Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The triumph of the human spirit over Kafkaesque bureaucracy, 17 Jun 2000
Constantin Roman is Romanian Honorary consul in the English university town of Cambridge where he was awarded a PhD for pioneering work in the field of geophysics in 1974. For over twenty years, he has been an independent consultant in oil exploration and his reputation as a successful oil finder has enabled him to settle down comfortably in a pleasant corner of England after many vicissitudes. Dr Roman's memoirs were published in 2000 by an Anglo-American scientific publisher. The title, Continental Drift suggests that plate tectonics, his field of expertise, dominates the book. In fact while frequent attention is given to his scientific ideas, how they were applied, and the collaboration with eminent scientists which resulted, the fascination of this book is to be found in its account of how the human spirit managed to triumph over considerable odds. Roman is a determined and ingenious Romanian with a gift for striking up friendships with the eminent and the humble and also a genius for improvisation which has extricated him from tight corners. Such survival skills, when not leavened by strong moral qualities, have produced a rather sinuous Romanian, immortalised by the playwright Caragiale, and much seen in the politics of the country for the past seventy years. Roman's ability to triumph against the odds and make a new life for himself in a land very different from the one he left, while retaining a strong moral formation and a desire never to lose touch with Romania, is a gripping and inspiring tale. Roman describes 'the DNA signature' provided by his ancestors who regularly found themselves on the wrong side of authority for religious and later political reasons. The stratagems needed to overcome a Kafkaesque bureaucracy and obtain a passport, permission to leave the country, and a plane ticket in order to take up an invitation to attend a palaeomagnetic conference at Newcastle university, make absorbing reading. Human agency could still defeat the most opaque of bureaucracies. The Latin temperament of the Romanians may explain why Nicolae Ceauºescu, the peasant shoemaker who acquired the reins of power in 1965, was determined to impose a brand of national Stalinism, in which all traces of nonconformity were erased. Imagining what might have occurred to a free spirit like Roman if entombed in Ceausescu's Orwellian system is a depressing thought. It is worse to contemplate that there were probably many other outspoken young Romanians who in nearly every case were crushed under the iron heel , broken or compromised by the system. In the most entertaining part of the book, Roman describes how, as a young ingénue, he arrived on the shores of England, describing his reactions to the social customs, eating habits, and landscapes and buildings of this curious island. Rueful accounts are provided of British insularity and bureaucratic rigidity, which qualify his enthusiasm, for English ways. But he became sufficiently attached to Britain to make his home there even though he was determined not to renounce his Romanian nationality.. His greatest trouble arose from his refusal to give up his Romanian nationality. He was menaced on a number of fronts: by Securitate operatives masquerading as diplomats keen to end his flouting of socialist order and drag him back to Romania; by a prospective mother-in-law who refused to allow her daughter to marry him unless he accepted British citizenship; and by officials of the British Home Office who assumed that his desire to retain what he saw as his unalienable right of birth, his nationality, might stem from communist loyalties. Afterwards Goodman decided to champion Roman's cause, writing to the head of the Home Office that 'He is a man of impeccable character and he is clearly determined to belong here and make a significant contribution to our national life'. Upon graduation, Roman set up his own oil consultancy business when a slump in the industry meant there were few job openings. He believed he made a success of it because of 'the convergence of two most improbable spirits the obduracy, imagination and resourcefulness of the Romanian character, grafted on the liberalism, precision and luminosity of a Cambridge mind' Constantin Roman writes with candour, wit, and humility. His remarkable life story unfolds with effortless simplicity thanks to his ability to write mellifluous English influenced by Romanian cadences. . This is a book which should interest the Romanian public at home and abroad as well as the general public- academic and non-academic
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
humour, humanity, wisdom and good science,, 19 Dec 1999
By A Customer
"Continental Drift" is a book about universal values, which transcend national frontiers, or the confines of Science and the Arts. Its author is part of that defiant species of uprooted who have chosen the sadly exacting role of exile, rather than the tortured compromise of survival in a totalitarian regime. Yet, in spite of or perhaps because of it, Constantin Roman had never forgotten his beginnings. This sets him apart, as an eminent ambassador of his native Romania and, at the same time, as a refined observer of his adoptive country, of which we find ample proof in the pages of his narrative. After the fall of Ceausescu, these qualities were rewarded in Romania, where he was made a Professor Honoris Causa and Personal Adviser to the President of Romania. This overdue acknowledgement was apparent from the outset to a host of distinguished British 'worthies', who knew Constantin since his student days in Cambridge and who championed the Roman cause celebre as a just and excellent one. Most prominent amongst them was Lord Goodman, Master of New College Oxford. Arnold Goodman was impressed with Constantin as a young man of "impeccable character and absolute obduracy, reflecting an attitude of mind which has clearly developed from strong moral factors". More to the point, Lord Goodman was persuaded that Constantin was "clearly determined to belong here and make a significant contribution to our national life". On reading "Continental Drift" I can say, without fear of contradiction, not only that Constantin has discharged himself brilliantly of these expectations but that he had the merit of bringing to Plate Tectonics new models and concepts (in the Carpathians and Central Asia) which are still valid today. In particular, his definition of plate boundaries in the continental lithosphere and the introduction of the concept of "non-rigid" plates or "buffer" plates, which are now called "continuums", are still widely used. Few paid attention to his iconoclastic publication in a popular science journal ("New Scientist") and in a short letter to the Geophysical Journal in the early 1970's but the concept withstood the test of time. If Roman's subsequent career as exploration adviser to Shell, BP, Exxon and a myriad of other major oil