Month: April 2011

Essay review

The Road to Scientific Success: Inspiring Life Stories of Prominent Researchers. Volume 1. Edited by DEBORAH D.L. CHUNG. Pp. xi + 230, illus., index. World Scientific: Singapore and London. 2006. £33.00 (hbk); £17.00 (pbk).
ISBN: 981-256-600-7 (hbk); 981-256-466-7 (pbk).

Nature not Mocked: Places, People and Science. By PETER DAY. Pp. x + 262, illus., index. Imperial College Press: London. 2005. $48.00. ISBN: 1-86094-576-7.

Candid Science: Conversations with Famous Chemists. By István Hargittai, and edited by Magdolna Hargittai. Pp. xii + 516, illus., index. Imperial College Press: London. 2000. £48.00 (hbk); £21.00 (pbk). ISBN: 1-86094-151-6 (hbk); 1-86094-228-8 (pbk).

Candid Science V: Conversations with Famous Scientists. By Balazs Hargittai and István Hargittai. Pp. xiii + 695, illus., index. Imperial College Press: London. 2005. £34.00. ISBN: 1-86094-506-6 (pbk).

These four books elicit biographical information from the subjects themselves. They exemplify pitfalls of biography well-familiar to historians.¹ They signal paths for biographers in general, oral biographers in particular. Their marginal value is to point to new directions which chemical science has entered.
One should not underestimate, as is currently fashionable, the merits of a biographical approach. To put it into a nutshell: “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”²