Robert B. Silvers is editor of The New York Review of Books. Prior to joining the Review, Mr. Silvers was, from 1959 to 1963, associate editor of Harper's magazine, editor of the book Writing in America and translator of La Gangrene. Before that, Mr. Silvers lived in Paris for six years (1952 to 1958), where he served with the U.S. Army at SHAPE Headquarters and attended the Sorbonne and Ecole des Sciences Politiques. He joined the editorial board of The Paris Review in 1954 and became Paris editor in 1956. He also worked as press secretary to Governor Chester Bowles in 1950. Mr. Silvers, who graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947, was born in Mineola, New York. »

Hidden Histories of Science (paperback)

Edited by Robert B. Silvers

We often think of science as continuously advancing. In this collection of essays, five world-renowned writers explore obscure and neglected episodes in the history of science which suggest instead that the process of understanding the significance of scientific discoveries can be erratic, contradictory, even irrational. Jonathan Miller, Oliver Sacks, and Daniel Kevles show how promising new ideas may at first fail to be noticed or accepted, and then, years after they have been dismissed or forgotten, are recognized in a different form as important. R.C. Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould discuss the ways that words and images used by scientists and popularizers alike, from the murals on the walls of natural history museums to such ubiquitous terms as "adaptation" and "environment," reflect serious and often unacknowledged distortions in the way we conceive of both individual organisms and the natural history of the world.

These essays demonstrate that science is, in the words of Oliver Sacks, "a human enterprise through and through, an organic, evolving, human growth, with sudden spurts and arrests, and strange deviations, too. It grows out of its past, but never outgrows it, any more than we outgrow our childhood."

Reviews

The New York Review has published a widely accessible book in which five renowned contributors... remind us of "paths not taken" in science, and show how, by partially retracing our steps, we might gain (or have gained) a fuller picture of how our world is... Readers familiar with the authors' work will know what to expect from this short collection. Others may be surprised by the breadth and depth of analysis that it contains.
— William foulkes, British Medical Journal

Robert Silvers, the editor, has inspired a rewarding collection of good writing. Even where the substance inflames, the literary excellence assuages. Let's hear it for The New York Review of Books.
— Walter Gratzer, Nature

Also see:

The Waste Books By Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Translated and with an introduction by R.J. Hollingdale The record of a brilliant and subtle mind in action, The Waste Books are above all a powerful testament to the necessity, and pleasure, of unfettered thought.

Hidden Histories of Science Edited by Robert B. Silvers "Robert Silvers, the editor, has inspired a rewarding collection of good writing. Even where the substance inflames, the literary excellence assuages."—Walter Gratzer, Nature

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