Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life

Rating:
Summary: A woman ahead of her time.
Review: This amazing biography of crystallographer is even more interesting because it is the author's first book. Despite being a non-scientist, Ferry does a superb job of exploring the life of her subject. It is a joy to read, treating with equal respect Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin's personal and scientific life. The central role of crystallography (with excursions into biology, chemistry, and physics) is not minimized, but it would be easily understandable to the non-scientific reader. Besides being a woman scientist in Great Britain at a time when women were not even eligible for college-level degrees at some schools, Dorothy was a successful wife and mother, raising several children almost alone while her husband worked in faraway places. But rather than concentrate on the difficulties, Dorothy put all her efforts into pursuing science, and thus she became fantastically successful, eventually winning the Nobel Prize for her work on the structures of Vitamin B12 and penicillin. Everyone in her field respected her, no one suggested her proper place was anywhere else, and so she avoided many of the pitfalls women in science often face. As long as she lived, Dorothy worked for what she believed in, whether it was solving the structures of complicated bio-active molecules, peace, or international communication. She built friendships all over the world, and used her fame and personality to help people. This book will make you a Dorothy Hodgkin fan, which is a tribute to both the subject's worthiness and the author's skill.

Rating:
Summary: A woman ahead of her time.
Review: This amazing biography of crystallographer is even more interesting because it is the author's first book. Despite being a non-scientist, Ferry does a superb job of exploring the life of her subject. It is a joy to read, treating with equal respect Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin's personal and scientific life. The central role of crystallography (with excursions into biology, chemistry, and physics) is not minimized, but it would be easily understandable to the non-scientific reader. Besides being a woman scientist in Great Britain at a time when women were not even eligible for college-level degrees at some schools, Dorothy was a successful wife and mother, raising several children almost alone while her husband worked in faraway places. But rather than concentrate on the difficulties, Dorothy put all her efforts into pursuing science, and thus she became fantastically successful, eventually winning the Nobel Prize for her work on the structures of Vitamin B12 and penicillin. Everyone in her field respected her, no one suggested her proper place was anywhere else, and so she avoided many of the pitfalls women in science often face. As long as she lived, Dorothy worked for what she believed in, whether it was solving the structures of complicated bio-active molecules, peace, or international communication. She built friendships all over the world, and used her fame and personality to help people. This book will make you a Dorothy Hodgkin fan, which is a tribute to both the subject's worthiness and the author's skill.