THE ASCENT OF MAN!

Jacob Bronowski, Ph.D (1908-1974)

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Ordinarily, I don't devote much space here to books on my bedside mantle. But "The Ascent of Man" by the late Dr. Jacob Bronowski has been gathering dust along with "King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson", by Lawrence Leamer. (Biographies are a favorite of mine). But this blog is about an extraordinary chess player and human being who wrote a book about our society that is really a pleasant way to spend an afternoon escape from lifes trivial worries.

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If you are reading about this for the first time, "The Ascent of Man" is a highly regarded series that appeared on PBS Television in the United States and The BBC in England. Born in Lodz, Congress Poland in 1908, Dr. Jacob Bronowski moved his family moved to Germany during World War I, and then on to England. Despite a limited grasp of the English language, he nevertheless gained admission to the Central Foundation School in London to study Mathematics before continuing graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D. His dissertation was on the subject of Algebraic Geometry. BUT WAIT! Before you write this off--no pun intended--as boring, humor me. Bronowski brought together both the worlds of Math and Literature, and taught at the former University College of Hull. During World War II, Bronowski tragically lost many of his family members in Hitler's Auschwitz death camp. He worked in Operations Research and later became Director of Research for the National Coal Board in the U.K. It was the after-effects of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings that led him to study Biology to better understand the nature of human violence. Bronowski later became Associate Director of the Salk Institute in 1964. He became well known to British television viewers with a BBC program called "The Brain's Trust". But he is best known for his incredible series called "The Ascent of Man". This 13 part series inspired Carl Sagan to make "Cosmos" in 1980. Sagan's research was the basis for the Robert Zemeckis film starring Jodie Foster, "Contact" in 1997. Bottom Line: What Dr. Bronowski did was to travel the world in order to trace the development of human society through its understanding of science rather than art. The title of the series alludes to Charles Darwin's "The Descent of Man". The television series stood on its own merit without disparaging Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation", where Clark emphasized the role of art in society. The two men were worlds apart in their work. I gave my late Uncle (who orchestrated bringing my family to America from Bulgaria) a copy of the book, "The Ascent of Man". Before he died, I'll never forget. I was about to leave my Uncle's house after a visit, and he yelled across the room excitedly, "Hey, Michael! I read that book cover-to-cover. That Professor is brilliant!" Jacob Bronowski died in 1974 shortly after filming was complete on "The Ascent of Man". Some said his death was caused by the strain of the work required to produce the series and the book. Dr. Bronowski left behind his wife Rita and their four daughters. The eldest daughter became the British academic Lisa Jardine. I highly recommend this book or the DVD series. Of course you can purchase the DVD's, but see if you can borrow them from your library. It is absolutely fascinating!

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for my late Uncle...