Reluctant
Heroine: The Life and Work of Helene Duhem
S. L. Jaki
The life-story told in this book centers on the almost forty years
of
delay that preceded the publication, between 1954 and 1960, of the
second five volumes of Le systeme du monde of Pierre Duhem (1861-1916).
A genius in theoretical physics and in the philosophy of physics, Duhem
became through that work, easily the most original scholarly achievement
by a single author in modern times, the pioneering discoverer of the medieval
origins of Newtonian science. Those second five volumes might still be
in manuscript had it not been for the heroically persistent efforts of
Helene Duhem (1891-1974), Duhem's only
child.