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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

In this entertaining biography Michael Sharratt examines the flair, imagination, hard-headedness, clarity, combativeness and penetration of Galileo Galilei. To follow his career as he exploited unforeseen opportunities to unseat established ways of comprehending nature is to understand a crucial stage of the Scientific Revolution. Galileo was a path-breaker for the newly invented telescope, the decoder of nature's mathematical language and a quite brilliant popularizer of science. Even his reluctant excursion into theology has at last been officially and handsomely recognized by the Church's "rehabilitation" of the Inquisition's most famous victim, fully discussed in the last chapter. This book makes his lasting contributions accessible to non-scientists and his mistakes are not overlooked. This is not a mythical story, but a biography of an innovator -one of the greatest ever known. Michael Sharratt is a Roman Catholic priest, and a lecturer in philosophy at Ushaw Colle, Durham.

(Extracted from the back cover.)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-List of Illustrations.

-General Editor's Preface.

-Acknowledgements.

-1- The Strangest Piece of News.

-2- Early Life.

-3- Professor at Pisa.

-4- The Proper Home for his Ability.

-5- Discoveries and Controversies.

-6- The Condemnation of Copernicanism.

-7- Controversy and New Hope.

-8- The Dialogue and Galileo's Comdemnation.

-9- Two New Sciences.

-10- Rehabilitation.

-Notes.

-Bibliography.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

Galileo Galilei's biography is something more than the history of the life and achievements of a noteworthy character. This well-known Italian, besides, is a true example of what a single man can do to change the mental, social and scientific structures in his time. In actual fact, this certainly is a thrilling biography revealing the nature of a society which was dominated by the powers of the Church, a clear sample of the obstacles that Science had to overcome before it managed to establish its unarguable logic and its beneficial potential for society, from all points of view.

Galileo was an innovative man, and as such he deserves his seat of honor in history, not only with respect to science but also with respect to the whole of Humanity. The priest Michael Sharrat, a member of the same Church that one day condemned Galileo, renders a sincere tribute to the clarity of mind of such a complex, interesting character as Galileo is. On the other hand, Sharrat's narrative is kind and concise enough. The book does not merely deal with the purely scientific and mathematical aspects of his activities, but it also describes his life and his work from the objective perspective we have in our days. Our main conclusion must then be the fact that Galileo Galilei did more for the change and the progress of our society than all the politicians and churchmen in his time, which by itself must place him in his own merits as one of the founding fathers of the modern era.

The collection of scientific biographies by Cambridge University Press continues to grow, and step by step it is becoming a basic documentary element in our library. We certainly look forward to getting the next additions to this series.