Popular Science Review - Galileo's Daughter

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Review - Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel

Dava Sobel was faced with both a challenge and a huge advantage in putting out this book. On the positive side, she was riding on the back of the massive popularity of Longitude and received much more publicity and coverage than this book would otherwise expect. On the other hand, everyone is suspicious of the follow-up to great success.

In many ways this is a better book than Longitude. It's nowhere near as flimsy, and the subject is indubitably more meaty - there haven't been many names in science to rival Galileo. Where it falls down a little in comparison is that Longitude worked superbly as a story. It could have been fiction, though in fact it was (mostly) fact. This is much more straightforwardly a piece of conventional popular science writing, and doesn't have quite the same page-turning impetus.

The reason the book works well is the wonderful device Sobel adopts - pinning the story of Galileo and his achievements onto the framework of a series of letters written by one of his daughters from her convent to the great man (the replies, sadly, did not survive). It should be stressed, though, despite the title of the book, that the subject is very much Galileo (frankly there's very little to the story of his daughter) - the letters are just a mechanism to get to Galileo 'the man'.

Although in themselves the letters are rather tedious (and I think she might have done better to have quoted segments rather than reproducing a whole letter at a time), they do provide an excellent insight into the minutiae of convent life at the time, and of the Galilei household.

One proviso. In looking at Harrison in Longitude, Sobel was dealing with a largely unknown character. There has already been a lot written about Galileo, and that means she has to be a little more selective about the facts to make Galileo a hero, as she seems to need to do.

For example, Galileo's commercial instincts could tend to the cut-throat. Sobel tells us how he demonstrated his newly-made telescope in Venice, but doesn't point out that he only built it when he heard that a Dutch optician was on his way to try to sell a telescope in Venice. Nor does she mention that he arranged for a powerful friend to mislead and delay the Dutchman so that Galileo could slip in and show off his own hastily assembled (though brilliant) product first.

Strangely then, though Sobel gives us unparalleled insights into Galileo the family man, we miss out on Galileo the loveable commercial rogue. Even so, it's a lovely book and highly recommended.

Also in hardback: Also in audio:

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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