Books

Praise for Galileo's Gout: Science in an Age of Endarkenment

"In Galileo's Gout, Gerald Weissmann …bemoans the onrushing darkness and then sets to chronicling individual explosions of light….Throughout, [he] weaves evidence of political regression with details of memorable scientific discoveries, as well as occasional medical case histories of relevant literati….[It is] a compact guide to the highlights of American medical innovations." — Washington City Paper

"Weissmann models his work after that of his mentor, Lewis Thomas…his ideas…are every bit as important." — Publishers Weekly

"Oliver Sacks, Richard Selzer, Lewis Thomas…Weissmann is in this noble tradition." — Los Angeles Times

"Weissmann introduces us to a new way of thinking about the connections between art and medicine." — The New York Times Book Review

Galileo's Gout

Galileo's Gout: Science in an Age of Endarkenment

By Gerald Weissmann, M.D.

Price: $25.00 Hardcover
13-digit ISBN: 978-1-934137-00-0

Awarded The Best Interdisciplinary Book published by NYU Faculty in 2007 by the NYU Humanities Initiative

Embryonic stem cell research. Evolution vs. intelligent design. The transformation of medicine into "health care." Climate change. Never before has science been so intertwined with politics, never have we been more dependent on scientific solutions for the preservation of the species.

Transporting us back across more than four hundred years of pivotal moments in science and medicine, Weissmann distills history's lessons for today's new age of sect and violence: "The Endarkenment." Among others, he lingers with Galileo and his daughter in 17th century Florence, Diderot and d'Alembert in Enlightenment Paris, William and Alice James in fin-de-siecle Boston, James Watson as the John McEnroe of DNA, and Craig Venter decoding the genome at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Weissmann's message is clear: "Experimental science is our defense — perhaps our best defense — against humbug and the Endarkenment."

A rare amalgam of incisive polemic and rich, anecdotal narrative, this is humanistic science writing at its best. Weissmann's reflections on the historical roots of the current culture wars in science and medicine again reveal him to be "by any standard, one of the major essayists of our time." (Eric Kandel, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000)

Gerald Weissmann, M.D., is a research professor of medicine, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, and Director of the Biotechnology Study Center at New York University School of Medicine. His essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications worldwide, including The London Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review. He is author of the acclaimed Woods Hole Cantata, Darwin's Audubon and most recently, of The Year of the Genome. He lives in New York City and Woods Hole, Massachusetts.