DREAMS OF EARTH AND SKY

New York City, NY: New York Review Of Books, 2015. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/As New Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: New York Review Of Books, 2015. Hardcover. As New/As New. First Edition/First Printing. 298 pages. Retrospective collection of essays. One of Freeman Dyson's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only and on the occasion of Freeman Dyson's 90th Birthday. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Freeman Dyson's "Dreams of Earth And Sky". Engaging, visionary essays that amount to a sequel of "The Scientist As Rebel" (2006). They provide immense pleasure and scientific literacy to the serious reader, who really needs to be more knowledgeable about science because science is too important to be left to the scientists. The author of the standard textbook on quantum mechanics, Freeman Dyson stands apart from the entire scientific establishment because he is also a public intellectual engaged in the most urgent issues of our time: Poverty, social inequality, economic growth, and most controversial of all, climate change. He is the rarest scientist of all: A ferocious critic of science-become-ideology, become orthodoxy that can never ever be questioned, become politicized, science as the new religion, thereby ceasing to be science at all. Dyson did not just undermine the hysteria about global warming that climate scientists waged in a very public manner. Even if he will not openly take credit for it, Dyson actually won the "global warming" debate: It is easy to forget how climate scientists suddenly stopped calling it "global warming" and switched to "climate change" because Dyson, a climate skeptic, not a denier, demolished their model-based predictions. His point is perfectly simple: Climate change is real, and has been going on for a very long time. The continuing reliance of China, India, and for that matter, the United States on fossil fuels is unavoidable in the finite - but not indefinite - interim because for Dyson, it is far more important to bring ALL of the world's peoples out of poverty. This is common sense except for ideologues bent on imposing their will on reality. One will not do justice to his book if one omits Dyson's "joyful dreaming" about The Future, when he predicts that by the end of the 21st century, human beings will be able to travel to outer space at dirt-cheap prices. The irrepressible Freeman Dyson died on February 28, 2020 at the age of 96. The sheer velocity of his genius-mind will be missed. An absolute "must-have" title for Freeman Dyson collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Freeman Dyson. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Laid-in is a lovely 4 X 6 Souvenir Color Photograph of Freeman Dyson during the signing event. This title is a great book. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. One of the greatest scientist/thinkers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER FREEMAN DYSON TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1590178548.