The Politics of Excellence by Robert Marc Friedman, Times Books, $30, ISBN 0716731037
THE Oscars, the Booker, even the Olympics have all been tainted with the muck of politics in recent years. But above the tide of hype and unseemly lobbying stands the supposedly dignified spectacle of the Nobels. In this superbly researched book, Robert Friedman sets out to offer a more nuanced perspective, carefully examining the process by which the prizes have been determined in both physics and chemistry over the past century.
The result is a deeply fascinating set of stories that reveal the full spectrum of human…
