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I was at the Coburg Library with my wife a few months back and was browsing the DVD section when I came across a 4 DVD box set of Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. Now I have this 1973 book at home on the bookshelf and read it many years ago. In my younger days, I also must have seen the BBC 13 part series (1973) of which this box set is a more recent copy. So I borrowed it and watched it over a couple of weeks (one episode per night).
I was blown away once again by the amazing intellect of Bronowski. The last DVD featured a more recent interview with David Attenborough, the director of the original series. In it, he explained how 'Bruno' would normally do each scene in a single take and do all his ongoing dialogues without prompts and without notes. Absolutely amazing.
I then wondered what had subsequently happened with Bronowski after completing his 1973 epic TV series and booik, only to find that he tragically died the following year of a heart attack in East Hampton, New York. He is buried in the western side of London's Highgate Cemetery, near the entrance.
I recommend that you watch the 1 hour youtube video of David Parkinson interviewing Bronowski in 1972 - Parky rated it as perhaps his favourite ever interview. In what is a truly compelling interview, he shares his first impressions on arriving in England in the 1920s, his memories of filming at Auschwitz, his thoughts on science and his broader philosophy of life. And significantly, he comes across as a wonderful person who is at ease with his vast intellect and enjoys his life and all that he does.
You should also watch the 1973 Day at Night interview with Dr. Jacob Bronowski who explains his view that scientific endeavors should be relevant to the needs of society, and his ideas on poetry. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvUe94My8Wo.
Ok, time to read something else from Bronowski. I saw on wikipedia that in 1967 he delivered the six Silliman Memorial Lectures at Yale University and chose as his subject the role of imagination and symbolic language in the progress of scientific knowledge. Transcripts of the lectures were published posthumously in 1978 as The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination and remain in print. So I sourced a copy online and it duly arrived in February 2016.
What a marvellous read. Bronowski was indeed a polymath - mathematician, science historian, theatre author, poet, inventor, philosopher, philologist, expert on Blake, TV presenter, speaker of some 6 languages.
The bookblub - In this [book] Jacob Bronowski presents a succinct introduction to the state of modern thinking about the role of science in man’s intellectual and moral life. Weaving together themes from ethnology, linguistics, philosophy, and physics, he confronts the questions of who we are, what we are, and how we relate to the universe around us.
I liked what one goodreads reviewer said - here you will find succinct arguments on why the endlessly questioning nature of science is the vital corrective to dogma and prejudice, and how the quest for knowledge should be tempered by the awareness that our own limitations will affect and often distort our discoveries.
A wonderful man, a wonderful scientist and a huge loss to us all with his early and unexpected passing.
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