An erudite investigation into the work of the man regarded as the founder of the Scientific Revolution, this volume attempts to tie together Bacon’s many writings, not only on science, but also on language, morals, politics, rhetoric, law, and history. From the outset, Zagorin, a professor of history emeritus at the University of Rochester, clearly states that it is not his intention to write a biography of Bacon, who has been the subject of numerous and recent biographies. However, he does provide a tantalizing glimpse of Bacon’s personal life, as well as his flawed character. Much to his credit, Zagorin demythologizes Bacon by detailing his political ambitions and ruthless opportunism. Yet the glimpse is all too brief, and while this biographical introduction informs the rest of the book, Zagorin’s later readings of Bacon would have benefited from a more integrated approach toward his life and his work. The bulk of the book is a thorough interpretation of that work and its impact. Zagorin illustrates in a sound and convincing manner how Bacon’s philosophy and theory of science had a far-reaching effect on the growth of science. While Bacon made no scientific discoveries of his own, he did believe that science provided humankind with the instrument to master nature. Finally, at the end of the book, the author delves into Bacon’s less known works in the humanities, proving that in these fields, too, Bacon was an original and often brilliant thinker. As a legal scholar, for instance, Bacon sought to devise a universal system that went beyond English common law. Though lucidly written, this book still requires a knowledge of Bacon’s work as formidable as Zagorin’s. A valuable work for the serious Bacon scholar, but not for the layperson. (20 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-691-05928-4
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
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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