[meteorite-list] Re: Meteorite Books

From: Kelly Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:09 2004
Message-ID: <3A877573.276D7A4F_at_bhil.com>

Hi, Edward,

    Though neither is devoted exclusively to meteoritics, the following
two books have a huge amount of good information about meteorites and
the context in which they are informative.

    John S. Lewis, The Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System,
Academic Press, 1995.
        This book was developed for a junior-level Planetary Science
course at MIT. It has
        the great advantage of having been written after the course had
been taught from
        notes for ten years and is crammed with more good things than
any other book
        of its kind I've run into.

    Stuart Ross Taylor, Solar System Evolution, Lunar and Planetary
Institute/ Cambridge, 1992.
        A data-crammed state-of-the-controversy summary of planetary
science, over a third
        of which is devoted to meteorite evidence and impacts.

    Both these books give a good account of the range of theories and
interpretations still disputed in these subjects in a moderately
objective manner, despite the authors' opinions. I mention this because
McSween's book, which is an excellent piece of exposition of a difficult
subject to a popular audience, is not a balanced presentation in all
regards. If it were written as exclusively "in-the-field," it wouldn't
have to be, but a popular exposition should present all the views held
by differing major groups of researchers even if it criticizes some and
supports others, but to omit alternative views without mention is, well,
not entirely fair.

    The Lewis and Taylor books, while not exactly cheap, can sometimes
be obtained from the following on-line book-seller at greatly reduced
prices:

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/cgi-bin/hamiltonbook.storefront/


Kelly Webb
Received on Mon 12 Feb 2001 12:32:36 AM PST