The New Yorker for 28th October publishes a review by Adam Gopnic of Andrew Janiak, The Enlightenment's Most Dangerous Woman: Émilie du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy (available in the UK at the end of January 2025)
Does the Enlightenment’s Great Female Intellect Need Rescuing? | The New Yorker
From the review it sounds as if there is going to be rather too much philosophy and Newtonian physics in this book for me to cope with! However, like Adam Gopnic, I wonder if Émilie du Châtelet is really so neglected nowadays as Professor Janiak would have us think....
There are already several good accessible books in English. From my bookshelf, I recommend Daring Genius of the Enlightenment by Judith P. Zinsser, who has also published Du Châtelet's Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings in English. David Bodanis's Passionate Minds: the Great Scientific Affair is also a must if you want all the gossipy details of Émilie's relations with Voltaire.
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