|
|
. |
|
|
home : culture : continental drift : english : isis journal : .................................................................................................................................. |
|
English Site Index ...................... |
"Continental Drift - Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures" .................................................................................................. |
|
|
Purchase Online
Preface by
|
Review:
ISIS Review Vol. 91 No. 2 (June 2002) - University of Chicago Journals. by Professor David Oldroyd – University of New South Wales, Australia. .................... This is an interesting and charming book – even if not strictly an essay in the history of science. The dissident author studied earth sciences in Romania during the beastly ceasescu regime but managed to get out by attending a conference in Newcastle (UK) and never returning until after the end of the Eastern European communism. Yet he remained a Romanian patriot and is presently a professor honoris causa in Bucharest whilst residing with his family in salubrious Glyndebourne. Constantin Roman must, by his account, surely be one of the world’s most upwardly mobile earth scientists. Starting in England with only £5 in his pocket, by ability, persistence, and charm, and using Newcastle as a stepping-stone, he became acquainted with the right people (especially the late Keith Runcorn) and obtained a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to do a PhD on the tectonics of the Caucasus and across into Central Asia, using seismic data to identify plate boundaries and movements. On this basis, and studying areas of compression and tension, he proposed the existence of two non-rigid “buffer plates” – Sinkiang & Tibet – between the Indian and the Eurasian plates. This was an iconoclastic suggestion in the early 1970’s. Later, after getting his doctaorate under Sir Edward Bullard, Roman became an oil industry consultant and, I infer, made good money. Primarily, the book is about the madness of dictatorships and bureaucracies – and also the lovely life of a research student at Cambridge. When it came to the Kafkaesque bureaucracy, the British authorities could be quite as obdurate as their Romanian counterparts: you can’t have a work permit (and the residence) unless you have a job; you can’t have a job unless you have a work permit. The difference, though, was that Roman could enlist support via his influential Cambridge contacts and eventually he broke the logjam by getting an acquaintance at The Telegraph to offer him a kind of pseudo-job (as a research assistant, on matters Romanian, to his contact there). He was tenacious, resourceful, and bright, and seemingly charming to boot. It Worked! Roman displayed similar qualities as a researcher. When he was well into his PhD work, Bullard drew his attention to a paper emanating from Peter Molnar and his group at MIT that dealt with the same topic and arrived independently at essentially the same theory. The American paper had been refereed and accepted and was shorted to be published. Bullard warned his student that if this happened before Roman submitted his thesis he could only expect to get an MA. So with bounce and initiative Roman dashed up to London and persuaded New Scientist to publish the main arguments of his thesis before the MIT paper got into print. This is presented as a coup, and so it was. Roman’s PhD was saved. But while that was all very well for Cambridge “chaps” one may wonder what the Americans thought about the matter. We’re not told. We’re not told a few other things either, particularly what happened between Roman and his supervisor, Dan Mackenzie (who also was a referee for the Molnar article, which was why Bullard knew about it). We are, however, told much about the delightful “Lotus Eaters” at Cambridge and the life there that is open to all – providing they have the right energy, brains, and charm. Roman got where he did by his ample possession of these qualities. But I wonder about Cambridge. It is the privileged but accessible tip of a huge social and economic pyramid, supported by a massive base of taxes, endowments, and, ultimately, the exploitation of third world lands and peoples and, formerly (and to some extent even now), of British workers. Roman knew that his home country was a mad dictatorship. He got out, and into what was then undoubtedly a better place. But what of these nameless ones today who suffocate in containers in their desperate struggle to get into Britain, or the refugees who are no incarcerated in Alien detention centres in the Australian deserts? The West welcomes some, but not all. Continental Drift says nothing about such matters, but much about winning supporters through contacts, energy and persistence. |
|
..................................................................................................................................
Constantin Roman © 2000-2009. All Rights Reserved. Designed & Maintained by Delamain IT. |
