Memoir of a Thinking Radish: An Autobiography

by Peter Medawar

"He's tart, tough-minded, terribly British...an imposing grand master of aphorism, argument and lightning-bolt one-liners." So Newsweek writer wrote of Sir Peter Medawar, the renowned British immunologist. "The most accomplished writer of popular-science essays," declared the Philadelphia Inquirer. Now this Nobel Prize-winning scientist and highly acclaimed author of Pluto's Republic, Aristotle to Zoos, and many other books has written a fascinating account of his own life.

The image of man as a cross between Pascal's "thinking reed" and Falstaff's "forked radish," expressed in the title of Sir Peter's autobiography, stems from his humble desire "not to claim for myself as an author any distinction more extravagant than membership of the human race." But it is an exceptional life that unfolds in the pages of this incisive and witty memoir. Sir Peter describes his early years in Rio de Janiero, "the rude and barbaric life of Marlborough," Oxford in 1930s, his illnesses and recovery, and the rewards and frustrations of work in a wide variety of academic institutions around the world. Rich anecdotes abound--his early school days and family life, his musical education, his wife Jean and their family, his frequent visits to America, and much more. A sheer delight to read, this highly personal account illuminates the life of one of the most engaging and impressive men of out time.

About the Author:

Sir Peter Medawar won the 1960 Nobel Prize for Medicine. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and author of several volumes of scientific essays.

The Noble Prizewinner reminisces about his dual career in the worlds of science and letters

Genres: Biography, Science, Nonfiction, Memoir

209 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Mike Suter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the memoir of Peter Medawar, 1/2 British and 1/2 Lebanese Nobel laureate honored for his work around skin transplantation and graft rejection. Medawar studied at Oxford with brilliant scientists as well as literati like CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, and he fills his autobiography with anecdotes about them and his life in science, as well as his personal journey that included illness toward the end. A wise and wonderful book, especially for those interested in the inner life of a scientist.

[Crosby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I teach college level immunology. Dr. Medawar is one of the giants in the history of immunology having been responsible for advances in transplant immunology, immunological tolerance, lymphocyte biology, etc. Medawar is also known for his literary contributions to popularizing science. I read this book with the idea that it might provide some insight into how a first class scientist thinks as he goes about his profession. I was not disappointed. Not only does Medawar write well but he includes numerous personal observations making him very accessible to the reader, almost as though we were in a one on on conversation. In fact, many of his statements so closely correspond to my own thoughts that I could have been reading about myself in certain sections. Cases in point are the following statements: "I no longer get anything like the fun out of records that I had as a boy...because for some time I have been able to buy any record I want....I look back nostalgically to the days when I saved pocket-money for weeks to buy one record..." ; "With children, that one reads is much more important than what one reads"; "there was nothing any man had written or thought that I could not master if I chose to give my mind to it": "I hardly ever use the telephone myself and dislike being telephoned" ; "selfishly guarding every second of one's time". These and other observations made me care about his story. Add to that personal touch his ability to describe his thinking in creating the seminal experiments in immunology that defined his place in history and one has a book that is both scientifically satisfying, well written and personally relatable.

[Ricardo Moreno Mauro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excelente libro. es una especie de autobriografia de este premio Nobel en 1960. Un libro con varias anecdotas de su niñez y vida adulta. De como fueron sus descubrimientos, de la vida familiar de un científico y una vision de la sociedad ingleasa de la primera mitad del siglo XX.

Lo disfrutarán.


R.

[Gary Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A digital version of this edition can be found at and downloaded from Internet Archive (archive.org).

[Rebeca Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es muy interesante leer sus opiniones sobre diferentes aspectos de la ciencia y la sociedad que en ese momento se estaban gestando y que hoy en día tienen un impacto, me ayudó a darle más forma al presente.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Medawar is always a pleasure, and this is wisely thin, not slight.

[Dennis Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book, and reasonably written, although rather episodic. But the author comes across as a complete arse. Which I doubt was his intention. Feels like it was written a lot longer ago than the mid-80s.

[Cathy Hartel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of this was quite beyond me. I particularly liked this phrase "...the human comedy or the human predicament--very often the same thing". Good book that I'll add to my library some day.

[Kate]

Mentioned in Bruce Chatwin biog by Nicholas Shakespeare