Grand Obsession: Madame Curie and Her World

by Rosalynd Pflaum

Marie Curie's life was a story of passion, ambition, and courageous dreams, and her work changed the world forever. Grand Obsession is the story of this remarkable scientist and her family, winners of three Nobel prizes in two generations. Their extraordinary lives comprise a fascinating history of modern physics, from romantic Belle Époque Paris in the 1890s to the beginnings of the nuclear arms race half a century later. Wither her husband Pierre, Marie discovered radium and polonium, and their work with radiation revolutionized modern science. Their legacy of research and discovery was carried on by their daughter Irène and son-in-law Frédéric, whose bold experimentation, even during the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II, heralded the dawn of the Atomic Age.

Genres: Science, History, Biography

496 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 1989

Reviews

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Grand Obsession: Madame Curie and her World" is a book by a housewife and amateur historian from Minnesota that begins in rather pedestrian fashion but then gets steadily stronger as the work advances. By the end, one understands why she received the "Legion d'Honneur" in 1974. In this book Rosalynd Pflaum displays a remarkable grasp of French culture, politics and social attitudes as well as a great talent for explaining them to the North American public. I recommend this work to anyone interested in either the advances in nuclear science or French history in the 20th Century.

The title is highly misleading. There is no obsession and only one quarter of the volume is devoted Mme. Marie Curie (née Skłodowska). What book does do is tell the story of how one married couple (Pierre and Marie Curie) conducted research together and how a second married couple comprise of their daughter Irène and their son-in-law Frédéric Joliot (later Joliot-Curie) continued their work after them. The word "obsession" in the title must be the publisher's idea as Pflaum never refers to any of the Curies as being obsessed. Rather she describes them as being highly disciplined, well organized and tireless. The older couple would win two Nobel Prizes and the younger couple would win one. Pierre and Marie would create a laboratory and research team that the Irène and Jacques would maintain. All these would happen while France would participate in two world wars and undergo tremendous social upheaval. In a turbulent era, the resilient Curie Institute was a model of stability and consistency of purpose.

The book is at its best in the second half dealing with political context where Pflaum analyzes the career of Frédéric Joliot-Curie active in the resistance, the French communist party, director of the French National Center for Scientific Research, the High Commissioner for Atomic Energy and spokesperson for the World Peace Council. The reason could be that Pflaum was able to interview many of the people who were close to the Curie family during the forty and fifties. For the lives of Marie and Pierre Curie, she was forced to rely to a much greater extent on second and third-hand accounts.

While Pflaum is masterful in her treatment of the political and social culture of France from 1900 to 1960 and specifically in her comments on the academic milieu, she still does a very solid job of describing the sequence of scientific discoveries made by the two generations of the Curies and their international colleagues that they kept in touch with. Great names in physics such as Einstein, Rutherford, Kelvin and Bohr all make multiple appearances. Pflaum is brilliant in explaining the spirit of cooperation and friendship with which the international community of researchers made such rapid progress in the field of nuclear science in the twentieth century. The great strength of the Curies was performing the research. On occasion, other scientists were able to draw the conclusions from their research that they themselves had missed.

One can see Pflaum at times struggling not to offend the members of the Curie family who assisted her in her research. Nonetheless she faces all the criticisms and controversies squarely. She addresses Marie Curie's affair Paul Langevin whose son later married her grand-daughter. She acknowledges that the Curie Institute was a den of nepotism. She explains why Frédéric Joliot-Curie's activities in the early phases of the German Occupation during WWII could be viewed as collaboration. She portrays Irène Curie as a cold and at times nasty person.
She makes it clear that Frédéric Joliot-Curie was a committed a communist who supported the party on several occasions when it was being highly deceitful. Pflaum in particular finds Joliot-Curie's participation in the World Peace Council which as a Communist front organization aimed at undermining voter support in Western democracies for nuclear weapons to have been inappropriate.

Pflaum has written an excellent book about a family that played a great role in science and a significant role in French politics. She is an excellent guide for the Anglophone reader unfamiliar with the subtleties in the evolution of French cultural and social values in the 20th Century. The book will be great fun for anyone interested in the topic.

[Betty Confetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grand Obsession provides a blow by blow account of the Curie dynasty and its major contributions to science and medicine. The profile is driven by the passage of time, and at 470 pages, provides voluminous details about the unfolding of time in the lives of four generations. I tend to like biographies that are less chronological and more thematic in terms of laying out qualities of extraordinary people being profiled. But because so many people's achievements were covered, perhaps this was difficult. Needless to say,at some points I felt I was being given way too much information about vacations, for example. The details, however, provide interesting insights into meetings among leading chemists and physicists of the day--really a who's who of intellectuals and geniuses. I was blown away by insights into the inter-feeding and collaborative nature of relationships, the competitions among researchers, the difficulties of breaking into the elite ranks of researchers without the "proper" credentials, the evolution of researcher as a true career (rather than hinged to teaching), and the compelling qualities of the Curie family as major events in history unfolded and as they made historical discoveries. Madame Curie is one of the most incredible scientists ever to have lived, and the collaborative way she and her husband worked together and with their proteges is fascinating and well-outweigh the information overloading offered in this book.

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decidedly underwhelming. Decent, but at the same time, a little too much information, and a little too much conjecture for my tastes. What could have been an alright biography of Madame Curie ended up going on for 100+ pages too long, talking about Fred Joliot and his communist sympathies (and his work on radioactivity and the A-bomb, but really). I'll definitely read another, more recent biography about the Curies in the future; this one, while informative, didn't quite hit the spot.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this just 'cause it was the thickest book on Madame Curie. The writing is ok, readable; obviosuly a lot of information.