained science.The issue of the "soul", where it resided and how it functioned, remained an enigma.The stomach, liver and heart were all candidates for the home of the "soul".The brain was viewed as a "useless mass of grey porridge".Zimmer's illuminating study depicts the revolution Willis wrought in explaining the brain's central role.He learned to dissect the brain, which decays faster than other organs, and initiated explanations of the nervous system.His illustrator was none other than Christopher Wren, famous Restoration architect.Together, they demonstrated the brain's arterial and nerve arrangement in what became known as the Circle of Willis - the entwined network of signal systems and energy resources.The collaboration was published as "The Anatomy of the Brain", the founding document of the science of neurology.

Willis established what Zimmer describes as the "four pillars of neurology".The first of these is the interaction of the body through the nerves to the brain. Second, the body's activities can be mapped in particular areas in the brain.Stimulation and response thus become predictable - showing the brain is structured, not merely an incohate melange of "grey porridge".Third, Willis and his followers demonstrated the similar structure of the brains of all animals.Tests showed clearly the body-brain interaction is common to all creatures.Finally, abnormal behaviour and many illnesses can be chemically treated.Although Zimmer describes today's world as "awash in brain drugs", benefits can be derived through proper therapy.

Although Zimmer covers a wealth of material, from the ancient Greeks through modern times, you aren't overwhelmed by this history.With an accessible prose style, he explains how growing knowledge of the body led to a new science.He communicates his own enthusiasm effortlessly, drawing the reader into the story.Each chapter is prefaced by an illustration of the material - all drawn from Wren's depictions.The only lack in these graphics is a modern diagram of the brain's anatomy.His concluding chapter on modern brain mapping details brain areas reflecting particular functions and emotions.The brain may be divided physcially, but the neural network is a highly integrated structure.Zimmer has produced a compelling study of the medical and the metaphysical. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada] ... Read more

Amazon.com

An academic biography, Michael D. Gordin's A Well-Ordered Thingtells Dmitri Mendeleev's story in dense prose, detailed with Russianhistory and molecular chemistry. Mendeleev will forever be remembered asthe inventor of the periodic table of the elements, which sortshydrogen, helium, lithium, and so on, according to their weights andproperties. Readers unfamiliar with either the periodic table or thepolitics of Imperial Russia will have a tough go of it. Nevertheless,Gordin's treatment reveals surprising facts about the enigmaticMendeleev and his social context.

The periodic system was developed in Russia by an individualwho was ... trying to bring order to a Russian society that wasapparently disintegrating.... In order to understand the building ofthis part of modern chemistry, one must come to terms with the attemptsto create a modern Russia.

Reviews (2)

Story of a great man - by an ingenious historian
I've heard a part of story of Mendeleev directly from Michael Gordin during the dinners in the Harvard Society of Fellows, and the discussions with Michael were always extremely insightful as well as entertaining.

One of the main reasons is that Michael knows a lot, and he is interested in everything. My feeling is that he knows more about Russian history than those who are specialized in humanities. Think about any two people whom you know and who lived in the 19th century or the early 20th century (two Russian writers, for example), and Michael will be able to tell you what was the relationship between these two people, when they met, and why it was important. What you read in this book about Mendeleev is just a fraction of what Michael could tell you about the 19th century.

Moreover, he also understands the important technical points of chemistry - in fact, not just chemistry: physics, mathematics, and other sciences are his cup of tea, too. Therefore his presentation is not superficial: you will learn the right things about the right ideas and their evolution, about the wrong ideas as well as about the influence of politics and ghosts.

Michael Gordin's Russian is very good and it helped him to understand all the relevant events and links between the contemporaries of Mendeleev as he studied the archives in St Petersburg (and perhaps also Moscow). Incidentally, he also learned Czech - which is my first language - because at some moment he decided that it is helpful to follow some old letters about chemistry.

Anyone who is interested in chemistry, history of science, or Russian history should immediately buy this book because Michael Gordin was the right person to write it, and you will certainly learn a lot about all these issues. Moreover, Mendeleev might be the most famous chemist ever and his life was rich enough to keep you excited as you read through these 300+ pages of a superb text.

Superb read
This is a superbly written text by a young, brilliant historian. It is a must have for all who study Russian history and the history of science. I would recommend it whole-heartedly. ... Read more

Amazon.com

"Nobody has done more in the way of enlightened prediction than Arthur C. Clarke," wrote Isaac Asimov, no slouch in that department himself. And indeed, this collection of Clarke's essays contains an astonishing amount of prophecy, in everything from space exploration to computer technology. Clarke, probably best known as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, is one of the most prolific science authors of the 20th century, even though his science fiction works got all the glory. His expertise in tracking scientific innovation and his predilection for far-flung adventure are well represented here. Reading these articles illuminates the enormous amount of research that good science fiction writers do in the course of learning their craft. The collection spans more than 60 years of Clarke's musings. Highlights include essays on undersea and lunar living, working with Stanley Kubrick on the movie version of 2001, and tributes to his favorite authors--Lord Dunsany, Robert Bloch, and Isaac Asimov, especially. Clarke gives each essay a context, and he good-naturedly points out his old errors and failed predictions. Clarke is a fascinating person, a man of great depth and passion, and fans of his science fiction will be pleasantly surprised that his straightforward, bemused style comes through in his nonfiction as well. --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Reviews (10)

Readable Book, Pretentious Title
This is a book of collected essays of Clarke, edited by Ian T. Macauley. The essays cover the period 1934 to 1998. Some of the essays are preceded by a freshly added introductory note.

I didn't like the title of the book. It sounds pretentious.

The book is divided into seven parts, all appropriately titled and dated. Part I - Rockets and Radars - covers the 30's and 40's. Part II - Beneath the Seas of Ceylon - covers the 50's. Part III - Kubrick and Cape Kennedy - covers the 60's and the making of 2001 a Space Odyssey. Part IV - Tomorrow's Worlds - covers the 70's. Part V - Stay of Execution - covers the 80's. Part VI - Countdown to 2000 - covers the 90's and is the longest part of the book. Part VII is titled Postscript: 2000 and Beyond. The book ends with a bibliography, an index and bios of the author and the editor.

Arthur C. Clarke is a prolific author, both of science fact and science fiction and both these fields, he has produced quality stuff. The best and most significant of his short non-fiction has already been collected in several books like Profiles of the Future, Voices from the Sky, 1984: Spring, etc. This book presents his short non-fiction that had not been previously collected. After reading the book, it becomes evident why. Most of the essays here are either too short to be informative or the topic is too slight to be of significance. The best essays here are obituaries to Clarke's contemporary scientists, writers and friends like Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, etc. This doesn't mean that the book is boring, which it is not for the most part. But vintage Clarke it is not.

The book would be very useful to completionists - those who collect Clarke's writings. Another useful feature of the book is index. I hate it when I come across non-fiction books that do not have an index

http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.com

Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!
It's not for nothing that Arthur C. Clarke is "the Prophet of the Space Age" (although he dislikes being called a prophet). Indeed, there's only one prophet, and it sure ain't Mohammed. Hardly no other person in modern times have had such an enormous effect on his contemporary world as Arthur C. Clarke. He invented the concept of the geosynchronous communications satellite, he co-wrote the script for the single most influential science-fiction movie ever (that's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in case you didn't know), and he has written several of the classics of modern science-fiction (Rendezvous with Rama, to name but one). And at the venerable age of 85, he's still showing little sign of slowing down, although he is mostly confined to a wheel-chair these days.
This collection of articles, essays, and other short pieces of writing, spans Clarke's entire career from the 1930s until the end of the 1990s. The material is divided into seven parts according to which decade it was originally written in, and each part begins with an introduction. Several of the individual articles and essays are also prefaced with new introductions by Clarke. Part I, entitled "Rockets and Radar," spans the 1930s and -40s, and contains 13 of Clarke's writings. Among them are such gems as "Extraterrestrial Relays," which is the famous essay in which Clarke first described his ideas about geosynchronous satellites; and "The Challenge of the Spaceship," an essay, originally delivered as a lecture, which, among other things, caused George Bernard Shaw to apply for membership in the British Interplanetary Society at the age of 91.
Part II, "Beneath the Seas of Ceylon," spans the 1950s and contains 23 pieces of writing, among them the concluding paragraphs from the book Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics (1950). Of this book, the late Carl Sagan, the world's most famous astronomer, later said that it had been "a turning point in my scientific development." Sagan was just one among the many great men and women to have been inspired by Clarke's writings. To me, Part II was the least interesting section of Greetings, however, since the last 9 essays describe that other great passion of Clarke's, diving. It was during the 1950s that Clarke moved to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), which would remain his home for the rest of his life, and he spent a lot of time there diving and running an "underwater safari" enterprise. Not being a diver myself, I didn't find these stories quite as interesting as Clarke's other writings.
Part III, "Kubrick and Cape Kennedy," spans the 1960s. Like Part I, it contains 13 pieces of writing. Especially worth mentioning is "Space and the Spirit of Man," and the very short "God and Einstein," which is an absolute must-read. Here can also be found the speech that Clarke gave when he received the Kalinga Prize in 1962. Part IV, "Tomorrow's World," spanning the 1970s, is very short, containing as it does only six pieces. Noteworthy is the speech Clarke gave at the ceremony when the final agreements setting up the world satellite communications system (Intelsat) were signed at the State Department in Washington, on August 20, 1971.
Part V, "Stay of Execution," brings us to the 1980s, with 15 writings by Clarke. The outstanding piece here is "Credo," containing some of Clarke's views on religion and the great questions. Clarke doesn't pull his punches, which makes this essay a very enjoyable read indeed. Part VI, "Countdown to 2000,&q