by Dava Sobel

This book, as it turns out, is less about Galileo’s daughter than it is about Galileo himself (and the events that took place around him).

Dava Sobel (Either out of her sentiments or for originality/artistry, I don’t know) uses Galileo’s correspondence with his daughter to carry along the story, and we see on every chapter excerpts of her letters to him.

A biography (or biographies) as well as a book on the history of science, I think I can recommend it on the grounds that it is rather engaging and covers a lot (not too much and not too little, I think) on Galileo. If you don’t know much about him before, you’ll certainly be well acquainted by the time you get through with this book.

Sobel builds this book (surely enough) towards Galileo’s trial in Rome over his heliocentric view of the universe. To the author’s credit, she does not paint it as a conflict of science with religion, but rather that of it being a misunderstanding of science by religion. In many parts of the book, we see Sobel stressing Galileo’s piety to his Roman Catholic faith.

But this book, of course, is not about that alone. It is also a detailed historical account on Galileo’s scientific discoveries (don’t expect any in-depth scientific elaborations, though) as well as a detailed account of Galileo’s love for his daughter. And although Sobel doesn’t really point them out, we also get to see a lot of his flaws.

One thing that you should not expect from this book is flowery prose, as Sobel writes with the style of a historian (not an extremely dry historian, but a historian nonetheless).

I suppose this book makes a good read to pass one’s time, as well as to brush up a little on your history/science.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 2:46 PM. |