Traversal - by Maria Popova (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the Marginalian creator and bestselling author Maria Popova, a bold exploration of what makes a meaningful life.

What is life?

What is death?

What makes a body a person?

What makes a planet a world?

In Traversal, Maria Popova illuminates our various instruments of reckoning with the bewilderment of being alive--our telescopes and our treatises, our postulates and our poems--through the intertwined lives, loves, and legacies of visionaries both celebrated and sidelined by history, people born into the margins of their time and place who lived to write the future: Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Fanny Wright, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Marie Tharp, Alfred Wegener, Humphry Davy, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead. Woven throughout their stories are other threads--the first global scientific collaboration, the Irish potato famine, the decoding of the insulin molecule, the invention of the bicycle, how nature creates blue--to make the tapestry of meaning more elaborate yet clearer as the book advances, converging on the ultimate question of what makes life alive and worth living.

By turns epic and intimate--as concerned with the physical laws binding atoms into molecules as with the psychic forces binding us to one another--Traversal explores the universe between cells and souls to reveal the world, and our lives, in a dazzling new light.

Review Quotes

"Kaleidoscopic, astounding . . . Ms. Popova's material is fascinating--and brilliantly told."
--Tara Isabella Burton, The Wall Street Journal

"[An] incredibly interdisciplinary exploration of knowledge and meaning . . . It is one of those books so ambitious in scope and form that it can only succeed--or fail--spectacularly. Traversal succeeds."
--Urmila Chadayammuri, Nature

"Popova writes with constant lyricism, perceptiveness, and sympathy. Ultimately, Traversal develops a picture of what it takes to change the way we think: scientifically, artistically, socially, and politically."
--Philip Ball, Science

"Ambitious, remarkable . . . [Traversal] triumphs in asking the most challenging questions, some unanswerable, some leading to unifying conclusions . . . Perhaps most of all, Popova's moving work reminds us that there's much to cherish about life in all its mysteries and repetitions; namely, each other and the natural world."
--Meredith Boe, Chicago Review of Books

"As I proceeded through Popova's thoughtful inquiry into the interconnectedness of scientific discovery and the human search for understanding, I began to remember the joys of thinking deeply . . . Popova doesn't offer easy answers; she compels the reader to inhabit the place of deep inquiry, proving that the most rewarding journeys are those that require us to slow down, absorb, and think with rare intention."
--John Kaag, The American Scholar

"Maria Popova is a national treasure--actually, make that an international treasure . . . Her material is always fascinating, inspired by the writings of novelists, scientists, poets, and philosophers, but her true magic lies in her skill at making connections among subjects that are revelatory. Her new book, Traversal, is a masterpiece . . . that will always leave you wanting more."
--Jim Kelly, Air Mail

"[Traversal] delivers a masterful exploration of life's meaning by weaving together profiles of visionaries and discussions of science, art, and nature . . . In Popova's hands, their struggles and successes combine in a lyrical symphony of truth . . . This is multifaceted and marvelous."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"In her second illumination of the symbiosis between literature and science, following Figuring, Popova creates an even more luminous double helix . . . One genius leads to another in a gloriously intricate web of connections and influences, struggles personal and societal . . . Sorrows and marvels inspirit this exquisite and revelatory historical and biographical constellation incandescent with Popova's sustaining belief that 'our love of truth will always triumph over our love of power.'"
--Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

"In chronicling her subjects' intellectual and emotional passions, Popova makes much of intersections and interconnections among individuals, from various times, places, and circumstances, who have measured, dissected, rhapsodized, and invented as they grappled with the vexing conundrums, and the grandeur, of being . . . A stirring, kaleidoscopic intellectual history."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Maria Popova is a national treasure. She combines poetic writing with prodigious historical research, a wide-ranging mind, and an extraordinary ability to connect literature and events from different places and times. Traversal is an intellectual feast of discovery and imagination."
--Alan Lightman, author of Einstein's Dreams

"What a brave and beautiful book. Maria Popova has a great gift for seeing the invisible threads that bind us, science, and poetry across space and time."
--James Gleick, author of Chaos

About the Author