REVIEW: Sitting on the Shoulders of Giants - Christoph Schumacher (Upstart Press)

There are broadly two kinds of smart people. The first kind desperately wants you to know how smart they are. The second kind is clever enough to make you feel smart.

Fortunately, Christoph Schumacher belongs firmly in the second camp.

His wonderfully entertaining Sitting on the Shoulders of Giants is a book built around an apparently simple premise: why are some of the most interesting questions the ones we rarely think to ask? Why is the night sky dark? Why are we terrified of shark attacks but barely concerned about heart disease? Why does losing twenty dollars feel worse than finding twenty dollars feels good? And did Albert Einstein really invent E = mc²? The answers, as Schumacher repeatedly demonstrates, are rarely as straightforward as we imagine.

An economist, educator and public commentator, Schumacher has spent much of his career translating complicated ideas into language ordinary people can understand. As Professor of Innovation and Economics at Massey University and Director of the Knowledge Exchange Hub, he has long been passionate about making difficult concepts accessible rather than intimidating. This book feels like the culmination of that mission.

The title itself reveals Schumacher's philosophy. Borrowing the famous phrase attributed to Isaac Newton, the book acknowledges that modern understanding is built on the accumulated insights of generations of thinkers. Across 52 short chapters, Schumacher invites readers into conversations with some of history's greatest minds, including Aristotle, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Daniel Kahneman and Stephen Hawking.

What distinguishes Sitting on the Shoulders of Giants from many popular science books is that Schumacher is interested not only in explaining scientific discoveries but also in explaining how people arrived at them. The stories behind ideas are often just as fascinating as the ideas themselves.

Take the seemingly simple question: Why is the night sky dark? At first glance the question appears ridiculous. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. Surely all that light should add up to a sky blazing with brightness.

Yet it doesn't. The question turns out to be one of the great puzzles of cosmology, touching on the age of the universe, the nature of expansion and the limits of what we can observe. Schumacher takes readers from an everyday observation familiar to every child lying on a lawn looking up at the stars into some of the deepest questions modern physics has ever attempted to answer. He somehow manages to make cosmology feel like common sense. That is not an easy trick.

Elsewhere he turns his attention to human psychology. Why do people fear shark attacks far more than heart disease despite the latter being vastly more dangerous?

The answer lies not in statistics but in how human brains process risk. Dramatic, highly publicised dangers occupy far more mental real estate than common, mundane threats. The shark becomes unforgettable precisely because it is rare. Heart disease is ordinary, familiar and consequently easier to ignore. Schumacher uses examples like this to introduce readers to behavioural economics, cognitive biases and the work of thinkers such as Daniel Kahneman, who demonstrated just how irrational human decision-making often is.

The same theme appears in one of the book's most enjoyable discussions: why losing money hurts more than gaining the same amount feels good.

Anyone who has watched the share market, visited a casino, or accidentally dropped a fifty-dollar note into the wind will recognise the phenomenon instantly. Schumacher uses this familiar experience to unpack loss aversion, one of the most influential concepts in modern behavioural economics. Suddenly a question about everyday emotions becomes a lesson in psychology, economics and decision theory.

One of the book's recurring strengths is its willingness to challenge scientific mythology. Many readers assume Einstein single-handedly revolutionised physics, descending from the heavens with equations fully formed. Schumacher reminds us that discovery is usually messier. Great breakthroughs emerge from networks of ideas and generations of thinkers building upon each other's work. Einstein remains central to the story, but so too do earlier scientists whose contributions are often forgotten by popular history. The book repeatedly demonstrates that science advances not through isolated genius alone, but through long intellectual conversations stretching across centuries.

This broader historical perspective gives the book unusual depth. Rather than presenting science as a collection of facts, Schumacher presents it as a human enterprise populated by stubborn, brilliant, argumentative and occasionally eccentric individuals. Galileo Galilei challenges authority. Newton reimagines the mechanics of the universe. Einstein bends space and time. Stephen Hawking pushes our understanding of black holes and cosmology. Each chapter reminds readers that scientific progress often begins with somebody asking what appears to be an absurd question.

This is perhaps Schumacher's greatest achievement. Many science writers focus on answers. Schumacher focuses on curiosity. The book suggests that civilisation advances because people are willing to ask questions others dismiss as obvious, pointless or strange. Why is gravity a force? Is it actually a force at all? Why do humans behave irrationally? Why does the universe look the way it does? Why do simple observations sometimes reveal profound truths?

The structure helps enormously. The 52 chapters are designed to be browsed rather than conquered. Readers can dip in anywhere and emerge twenty minutes later having learned something unexpected. The result feels less like reading a textbook and more like spending an evening with an exceptionally knowledgeable friend who somehow knows everything about physics, psychology, economics, philosophy and history but remains determined not to show off about it.

If there is a criticism, it is that some readers may occasionally wish for even more depth. Many of the subjects explored could comfortably sustain entire books of their own. But Schumacher's goal is not exhaustive analysis. His objective is to open doors. By the time you reach the end, the temptation is not to close the book and move on; it's to go searching for half a dozen others.

Which is probably exactly what he intended. In an era crowded with misinformation, clickbait certainty and social media expertise, Sitting on the Shoulders of Giants is a celebration of something rarer and more valuable: thoughtful curiosity. Schumacher reminds us that the world remains gloriously strange, often counterintuitive and far more interesting than we usually notice.

The giants are all here: Aristotle, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Daniel Kahneman and Stephen Hawking. But Schumacher's real accomplishment is helping ordinary readers stand on their shoulders and enjoy the view.

A smart, witty and endlessly engaging exploration of the ideas that shape our understanding of the universe and ourselves. Equal parts science, philosophy, psychology and intellectual treasure hunt, this is popular science at its most entertaining.