Read this then as a detailed intellectual portrait of a complex and creative scientist who nevertheless embodied the morals...
Most know that Sir Francis Galton fathered the eugenics movement (he even coined the word), but, as Gillham (Biology Emeritus/Duke Univ.) makes clear in this encyclopedic biography, that was only after sterling accomplishments in sundry other fields.
To name a few: African explorer in search of the source of the Nile in the days of Stanley and Livingstone; designer of weather maps and discoverer of the anticyclone; prime mover in establishing the uniqueness of fingerprints and hence their important forensic use; developer of the hereditary research tools of pedigree analyses and twin studies; pioneer in psychological studies of mental imagery; and innovator in statistical science, defining the coefficient of correlation and regression to the mean. Galton was the youngest of nine children born to a rich Quaker merchant who married Erasmus Darwin’s daughter Violetta. (Galton and Charles Darwin were cousins.) It was Charles who persuaded Galton to interrupt medical training to study math at Cambridge. It was Dad’s fortune that allowed Francis to devote his life to one or another intellectual pursuits. And it was Galton’s passion for measurement—collecting quantitative data for analysis—that Gillham underscores as the driving force behind Galton’s forays into science. A turning point was publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. For the rest of Galton’s long life (1822–1911), he championed heredity as the source of talent and character, in articles, speeches, and books and in the academic studies and journals he funded. Interestingly, Galton and his wife Louisa were childless. One would have liked Gillham to examine how this affected Galton—or how the presence of offspring might have altered his thinking. In general, one would have liked to know more about Galton the man apart from his scientific pursuits and controversies.
Read this then as a detailed intellectual portrait of a complex and creative scientist who nevertheless embodied the morals and principles—including the inferior position of women—of an eminent Victorian English gentleman.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-19-514365-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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