Curies: A Biography of the Most Controversial Family in Science »

DENIS BRIAN is the author of Einstein: A Life and Pulitzer: A Life, both published by Wiley. His other books include The True Gen: An Intimate Portrait of Hemingway by Those Who Knew Him and Genius Talk: Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries.

Brian notes that in a recent French poll on the greatest Frenchmen (sic) of all time, Marie Curie (1867-1934) was voted number four. The author of Einstein: A Life examines the personal and professional lives and legacy of a family that won a total of six Nobel Prizes. The controversies he treats include Madame Curie's battles with the chauvinistic French science community and affair with a married scientist after Pierre's death. The biography includes photos. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Library Journal

Although there have been numerous biographies of Pierre and Marie Curie, Brian (Einstein: A Life) breaks with tradition by following two generations of the family to 2004, which finds Eve Curie, the younger daughter of Marie and Pierre, still living. His work also differs from earlier ones in that it references those previous studies-e.g., Eve's own biography of her mother, Rosalynd Pflaum's Grand Obsession, and Barbara Goldsmith's Obsessive Genius-both at points of agreement and disagreement. Taking a chronological viewpoint, Brian traces the family's personal and political lives with clear and comprehensive coverage of the various members' scientific research. A large portion of the book's last third focuses on daughter Irene and her husband Frederick Joliot, who joined the Communist Party during World War II, and Eve, who traveled around the world as a war correspondent. Brian pays considerable attention to the many problems that Marie and Irene encountered as females in the male world of physics research. Like her mother, Irene won a Nobel Prize in chemistry and died of leukemia, attributed to her work with radioactive materials. For most biography and science history collections.-Hilary Burton, formerly with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Acknowledgments.

1. Pierre Curie.

2. Marie Salomea Sklodowska.

3. Pierre and Marie in Love.

4. Mutual Adoration.

5. Spirits, Radioactivity, and the Price of Fame.

6. Psychic Researchers.

7. Pierre Curie’s Last Day.

8. Rescuing Langevin from His Wife.

9. Battered by the Press.

10. Surgery and Suffragettes.

11. “Little Curies” and World War I.

12. A Gift of Radium from the United States.

13. Radium: Miracle Cure or Menace?

14. A Great Discovery—at Last.

15. Marie Curie’s Last Year.

16. Nobel Prizes, Spanish Civil War, and Fission.

17. France Defeated.

18. Joliot Keeps the Gestapo Guessing—Eve Curie Tours the Battlefronts.

19. Joliot Becomes a Communist—Eve Curie Interviews Nehru, Gandhi, and Jinnah.

20. The Battle for Paris.

21. Joliot’s Fight for Peace and Communism.

22. Joliot Launches Peace Offensive and Charges the United States with Using Germ Warfare in Korea.

23. The Curie Legacy.

Notes.

Selected Bibliography.

Index.