companies made him a world-wide expert in basin analysis and a successful oil finder, this was to our great loss in Academia. Predictably, Constantin's geodynamic studies, much praised by his clients in Industry could not be published, for proprietary commercial reasons. This does not make him any less remarkable, as suggested by his Cambridge supervisor and mentor Sir Edward Bullard, when he enjoined: "Of course, it must be a wrench for you to leave Cambridge and take on wider responsibilities. If you want at some future time to come back to academic work, then no doubt you will be able to". Perhaps Constantin had never forgotten Bullard's prophesy and now he had come back to the fold, (with a flourish), as Honorary Consul in Cambridge. I hope that he also renews his natural links with Academia, where he truly belongs. "Continental Drift" offered me a relaxing excellent read full of humour, humanity, wisdom and good science, way beyond the History of Science. This book is an Ode to the Joy of Freedom, of a kind celebrated in Enesco's Rhapsodies, or the cosmic vision of Brancusi's "Column of Infinity": this is Constantin Roman's "Ninth Symphony". I trust the reader would share with me pleasures that have derived from reading 'Continental Drift'. John F. Dewey, FRS, FGS Professor of Geology and Fellow of University College University of Oxford
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a book about the skirmishes of Science and Scientists, 21 Dec 1999
By A Customer
Apart from an introductory chapter about his Romanian roots ("The DNA signature") and the period spent in Newcastle and Paris, in 1968-1969, this is a book of recollections of the author's time at Cambridge, between 1969 and 1973, where he was Research Scholar at Peterhouse. He was lucky to work on Plate Tectonics, when this subject was in its infancy, as his Supervisor and Mentor, Sir Edward Bullard led him to follow a path, where each researcher was conspicuous and his scientific inroads significant. Now this same road is rather well trodden by a mass of individuals vying for prominence. As a pupil of Bullard, Roman's name falls within a direct line of distinguished scientists of the Cambridge School of Physics, through Thompson, Rutherford and Cavendish, all the way to Sir Isaac Newton. At Cambridge, this Romanian student was busy finding a solution to the occurrence of seismicity in the Carpathians and the central Asia, which eventually led to a new definition of lithospheric plates. This new tectonic solution to the Continental crust of Eurasia represented an early step in the development of Plate Tectonics theory. On turning the pages of this story, the reader will gradually uncover the tensile forces beneath the real world of great scientists, with their frailties and their petty skirmishes, all leading to a climax which could not have been anticipated. This forms the backdrop to "The rat race" chapter, a closely run contest, punctuated by youthful exuberance. The enthusiasm paid off, as before the race was over, Constantin Roman lived through the beguiling excitement of beating a group of researchers, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to the answer to one of the great enigmas of Earth Sciences - the seismicity of Central Asia. Cocooned in his Cambridge microcosm and obsessed by his research, Roman was completely oblivious of a Trans-Atlantic team from MIT, working for years on the same problem as himself and gathering a wealth of information, which was about to be published. This sudden realisation came as a shock, as the very object of the hard-won evidence, which made the core of his Cambridge doctorate, was put in jeopardy, had the American colleagues published first their results. This is a unique instance when the reader could witness from within the researcher's camp, his battles, trials and final triumphs. During the fray, many doubts were cast, which inevitably confront every scientist. That is why, whilst in the throes of these struggles to the solution of a crucial scientific problem, one is never sure whether the pivotal new idea will be easily accepted by the geological profession, known more for its conservatism, than for its innovative spirit, or iconoclasm. Beyond the skirmishes of Science, or Scientists, "Continental Drift" is a song to the environment, which inspires research and where enduring ideas are created. These are the impressions that nurtured this author's imagination and which form the very essence of the story, an inter-reaction without which this work would not have been possible. They are the impact which Western Europe and England in particular, had upon a fresh graduate from behind the Iron Curtain. The contrast of cultures between East and West, between the author's preconceived, romantic and romanticised ideals of the West and the real life, was always exhilarating, as he was led through encounters with eminent contemporaries in the world of Arts, Science and Politics ("Lotus-eater"). The people, the architecture and the gardens that surrounded him in his student days and which formed a backdrop to his work, are remembered with a great deal of emotion and lyricism. If this scene is punctuated by irony and may be mixed with a good measure of Boswell-like frankness, I hope that the reader will forgive this author, as the intention was to present an unadulterated picture, as he saw it at that particular time. Opinions of those immature but blissful years are sometimes fraught with a youthful arrogance and therefore, those of us who figure in these pages must read them in a compassionate spirit. For, as we proceed, we must remember that this is not a textbook of popular science on the History of Plate Tectonics, but a series of personal impressions, or "cameos", which some day might complement such History of Science. As we turn the pages of this narrative, it is apparent that Constantin Roman's singular road to Utopia was littered with disappointments and setbacks, as the darker side of human imperfections was gradually uncovered. However these "Memoirs" are not intended as an exhaustive inventory of hardships, but rather as a Quixotic refusal in accepting them. On reading the book one may well ask: Would "Continental Drift" be a "looking glass" wherein one could see ourselves with the candid and unforgiving eye of the Continental "drifting" within our midst? Or, maybe, the resonance box of a musical instrument, which may amplify the "drift" of this Continental author? Or, would it rather be a History of Science book, defining the drift of Continents, or the beginnings of Plate Tectonics theory? At a first glance all these three aspects may appear diverse, yet they have perfectly complementary and harmonious meanings, which should account for the triple entendre of the very title of "Continental Drift". Professor Sherban VELICIU University of Bucharest , Scientific Director, Geological Survey of Romania Vice-Chairman Editorial Board, Romanian Journal of Geophysics EMAIL: ana@ns.igr.ro
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