Book Review - of Reviews

Just finished (last night) an on and off again read

The Scientist as Rebel (New York Review Books Collection): Books: Freeman Dyson

I say on and off again as each chapter is self contained.

I've enjoyed many of Freeman's writings over the years, and have had the distinct pleasure of chatting with him at his daughter Esther's late great PCForum.

He writes with charm and a deep knowledge of the subject (science) as well as subjects, with personal relationships with many of those profiled. 2006 updates and comments on the original copy are illuminating.

One professional review"

From Publishers Weekly
In an eclectic but deeply satisfying collection, Dyson, a prize-winning physicist and prolific author (Weapons and Hope), presents 33 previously published book reviews, essays and speeches (15 from the New York Review of Books). Dyson expresses his precise thinking in prose of crystal clarity, and readers will be absolutely enthralled by his breadth, his almost uncanny ability to tie diverse topics together and his many provocative statements. In the title essay, Dyson writes, "Science is an alliance of free spirits in all cultures rebelling against" the tyranny of their local cultures. In a 2006 review of Daniel Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Dyson, himself a man of faith, takes issue with Dennett's quoting of physicist Stephen Weinberg that "for good people to do bad things—that takes religion." The converse is also true, says Dyson: "for bad people to do good things—that takes religion." Three of the best chapters (reprinted from Weapons and Hope) deal with the politics of the cold war. And his writings on Einstein, Teller, Newton, Oppenheimer, Norbert Wiener and Feynman will amuse while presenting deep insights into the nature of science and humanity. Virtually every chapter deserves to be savored. (Dec.)
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Then, as I neared the end there was a review of Star Maker (Early Classics of Science Fiction): Books: Olaf Stapledon,Freeman J. Dyson,Patrick A. McCarthy. This is a re-issue of a work I first ran across sometime back in the '70's and have had several copies ( occasionally "misplaced" during moves or just lost in the clutter of my office(s) ).

I'm amazed and pleased that Freeman would not only review this work, but wrote the foreword to this re-released edition.

My early reading was from a Sci-Fi perspective, and that, in my view, many writers took a chapter or two and built novels or whole series of books on just a sub-theme or so presented by Stapleton.

I later saw it as allegories of situations, politics and movements of the inter-war years. It was first published in 1937, although my copy had a prior book, Last and First Men, published in 1930 included.

More here:Olaf Stapledon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And from the original preface:

"At a moment when Europe is in danger of a catastrophe worse than that of 1914 a book like this may be condemned as a distraction from the desperately urgent defence of civilization against modern barbarism.

Year by year, month by month, the plight of our fragmentary and precarious civilization becomes more serious. Fascism abroad grows more bold and ruthless in its foreign ventures, more tyrannical toward its own citizens, more barbarian in its contempt for the life of the mind. Even in our own country we have reason to fear a tendency toward militarization and the curtailment of civil liberty. Moreover, while the decades pass, no resolute step is taken to alleviate the injustice of our social order. Our outworn economic system dooms millions to frustration."

Closing comment from Freeman:
"Star Maker may be, like the universe we happen to live in, a flawed masterpiece, but it is still a masterpiece. It is a classic work of imaginative literature, speaking to our modern age. It should be on the list of Great Books that anyone claiming to be educated should read. It is worthy to be compared, as McCarthy compares it in the introduction following this preface, with The Divine Comedy of Dante."

Well, guess what's back on my summer reading list.
It's been at least a decade or so, time to tackle it again.