Kanigel, Robert 1946-

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Kanigel, Robert 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born May 28, 1946, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Charles (an owner of a small factory) and Beatrice (a homemaker) Kanigel; married Judith Schiff (a principal of a school for the mentally disabled), June 28, 1981 (divorced, 2005); married Sarah Merrow (a flute repair technician); children: David Saul. Education: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, B.S., 1966.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Vicky Bijur Literary Agency, 333 West End Ave., New York, NY 10023l; Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management, 521 5th Ave., New York, NY 10175. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and educator. Mechanical engineer, 1966-67; Bendix Corporation, Towson, MD, mechanical engineer, 1968-69; freelance writer in Baltimore, MD, 1970-71 and 1975-99, San Francisco, CA, 1971-74, and New York, NY, 1975. Instructor in writing at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1985-91; Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, Baltimore, MD, professor of English and senior fellow of the Institute for Language, Technology, and Publications Design, 1991-99; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, professor of science writing and director of graduate program in science writing, 1999—.

MEMBER:

American Society of Journalists and Authors, National Association of Science Writers, Society for the History of Technology, American Conference for Irish Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS:

A.D. Emmart Award for writing in the humanities, 1979, for "Orthodoxy's Invisible Wall"; Smolar Award for excellence in North American Jewish journalism, Council of Jewish Federations, 1978, for "Impressions of the Detlavs Trial," and 1980; Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, Citation Award, 1982, for "The Mentor Chain," Silver Award, 1985, for "An Intricate Edifice," and Gold Award, 1988, for "The Coming of Chaos"; second prize in Simon Rockower Memorial Writing Competition for excellence in Jewish journalism, American Jewish Press Association, 1982; Marine Biological Laboratory Science Writing fellowship, 1988; James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for interpreting chemistry for the public, American Chemical Society, 1989; Outstanding Article of the Year award, American Society of Journalists and Authors, 1989, for "An Ordinary Miracle" and 1992, Author of the Year award, 1998; award for excellence in medical journalism, Medical-Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, 1989, for "Getting a Fix on Nicotine Addiction"; National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, 1992, for The Man Who Knew Infinity; Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 1991; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, technology book series, 1992; Elizabeth Eisenstein Prize, National Coalition of Independent Scholars, 1994; Class of 1960 Innovation in Education Award, MIT, 2003; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Apprentice to Genius: The Making of a Scientific Dynasty, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1986.

The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Indian Genius Ramanujan, Scribner (New York, NY), 1991.

The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, Viking (New York, NY), 1997.

Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury: A Personal Tour of Some of the World's Best Books, Bancroft Press (Baltimore, MD), 1998.

High Season: How One French Riviera Town Has Seduced Travelers for Two Thousand Years, Viking (New York, NY), 2002.

Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes, Joseph Henry Press (Washington, DC), 2007.

Work represented in anthologies, including Education and Opportunity, edited by Gordon M. Seely, 2nd edition, Prentice-Hall, 1977; Options in Rhetoric, edited by Sylvia A. Holladay and Thomas M. Brown, Prentice-Hall, 1981; Biology, edited by John W. Crane, 4th edition, Dushkin, 1984; Field Guide for Science Writers, edited by Deborah Blum, Robin Marantz Henig, and Mary Knudson, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 2005; and Matematica e Cultura 2006, edited by Michele Emmer, Springer, 2006. Contributor of nearly 400 articles, essays, and reviews to periodicals and newspapers, including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Psychology Today, and Sciences. Author of monthly literary review, "Vintage Reading," Baltimore Evening Sun, 1982-88. Contributing editor, Johns Hopkins Magazine, 1977-1990.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert Kanigel's first book, Apprentice to Genius: The Making of a Scientific Dynasty, is a study of the mentor system, which traces four members of the scientific elite as each matures from student to teacher. Throughout the book Kanigel refutes the stereotypical view that scientists are cold, rational automatons, revealing instead the creative and emotional influences that pervade their distinctly human endeavor to understand people and their world. The "dynasty" Kanigel scrutinizes began in the 1940s with eminent pharmacologist Bernard Brodie and his pupil, eventual Nobel Prizewinner Julius Axelrod. Next in succession is Solomon Snyder, Axelrod's pupil and the mentor of Candace Pert, whose research helped Snyder win the prestigious Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for the discovery of opiate receptors in the mammalian brain. A controversy ensued when, despite her contributions, Pert was excluded from the award. What made these four scientists successful despite their personal and professional conflicts, argues Kanigel, is not that they passed along mere data but rather that in each case the mentor imbued the apprentice with an intuitive, daring attitude toward research. Such an attitude is perhaps best illustrated in Apprentice to Genius by Brodie's adventuresome expression, "Let's take a flier on it."

