The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of ScienceHarperPress, 2008 - 554 pagine Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the Royal Society Prize for Science Books Richard Holmes, prize-winning biographer of Coleridge and Shelley, explores the scientific ferment that swept across Britain at the end of 18th century in this ground-breaking new biography . 'The Age of Wonder' is Richard Holmes's first major work of biography in over a decade. It has been inspired by the scientific ferment that swept through Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, 'The Age of Wonder' and which Holmes now radically redefines as 'the revolution of Romantic Science'. The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook's first Endeavour voyage, stepping onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, hoping to discover Paradise. Many other voyages of discovery swiftly follow, while Banks, now President of the Royal Society in London, becomes our narrative guide to what truly emerges as an Age of Wonder. Banks introduces us to the two scientific figures that dominate the book: astronomer William Herschel and chemist Humphry Davy. Herschel's tireless dedication to the stars, assisted (and perhaps rivalled) by his comet-finding sister Caroline, changed forever the public conception of the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy and the meaning of the universe itself. Davy first shocked the scientific community with his near-suicidal gas experiments in Bristol, then went on to save thousands of lives with his Safety Lamp and established British chemistry as the leading professional science in Europe. But at the cost, perhaps, of his own heart. Holmes proposes a radical vision of science before Darwin, exploring the earliest ideas of deep time and deep space, the creative rivalry with the French scientific establishment, and the startling impact of discovery on great writers and poets such as Mary Shelley, Coleridge, Byron and Keats. With his trademark sense of the human drama, he shows how great ideas and experiments are born out of lonely passion, how scientific discoveries (and errors) are made, how intense relationships are forged and broken by research, and how religious faith and scientific truth collide. The result is breathtaking in its originality, its story-telling energy, and not least, in its intellectual significance. |
Dall'interno del libro
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... lady in waiting to Queen Charlotte , had evinced little previous interest in the stars . But she now suddenly discovered a lively fascination with astronomy , and leaped at the chance to abandon a game of royal piquet and join the ...
... Lady Banks could rarely keep him away from his scientific breakfasts at Soho Square for more than a week at a time.2 His friends too were scattered , ailing or dead . John Jeffries the bal- loonist had settled back to earth in America ...
... Lady Davy's Letters ' , edited by James Parker , The Quarterly Review , January 1962 ; also Lamont - Brown , p94 2 For example : ' Whene'er you speak , Heaven ! how the listening throng / Dwell on the melting music of your tongue ...
Sommario
Joseph Banks in Paradise | 1 |
Herschel on the Moon | 60 |
Balloonists in Heaven | 125 |
Copyright | |
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The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty ... Richard Holmes Anteprima limitata - 2010 |
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and ... Richard Holmes Anteprima limitata - 2009 |
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and ... Richard Holmes Anteprima non disponibile - 2009 |