Requiem for Jacob Bronowski

At first sight, it would seem anything but a Requiem is in order for Jacob Bronowski, who was Senior Fellow at the Salk Institute, San Diego, when he died of a heart attack in August 1974.

His last achievement, The Ascent of Man, is currently being broadcast in a 13-part series over two hundred stations of the Public Broadcasting System. The television series qualifies as a credit course for an estimated 25,000 students in two hundred colleges, in what is believed to be, according to one newspaper, “the widest use of television for higher education.” The premiere on January 7 of this year beat the Merv Griffin Show in the ratings, and reached an estimated 700,000 viewers in the New York metropolitan area alone. In more permanently accessible book form, Ascent is already a success both in stores and as a featured alternate of one of the two largest book clubs in the country. “Fascinating and beautifully illustrated,” commented Time. “A masterpiece of applied intelligence,” said the Chicago Daily News. “Read and Watch!” exhorted Scientific American.

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Malachi B. Martin

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At first sight, it would seem anything but a Requiem is in order for Jacob Bronowski, who was Senior Fellow at the Salk Institute, San Diego, when he died of a heart attack in August 1974.

His last achievement, The Ascent of Man, is currently being broadcast in a 13-part series over two hundred stations of the Public Broadcasting System. The television series qualifies as a credit course for an estimated 25,000 students in two hundred colleges, in what is believed to be, according to one newspaper, “the widest use of television for higher education.” The premiere on January 7 of this year beat the Merv Griffin Show in the ratings, and reached an estimated 700,000 viewers in the New York metropolitan area alone. In more permanently accessible book form, Ascent is already a success both in stores and as a featured alternate of one of the two largest book clubs in the country. “Fascinating and beautifully illustrated,” commented Time. “A masterpiece of applied intelligence,” said the Chicago Daily News. “Read and Watch!” exhorted Scientific American.