David N. Schwartz
Author
Reviews
"David Schwartz's elegant narrative is a formidable achievement, shining a bright light on Enrico Fermi, the most enigmatic physicists of the early atomic era. Schwartz has exhasted the archives and crafted what will certainly stand as the most deeply biographic of this brilliant scientist's tragically short life." - Kai Bird, co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
"One of the finest biographies of the year, The Last Man Who Knew Everything combines the historic, the scientific, and the personal in a deft way.....Spellbinding." - Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love Story.
"Enrico Fermi was a singular figure of modern science, and David Schwartz has written a singular biography. His book is unusually adept and nuanced in its appreciation and explanation of both the scientific and humanistic aspects of its subject. It is also a joy to read, as Schwartz has a beautiful authorial voice that is perfectly appropriate for his subject matter: appreciative and sympathetic, without falling into the hyperbolic or uncritical. It is a rare book that will please both the experts and the novices, but I think this is such a rare book."
--- Alex Wellerstein, assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology and author of Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog
"Enrico Fermi was a singular figure of modern science, and David Schwartz has written a singular biography. His book is unusually adept and nuanced in its appreciation and explanation of both the scientific and humanistic aspects of its subject. It is also a joy to read, as Schwartz has a beautiful authorial voice that is perfectly appropriate for his subject matter: appreciative and sympathetic, without falling into the hyperbolic or uncritical. It is a rare book that will please both the experts and the novices, but I think this is such a rare book."
--- Alex Wellerstein, assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology and author of Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog
"There have been other accounts of his life, yet David N. Schwartz's new portrait, The Last Man Who Knew Everything, is the first thorough biography to be published since Fermi's death 64 years ago in 1954. Schwartz, working with limited sources, tells the story well...[His] biography adds importantly to the literature of the utterly remarkable men and women who opened up nuclear physics to the world."―Richard Rhodes, New York Times Book Review
"Mr. Schwartz deftly conveys the aesthetic beauty of Fermi's insights without getting mired in their minutiae."―Economist
"[Schwartz] does an admirable job of explaining the science and provides careful assessments of Fermi's influence... [and illuminates] the human effects of a project that was so urgent yet so terrible in its long-term implications."―Foreign Affairs
"Schwartz's The Last Man Who Knew Everything offers the most comprehensive description of Fermi's work so far, as well as fresh insights into his personality."―Nature
"The Last Man Who Knew Everything manages the neat double trick of making both Fermi and his abstruse work accessible to readers living in the world he did so much to create, for good and ill."―Christian Science Monitor
"An informative and fun read, rich in those anecdotes and tales that...help to elucidate what was driving the work of the giant that Fermi was.... The more mundane aspects of Fermi's life--his fears, vanities and human errors, emerge...from these pages."―Physics World
"[Schwartz] does an admirable job of explaining the science and provides careful assessments of Fermi's influence... [and illuminates] the human effects of a project that was so urgent yet so terrible in its long-term implications."―Foreign Affairs
"Schwartz's The Last Man Who Knew Everything offers the most comprehensive description of Fermi's work so far, as well as fresh insights into his personality."―Nature
"The Last Man Who Knew Everything manages the neat double trick of making both Fermi and his abstruse work accessible to readers living in the world he did so much to create, for good and ill."―Christian Science Monitor
"An informative and fun read, rich in those anecdotes and tales that...help to elucidate what was driving the work of the giant that Fermi was.... The more mundane aspects of Fermi's life--his fears, vanities and human errors, emerge...from these pages."―Physics World
"A lucid writer who has done his homework, Schwartz...delivers a thoroughly enjoyable, impressively researched account...Never a media darling like Einstein or Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) is now barely known to the public, but few scientists would deny that he was among the most brilliant physicists of his century...A rewarding, expert biography of a giant of the golden age of physics."
―Kirkus
"Told in a sure, steady voice, Schwartz's book delivers a scrupulously researched and lovingly crafted portrait of the 'greatest Italian scientist since Galileo.'"―Publishers Weekly