Berlinski is an awful writer. I read two of his books; both were poorly written and uninformative.[snip link to duplicate thread]
From a Mathematical Reviews comment about another of Berlinski's books (Newton's gift): "But what is said of Newton's mathematics has only a weak connection with Newton's texts."
39 posted on 03/09/2005 5:01:17 PM EST by Doctor Stochastic
It seems fair to say that Berlinski's most notable "achievement" appears to be his indefatigable talent for writing poorly in multiple disciplines.
I thought the writing was quite good, actually. I can't judge the technical content, but I thought he was okay in describing the historical developments. When he got to the present, I gather from a few comments that he's missing a lot, and I could determine for myself that he is stupefied by "the odds" against solving the "mysteries" that remain to be worked out.