Math. Science. Physics. Three things that I did not do well at in school. Or perhaps I could have said three things that bored the life out of me in high school. (Actually sometimes physics was cool. And occasionally science was tolerable. But I’d rather endure tiny cuts to my body and take a bath in alcohol than to have to take another math class).
It is with that background that I decided to review a book on Galileo. I figured that there would be a good amount of math/science nerd speak that I would have to sift through but I would mostly get to hear the story of how the Catholic church messed over Galileo.
But I did not have to “sift through nerd speak” because Mitch Stokes is one of those talented authors that can make something as mind-numbingly boring as ancient mathematics and make it seem as exciting as front row seats to battles between Athens and Sparta.
Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration—but Stokes really does help his readers understand the intellectual climate that Galileo found himself in. He does an excellent job of not only helping us understand more about Galileo’s life but also the world in which he lived in. For that I was grateful.
Stokes also did much to fairly represent the Catholic church during this time. He does a tremendous job of showing that Galileo is not the martyr that many make him out to be. In fact he remained faithful to the Catholic church even up until his death. I would have never known that from what I learned about him in school.
I would have liked to have known a little more about the interaction of Galileo’s faith and the trials that he endured. There is some interaction with Galileo’s beliefs but it is somewhat minimal. In a Christian Encounters series it would have beneficial to have seen a little more of the influence that Jesus had on the life of the books subject. But it is possible that such information is relatively scant.
This was a good read. And if you like biographies this is a good one. It is fun to read about people that I would often not read about. And for this reason I am grateful that Thomas Nelson provided a free copy in exchange for a review.
If you want to buy the book you can do so here. I would also suggest checking out Thomas Nelson’s entire Christian Encounters series. I plan on looking up a few more of these myself.
