Dutch Light
03 September 2020Imprint: Picador
Synopsis
'At last – a scintillating biography of Christiaan Huygens . . . Hugh Aldersley-Williams has evocatively illuminated this brilliant polymath who laid the foundations of modern European science.'
Dr Patricia Fara, Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge
'Fascinating . . . an impressive piece of scholarship. I learned a lot.'
John Gribbin, author of Six Impossible Things and In Search of Schrödinger's...
Details
03 September 2020560 pages
9781509893331Imprint: Picador
Reviews
This book, soaked like the Dutch Republic itself 'in ink and paint', is enchanting to the point of escapism . . . One of the best things about this absorbing book (and how many 500-page biographies feel too short when you finish them?) is the interest it shows in everyone else.Simon Ings, Spectator
Here’s early modern Europe by way of one of its most energetic mindsTimes Literary Supplement Books of the Year
Hugh Aldersey-Williams rescues his subject from Newton's shadow, where he was been unjustly confined for other three hundred years . . . a fresh and absorbing vision of 17th-century experimentation that sheds welcome light on wider European culture.Literary Review
A clever and comprehensive portrait of a unique mind prospering on the border between Renaissance humanism and Enlightenment empiricism.Chris Allnutt, Financial Times
