Pasteur and Modern Science

Pasteur and Modern Science
by Rene Dubos

(Illus.)
Da Capo Press, Inc.
1988
xxii+168pp.
0-910239-18-5
Glossary; Index
YA, GA **

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When it first came out in 1960, this was the best available high-school and interested adult version of the saga of Louis Pasteur. It lacked illustrations, however. The addition of 40 pictures, tables, and other pictorial material makes this edition an even more valuable short version of Dubos' classic (Louis Pasteur: Free Lance of Science). A new chapter has been added which, in its substance, is a paper by the late author on the historical question, "What if?" This is interesting, but it does not substantially add to a book already well established. The forward, by the contemporary Pasteur scholar Gerald Geison, is at a somewhat higher reading level than the newly edited main text and, therefore, is something of a problem for at least some of the high school readers who will make up the book's main audience. This is hardly a criticism, however, because there are few heroic figures in science who should be more studied than Pasteur, and Geison's insights are welcome. This book will once again bring Pasteur before a new generation of students. My highest recommendation is always accorded the works of Rene Dubos.

--Reviewed by Donald J. McGraw in Science Books and Films, 24/5 (May/June 1989), p. 287.