pasteur

Michel Morange

(Gallimard, 432 pages, 2023)

One of the most famous French personalities in the world, celebrated as a benefactor of humanity, a symbol of the victorious fight against epidemics, Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) was idolized even during his lifetime. During the past decades however, he has become the target of harsh criticism. He is said to have been unfair toward his predecessors and collaborators, prepared to steal ideas from his competitors, a greedy and overly ambitious man—so much so that some people nowadays question the integrity of his work.

It was therefore high time to offer a more balanced analysis combining an accurate description of Pasteur’s achievements while also highlighting the more difficult aspects of his personality. This new biography by Michel Morange, an internationally renowned biologist and former researcher at the Pasteur Institute, proposes to never separate Pasteur’s science from his personal life, his relationships, his philosophical ideas, and religious convictions. For Pasteur, the adventure of research was intimately linked to family well-being, and the concerns of the times. Hence his studies on the decline of the culture of silkworms, as well as on the illnesses caused by wine, the preparation of vinegar or beer, and the pasteurization of beverages to which his name remains attached. Then, in the autumn of his life, the fundamental discoveries on infectious diseases and finally vaccination crown half a century of research.

It is by embracing the whole of a singular existence that this book renews the interpretation of several facets of Pasteur’s life and work. Hiding nothing of the weaknesses of the man, his unbridled ambitions, his polemical aggressiveness, Pasteur offers the riveting portrait of an important scientist in the guise of an ordinary man.

Michel Morange is professor emeritus at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Sciences and Techniques at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His books in English include A History of Biology (Princeton University Press, 2021), The Black Box of Biology: A History of the Molecular Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2020), A History of Molecular Biology (Harvard University Press, 2018), The Misunderstood Gene (Harvard University Press, 2001), and Life Explained (Yale University Press, 2008).