Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer (British Commonwealth, United States, United Nations, 1993) - Softcover

White, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 073820143X ISBN 13: 9780738201436

Publisher: Basic Books, 1999

Synopsis

Unknown to all but a few, Newton was a practicing alchemist who dabbled with the occult, a tortured, obsessive character who searched for an understanding of the universe by whatever means possible. Sympathetic yet balanced, Michael White's Isaac Newton offers a revelatory picture of Newton as a genius who stood at the point in history where magic ended and science began.

About this title

Review:

Science writer Michael White's subtitle, The Last Sorcerer, echoes John Maynard Keynes's assertion in 1942 that Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was not the Olympian rationalist portrayed by his worshipful early biographers. Newton was a great scientist, the author acknowledges; he was also an "obsessive, driven mystic," deeply involved in the pseudoscience of alchemy, subscriber to a heretical sect of Christianity, and damaged survivor of childhood traumas that rendered him a difficult, egotistical, quarrelsome adult. White makes recent research accessible to the general reader in lucid prose that knocks the academic dust off a towering historical figure.

About the Author:

Michael White was a science lecturer and director of studies at d'Overbroeck's College, Oxford for ten years before becoming a full-time writer and journalist. He is the co-author (with John Gribben) of the best seller, Stephen Hawking: A Life In Science which has been translated into 25 languages and has sold in excess of 250,000 copies worldwide. He is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, GQ, Focus and New Scientist, writing on subjects ranging from pure science to music. He lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 073820143X
• ISBN 13: 9780738201436
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416