• Book
• 32 pages
• Grade school level and above

This 2007 book by Elizabeth MacLeod is for younger readers, and tells about the life and work of agricultural scientists and biochemical engineer George Washington Carver.  Henry Ford described Carver as the greatest scientist living at the time.  Then-senator Harry S Truman stated that “The scientific discoveries and experiments of Dr. Carver have done more to alleviate the one-crop agricultural system in the South than any other thing that has been done in the history of the United States.”  Carver was a Christian who taught his students Bible classes as well as science classes, and who did not pursue profits from his discoveries because believed them to be a free gift from God.

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From the publisher, Kids Can Press:

This title … introduces readers to the scientist, inventor and professor who became a symbol of African American success and interracial harmony. George Washington Carver was the orphan son of slaves, but he went on to become the world-famous “Peanut Scientist.”

George invented more than 325 products from peanuts — including gasoline, shampoo, ice cream and chili sauce. Even when George was a child he was known as the “Plant Doctor” because he could make almost any plant grow. It was through his groundbreaking research in agriculture that George radically improved the lives of countless African American farmers in the southern United States.

• Book
• 208 pages
• High school level and above

This book is a collection of letters by George Washington Carver, edited by Gary Kremer and published in 1987 by the University of Missouri Press. One chapter of the book is focused on “The Scientist as Mystic: Reading God out of Nature’s Great Book”. Kremer writes that Carver—

[N]ever separated the worlds of science and religion; he saw them as mutually acceptable and compatible tools for arriving at truth…. [He was] a deeply religious man who treasured the world of nature and saw himself as a vehicle by which the secrets of nature could be understood and harnessed for the good of mankind.

From the publisher:

George Washington Carver (1864-1943), best known for his work as a scientist and a botanist, was an anomaly in his own time—a black man praised by white America.

This selection of his letters and other writings reveals both the human side of Carver and the forces that shaped his creative genius. They show us a Carver who was both manipulated and manipulative who had inner tensions and anxieties. But perhaps more than anything else, these letters allow us to see Carver’s deep love for his fellow man, whether manifested in his efforts to treat polio victims in the 1930s or in his incredibly intense and emotionally charged friendships that lasted a lifetime.

The editor has furnished commentary between letters to set them in context.

Click here for a preview, courtesy of from Google Books.

• Book
• 435 pages
• University level

This book, by Michael J. Crowe of the University of Notre Dame (USA) is an introduction to the fundamentals of stellar astronomy, a history of astronomy, and an account of how the science of astronomy challenged traditional philosophical and theological beliefs with readings from the writings of scientists who contributed most significantly to the development of astronomy. The book is currently out of print but should be available in most academic libraries.

Click here for a preview of the book from Google Books.