Review by Choice Review
Fara (history and philosophy of science, Cambridge Univ.) offers a fascinating chronicle of the fate of the reputation of Newton from his own times to recent revisions. This is not the usual "Newton and the Enlightenment" of the intellectual historians, but a documentary exegesis of Newtoniana, best described by the chapter categories: "Sanctity," "Icons," "Disciples," "Enemies," "France," "Genius," "Myths," "Shrines," and "Inheritors." The forgotten Newton of Arian, millenarian celebrity, dominates the early years; the Enlightenment progenitor, the middle; and the original Genius, the modern times. The latter period is peppered with remarkable incidents in Newtonian studies--the question of Einstein's post-Newtonian relativity, the Marxist accusation of class-interested subjectivity, the rediscovery of his alchemy, and disputed scandals. This volume is a pleasure to read, and it authoritatively explores aspects of the role of science in cultural history that are too often neglected in studies restricted to the content of science as opposed to the image conveyed through its icons. For libraries collecting in intellectual and social history and in history of science. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. P. D. Skiff Bard College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This scholarly but accessible social history examines the reasons behind Isaac Newton's canonization as scientific genius, the modern-day equivalent, the author asserts, of secular sainthood. Today, schoolchildren know Newton as the pioneering empiricist who discovered the fundamental laws of nature by observing an apple fall from a tree, yet he was not a scientist. His goal was to understand God, and it was his obsession with alchemy, prophecy and ancient chronology from which his celebrated studies in gravity and optics emerged. In his lifetime, Newton's reputation had little reach outside a small circle of Cambridge scholars. By some, he was thought to be mentally unstable, even insane. By the 18th century, however, he was a national icon in England, and across the channel in revolutionary France his name had become synonymous with rational progress and egalitarian political ideals. Revelations about Newton's Faustian quest to unmask God are not uncommon biographical notes today, yet as Fara states, even Richard S. Westfall, whose biography Never at Rest is still the definitive one, perpetuates the secular myth by downplaying Newton's mysticism to focus anachronistically on his "scientific career." Fara contributes to Newton's biography by focusing on the roots of Newton's apotheosis. She examines how idealized portraits propagated Newton's public image, and how the marketing of Newtonian images outside academic circles commercialized science in the same way Einstein's face sells today. Throughout, Fara, a lecturer at Cambridge University, effectively employs the words and imagery of religious discourse to characterize the idealization and commercialization of Newton in the service of emerging secular politics and culture. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Fascinating if sometimes dense study describing how Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) came to be regarded as the world's first scientific genius. The word "scientist" did not even exist until 100 years after Newton's death, notes Fara (History and Philosophy of Science/Cambridge); he was known during his lifetime not so much for the laws of motion and optics as for his expertise on biblical chronologies (to him we owe the current obsession of Satanists with the number 666) and on the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts. The author sketches what details we have concerning Newton's life (no one knows for certain when he was born) and describes his most enduring achievement: demonstrating that bodies in the heavens obey the same physical laws as those on earth. Informing us that there is no way to verify the falling-apple story, Fara moves on to examine the images of Newton in paintings, etchings, and sculptures during and after his life. She also assesses his popularizers-including the adventurous folks who published the fashionable book Newton for the Ladies-and explores the rivalry between Newton and Leibniz, noting the irony that the latter is remembered as a philosopher rather than as the formidable mathematician he was. Meanwhile, throughout this engaging text, she displays an easy familiarity with arts and letters as well as with the relevant scientific literature. Most interesting of all are Fara's discussions of the evolving notion of "genius." She notes with amusement the thin line between "genius" and "insanity," then discusses how the mantle of "genius" has passed from Newton to Einstein to Hawking and reveals that at a 1998 auction a first edition of Newton's Principia (1687) went for nearly #2 million. Nothing seems beyond Fara's grasp in her scholarly examination of apples and alchemy, physics and fame, public relations and reputation. (41 illustrations)
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