Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating social history
Review: I found this book fascinating. It combined science, astronomy, religion, history, politics, and epidemiology, all in one. It shows the disservice done to one of the greatest minds the world has ever produced and breaks your heart. We are fortunate to have such an able scholar and deft writer as Dava Sobel gather the information and make it coherent. (Also read her "Longitude".) Only his daughter's letters to him survive. She, or the sisters in her order, must have destroyed his letters to her because of his ex communication, so we only have half of the story. Nevertheless it is a fascinating read.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable and Informative
Review: I'm about half way through this book and I absolutely *love* it. I find it fascinating because it provides such a personal view into a famous man's life. In school I've learned about Galileo and his discoveries, but we never really have time to cover people's lives in depth (last semester I took modern world history class and he was mentioned for all of 5 minutes). Dava Sobel does a wonderful job of intermeshing Galileo's daughter's letters with Galileo's life story, as well as informing the reader about important things that were happening in history at the time that would have affected Galileo and his daughter (Maria Celeste). After I finish reading this book I plan to read more nonfiction books, because this book was written so well it raised my interest in biographies. I started reading the book with no real preconceptions that it would be solely about Maria Celeste; and if you pick up the book thinking it will be about her, then you'll be disappointed. Galileo's Daughter is more focused on the relationship between a brilliant scientist and his loving (and also brilliant) daughter. The first several chapters focus more on Galileo's early life, and give the reader some background information on Galileo. As the book progresses, the reader is introduced to Maria Celeste and to Galileo's other family. The bulk of the book is about Galileo's discoveries and conflict with the Catholic church, and Maria Celeste's encouragement of her father to pursue his studies and support of him when his views are attacked. There is usually one full letter in each chapter from Maria Celeste to Galileo, and I have come to admire Maria Celeste's exquisite writing style. I would recommend this book to anyone who is mildly interested in history, and who wants to know more about Galileo and the times in which he lived.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not as good as Longitude
Review: I picked out this book because I really liked Longitude, about John Harrison. I did not enjoy it as much, because, although this might be an unfair criticism to make of a biography, Galileo did not seem to have it as hard as Harrison. Sobel frames Harrison's life as a struggle for recognition where no one wants him to succeed. It is him against the world. Galileo has too many friends and too many people helping him out. As a biography, this book is fine. As a suspese-filled writing (which it by no means claims to be) it does not match up to Longitude.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Galileo was an extraordinary scientist. Not least because of his revolutionary inventions, insights, and discoveries, but because he was a scientist in the professional sense. He refused blindly to accept received wisdom, he championed the experimental approach of laboriously testing theories against observations and keeping meticulous records. While this made him great, it also made him controversial. Galileo's enemies were legion within academia and in the church hierarchy. Galileo scorned one nemesis, Grassi and his reliance on majority votes to arrive at truth, noting, "Even in conclusions which can be known only by reasoning, I say that the testimony of many has little more value than that of few, since the number of people who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those who reason badly." Today's sophists stacking opinions atop each other seeking truth about, say, global warming or AIDS could usefully read these words. He adds, "I believe that good philosophers fly alone, like eagles, and not in flocks like starlings. It is true that because eagles are rare birds they are little seen and less heard, while birds that fly like starlings fill the sky with shrieks and cries, and wherever they settle befoul the earth beneath them." Sobel's research and excellent story-telling skills, her smooth blending of Maria Celeste's letters with accounts of Medicean Florence throw a light on Galileo's life and times. Caught between rigid church doctrine, expanding scientific knowledge, terrors of the plague, great dynasties, and cataclysmic wars, Galileo not only stood at an intersection of western history, but in many ways he created it. Galileo was ambitious (cunningly plotting for a place in the Medici court), sickly (missing months and years of research and writing because of his ailments), and bored with intellectual lightweights. He was a brilliant writer and a precise logician. His explanations of his discoveries were as powerful as the science itself. The description of Galileo's trial clarifies an event we thought we knew about. Galileo is tired, timid, and chastened. At 70, is is simply old. It is unlikely that he muttered, or even thought, the words "Still it moves" as some revisionists suggest. His book, "Dialogue", was previously twice approved by church censors, yet he was convicted at his 1634 inquisition trial for its contents. ("Dialogue" remained banned by the church for 200 years.) He recanted, but not from falsity or cowardice, the case is more complicated than that. The Galileo in these pages is a good Catholic who does his utmost to follow doctrine. He seeks and abides by church rulings, knowing that his work is at the limits of its teachings. He never mocks nor criticizes the church but venerates it. His science becomes a tragedy as his developing understanding of the universe, based on his reading of Copernicus and his own observations and reflections, place him in an awkward position. For what he realizes is true is different from what he wants to be true. It is no longer enough for him to hold Copernicus' model as "supposition", he knows it to be fact. This book only touches upon the more difficult question of why the Catholic church insists on clinging to obsolete theories and disproved models, undermining its own authority and turning its wisest adherents into enemies. Or why the church should take a position in a scientific debate at all. The church's position was one of gripping rigidly to the teachings of two non-Christians, Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as a few isolated lines of scripture, because the hierarchy apparently decided, wrongly as it is now obvious, that Ptolemy's views were integral to the verities of Christianity. "Galileo's Daughter" is wonderful. It is a biography of a filial relationship drawn from a daughter's loving letters. It is a window looking in on the impoverished day to day life of a 17th century convent with its concerns for lemons and pillowcases, and a far larger window looking out on 17th century Europe.
Rating: 
Summary: What a bore!
