The Begetters and the Begotten: Whence and How Came We All - Softcover

Leonard, Thomas A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0944838014 ISBN 13: 9780944838013

Publisher: Medical Physics Pub Corp, 1988

Synopsis

Sm Quarto, 1988, PP.176,

About this title

Review:

The Begetters and the Begotten is a review of the origins of man from the birth of the universe through man's early development. Or at least that is the intention indicated by the table of contents. This is a very basic, very general appr ach to the biological history of man. yet it is neither readable nor easily understood. T1w author skips erratically from topic to topic and from concept to concept without respecting the chronology of his material or any other discernable method of organizing it. Extraneous bits of history are inserted on the flimsiest pretexts, and byways of science are explored for no apparent reason. Although the book is less than 200 pages in length, it is difficult to finish because of its lack of organization. The author is a physician. Dr. Leonard may have received an excellent training in medicine, but he has not been trained in historical method or in the writing of nonfiction. He states that "the book is riot presented as a profound, specialized, academic work." That it certainly is not. But it is also not a clear presentation of scientific concepts written for the enjoyment of the curious layman. The author's language is often poetic and his sense of wonder is evident. But he seems to feel that unrelated scraps of wonderment are all that readers will demand of popular science. It is a patronizing attitude that regular readers of the genre will find distasteful. As free verse, some of the author's paragraphs might have been successful. As an exercise in the history of biology, The Begetters and the Begotten is a failure. -- From Independent Publisher

About this edition

• Publisher: Medical Physics Pub Corp
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0944838014
• ISBN 13: 9780944838013
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 608