A condensed version of Westfall's 1981 biography of Newton, Never at Rest (priced at $100 and not reviewed), that nevertheless displays a high level of scholarship and detail. Westfall (History and Philosophy of Science/Indiana University) clearly has pored over the letters and papers that accumulated over Newton's 83-year lifetime (1642-1727), including the theological and alchemical writings as well as the all- important Opticks and Principia. There's a presumption that the reader appreciates the revolution in science wrought by Newton, and the fundamental philosophical disputes between him and his contemporaries: Newton raging against the Cartesians with all their hypothetical and vortex-ridden speculations in contrast to his own theory-grounded-in-experiment approach. But while one can acknowledge the genius that was Newton, not even Westfall—with his consummate understanding, fair-mindedness, and sympathy—can make the man lovable. There are of course, the circumstances of the scientist's life: His father died before he was born, and, when he was three, his mother remarried, leaving the boy to be raised by his maternal grandparents. Without undue emphasis on Freud, Westfall makes clear that such beginnings contributed to the loneliness and isolation, the neuroses, obsessions, and paranoia that characterized the life. The maligning of Robert Hooke, the undermining of the astronomer Flamsteed, and the vicious attack on Leibniz over priority in the invention of calculus add nothing to Newton's luster. Still, the scientist mellowed in the end. He presided over the Royal Society, gained income from his position at the Mint, was generous to his many relatives, and enjoyed the company of his remarkable niece in his house in London. On his deathbed, Newton refused the sacraments, confirming his lifelong anti-Trinitarianism (which could not otherwise be revealed in public). An altogether admirable job of scholarship, whose weightiness is balanced by the surfacing, from time to time, of Westfall's dry humor. (Six halftones; nine line drawings.)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-521-43252-9
Page Count: 325
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
Most of the adjectives and metaphors that initially come to mind to describe tigers seem to have originally come from them. Poetry in motion. Predatory cunning. We don't use other animal or human traits to describe tigers; we use tigers to describe the world. Or to sell cereal, hawk gasoline, or bestow on sports teams the combination of controlled ferocity and grace that William Blake called ``fearful symmetry.'' Poetry can't elevate a tiger. Being the thing itself, a tiger is already elevated. But pictures like the ones in this book are good. And facts are good, too. They ground wonderment in knowledge. How'd you like to be able to carry 50 pounds of meat in your stomach? This is just one of the facts in this companion text to a PBS installment of the In the Wild series. Barnes, who writes on wildlife for The Guardian in England, covers the lives and shrinking habitats of Siberian, Indian, Sumatran, and Indochinese tigers. He also writes about poaching and efforts to stop it. (75 color photos, 75 b&w photos)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11544-X
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
This new biography attempts not only to chronicle Edison's achievements but to set him in the context of his time. It falls short on both counts. Thomas Edison remains, more than 60 years after his death, the quintessential American genius. The electric light alone earned him a central spot in the pantheon of inventors. Add to it the phonograph, motion pictures, and over 1,000 patents for everything from an electric pen to a method for enriching iron ore, and it's no wonder Baldwin (Man Ray, 1988) seems overwhelmed by his subject. Fiercely competitive, Edison was a workaholic long before the term was invented. His first wife, Mary (who died an early death), rarely saw him. He would work 60 hours straight on a project that caught his fancy and frequently juggled four or five ongoing projects at once. His genius for assembling a team of men totally dedicated to his goals—and willing to delegate all the glory to the ``Old Man''—was surpassed only by his genius for promotion. (The incandescent light was far less significant than his convincing the world that his system, and only his, was the light of the future.) Baldwin does present an Edison more complex than the Horatio Alger template into which his contemporaries wanted to fit his life, but he never quite manages to pull together the various strands of his portrait. The reader gets only perfunctory descriptions of Edison's early inventions and how they were received, let alone any insight into how he was able to convince others to back his projects or to join his team, before the phonograph made him world-famous. Like many eminent Victorians, Edison was a fascinating monster, and Baldwin captures some of both the fascination and the monstrosity; but one comes away from the book feeling that the best part of the story remains untold. (50 b&w photos, unseen)
Pub Date: Feb. 9, 1995
ISBN: 0-7868-6041-3
Page Count: 534
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
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