Review: I'm sorry, but I found this book extremely boring. I fell asleep each time I tried to read it and I eventually had to give up. I am a scientist and I am very interested in the history of science and the people behind the discoveries, but this book was not at all what I expected. It was not personal at all, the first few chapters were like a long history lecture full of uninteresting details. Dave Sobel's writing didn't help either. She writes as if she's still writing for the NY Times, very removed and impersonal. Her writing did not draw me into the story at all. I couldn't wait to hear more about Galileo's daughter, as this book had promised, but I'm more 1/4 of the way through and she was reluctantly mentioned in several places. I know two people who really liked it and they were both 60 years old, I think this book is definitely for an older audience who has more patience. I give it two stars instead of one b/c Ms. Sobel did a lot of research for the book and she deserves some credit.
Rating:
Summary: long read but good history
Review: this book gives you alot of history that you wont find in any history class based around the letters of gallileo's daughter to the philosipher himself this book details the life of gallileo starting with his carrer as a philosipher and than his later trip to the inquisition......its a hard read but well worth the time
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Very interesting.
Review: Need i say more? It is a glimpse into the personal life of a historical figure that is both interesting and well written.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book, timeless story...
Review: Although I agree with other reviewers that the title of the book was a bit deceptive - I found myself growing impatient with some of Galileo's daughter's descriptions of preparing his favorite food or balm - that was a small price to pay for the retelling of a timeless story. Galileo is well-known for his telescope, his defense of heliocentrism, and his persecution by the Inquisition. He has become a metaphor for reason over blind faith and intellectual honesty over censorship. However, what is less well known is that Galileo is probably the father of the scientific method, the painfully honest empirical focus on what the essence of the world is - what is observable and quantifiable in particular - at the expense of the fairy tales we tell ourselves about how we want the world to be. This was an extraordinary leap and without it we would have no laws of motion, no engineering, no physics, no modern medicine, no vaccines, no computers... When Isaac Newton later spoke of standing on the shoulders of giants, he was referring to Galileo. We would be living in the world of the poor Clares - dying random, painful deaths at young ages, constantly plagued by outbreaks of poorly understood diseases, and at the mercy of an establishment far more interested in maintaining control and power than in allowing the noisy give and take of the free trade of ideas (and goods and services). I loved the little details about life in Italy 400 years ago, about Galileo's refusal to wear his academic gown, about the posturing between mathematicians and philosophers, about the irony that one of history's greatest geniuses had to devote a considerable amount of time to balancing the family's books, selling their wine, renting out rooms, etc. This portrayal of Galileo as a family man, a father, and a businessman (centuries before Quicken!) made him much more real and accessible to me. I disagree with some reviewers who found the daughter superfluous to the story; she illustrated one of the paradoxes of Galileo, a man who today is viewed as an iconoclast of sorts, but who was a devout Catholic (as much as one can believe the public proclamations made in a society rigidly and ruthlessly controlled by the Inquisition) until the end. He clearly had a tender side, a familial side, and business side, as well as his well-publicized intellectual side. This was a fascinating read. The book pulls you into another world and gives you a sense of tremendous appreciation and awe for the raw intellectual courage of pioneers like Galileo, and those who supported him, like his daughter. The only flaw in the book was the apology made by the author for the excesses of Catholicism; the author, apparently a cloistered nun, tells us at one point that the pope wasn't really responsible for the condemnation of Galileo's ideas since it was the Inquisition (subordinates) who actually signed the paper condemning him. Pope Urban went out of his way to keep Galileo spitefully separated not only from his family but from any social contacts later in his life and to threaten Galileo with imprisonment in Rome if he didn't shut up about asking for "grace." The man was culpable, personally and authoritatively, for the condemnation of Copernican theory and Galileo in particular, an act that discredited the Catholic church forever. Italy was never to be at the forefront of scientific and intellectual progress again. The ball was passed along with Galileo's smuggled manuscripts to northern Europe, England, and ultimately (a few centuries later) to the United States. The relationship with the daughter as developed in the book was somewhat sterile, but this could be excused as a function of the historical record. A lesser author might have deviated from the extant letters, perhaps weaving a revisionist feminist spin to the book (I was half expecting going into the book that we would be told that Galileo's daughter, held down by her male-dominated world, was the real genius behind Galileo's discoveries, so accustomed am I to this popular revisionist history genre.) The author told the story without apology or unnecessary editorializing. Kudos.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I have read in a long time
Review: I read the book during Lent this year. I have admired Gallileo for a long time and I was happy when the church finally pardoned him and admitted that he was right (400 years later). The book was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I laughed and cried. I didn't expect his daughter to pass away before him. And I cried when she was found buried beneath him. What a pure love story!! Since I have a love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church (I am a church employee), I found Gallileo's struggles compelling and all to familiar for our day and age. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Galileo had three illegitimate children by a woman named Marina Gamba, whom he never married because it was not traditional for philosophy professors to marry. The eldest of these three children was originally named Virginia, but she took the name Suor Maria Celeste when she became a nun at the age of sixteen. She had been placed in a monastery run by the Poor Clares at the age of thirteen, along with her twelve year old sister Livia. Both joined the Order. Maria Celeste, even in the monastery, became Galileo's greatest support and confidante, even to assisting his supporters to destroy and alter papers that might have been damaging to him while he was on trial by the Inquisition in 1633. She died on 2 April 1634, not yet 34 years of age, as a result of the stress and anxiety caused by her father's trial and punishment. Years later, when the Catholic Church finally permitted the body of Galileo to be moved to a tomb of honor, it was discovered that Vincenzio Viviani, forbidden to make the tomb for Galileo that he had wanted and forced to bury his mentor in a less honorable condition, moved the body of Maria Celeste to share the grave of her father. When his body was moved to the tomb of honor, she was moved with him so that she still shares in his glory. However, the book was more a biography of Galileo than it was a biography of his daughter. In that, I was disappointed.
|
