Product Description
Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir reviews the life of George Devries Klein, an immigrant who made it through the American System as a geologist. It chronicles his life from early childhood, graduate school, working as an oil company researcher, university professor, science administrator, and as a geological consultant. The book includes the highs and lows of George’s life. Each chapter also summarizes key lessons learned making the book even more useful to y… More >>
Review of ROCKNOCKER: A Geologist’s Memoir by George D. Klein
This unusual book will be of interest to earth scientists and others in the physical sciences– particularly those who teach or do research in a university. For a geologist familiar with the terminology and “cast of characters,” parts of Rocknocker will be a real “page-turner.” The main theme is a straightforward chronological account of one earth scientist’s professional life, but the book also has a secondary focus: success on the job. The author speaks with the utmost frankness about good and bad decisions, sparing neither himself nor his colleagues. Young professionals will find something especially useful at the end of each chapter– a short section titled “LESSONS LEARNED” (many of course learned the hard way).
Another unusual feature is the author’s apparently total recall, presumably supported by a detailed personal diary. His childhood in Holland and early youth in Australia are covered quickly in 20 pages; then the main theme begins with his college career in the U.S., laying the foundation for the rest of the book. The author evidently remembers every meeting or encounter with famous geologists (and many who are not famous), and records them all, usually introducing them with a parenthetical summary of their scholastic background and professional trajectory. A working knowledge of modern geologic terms is a big help in appreciating the fine points mentioned in many chapters.
Readers may be surprised to find that Klein’s personal life as an adult is squeezed into two of the final three chapters. Except for the opening chapters mentioned above, the focus throughout the first 400 pages is on his scientific career. We get the highlights–and lowdowns–of a varied professional life at over half a dozen universities, a petroleum research laboratory, an east coast marine science consortium, and finally, an international consultancy operated from the oil capital of Houston, Texas. These major assignments are spiced with shorter working assignments in eastern Canada, England, Holland, and Korea, plus cruises on the Glomar Challenger (the Deep Sea Drilling Program), geologic field trips all over the U.S., and geological society meetings in the U.S. and elsewhere. In every situation we get the author’s forthright opinion of the people and places where he worked.
Rocknocker could be particularly useful to young earth scientists with a relatively low level of awareness concerning the opportunities and pitfalls ahead. Honesty and frankness, combined with an apparently steel-trap memory, have produced a one-of-a-kind volume.
Review by Texpet
Rating: 4 / 5
In Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir, author George Klein reviews his life, naming names and sparing nobody–from university presidents to departmental secretaries–telling things exactly as he thinks they happened. Beginning with his early childhood in the Netherlands, he progresses through a stint in Australia and ultimately winds up in the United States where he graduates from Wesleyan University.
Thereafter, readers are treated to a dramatic, intensely detailed, far more-than-frank review of his graduate student career at Johns Hopkins, Kansas and Yale followed by pernicious faculty gamesmanship at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Klein also gives an account of life in the Sinclair Research Laboratory, his short reign as Director of the New Jersey Marine Science Consortium and, finally, his life as a solitary consultant. Excepting Sinclair, all the organizations he worked for appear burdened with outmoded and unproductive staffs, the inability to reform and the reputation of being hotbeds of Machiavellian intrigue–which Klein valiantly attempts to correct before his ultimate departure–voluntary or otherwise. And, the organizations remain sadly mired in ooze after his departure.
However, it is important to note that Klein doesn’t tell all. Indeed, at Illinois I remember many equally interesting stories that he chooses not to remember. And, while Klein presents one version of hotly contested issues, there was always another, or several other sides to these conflicts. In this regard, students of psychology may find interesting data regarding the mores of research universities.
Klein also claims to have written the book entirely from memory while recuperating from hip surgery. This appears extremely doubtful given that literally hundreds of stories, ranging from the trivial to the highly significant, are crammed into 431 pages. Klein was notorious for maintaining a dossier on all of his colleagues, correspondents and associates. In addition, although the book closes with an overview of his first and fourth marriages, Klein never even mentions wives two and three. Those who wish may speculate. In addition, the apparently unedited book contains many minor errors of fact and remains marred by repetition.
That said the book presents a valuable picture of life in geological academia through a time of major upheaval. It also illuminates the evolution of sedimentology during the last half of the twentieth century.
Ralph L. Langenheim
Rating: 3 / 5