Bøker av Carl Djerassi

Brimming with intrigue and the friction created when strong personalities clash, "Foreplay" explores the deeply human and psychologically fascinating private lives of twentieth-century intellectual giants Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno, and Adorno's wife Gretel.

Carl Djerassi crafts a shrewd collection of comedies of manners, exposing the foibles of elite tribes--business executives, chefs, scientists, professors, musicians, and other clever characters. They spar in battles of one-upmanship using class, education, gender, or prestige as their weapons, sometimes leaving damaged bystanders in their wake but sometimes finding their superiority deflated by unexpected turns of events.

What motivates a scientist? One key factor is the pressure from the competition to be the first to discover something new. This work focuses on chemical and political revolutions, as well as the Nobel Prize, which was awarded for the 100th time in 2001.