Critics cited Apprentice to Genius as a rarity in the realm of science writing. In the Washington Post Book World, reviewer Wray Herbert noted that Apprentice to Genius "contains some of the most lucid science writing I have read anywhere," calling it a "fascinating story" that is "skillfully" told by Kanigel.

Kanigel's next book, The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Indian Genius Ramanujan, recounts the life and early death of the Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, who grew up in poverty yet made his name in England and astounded the scientific community there with his amazing aptitude for solving formulas. In particular, the author focuses on Ramanujan's relationship with his British mentor, G.W. Hardy, a mathematics star in his own right who was the first to recognize the young Indian's natural-born talent. New York Times Book Review critic John Allen Paulos noted Kanigel "tells one of the most romantic stories in the history of mathematics." Indeed, even those readers not enamored of mathematics can enjoy this rags-to-riches parable, in Paulos's view. The book's "portrayal of Madras and the relaxed atmosphere and easy interaction of classes in the surrounding Talil villages where Ramanujan grew up is superbly evocative, as is its depiction of life in Cambridge during World War I." In a Washington Post Book World review, Shashi Tharoor called The Man Who Knew Infinity a "masterpiece." The reviewer also noted that this work represents "a model of the biographer's art: Kanigel has taken a man, a social context and a specialist field and made each accessible and convincing. He has done so with a rare combination of skills—encyclopedic thoroughness, meticulous research, genuine sympathy for his subjects and first-rate writing of exceptional lucidity and verve." Some readers took exception to the author's penchant for detail; he has "exhaustively described every building that Ramanujan ever occupied, every tradition that Ramanujan ever encountered, every incident in which Ramanujan played even the tiniest role," Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the New York Times. "Did World War I descend upon England while Ramanujan was there? Mr. Kanigel expatiates on its causes. Did Ramanujan contract tuberculosis as a remotely indirect result? Mr. Kanigel holds forth on the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One senses that if his hero had worn a wristwatch, the author would have told the history of Switzerland." Still, Times Literary Supplement contributor A.W. Masters cited Kanigel for taking on the challenge: "Ramanujan is a troublesome subject for biography. Beyond the basic story of his relationship with Hardy during the five applauded years that preceded and largely accounted for his death, there isn't much for a non-mathematician to say." Masters continued: "For a journalist who is neither Indian nor English, and who, until 1987, had never even heard of Ramanujan, this book is a noteworthy performance."

In 1997, Kanigel delivered another noteworthy performance with his biography of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), described by the author as "the first efficiency expert, the original time-and-motion man." The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency recounts the life of an industrial engineer whose name is not well known outside business circles but whose innovations at the turn of the twentieth century helped shape the way work is performed to this day. Born into affluence, Taylor was courted by top schools yet chose to toil among the men on the factory floor to learn how manual labor was accomplished—and how it could be sped up. Taylor would not stay a laborer for long. While rising through the management ranks he developed his formula for "scientific management," a way of working, based on quantifiable measures of established routines. "Taylorism," as it came to be known, "turned craft work into assembly line work," noted Robert Dowling in Business Week. "It presaged automation and the machine age, gave us speedups, downsizings, and rules for every job." Indeed, Taylor would gain a notorious reputation for his methods of research, which Kanigel discusses in The One Best Way. In the words of Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, writing in the Chicago Tribune: "Those who hold the popular image of Taylor with his stopwatch timing the every move of a sweating, harassed worker, and of scientific management as a turn-of-the-century scheme to squeeze the last drop of effort out of employees before quitting time, will not be disappointed. Kanigel does not hide Taylor's warts; his authoritarianism, his hucksterism, his casual approach to facts, his disregard for the human side of work—all are displayed. [The author] fully describes labor's initial disgust with Taylor's scheme and the subsequent decline of his reputation." Bettyann Kevles commented that the author did well by his controversial subject. "With dry wit and scrupulous attention to detail, Kanigel draws the portrait of a man who understood the manufacture of steel far better than he understood the people who worked it," she wrote in a Washington Post Book World review. "He is no less thorough in describing Taylor's marriage, which was childless until, in his forties, he adopted three brutally orphaned children [lavishing upon them] love and attention that they never forgot."

