Galileo's Daughter
A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
ISBN10: 0802779654
ISBN13: 9780802779656
Paperback
432 Pages
$19.99
CA$26.99
Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of his daughter Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has crafted a biography that dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishments of a mythic figure whose early-seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. During that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, Galileo sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope.
Reviews
Praise for Galileo's Daughter
"Sobel is a master storyteller . . . What [she] has done, with her choice of excerpts and her strong sense of story, is bring a great scientist to life."—Alan Lightman, The New York Times Book Review
"[Sobel] shows herself a virtuoso at encapsulating the history and the politics of science. Her descriptions of Galileo's ideas . . . are pithy, vivid, and intelligible."—The Wall Street Journal
"Sobel does wonders clearly explaining scientific principles . . . [She] is a most original writer, with a reverence for history and storytelling."—USA Today