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How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science
by Dava Sobel
The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Galileo's Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own.
"Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name," writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science—Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre's untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters; drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and other luminaries of twentieth-century physics; won support from two U.S. presidents; and inspired generations of young women the world over to pursue science as a way of life.
As Sobel did so memorably in her portrait of Galileo through the prism of his daughter, she approaches Marie Curie from a unique angle, narrating her remarkable life of discovery and fame alongside the women who became her legacy—from France's Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, and Norway's Ellen Gleditsch, to Mme. Curie's elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings that probed new theories about the interior of the atom, Marie Curie traveled far and wide, despite constant illness, to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. Her two triumphant tours of the United States won her admirers for her modesty even as she was mobbed at every stop; her daughters, in Ève's later recollection, "discovered all at once what the retiring woman with whom they had always lived meant to the world."
With the consummate skill that made bestsellers of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, and the appreciation for women in science at the heart of her most recent The Glass Universe, Dava Sobel has crafted a radiant biography and a masterpiece of storytelling, illuminating the life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.
What are you reading this week? (11-21-2024)
I'm starting the week with The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel. I really enjoy science writing so this is right up my alley.
-Anne_Glasgow
"Preeminent science writer Sobel brings forward a new array of female scientists in this vital portrait of Marie Curie and the women who joined her in her world-altering Paris laboratory ... As Sobel vividly tells their tales of valor, diligence, and brilliance, she fuses elements human and scientific to create a dramatic group portrait encompassing passion, struggle, poignancy, and triumph." —Booklist (starred review)
"Admiring biography, by the noted popular historian of science, of the extraordinarily accomplished Madame Curie ... A lucid, literate biography, celebrating a scientific exemplar who, for all her fame, deserves to be better known." —Kirkus Reviews
"Paints a human portrait not of an isolated genius, but of a woman who existed in and built scientific community ... Sobel analyzes her subject with care and through detailed historical and personal accounts ... An essential read for anyone who values works that highlight women in the sciences." —Shelf Awareness
"Marie Curie is one of the greatest scientists of all time and a pioneer for women. In this book Dava Sobel has brought her and those she inspired to life, with her characteristic accessible and scholarly writing. A book for our times celebrating both science and women." —Paul Nurse, author of What Is Life?
"Marie Skłodowska Curie was unique, but her influence irradiated the futures of 45 women who worked in her laboratory. By restoring these pioneers to visibility, acclaimed historian Dava Sobel casts fresh light on the life and achievements of the first scientist to win two Nobel prizes." —Dr. Patricia Fara, author of Science: A Four Thousand Year History
"Hard to put down! A wonderfully written biography of Marie Curie, that does not step away from the physics but also includes her life outside the lab, even including the black and white cat!"—Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell
This information about The Elements of Marie Curie was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dava Sobel, a former New York Times science reporter, is the author of Longitude (Walker 1995 and 2005, Penguin 1996), Galileo's Daughter (Walker 1999 and 2011, Penguin 2000), The Planets (Viking 2005, Penguin 2006), A More Perfect Heaven (Walker / Bloomsbury 2011 and 2012), And the Sun Stood Still (Bloomsbury, 2016) and The Glass Universe (Viking, 2016). She has also co-authored six books, including Is Anyone Out There? with astronomer Frank Drake.
In recent years she has been teaching science writing, first at the University of Chicago in 2006, at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, in 2011, and from 2013 to 2016 at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts as the Joan Lieman Jacobson Visiting Nonfiction Writer.
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