A review by heyheyrenay
Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled On by Hawking Became Loved by Marcia Bartusiak

3.0

This was a nice, light overview of the discovery of black holes. There are, however, gaping holes in the commentary the author provides, like when an Indian scientist comes up with a solid theory and his white colleague humiliates him in public, driving him away from the topic for decades; the tone is very "ha ha quirky scientists!" instead of "wow, there is some racism happening here!". The narrative is full of sexist metaphors and the author seems to find it funny that Kip Thorne and Stephen Hawking bet "racy magazines" over the existence of black holes instead of pointing out it's kind of crass for men to offer objectified women as a prize for scientific discoveries. She was all "and Thorne's wife was super bummed when Thorne won that Penthouse subscription!!!" :| :| :| :| :| :| :| :| :|

So this is definitely a book that is meant to impart ONLY the surface history of how black holes came to be discovered, and leaves out the social implications of the roadblocks it might have faced due to systemic racism, sexism, etc. It gave me the info without getting too heavy into the math/science parts, and when it did delve into them, managed to explain them well enough that I got the concepts.

(But wow, the way she framed the treatment of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is A P P A L L I N G. White privilege at work, holy moly.)