- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (1 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224064444
- ISBN-13: 978-0224064446
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 533,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Between Genius And Genocide
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Product Description
Review
'Haber's story is an enduring scientific tragedy, one that Charles tells with commendable clarity, style and brevity', Robin McKie, Observer .'A deeply thoughtful study of Fritz Haber - a brilliant, fascinating and finally tragic figure - and his equivocal legacy... A book to make one ponder', Oliver Sacks
Product Description
In January 1934, as Hitler's shadow began to fall across Europe, a short, bald man carrying a German passport arrived at the Hotel Euler in Basle. He seemed haunted and restless, as though he urgently needed to be elsewhere. Fritz Haber, Nobel laureate in chemistry, confidante of Albert Einstein and German war hero, had arrived in Basle a broken man and, three days later, he died leaving an uncertain legacy. For some, the great German chemist was a benefactor of humanity, winner of a Nobel prize for inventing a way to nourish farmers' fields with nitrogen captured from the air. (Our bodies bear witness to this invention's power: half of the essential nitrogen atoms in our flesh come from a Haber-style factory.) For others, he was a war criminal who personally supervised the unleashing of chlorine clouds against British, French and Canadian troops in World War I. Tragedy marked his life. A week after the first gas attack in 1915, Haber's wife took his pistol and shot herself. And in 1933, when Hitler came to power, 'the Jew Haber' was among the first scientists driven out of Germany. 'I'm pleased that your love for the blonde beast has cooled off a bit,' Haber's friend Albert Einstein wrote sardonically. Within a year, Haber was dead - denied honour both in his homeland and abroad. No life reveals the moral paradox of science - its capacity to create and destroy - more clearly than Fritz Haber's. Between Genius and Genocide reveals a life filled with ambition, patriotism, hubris and tragedy, set amidst huge technological advances, arms races, mounting imperialism and war.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Misrepresents important facts,
By
This review is from: Between Genius and Genocide: The Tragedy of Fritz Haber, Father of Chemical Warfare (Hardcover)
Despite a rather overwritten style, this could have been an excellent book, since the author has examined (directly or indirectly) numerous documents relating to this dramatic and tragic story. So I was about to give five stars.Then my own research led me to examine the correspondence between Haber and Weizmann in the last months of Haber's life, and I find that this book completely misrepresents the situation. Farkas is quoted as scoffing at Haber as a spent force, and we are told correctly that Farkas eventually "found a new home in Palestine", but we are not told that it was Haber who had brokered the Palestinian job, nor, even more importantly, that letters from Haber to Weizmann in September and October show Haber fully committed to accepting Weizmann's offer of employment, and enthusiastic about the possibilities that the demise of German science offered to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Making his case that Haber was a broken man,the author quotes from a letter Haber wrote in January 1934, three weeks before his death, in order to illustrate Haber's frame of mind six months earlier. This is either carelessness or misrepresentation. If I know the book to be so deeply flawed in the one area that I have closely studied, how can I trust it anywhere else?
4.0 out of 5 stars
abbreviated tragedy,
By
This review is from: Between Genius and Genocide: The Tragedy of Fritz Haber, Father of Chemical Warfare (Hardcover)
The moral complexity and tragic conclusion of his life make Haber a tricky subject. His former assistant Johannes Jaenicke spent decades collecting materials for a biography, but never got it written down. His collection is the archive from which biographers feed, including Dietrich Stoltzenberg (whose epic effort appeared in a shortened translation: Fritz Haber: Chemist, Laureate, German, Jew), Thomas Hager (The Alchemy of Air) and Daniel Charles.Charles's advantage is that he sees Haber with the fresh eyes of an outsider, who admits that he once visited the Haber institute without knowing who it was named after. Since then, he has certainly done his homework at the Jaenicke archive, and manages to tell the story in a compelling and fascinating, yet compact and accessible form. His strength is the witty summary ("Haber didn't immediately volunteer for this epic quest. He had to be goaded into it with offers of money and insults to his pride." -- p.83) that often introduces a new section of his story. The only blemish is the title of the book, which demonises the creator of one of the most important inventions of the 20th century - the Haber-Bosch process that literally feeds half the world population.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story about science that everyone should read,
By
This review is from: Between Genius and Genocide: The Tragedy of Fritz Haber, Father of Chemical Warfare (Hardcover)
All modern children have learned at school about the Haber Process to produce ammonia. I wonder how many are told about the fascinating moral dilemmas, personal tragedies, human failings and stunning technical achievements described in this book?Daniel Charles covers the science in a simple but sound way. Because of Haber, he says, we produce enough food to feed the world. Haber realised that increasing food production will remove the nitrogen in the soil faster than nature can replace it. He seized on what was almost a chance discovery, to design an industrial process to produce nitrogen fertiliser in vast quantities. That is the good side of Haber's work. His productive period, however, coincided with the growth of modern Germany, still in its ardently patriotic and nationalistic phase. Events were leading inevitably to the First World War and Haber's work was also essential for that. I was astonished to learn that, without the chemicals produced by the Haber Process, Germany would have run out of explosives in the first year of the war. But the story turns, to our modern attitudes and hindsight, even more dark. Haber not only worked on the choice of gases for use in the trenches, but actually supervised its release. Charles sets this in context and helps us to understand Haber's justifications. In the end though, Haber's work turns grotesquely negative when one of his inventions becomes the foundation for Zyklon-B, used by Hitler to kill his fellow Jews. This is a very readable book about an intriguing man. The science is well described for a non-scientist reader. For anyone interested in the role of science, and the moral dilemmas it generates, this is required reading.
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