Product Description

This brilliantly illustrated tale of reason, insanity, love and truth recounts the story of Bertrand Russell's life. Raised by his paternal grandparents, young Russell was never told the whereabouts of his parents. Driven by a desire for knowledge of his own history, he attempted to force the world to yield to his yearnings: for truth, clarity and resolve. As he grew older, and increasingly sophisticated as a philosopher and mathematician, Russell strove to create an objective language with which to describe the world - one free of the biases and slippages of the written word. At the same time, he began courting his first wife, teasing her with riddles and leaning on her during the darker days, when his quest was bogged down by paradoxes, frustrations and the ghosts of his family's secrets. Ultimately, he found considerable success - but his career was stalled when he was outmatched by an intellectual rival: his young, strident, brilliantly original student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. An insightful and complexly layered narrative, Logicomix reveals both Russell's inner struggle and the quest for the foundations of logic. Narration by an older, wiser Russell, as well as asides from the author himself, make sense of the story's heady and powerful ideas. At its heart, Logicomix is a story about the conflict between pure reason and the persistent flaws of reality, a narrative populated by great and august thinkers, young lovers, ghosts and insanity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #407 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
`A compelling read ... There are some terrific characters here, and seeing them in a comic shows off their quirky personalities' --BBC Focus Magazine

`Logicomix exposes the roots of Russell's need for certainty- a troubled childhood, what else? - and tracks the collateral damage it caused in his and his loved ones' lives. The book is a visual treat as well ... The authors themselves debate questions that may be a breeze compared with the ones Russell wrestled with, but they are still far from easy. Logicomix is a wonderfully persuasive answer'
--Financial Times

This is probably the best and certainly the most extraordinary graphic novel I have ever come across. -- Sunday Times

About the Author
Admitted to Columbia University when he was 15, Apostolos Doxiadis has studied mathematics at both undergraduate and graduate level. An internationally recognised expert on the subjects of mathematics and narrative, he has also worked in film and theatre, and is the author of the international bestseller Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture.

Customer Reviews

Great introduction to Bertrand Russell and meta-mathematics
I just finished reading Logicomix. At first, I was rather skeptical about whether a comic book would do justice to covering the life of Bertrand Russell and his contemporaries (including Alfred North Whitehead, Georg Cantor, Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, Kurt Godel, Ludwig Wittgenstein, et al.) as they sought to discover more rigorous foundations for mathematics via logic -- their epic search for truth. I'm happy to report that this comic book does an excellent job of doing that and more. The two main co-authors of this book are from maths related backgrounds and they have largely succeeded in their goal of making accessible Bertrand Russell's (and others' -- particularly Wittgenstein's) life-long goal of discovering they key to attaining unshakeable knowledge of 'truths' fundamental to the workings of the universe. That they failed (thanks to Kurt Godel and Alan Turing and, to some extent, Russell and Wittgenstein themselves) in their quest -- which the book points out -- is nothing to be ashamed of since -- as the Greek authors of the book may point out (drawing upon Aristotle) -- the journey toward knowledge is rewarding in it of itself. It's also worth noting that the 'failure' of their original goals actually gave birth to the creation of an important and wholly new field of endeavor: computer science.

Please don't let my egg-headed, solemn-toned praise of this book put you off if you feel intimidated by logic, philosophy, or maths. This is one of those rare books that will give anyone -- regardless of the background knowledge one may or may not bring to it -- the sense of having been intellectually enriched and smarter after reading it.

After reading the entire book in one sitting on a Sunday evening, I can say that one of the few things I can be certain of is that everyone who takes the time to read/look over this carefully crafted -- including graphically, in the choice of words, and the thoughts and planning put into it -- will enjoy it as much as I did.

An unexpected masterpiece
Who could have expected this jewel?

A comic book about Mathematical Logic
Created by Greek Mathematicians and artists
Structured around the life of Bertrand Russell
Starring characters include Wittgenstein, Hilbert, Peano, Cantor
Explains logic in a non-patronising, lightweight, clear way (so hard to do) - you do not need to be a specialist to understand this
Witty, flippant, and human story full of self-references to the authors

The commercial success of this book demonstrates the powerful demand for clear explanation of Science. Science does not need to be dumbed down a la BBC Science, presented by dingbats who know not of what they speak (to paraphrase Wittgenstein).

Congratulations to the authors - lets have more!

An absolute gem
This is an astonishing book, an absolute gem. It kept me captivated from beginning to end, and reawoke a long dormant fascination with matters philosophical. A work of genius that will be enjoyed by anyone with an open mind (no prior knowledge of maths or philosophy required).