Book Review: The Glass Universe: The Hidden History Of The Women Who Took The Measure Of The Stars by Dava Sobel

Sobel’s Longitude went past being a mere bestseller into craze territory, creating a whole crossover market for scientific biography.

Her latest is unlikely to be a hit of the same magnitude. In part, this is because it lacks a narrative-friendly lone genius to rival clockmaker John Harrison; the subject here is the work of the largely female staff of the Harvard Observatory, a prime example of the intricate and often rather dull teamwork by which modern science more often advances.

For another, the new book is twice the length of the earlier blockbuster, and that space is not always filled to best effect.

“The work demanded both scrupulous attention to detail and large capacity for tedium,” we’re told of astronomy, and Sobel seems determined to replicate the effect here, burying pioneering work in an excess of logistical detail, while sometimes omitting explanations of the full significance of key discoveries.