- Paperback: 332 pages
- Publisher: Beard Books (January 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 189312262X
- ISBN-13: 978-1893122628
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 12.9 x 2.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #809,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) may seem an unlikely subject for Reston, who has previously chronicled Jim Jones, John Connally and the clash of baseball's Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti. But Galileo, like Reston's present-day subjects, was at once a man deeply imbedded in and polarized by his milieu and its surrounding force fields. Reston delineates the personal and institutional storms that Galileo endured and seemed unerringly to seek out. He collided with church authorities in Rome, with his peers and a succession of patrons. Reston scants both science and 17th-century theology in setting the stage for the general reader, but he recreates the era with immediacy by mining Galileo's journals and letters for dialogue. The use of present tense gives the characters a magnified, flesh-and-blood presence that neatly balances with the Galileo legend. Reston suggests that the spirit of Galileo's age still lives today in the Vatican. Newbridge Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
We've all heard about him, but how many of us have read much about the great Galileo? Reston here offers a popular biography that takes in the sweep of Renaissance Italy.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Galileo: A Very Relevant Life,
By
This review is from: Galileo: A Life (Paperback)
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.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Yuck.,
By "thrackamazog" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Galileo: A Life (Paperback)
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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews) 13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Craters and All,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Galileo: A Life (Paperback)
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. 13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A FINE ADDITION TO THE BIOGRAPHIES OF AN IMPORTANT FIGURE,
By Gail Cooke - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Galileo: A Life (Paperback)
Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), sometimes called the founder of modern experimental science, butted heads with church authorities, his colleagues, and a number of his patrons.As recently as little more than a decade ago, the voice of this indefatigable genius was heard again when, some 350 years after being accused, tried and condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for espousing the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun, the Vatican admitted that it was wrong about Galileo. Galileo's father taught his son music and encouraged him to become a doctor. But, while studying medicine and the philosophy of Aristotle at the University of Pisa, Galileo made his first important discovery - the law of the pendulum. From then on he turned his attention to mathematics. The time of Galileo is brilliantly evoked by James Reston in this splendidly researched story of an idealistic and egotistical genius. By chronicling Galileo's life in the first person and utilizing his journals, the story becomes an enthralling one for readers as the conflict between science and religion escalates. Reston's work is a fine addition to the biographical history of one of the most important figures in Western culture. - Gail Cooke 13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Galileo: A Life,
By R. Murphy - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Galileo: A Life (Paperback)
If you are looking for a biography that discusses Galileo's scientific work, you will be disappointed. Reston must, of course, mention this great thinker's discoveries, but that is as far as it goes. There is little about the influence of his discoveries on the scientific community or how it shaped the world afterwards. I would have expected this to be one of the central themes considering the subject of this biography. The book deals almost exclusively with Galileo's struggles with the church. It is obvious that Reston has no scientific background. He should have picked someone else to write about.
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