Synopsis
Linus Pauling (1901-1994), the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes, scientist, peace activist, and champion of vitamin C therapy, was a phenomenal figure in American history who leaped the boundaries of physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and politics. In a balanced, captivating biography, science writer Hager skillfully leads the reader through Pauling's pioneering work in fields ranging from quantum theory to crystallography to immunology. Drawing on scores of interviews with Pauling, his family and his colleagues, and on the two-time Nobel Prize-winner's papers, Hager limns a fiercely competitive, emotionally constricted man, irreverent, audacious, sometimes self-righteous and bullying -- a more complex figure than his public persona of maverick idealist. Drawing on a trove of newly declassified government documents, Hager tells the full story of the FBI's harassment and intimidation of Pauling for his leftist politics. The book ends with a detailed overview of Pauling's research on Vitamin C, a late-life obsession that led many observers to think of him more as a crackpot than a brilliant scientist.