The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London

Definitely not for the casual reader or the faint-hearted but an excellent read all the same. You will need to be pretty curious about Mr. Hooke and his cantankerous personality to navigate this book. The extensive use of quotes from original texts and letters provides the story with authenticity that is admirable but sometimes, makes it a little laborious read. I suspect it is important to understand how Hooke was hooked on patent medicines and opiates, not to say the odd heavy metal, but constantly reading about his vomiting habits is not for the squeamish, particularly at the breakfast table. However this is a great read and I came out of it feeling more sympathetic about Hooke who accomplished more in each month of his life than most of us do in a lifetime. Certainly Lisa Jardine made a comprehensive effort to capture the whole man and succeeded perhaps a little too much.

I've been fascinated by Robert Hooke since studying science in the 1970s. Less well known than Newton or Wren but arguably at least as influential today, even if that influence is less obvious. Who is Robert Hooke? Lisa Jardine does a great job of breathing life into a man whose greatest misfortune, perhaps, is contributing so much across so many fields. A true polymath, with a brilliant mind. Highly recommended to those who want to know more about the development of science in the 17th century. The man himself may not be especially endearing, but his scientific learning is particularly enduring.

Robert Hooke's life was curious, a neglected topic that makes good reading, although a full, living sense of this man is missing from the book. He was an ingenious, creative man, abounding with energy and interests in his younger years, whose acquaintances and friends included Boyle, Pepys, and Wren. He was widely recognized as a physics and general science experimenter of exceptional ability - a designer of both accurate instruments and experiments in which to employ them - almost certainly the greatest of his day. He might be viewed from today's perspective as something of the Ernest Lawrence of his day versus the great theorists. Hooke's interests included astronomical measurements, microscopy, fossils, watches, the behavior of gases, and more. He was also interested in theoretical concepts although his mathematical abilities fell far short of people like Newton or Leibniz. Still, he came up with the hypothesis of the inverse-square law for gravity which he sent to Newton, asking him to prove mathematically whether it was valid. Newton never gave Hooke appropriate credit for Hooke's early insight, and it is not clear whether this was owing to Hooke's annoying carping or Newton's own very unpleasant temperament. Hooke's early musings on the layers of fossils found on his native Isle of Wight demonstrate a remarkable analytical and creative mind at work. He got the process of their formation pretty close to right lifetimes before the meaning of fossils was widely recognized in science. Ms. Jardine made the happy discovery of what is likely Hooke's portrait (no known one survives), a picture that had long been identified as being of John Ray. The circumstances of her discovery make a wonderful little tale early in the book. What comes through so strongly from some of Jardine's anecdotes is how the basic philosophy of science had advanced by the second half of the 17th century, Hooke's time. This was, after all, only a few decades after Francis Bacon, yet the main points of modern science seem to be assumed by Europe's leading tinkerers and scientists. Hooke's story is not a happy one, but I will leave that for readers to discover. Ms. Jardine is at times a slightly awkward writer, but she has an interesting story to tell and, on the whole, she tells it well. Ms. Jardine also wrote On a Grander Scale, a biography of the wonderful Christopher Wren. The book on Hooke she regards as a companion volume to the one on Wren. Do read both.

I think I would have liked this book much better if I had read it before Stephen Inwood's The Forgotten Genius which, like this book, deals with the life of Robert Hooke. The differences between the two books, however, are striking. This is not to say that one is necessarily better than the other but, rather, that each has its strengths and weaknesses. The first thing of note in Ms. Jardine's book is that she has a case to make--that a portrait previously identified as botanist John Ray is, in fact, a portrait of Hooke. This may not seem important to the casual reader but it has been one of the commonalities of Hooke research that no image of him remains. (Whether through accident or the machinations of bitter scientists like Newton, no one knows.) In fact, it is her argument over the authenticity of this portrait (which has some merit) that seems her real incentive for writing this book. In some sense, the rest of the book is an afterthought. This is not to say that the rest of the book is not worthwhile. It most certainly is. Ms. Jardine tells her story well. Ms. Jardine's book has one major advantage over Mr. Inwood's: it is much more readable. Her style is much lighter and engaging. She is telling the story for a general audience whereas Mr. Inwood's main audience seems to be scientists and historians. She vividly recreates his youth on the Isle of Wight and his flight to London. She is excellent with outlining Hooke's tendencies towards hypochondria and the many tonics he took to keep himself going at a hectic pace. I am also very impressed with her telling of Hooke's conflict with the Huygens family which often gets short shrift in Hooke's story due to the much better known conflict with Newton. Still, overall, Inwood's book gives a much better sense of the man. There is a real depth missing in this book. Ms. Jardine talks of Hooke's conflict with Newton near the very start of the book and then hardly mentions it again, though this is probably the defining time of Hooke's life. Her ability to discuss Hooke's scientific discoveries seems rather limited and even her discussion of his architectural work seems rather superficial. She is also rather gentle with Hooke, the man, glossing over evidence of his many affairs with housekeepers and what almost certainly became an incestuous relationship with his niece as well as taking it easy on his notoriously bad temper, though she does acknowledge it. At least Ms. Jardine recognizes Hooke's weaknesses as a scientist and doesn't try to convince us he is a disrespected genius. She sees that he often overcommitted himself--though often with good reason--and that he didn't have the innate abilities of Newton, Huygens and Wren. He was a workman--the best of workmen and he deserved respect for that--but no genius. A five-star book would be a collaboration between Ms. Jardine and Mr. Inwood. Combining her writing skills with his research and scientific knowledge would do Hooke the

It's amazing how many documents referring to Hooke have survived from the 17th century. Jardine seems to have studied them with care and insight. This is an excellent biography. Read this with Claire Tomalin's life of Samuel Pepys (The Unequalled Self) and you'll learn more about English history of the 17th century (especially the 1660s) than you'll get from many history books.