An encyclopedic examination of an extraordinary life in science. Freelance writer Hager wastes little time on Linus Pauling's Oregon boyhood, moving straight to his astonishingly precocious career in chemistry and a string of achievements that spanned more than seven decades and broke the boundaries between chemistry, physics, and medical research. Pauling was a brilliant theorist, hurling out an idea and throwing himself after it rather than building carefully collected data into a logical framework. He was usually right, most notably in his work with molecular structure and the nature of the chemical bond, for which he won his first Nobel Prize in 1954. But he was sometimes spectacularly wrong, falling victim to a characteristic combination of ``hurry and hubris,'' as when he lost the race to define the structure of DNA to comparative newcomers Watson and Crick. In middle age, Pauling's wife and his own restless intellect led him into political activism, and his tireless lobbying to ban nuclear testing and define the dangers of fallout attracted both the unwelcome attention of the House Un-American Affairs Committee and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963. Pauling lost much of his public support later in life, and most remember him for his stubborn insistence on the merits of vitamin C. Hager had Pauling's cooperation in his project, as did Ted and Ben Goertzel, another team of recent biographers (p. 1078), but the depth of Hager's work focuses a much stronger microscope on the intricacies of Pauling's life. But Hager defines himself up front as ``a Pauling enthusiast,'' and though he does not omit Pauling's less rational moments, the friendly portrait that emerges is one of a misunderstood hero whose most outrageous statements still contained a kernel of overlooked insight. A competent, exhaustive life of a complicated genius, and a reminder that the search for scientific truth is never unaffected by the personalities and politics of the searchers.
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80909-5
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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