© Columbia University Press
Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World
November, 2007
Cloth, 272 pages, 40 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-14280-9
$24.95
/ £14.95
"An entertaining, maybe indispensable guide for film buffs everywhere." —
Booklist
"“A grand
roundup of technical movie masterpieces... praising scientific accuracy (A Beautiful Mind) and
exposing turkeys (Volcano).” --Los Angeles Magazine" — Los Angeles
Magazine
"An engaging and fun read."
— Claude Lalumière, Locus
"Hollywood Science is great fun.
. . I give it two thumbs up!" — David Schneider, American
Scientist
"A fascinating read that will
have you heading to your local DVD store." — Physics
World
"This is a terrific book . . .
Essential." — CHOICE
"Hollywood Science is a treat for
anyone who looks from their television set to the Moon." — John Findura,
Fortean Times
"The
approach taken by Sidney Perkowitz is ideal and can accommodate science subfields such as
cosmology, genetic engineering, volcanology, and robotics. I believe this book will be very
valuable to bridging the gap between scientists, general readers, and non-science students. The
book has great appeal for general readers and, in my opinion, will be a useful course book for
college level courses in science and film. For the most part, the book is highly readable,
provocative, and will be just plain fun to read for both general readers and college students."
— Brian Schwartz, Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs, director of
the NSF-supported Science and the Arts Program, and professor of physics at Brooklyn
College
"Sidney Perkowitz's rollicking account of the
encounter of science and the movies is just fun, from beginning to end. All of the ways Hollywood
has dreamed up for your and my destruction, all of the alien, bug-eyed-monsters you want (and
some you didn't even know existed) are contained in this marvelous romp through Hollywood's weird
science." — Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, author of
Same and Not the Same
fantasy, explores stereotypes of the eccentric or evil scientist, and shows how sci-fi movies
express our deepest hopes and fears about where technology is taking us. Essential reading for
any movie buff." — Evan Hadingham, senior science editor, NOVA
"There are many good books on the science fiction film but hardly
any on the science of science fiction films. When a distinguished scientist like Sidney Perkowitz
decides to write one, we had better pay attention." — David A. Cook, author of
A History of Narrative Film, Fourth Edition
"An engaging appreciation of both the delightful and the dubious in
one of our favorite pastimes, the science fiction film." — Greg Bear, Hugo and
Nebula award-winning author
"Sidney Perkowitz provides us
with an interesting and very useful study of movies that have a science thrust. Public science
literacy in this age of climate peril and terrorism is the road to sanity and, as Perkowitz
shows, the magic of the screen can do so much better." — Leon M. Lederman, Nobel
Laureate in Physics