Darwin's Audubon: Science And The Liberal Imagination [Hardcover]

Gerald Weissmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0306459817 | ISBN-13: 978-0306459818 | Edition: 1

In this treasure trove of new and best-known essays, Gerald Weissmann ranges freely through subjects as diverse as a cultural history of inflammation, the medical careers of Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams, and the Titanic. He is equally at home with Darwin as he is with a suffering homeless patient to whom he ministers with compassion. While in these pages he wages an acutely argued campaign against scientific fraud and facile reasoning, there is nothing righteous or strident in his tone. His writing has a rare brilliance that evokes figures of history and art as vividly as the genius of scientific discovery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As director of the Division of Rheumatology at New York University-Bellevue Hospital, Weissmann (Democracy and DNA) infuses technical medical information throughout the 24 essays in his latest eclectic volume. Most were originally published in specialty magazines such as Hospital Practice and MD. All touch in some manner on ways of bridging the gap between the sciences and the humanities. Weissmann ranges broadly, ruminating on appropriate treatment for homeless mentally ill individuals, on the relationship between Darwin and Audubon, about the three Nobel prizes garnered by the family of Marie Curie (discoverer of radium), about the way Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas spent the war years in occupied France in hiding from the Nazis while protected by a French fascist. He attacks feminist critiques of science and summarizes the history of Lyme disease. Weissmann's prose is at times choppy and his references to poetry and history occasionally forced; nonetheless, these essays demonstrate the working of a considerable intellect. Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Weissmann has contributed elegantly to the revival of the popular scientific essay as a staple of contemporary literary expression." -- -San Francisco Examiner --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (August 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306459817
• ISBN-13: 978-0306459818
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,134,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Synchronicity and other stuff?, August 14, 2004

By 

Andrew Mannion (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darwin's Audubon: Science And The Liberal Imagination (Hardcover)

What amazed me about this book - apart from the excellent writing and obvious literary skills of Weismann - was the way the author brought seemingly disparate ideas and themes together: choral music and sanitation; unusual psychological syndromes and military service.

There's an endless imagination drawn on here - maybe a bit clunkily at times - and this is one of Weismann's overarching themes: the importance of imagination.

I enjoyed this - and will keep on dreaming.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Analysis of art, science, and culture, March 10, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darwin's Audubon: Science And The Liberal Imagination (Paperback)

Essays by the author provide plenty of insights into science and the liberal imagination, bringing together works from his prior books to accompany seven new works. The author's analysis of art, science, and culture considers influences on all and how the various genres have helped each other to evolve.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not for me, May 4, 2006

By 

N "Beau" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Darwin's Audubon: Science And The Liberal Imagination (Paperback)

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure if I was a doctor, biologist, or chemist of sorts, I might have enjoyed the book much more. However, I'm not any of those things, so this book, though very interesting at times, was on the whole a drag and I could have probably spent my time doing something else.

My favorite essays were Puerperal Priority, Science Fictions, Call Me Madame, In Quest of Fleck, Losing a MASH. A lot of the essays I found dull or else I was too lazy to be as imaginative as Weissmann. Like I said, a person more attuned to his field of medecine might care to think about what he's saying while I just let it pass through unnoticed.

Anyways, all in all, I must admit that the author is an excellent writer and his superior education in the sciences and humanities is evident from all of his writings.