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just wrote a really long review and summary of this book, and then accidentally deleted the whole thing, So I'm just gonna say i liked it and recommend it, and leave it at that, Well researched and well written, The battle with Lysenko definitely handled well, Still a little to much hero worship by the author considering let his staff get devoured, cheated on his wife and sent two of his men to their deaths to avoid future torture.
Still an important book especially today with so much anti science, creationism, no global warming etc, parading as fact. Почему все так грустно I first found out about Vavilov from the haunting Decemberists song "When the War Came" and had been intrigued ever since.
This book presents a very capable biography of one of the great forgotten scientists of the twentieth century, It isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but it tells the life story of a man who deserves to be remembered, and manages to convey both the adventure of Vavilov's early life and the horror and claustrophobia of his later life.
Gripping story. Great research. If you're interested in scientific history, botany, genetics, or the troubling interactions between politics and science, you gotta read this book, or at least about Vavilov's life and legacy.
Wow. This is a fantastic book, It kept me from my studies quite a few hours, Most of us understand the nature of Stalin's purges, but think of them in terms of military leadership, This book illustrates just how paranoid, and short sighted that man was capable of being, Interestingly, this stands in stark contrast to his occasional political brilliance, as seen at Yalta, Great book about a great man, Reads like fiction and, really, it seems more like a work of dystopian fiction than nonfiction, I loved the way the book deeply delved into Stalin's Russia without engaging in Russophobia or mindless anticommunism propaganda but still revealing the serious mania of one of history's most violent governments.
Similarly it delves into genetics, biology, and the world of agricultural science without A alienating the reader by turning the book into a university level botany course, and B projecting what
Vavilov's beliefs would be about modern developments in agricultural science.
In "The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov," acclaimed journalist and author Peter Pringle recreates the extraordinary life and tragic end of one of the great scientists of the twentieth century.
In a drama of love, revolution, and war that rivals Pasternak's "Dr, Zhivago," Pringle tells the story of a young Russian scientist, Nikolai Vavilov, who had a dream of ending hunger and famine in the world.
Vavilov's plan would use the emerging science of genetics to breed super plants that could grow anywhere, in any climate, in sandy deserts and freezing tundra, in drought and flood.
He would launch botanical expeditions to find these vanishing genes, overlooked by early farmers ignorant of Mendel's laws of heredity.
He called it a "mission for all humanity, "
To the leaders of the young Soviet state, Vavilov's dream fitted perfectly into their larger scheme for a socialist utopia.
Lenin supported the adventurous Vavilov, a handsome and seductive young professor, as he became an Indiana Jones, hunting lost botanical treasures on five continents.
In a former tsarist palace in what is now St, Petersburg, Vavilov built the world's first seed bank, a quarter of a million specimens, a magnificent living museum of plant diversity that was the envy of scientists everywhere and remains so today.
But when Lenin died inand Stalin took over, Vavilov's dream turned into a nightmare, This son of science was from a bourgeois background, the class of society most despised and distrusted by the Bolsheviks.
The new cadres of comrade scientists taunted and insulted him, and Stalin's dreaded secret police built up false charges of sabotage and espionage.
Stalin's collectivization of farmland caused chaos in Soviet food production, and millions died in widespread famine, Vavilov's master plan for improving Soviet crops was designed to work over decades, not a few years, and he could not meet Stalin's impossible demands for immediate results.
In Stalin's Terror of thes, Russian geneticists were systematically repressed in favor of the peasant horticulturalist Trofim Lysenko, with his fraudulent claims and speculative theories.
Vavilov was the most famous victim of this purge, which set back Russian biology by a generation and caused the country untold harm.
He was sentenced to death, but unlike Galileo, he refused to recant his beliefs and, in the most cruel twist, this humanitarian pioneer scientist was starved to death in the gulag.
Pringle uses newly opened Soviet archives, including Vavilov's secret police file, official correspondence, vivid expedition reports, previously unpublished family letters and diaries, and the reminiscences of eyewitnesses to bring us this intensely human story of a brilliant life cut short by antiscience demagogues, ideology, censorship, and political expedience.
Murder of Nikolai Vavilov by Peter Pringle narrates antiscience Soviet genetics pitting Vavilov v Lysenko, A generation lost to ideology, A lesson for today's climate debate A Russian scientist, brilliantly maintains a single of desire: to breed different varieties of plants from around the world that might help end starvation.
