The Starship And The Canoe
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What happens when one of the twentieth century's most visionary physicists raises a son who turns his back on the cosmos in favour of the wilderness? The Starship and the Canoe chronicles the fascinating and deeply human story of Freeman Dyson — the brilliant theoretical physicist who dreamed of sailing to the stars aboard a nuclear-powered spacecraft — and his son George, a young man who abandoned conventional society to live in the towering rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, building traditional Aleut kayaks and paddling the wild coastlines of British Columbia. Kenneth Brower weaves these two extraordinary lives together in a meditation on fathers and sons, on the competing calls of technology and nature, and on the different ways that human beings seek freedom and transcendence. Written with elegance and deep ecological sympathy, this dual biography presents a portrait of contrasts that is ultimately a story of profound connection — between generations, between civilisations, and between humanity and the cosmos it inhabits, whether measured in light-years or the length of a hand-carved paddle. Brower's prose is lyrical yet grounded, drawing on rich reportage from both the theoretical corridors of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study and the fog-shrouded channels of the Inside Passage. A work that refuses easy resolution, it leaves the reader pondering which journey — outward to the stars or inward to the wilderness — holds the greater promise for the human spirit.
Author: Kenneth Brower
Format: Hardback
Published: 1978, Whizzard Press/André Deutsch
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What happens when one of the twentieth century's most visionary physicists raises a son who turns his back on the cosmos in favour of the wilderness? The Starship and the Canoe chronicles the fascinating and deeply human story of Freeman Dyson — the brilliant theoretical physicist who dreamed of sailing to the stars aboard a nuclear-powered spacecraft — and his son George, a young man who abandoned conventional society to live in the towering rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, building traditional Aleut kayaks and paddling the wild coastlines of British Columbia. Kenneth Brower weaves these two extraordinary lives together in a meditation on fathers and sons, on the competing calls of technology and nature, and on the different ways that human beings seek freedom and transcendence. Written with elegance and deep ecological sympathy, this dual biography presents a portrait of contrasts that is ultimately a story of profound connection — between generations, between civilisations, and between humanity and the cosmos it inhabits, whether measured in light-years or the length of a hand-carved paddle. Brower's prose is lyrical yet grounded, drawing on rich reportage from both the theoretical corridors of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study and the fog-shrouded channels of the Inside Passage. A work that refuses easy resolution, it leaves the reader pondering which journey — outward to the stars or inward to the wilderness — holds the greater promise for the human spirit.