The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski: The Life and Ideas of a Popular Science Icon

by Timothy Sandefur

Overview

THE FIRST-EVER BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB BRONOWSKI--ONE OF THE LEADING SCIENCE POPULARIZERS OF HIS GENERATION.

Best remembered today for his blockbuster documentary series The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski spent decades explaining scientific ideas to laypersons on television and radio. A true Renaissance man, Bronowski was not only a scientist, but a philosopher and a poet. In this first-ever biography, author Timothy Sandefur examines the extraordinary accomplishments and fascinating range of thought of this brilliant man.

As Sandefur documents, the extent of Bronowki's interests and achievements is staggering. He revolutionized the study of William Blake, invented smokeless coal, and proved Australopithecus africanus was a relative of humans. He was a close friend of Leo Szilard (inventor of the atomic bomb) and William Empson (the prominent poet). He won the British equivalent of an Emmy for a radio play he wrote, sparked the "Two Cultures" controversy of the 1960s, led the mission sent to assess the effects of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and cofounded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies with Jonas Salk. A marvelously eloquent and compelling speaker, Bronowski spent the last half of his life teaching the possibilities of humanism, freedom, science, and peace.

This thoroughly researched and eloquently written biography will spark renewed interest in one of the great public intellectuals of the twentieth century

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633885271
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/23/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Timothy Sandefur is vice president for litigation and holds the Duncan Chair in Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute. Besides litigating important cases in constitutional law, he is also the author of several books, including Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man; Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America (coauthored with Christina Sandefur); The Permission Society; The Conscience of The Constitution; and The Right to Earn a Living. He has also written dozens of scholarly articles on subjects ranging from Indian law to antitrust, slavery and the Civil War, and political issues in Shakespeare, ancient Greek drama, and Star Trek. He is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and a graduate of Hillsdale College and Chapman University School of Law.

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction

One contemporary said that Jacob Bronowski (pronounced “Bro-noff-ski”) was “not one man but a multitude.” Many others have called him a “polymath.” In one sense, however, such descriptions are inappropriate, for they assume that his many interests lay in separate fields. “Dr. Bronowski,” as virtually everyone in Europe affectionately called him, saw all his pursuits as connected — as components of the philosophy he called “scientific existentialism,” and, later, “human specificity.” What seemed to others separate disciplines were in his view only different colors on a spectrum refracted by the prism of human experience. Combining these different approaches, he believed, would enable mankind to formulate a “philosophy that shall be of a whole.” He expressed his vision of “human specificity” when he said that it:

"does not treat any part of the universe as dead; it treats it as something which changes and evolves and, more important, our understanding of which is a constant creative change. . . . What we want to understand is not only man as he is but as he can be, and the societies which the changing man can make. It is the potential of man that we must explore; it is the fulfillment of man that we must seek. By contrast, it is precisely the doctrines of the Dark Ages which treat man as fixed and dead, a sinful exhibit who can seek virtue only in self-denial. These ascetic virtues are equally the marks of the dead societies of the Middle Ages which we still perpetuate — societies constantly on the brink of famine, in which the greatest virtue of man was to achieve the heroics of an insect in a colony, and sacrifice himself for the hive. We are somewhat past those famine days, and we should be past those famine virtues."

Bronowski’s life reflected his love affair with ideas. He was involved with nearly every major intellectual undertaking of the twentieth century, and he could count as his personal acquaintances such giants as Leo Szilard, inventor of the atomic bomb and his best friend in his last years; Samuel Beckett, with whom he co-edited a book when Beckett was still an unknown poet; Francis Crick, who succeeded Bronowski at the Salk Institute, and James Watson, in whose wedding he served as best man; Prime Ministers Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson, whom he advised on science policy; C.P. Snow, who acknowledged him as the real initiator of the “Two Cultures” debate — and many, many others. In the 1920s, he was present when the discovery of the positron was announced. In 1945, he walked through the devastation at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He was a popular celebrity on television, and a serious philosopher who contributed important insights on epistemology and ethics. He wrote plays, poetry, and even a light opera — and created what is probably the finest documentary film ever made, The Ascent of Man.

No biographer can hope to encompass all of a subject’s life, and it is not the aim of this book to do so. Instead, my focus is on Bronowski the intellectual, the engaged thinker of the twentieth century. That explains the long delay in the preparation of this book, for I started work on it more than twenty years ago, only to discover that understanding his career required me to learn about everything from genetics, to philosophical arguments about artificial intelligence, the history of antinuclear arms activism, eighteenth-century poetry, World War II bombing strategies . . . and so on. I will not pretend to have mastered these subjects, and any errors I have made in discussing them are my own. But in the effort, I have benefited from interviews and consultations with many people and institutions. 

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From Chapter 13 - The Ascent of Man

Today, more than four decades after it premiered, The Ascent of Man remains an artistic and educational masterpiece, and the culmination of Bronowski’s forty-five years of thought, weaving together his views on the validity of induction, the poetry of William Blake, the moral questions involved in the atomic bombing of Japan, the relationship between art and science, the causes of war, and even his analysis of Australopithecus teeth. For its narrative framework, he drew on The Western Intellectual Tradition, to present an outline that is simultaneously historical and conceptual — following a rough chronological order, while at the same time grouping discussions around distinct subjects. As a result, each episode stands on its own as an hour-long meditation on some profound theme.

