The Deprat Affair - Softcover

Osborne, Roger

3.44

9 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712665676 ISBN 13: 9780712665674

Publisher: Pimlico, 2000

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En route to a golden future as one of France's greatest geologists, Jacques Deprat was suddenly accused of fraud and plunged into a desperate fight to save his reputation. Deprat, thrown out of science, re-invents himself, changes his name and begins a new life. This book recreates the hothouse atmosphere of colonial Indo-china, and among the cliques, the rivalries and the nepotism the text attempts to disentangle the scientific and moral truths of the affair.

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Review:

In The Floating Egg, Roger Osborne set out to bring geology to a wider audience. The Deprat Affair continues his lifelong fascination for the subject and passes interesting social and scientific comment at the same time. Osborne's elegant account turns Jacques Deprat's life into a riveting picture of the nature of scientific study and inquiry when set against human foibles. Born the son of a teacher in provincial France, Deprat fought class barriers and financial disadvantage to become the golden boy of French geology by the time he was 33. A member of the French colonial service, he made his name in Indo-China, where his numerous fossil discoveries met with a rave reception back in France. Yet, just when he was at the height of his powers, Deprat's most important scientific papers were pronounced the results of fraud-- he was accused of having planted European fossils among those he claimed to have found in Indo-China and was ostracised by the scientific establishment.

Osborne expertly picks over the scientific arguments, while at the same time having a novelist's eye for the tensions between Deprat and those who accused him. In spite of the disgrace in which he was mired, Deprat's story is an uplifting one and Osborne turns his life of disappointments into a tale which is ultimately triumphant. --Toby Green

Review:

A case of scientific fraud? A conspiracy of envy and revenge against a brilliant young scientist? Or the destruction of one individual for a "crime" that was never committed?

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