He found plants in different parts of the world with characteristics that fit the area and created the world's largest seed bank and began trying to help Russia feed itself with the best strains of plant breeds while hoping someday to feed the world.
Sadly, his story does not end well, Another scientist and political opportunist arose who was able to discredit him with a competing view of the way plants grow and change over time.
While this competing view had significant scientific problems it was politically palatable and became the official view of the Russian government.
Ending with Nikolai Vavilov being sent to prison where he was ultimately starved to death in jail in, Ironic that the man who spent his whole adult life only caring about plants and trying to feed the world was killed by his government by starvation in a prison cell.
His massive seed banks were in many cases preserved, Even to the point of several parts of it lasting thru the siege of Leningrad, Some of scientists starved to death and afterwards the seeds they preserved were found, Rice and other grains they refused to eat even though they starved,
Another bloody blot on the history of communism, This book is not a murder mystery, and some will say that it is not a murder in the true sense of the word.
This true story takes place in Russia during the reign of Joseph Stalin, The Russian people were faced with numerous shortages during the Stalin regime but the shortage of food was the one most devastating.
Nikolai Vavilov was, arguably, the most prominent botantist plant breeder of this time, He searched the world for seeds to plant that he thought might produce larger yields in the Russian soilo and alleviate the horrific famine conditions of the day.
Millions of Russians lost their lives during this time that could be directly attributed to the shortage of food,
Vavilov found himself at odds with Stalin regarding genetics, Geneticists were repressed in favor of the theories and fraudulent claims of a peasant, Trogim Lysenko, Lysenko, through manipulation, found himself in Stalin's favor and was able to bring false claims against Vavilov, Vavilov and his fellow scientists found their work, and the hope of the Russian people, being disregarded,
Vavilov was imprisoned and tortured, He boldly held on to his beliefs and was sentenced to death, Ironically, while waiting for his death sentence to be carried out, he was starved to death,
This is not an easy read and deals primarily with Vavilov and his search for seeds and his continual battle with the Soviet Government.
An indication of the contents of the book is that it is filed under Biology, not True Crime or Russian History.
I really enjoyed this book, A name I never heard of turns out to be "one of the greatest scientists of his century"
will be enjoyed by history buffs and gardeners alike as he was a great plant hunter.
Led me to read more about Russian history, An interesting look at what happens when antiscience folks have access to power and policy, A tragic tale of someone whose contributions to agronomy, food security, and science should be known more broadly, As selected by the Baltimore Alumni of the U of C book club, I never would have anticipated that a book about an obscure Russian agronomist or any agronomist, for that matter would be absolutely fascinating and impossible to put down, but it's true.
I really enjoyed this book!
Nikolai Vavilov was a very patriotic Russian scientist who had a dream of not only ending Russia's famines forever, but of wiping out hunger worldwide for all time.
He went to great lengths to achieve these ends, traveling all over the world including into some very dangerous places in order to gather countless samples of the world's hardiest varieties of every plant imaginable.
Although not a member of the Communist party, he also strove to make a name for Soviet science in the world, to prove that the USSR could produce as great of thinkers as anywhere else.
You would think that such dedication would have been deeply appreciated, In the wider world, Vavilov was quite celebrated in his time I personally had never heard of him before, He was even initially greatly lauded in the USSR, However, under Stalin's regime of paranoia and antiintellectualism, Vavilov fell suddenly and swiftly from favor, He would eventually die years too soon of hunger in a gulag as the USSR fought to win World War II.
With him died the dream of a world seed depository,
If you're anything like me, you will spend the first half this book in awe of everything that Vavilov achieved and the second half seething with anger at his persecution at the hands of those jealous of his achievements.
This is truly a very moving book and a great tribute to a man that history has largely forgotten, This book was a really good window into the Red Terror and how it not only affected the more famous tsar but also normal professors and students.
Peter Pringle is a veteran British foreign correspondent, He is theauthor and coauthor of several nonfiction books, including th ebestselling Those Are Real Bullets, Arent They He lives in New York City.
Series: sitelink Arthur Hemmings Mystery Peter Pringle is a veteran British foreign correspondent, He is theauthor and coauthor of several nonfiction books, including th ebestselling Those Are Real Bullets, Aren't They He lives in New York City.
Series: sitelink Arthur Hemmings Mystery sitelink,