Kanigel turned to some of the classics in his 1998 publication, Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury: A Personal Tour of Some of the World's Best Books. He has described his collection of essays, which Lisa J. Cihlar for the Library Journal described as "light and amusing," not as a review of all the books on the established academic canon of literary works but rather as a personal tour of some of his favorites. Some of the books that he discusses include Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, Isadora Duncan's My Life, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Jane Austen's, Pride and Prejudice. It is through his essays, according to Booklist contributor GraceAnne A. DeCandido, that readers are inspired to pick up the old favorites and read them again. De Candido also recommended this book as "fine fodder for book-discussion groups."

Kanigel's next book, High Season: How One French Riviera Town Has Seduced Travelers for Two Thousand Years, is a history of Nice. In what Eileen Hardy, writing in Booklist called a "witty, humorous style," Kanigel has recounted the passage of time, from the years of the Roman Empire to the contemporary moment, of people who have passed through this sunny resort of warm temperatures and beautiful beaches. In Nice, which shares the influences of both France and Italy, no matter what kind of lifestyle or economic station in life one comes from, at the beach everyone is considered an equal compatriot. The only dark spot on the reputation of this town occurred during the German occupation of France, a time during which many Jewish people were turned over to the Nazis and ultimately sent to their deaths at concentration camps. Library Journal contributor Joseph L. Carlson found High Season to be "insightful"; while a reviewer for Publishers Weekly pointed out that Kanigel made a strong argument for Nice as "an indicator of social mores and fashions."

In his 2007 book, Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes, Kanigel delves into the history of leather making and the search for a replacement. Not only does the author discuss such issues as what makes leather genuine, he also explores the more universal aspects of what is real and what is an imitation. The book includes a categorized bibliography. Wade Lee, writing in the Library Journal, noted that "the technical prose is precise and engaging."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Enterprise, November-December, 1997, Martin Morse Wooster, review of The One BestWay: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, p. 84.

American Scientist, July-August, 1992, Krishnaswami Alladi, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, pp. 388-389.

Booklist, May 1, 1997, David Rouse, review of The One Best Way, p. 1467; February 15, 1998, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury: A Personal Tour of Some of the World's Best Books, p. 968; December 1, 1998, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 636; June 1, 2002, Eileen Hardy, review of High Season: How One French Riviera Town Has Seduced Travelers for Two Thousand Years, p. 1670.

Business Week, July 7, 1997, Robert Dowling, review of The One Best Way, p. 21.

Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1997, Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, review of The One Best Way, p. 1.

Commentary, November, 1997, Christopher Caldwell, review of The One Best Way, pp. 62-63.

Commonweal, October 25, 1991, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 620.

Fortune, July 21, 1997, Alan Farnham, review of The One Best Way, p. 114.

Historian, spring, 1993, Ben Rogers, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, pp. 545-546.

Isis, December, 2000, Steven W. Usselman, review of The One Best Way, p. 818.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2002, review of High Season, p. 471.

Labor History, February, 1999, Howell John Harris, review of The One Best Way, p. 96.

Library Journal, April 15, 1997, Dale F. Farris, review of The One Best Way, p. 1467; April 15, 1998, Lisa J. Cihlar, review of Vintage Reading, p. 80; May 15, 2002, Joseph L. Carlson, review of High Season, p. 116; February 15, 2007, Wade Lee, review of Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes, p. 146.

New Leader, May 19, 1997, Roger Draper, review of The One Best Way, pp. 3-4.

New Scientist, December 21, 1991, John Fauvel, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 70.

New York Review of Books, December 5, 1991, Ian Stewart, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 12; November 20, 1997, review of The One Best Way, pp. 32-37.

New York Times, May 20, 1991, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. B2; June 15, 1997, George F. Will, review of The One Best Way, p. 8; August 11, 1997, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The One Best Way, p. B2.

New York Times Book Review, July 21, 1991, John Allen Paulos, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, May 6, 2002, review of High Season, p. 45.

Reason, January, 1998, Brink Lindsey, review of The One Best Way, pp. 48-52.

School Library Journal, September, 1998, Catherine Charvat, review of Vintage Reading, p. 232.

Science, July 19, 1991, Jonathan M. Borwein and Peter B. Borwein, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, pp. 334-335; October 24, 1997, Glenn Porter, review of The One Best Way, pp. 594-595.

Sewanee Review, spring, 1995, David Miller, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 26.

Smithsonian, July, 1992, Nina Mehta, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 123.

Times Literary Supplement, February 21, 1992, A.W. Masters, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 22.

Washington Post Book World, November 30, 1986, Wray Herbert, review of Apprentice to Genius, p. 11; November 3, 1991, Shashi Tharoor, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 4; July 13, 1997, Bettyann Kevles, review of The One Best Way, p. 8.

Wilson Quarterly, winter, 1992, review of The Man Who Knew Infinity, p. 108.