The Life of Benjamin Banneker: The First African-American Man of Science

“The Life of Benjamin Banneker offers remarkable insights and artistry in its picture of a time of fascinating social complexity requiring delicacy in its diagnosis and skill in its reconstruction. It is difficult to characterize this exquisite story of the first black scientist without superlatives which seem out of place in describing an account of a life so simple and at the same time so sublime and which is reproduced in masterful prose equally simple, accurate and appropriate. Here is a searching book that—like a light suddenly thrown on in the darkness—illuminates a long neglected scientific spirit struggling for recognition.”