But the Ascent is not a mere catalogue of Bronowski’s beliefs; it expresses scientific and philosophical ideas with a unity and poetry that penetrates several layers of the human condition. With its exotic locations, its striking special effects and music, and its often unexpected examples to demonstrate abstract concepts, the Ascent is a monument to the elegant filmmaking of an ambitious era of long-form documentaries. “What I did not want to do was conduct a promenade of intellectual monuments,” he explained to an interviewer. Much as he admired Civilisation, he wanted “to avoid the impression of an endless procession through a picture gallery.”

Ingenious choices by directors like Malone and Mick Jackson ensured that the completed series was elegant and memorable far beyond the didactic style of such sound-stage efforts as Insight. One episode, for example, begins with an arresting slow-motion close-up of a match being struck — globules of chemicals peel off the head as the friction raises the temperature; then the smoke boils away from a sudden burst of yellow flames. The match then lights a Bunsen burner, which performs an alchemical experiment that transforms a red powdery substance into a shiny bead of mercury. Bronowski’s wise visage then looms up in silvery reflection, to begin a discussion of chemistry and atomic structure. The whole action is fluid and alive.

Viewers are not only taught, but drawn into the atmosphere of wonder and fascination that made up Bronowski’s own personality. That personality is the pivot on which the Ascent turns, and it contributes the series’ most remarkable feature — its apparent spontaneity. Although the film was scripted — at length, the script took up almost a shelf in the BBC archive — long segments were ad-libbed. After brief planned narrations, the camera frequently turns to the host, standing in some dramatic location — a rock outcropping in the desert, above the blue glow of a nuclear reactor, or among the ancient walls of Jericho — who proceeds to speak extemporaneously in his almost hypnotic style. The most extraordinary example comes in the final episode, which consists almost entirely of an hour-long unscripted monologue delivered in Bronowski’s La Jolla living room.

The series’ subtitle, “A Personal View,” does not merely echo the subtitle of Civilisation; it is literal: The Ascent of Man gives Bronowski’s views on everything from geometry, to art, to epistemology, to sex and morality, and especially his conviction that knowledge is an intensely personal adventure. Today, some parts seem dated. . . . But for the most part, Bronowski’s scientific and historical exploration of civilization’s great ideas is accurate, fascinating, and lucidly, even lyrically, explained in the vivid style that was his trademark. Whether discussing the theory of relativity, the invention of the periodic table, the social consequences of steam power, or the architectural innovations sparked by the invention of the arch, he seems to radiate profundity at the beauty of thought itself. In short, The Ascent of Man is not merely a documentary about the history of science; nor is it even a mere testament of human specificity. It is, rather, the great poem that Bronowski wanted all his life to complete — it is his De Rerum Natura.

Table of Contents

Preface 9

1 Poland, Germany, and England 15

2 Cambridge 25

3 Poetry in Spain 47

4 University of Hull 63

5 War and Blake 85

6 Japan 105

7 The Common Sense of Science 125

8 The Taung Baby 161

9 Science and Human Values 183

10 The Two Cultures 211

11 The Salk Institute 227

12 Human Specificity 249

13 The Ascent of Man 279

Appendix 299

Notes 305

Index 349

Editorial Reviews

05/13/2019

Attorney Sandefur (Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man) reintroduces one of the 20th century’s major science popularizers with this first biography of Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974), best known for his 1970s BBC TV series, The Ascent of Man. Exhaustive research, including interviews with Bronowski’s widow, Rita, and his daughter Lisa, and deep dives into Bronowski’s papers, enables a comprehensive account. After briefly describing Bronowski’s childhood in Poland and Germany and his family’s 1920 emigration to England, Sandefur traces his growth into a noted intellectual polymath, beginning in earnest with his Cambridge mathematics studies. During WWII, Bronowski used his knowledge for his adopted country by employing geometry to construct models to scale of German targets based on newspaper photographs, which Sandefur suggests may have significantly contributed to the Allied victory. However, after helping to assess the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, he “resolved to take no further part in the making of weapons of mass destruction.” He became widely known through the 1960 book The Western Intellectual Tradition, and also significantly contributed to evolutionary biology and medical research—in all, “nearly every major intellectual undertaking of the 20th century.” Throughout this lucid account, Bronowski comes across as a complex and fascinating figure whose own writings merit a renewed readership today. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Before Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, and Carl Sagan, there was Jacob Bronowski, a world-class scientist, caring humanist, elegant poet, magisterial writer, and inimitable host of the first documentary science series, The Ascent of Man. That millennials and Generation Z are unfamiliar with his name makes this biography—the first of this Renaissance man—all the more vital, as science becomes ripped apart by political divisiveness and the need for a unifying message calls out for a voice. Listen to Dr. Bronowski and read this book.”   —Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, and author of Heavens on Earth, The Moral Arc, and The Believing Brain “A poet, a mathematician, a historian, and, most of all, a moral philosopher, Jacob Bronowski was a spellbinding speaker on radio and television. Listening to him was like sitting at the feet of a twentieth-century Socrates. His profound thoughts on the human condition are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago, and Timothy Sandefur has done us a great service by writing this book.”   —Basil Mahon, author of The Forgotten Genius of Oliver Heaviside and coauthor of Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field   “Before Tyson, before Gould, before Sagan, there was Jacob Bronowski. He was a major force for opening the minds of citizens to the importance and wonder of science, as perhaps only a Renaissance man, a poet-turned-mathematician, could be.”   —Stanley A. Rice, professor, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, and author of Scientifically Thinking: How to Liberate Your Mind, Solve the World’s Problems, and Embrace the Beauty of Science “Throughout this lucid account, Bronowski comes across as a complex and fascinating figure whose own writings merit a renewed readership today.”            —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher