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Title: Galileo: A Life by James, Jr. Reston ISBN: 0-06-016378-X Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: April, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Galileo: A Very Relevant Life
Comment: James Reston has written a very good book. He discusses many complicated aspects of science and religion, and yet he never gets bogged down in endless monotonous detail. Much of the relevance of Galileo's life comes from our now being in the grip of political correctness, much of it, let's face it, revolving around race, which we are now told, according to a recent series on Public Broadcasting, is simply an "illusion." (Genetic kinship groups an illusion?) It is remaniscent of some members of the Church who charged that the spots on the sun and the satellites around Jupiter, as discovered by Galileo and personally shown to them through his telescope, were "illusory," or "conjurors tricks." But at least the Church had an excuse, its religious doctrines having predated these scientific discoveries. Today's church of political correctness has no such excuse. On the brighter side, today only careers and reputations are burnt at the stake. Finally, no matter how good a book may be, it can always be improved. A very major storyline throughout the book was Galileo's many health struggles. Mostly by reading between the lines, it seems that much of the trouble was due to hypochondria. Or was it? The book screams out for a chapter devoted to spelling out exactly what these health problems were. That such a chapter was not included is doubly strange since Reston is so clearly analytical in other mysterious and complex areas, and also because you would think that this would be one subject that would be very amenable to informed historical speculation, looking at his symptoms in light of today's medicine, and so forth. In summary, despite this one very significant flaw of failing to come to terms directly with Galileo's ill health, this is a fine book that is very relevant four centuries later, particularly in light of today's enemies of the scientific method and the free discussion of its results.
Rating: 1
Summary: Yuck.
Comment: I'll be upfront about the fact that I didn't finish this book. I didn't even get past the second chapter.
I was turned off right after I read the preface. If you really want to like this book, you should probably not make the same mistake. In the preface you get a sense of the author's personality. It's in the rest of the book, too, but it's strongest right there--and I found it absolutely repulsive. I'm an astronomer, and I thought Jr's reflections on the shocking lack of poetry in modern day scientists' press conferences were totally ridiculous. Get this--Jr's talking about some Galileo (the satellite to Jupiter) press conference, where an engineer is announcing the final trajectory change. At the end of the guy's prepared speech, when he asks for questions, Jr jumps in with this: "Have you ever see the face of Gallileo hovering over you during the course of this project?"
I'm not kidding. That's exactly how he put it. This poor guy then answers, 'No', while everybody snickers (really, I think he showed great forberance. My answer would have been, 'No. Have YOU?'). Jr then laments the disgraceful coldness of modern science. Give me a break. But seriously, if Jr isn't capable of getting past 20th century TV stereotypes, how am I supposed to believe that he can be accurate or objective about a famous figure like Galileo?
The first two chapters didn't help me overcome my immediate prejudice. I think Reston Jr's a twit, and I get the impresssion that he doesn't really understand Galileo's contributions to science. In any case, you won't find much about Gallileo in the beginning of the book--just disconnected little anecdotes about his dad. Great. Setting the stage for insights on Galileo's character by illuminating that of his parents is fine thing (usually successful, too, since which of us hasn't been influenced by his or her parents?), if that's what he was doing. Instead, Jr sees fit to just wander around showing off how much (or little) he knows about Galileo's dad's music tastes.
My advice? Don't waste your money. I wish I hadn't. I'm certian that you--and I--can do better.
Rating: 4
Summary: Craters and All
Comment: Reston does a lot with this. He captures the bad side of the Pope's insistence that Galileo refrain from describing the surface of the moon as anything other than perfectly smooth, shiny, and sinless. Because of course Adam and Eve had not sinned up there. Like Galileo, Reston also catalogues some of the surface imperfections of his subject, and what they suggest about his mindset and his world.
The family portrait of Galileo's two daughters, both shunted off to a convent, is tragic, and Reston penetrates this sub-unit of his topic convincingly, getting into how one daughter became pious, while another become embittered. The idea of using the Church for refuge for your daughters is intersting, since the same Church was leaning on Galileo.
This book is a great tour of the man behind the discoveries, the math equations and the historic controversies. The feel of the Italian city states of the Renaissance also comes out in this book, and it's no coincidence that the family and clan-based capitalism of Galileo's patrons had to precede or lay the groundwork for someone of Galileo's talents to really produce something.
This book is hard to put down. Good to take on a vacation.
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Title: The Last Apocalypse by Jr. James Reston ISBN: 0385483368 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 16 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Warriors of God : Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade by Jr. James Reston ISBN: 0385495625 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 14 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel ISBN: 0140280553 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Louis Galison ISBN: 0393020010 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius by William R. Shea, Mariano Artigas ISBN: 0195165985 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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