Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Great Discoveries) [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

by Barbara Goldsmith (Author) "Paris, April 20, 1995: the white carpet stretched block after block down the rue Soufflot ending in front of the Pantheon, which was draped in..." (more)
Key Phrases: Madame Curie, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
So enduring is the reputation of Marie Curie that more than 100 years after she won her first Nobel Prize, for physics in 1903 (she won a second, for chemistry, in 1911), Curie (1867–1934) is still regarded by most as the pre-eminent woman scientist of the 20th century. Goldsmith's straightforward biography illuminates both the public Curie, a tireless scientist obsessed with work, and the private one, a woman who suffered bouts of severe depression, was distant from her children and scarred deeply by the accidental death of her scientist husband, Pierre, in 1906. Using long-sealed Curie family archives, Goldsmith offers a well-rounded view of her subject that makes good dramatic use of the considerable intrigue that surrounded Curie's scientific accomplishments and her private life. Goldsmith also reminds us, without belaboring the point, that Curie overcame obstacles, including pervasive sexism within the scientific community that almost cost her the Nobel. Goldsmith is also adept at demonstrating that for Curie the nexus of public accomplishments and private happiness was tenuous. Although Curie continued working after Pierre's death, Goldsmith says she never allowed his name to be spoken: "Never again would there be a sign of joy." Goldsmith, biographer of Gloria Vanderbilt and Victoria Woodhull, is weakest at explaining the theoretical basis for Curie's scientific breakthroughs, which set the stage for the exploration of the atom. B&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Best-selling historian Goldsmith incisively chronicles the intensely dramatic life of the first woman scientist to win the Nobel Prize, neatly explicating both scientific breakthroughs and complex personal and societal conflicts. Curie, born Marya Salomee Sklodowska, endured and triumphed over a tough childhood in Russian-occupied Poland as well as depression, sexism, and poverty. A brilliant and profoundly committed scientist who achieved many firsts, she found her soul mate in fellow scientist and maverick Pierre Curie, who helped her conduct the grueling experiments that enabled her to discover polonium, radium, and radioactivity, thus throwing "open the door to atomic science." A humanist who hoped that radiation would only be used for good, Marie Curie also invented a mobile X-ray unit that her courageous scientist daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, who also won a Nobel Prize, operated on the front lines. Marie, Pierre, and Irene were all made fatally ill by their work with radioactive substances, and decades later, the Curie papers that Goldsmith has made such superb use of were still "hot." Marie Curie's life, Goldsmith concludes, was "tragic and glorious." Her powerful portrait reveals a woman of great passion, genius, and pain who changed the world in ways she would have deplored. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Amazon Remainders Account (November 15, 2004)
• ISBN-10: 0393051374
• ASIN: B000FFJRIG
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,062,035 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Biography, November 28, 2004

By	Wilkie Collins (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Great Discoveries) (Hardcover)

Obsessive Genius is an utterly fascinating portrait of a hallowed and difficult subject. If you are a fan of Goldsmith's work, (I am) you will immediately see that she is the perfect person to give Curie the complexity and dimension she deserves --as a scientist and as a woman. It's a short book which is by turns moving, informative, and intriguingly unexpected. I couldn't put it down.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Work of Literary Genuis!, November 29, 2004

By	Matthew B. Ellis (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Great Discoveries) (Hardcover)

The author has discovered the truth of Marie curie's impoverished, Dickensian , childhood, has read papers sealed for 60 years (some radioactive!) to get this incredible story, the truth behind the legend. Every library should have this sensational and deeply inforrmative book and so should book clubs and anyone who wants a great read. A bestseller for sure. If there were more than five stars that's how I'd rate it.

A must read!!!

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Archetypal Female Scientist, December 30, 2004

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Great Discoveries) (Hardcover)

It is difficult now to imagine that women were once regarded as categorically unable to fulfill certain careers. When there is a large scientific meeting now, no one is surprised that women should be in attendance, although it can be argued that women's participation in science is still limited or lacking in recognition. The archetypal woman scientist is the one who broke all the rules of her time, Marie Curie, but even so, she didn't win all her battles. When she and her husband Pierre jointly won the Nobel Prize in 1903, she was forced to sit among the audience while Pierre gave the lecture of acceptance. There were many such episodes in her life, and that she didn't furiously withdraw from her busy research due to such rebuffs is remarkable. There is certainly a feminist message in her story, and in _Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie_ (Atlas Books / Norton), Barbara Goldsmith has allowed the life to deliver the message, realizing that editorializing on the matter is unneeded. Not only did Marie overcome social obstacles, she overcame her own cycles of profound depression that troubled her throughout her life, to become an enormously productive scientist. Goldsmith's book is a welcome recall of an inspiring story.

Marya Salomee Sklodowska was born in 1867 in Russian-occupied Poland. Marie was an extremely bright student, and eventually was one of two women getting science degrees at the Sorbonne in Paris (Warsaw schools did not admit women). She had vowed never to let passion triumph over her research, but the two combined when she met Pierre Curie. He had also shared her attitude against falling in love, feeling that women "draw us away from dedication." The marriage was a strong one, but the scientific collaboration was nearly perfect. Within his lab, she took his suggestion to investigate the rays given off by uranium and other elements which had been discovered to produce images on photographic plates. These were something like the x-rays that had made a sensation, but the images were far less clear and dramatic. Scientists were fascinated with x-rays, but most thought that these other vague rays were not worth pursuing. Marie had a huge workload, having to fiddle with sensitive equipment like electrometers that would only yield useful results if handled with exhausting precision, and at the other end of the scale, having literally tons of pitchblende which she painstakingly fractionalized down to a few grains of radium. Pierre was killed by a horse-drawn wagon in 1906; he was limping and unsteady at the time from bone deterioration, so the radium may have directly caused his death. Goldsmith lists one famous scientist after another who during the decades doubted Marie's results because of her sex. All her life, even when she became famous throughout the world, she would be denied recognition or appointments simply because she was not a man.

Marie went on to further discoveries, and also to practical inventions. During the First World War, she was inspired to invent mobile x-ray units, cars equipped with x-ray equipment that could be dispatched to battle-front hospitals, especially for the urgent job of locating bullets and shrapnel for the surgeons to remove. The units, called "Les Petites Curie," only took off as invaluable tools once Marie persuaded bureaucrats that women could serve as drivers and technicians. She continued to work at the Curie Institute, which profited by the ill-advised fashion of adding radium to lipstick and drinking water, and also got funding from those contributing to it thinking that radium was being investigated as a cure for cancer. She was covered in skin lesions, especially on her hands, when she died in 1934. Goldsmith's brisk, sympathetic portrait of a driven woman benefits from having excellent descriptions of the historic thoughts about x-rays, radiation, and atoms. Marie's obsession eventually killed her, but for her, the work was more important than the life. She wrote, "I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done."