Description
The publication of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision in 1950 was an event: the book was an instant best seller and launched Velikovsky on a long career as a writer and public figure opining on questions of science, history, myth, and more. But at the same time, Velikovsky and his theories - which claimed that ancient mythological and religious writings revealed Earth's hitherto unknown history of natural disasters and cosmic near-misses - were vigorously attacked by scientists, who saw them as unscientific nonsense. In The Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D. Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses his strange career and surprisingly influential writings to explore the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk and to show how vital this question remains to us today.
About the Author
Michael D. Gordin is professor of history at Princeton University and the author of a number of books, including Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly.
Reviews
"A slyly funny writer.... Make no mistake: Michael D. Gordin's sympathies are not with the occult. His fascination with pseudoscience is more like a negative method: the experts define the boundaries of their domain by fending off the quacks. For Gordin, pseudoscience is an instrument by which he takes the temperature of the past.... The Pseudoscience Wars is a relatively slim volume, but Gordin siphons into it an overwhelming amount of information." (New Republic) "Those who are interested in how bad ideas start, how they diffuse, how they covet and resist confrontation, and how they wax and wane in popularity over time will find much food for thought in this gripping book." (Science) "Scholarly and highly readable.... Michael D. Gordin's historical analysis of pseudoscience remains disturbingly relevant." (Nature)"
Book Information
ISBN 9780226101729
Author Michael D. Gordin
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 16mm * 2mm
About the Author
Michael D. Gordin is professor of history at Princeton University and the author of a number of books, including Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly.
Reviews
"A slyly funny writer.... Make no mistake: Michael D. Gordin's sympathies are not with the occult. His fascination with pseudoscience is more like a negative method: the experts define the boundaries of their domain by fending off the quacks. For Gordin, pseudoscience is an instrument by which he takes the temperature of the past.... The Pseudoscience Wars is a relatively slim volume, but Gordin siphons into it an overwhelming amount of information." (New Republic) "Those who are interested in how bad ideas start, how they diffuse, how they covet and resist confrontation, and how they wax and wane in popularity over time will find much food for thought in this gripping book." (Science) "Scholarly and highly readable.... Michael D. Gordin's historical analysis of pseudoscience remains disturbingly relevant." (Nature)"
Book Information
ISBN 9780226101729
Author Michael D. Gordin
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 16mm * 2mm
