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The Age of Wonder
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Produktbeschreibungen
Pressestimmen
"Holmes's enthralling book itself exemplifies those qualities fostered by a scientific culture: "the sense of individual wonder, the power of hope, and the vivid but questing belief in a future for the globe." –The Washington Post
"In this big two-hearted river of a book, the twin energies of scientific curiosity and poetic invention pulsate on every page."
—The New York Times Book Review
"The Age of Wonder is the long-awaited fermentation of the author's knowledge of the Romantic poets and his lifelong fascination with science."
—The Economist
"Holmes, the biographer of Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley, has a firm grip on science in "The Age of Wonder" and a fluency in drawing the connections to literature and religion." --Chemical and Engineering News
"Gives us . . . a new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigorating, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful."
—The Guardian
"The most flat-out fascinating book so far this year…. Holmes' account of experimental science at the end of 1700s is beyond riveting."–Lev Grossman, Time Magazine
"Holmes is certainly the man to undertake this intellectual salvage operation…Ambitious…Eloquent." –Wall Street Journal
"Holmes pursues his many-chambered nautilus of a tale with energy and great rigor, unearthing many lives and assembling remnant shards of biography, history, science, and literary criticism." —Christian Science Monitor
“Rich in human foibles and thrills…” –Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Richard Holmes—who is almost unfairly gifted both as a writer of living, luminous prose and as a tireless researcher—braids Herschel's story together with a dozen others to create the most joyful, exciting book of the year.” –Time Magazine, “The Top 10 Everything of 2009”
“If, like me, you didn't study much science after high school, this absorbing narrative will make you appreciate the gravity of your mistake. At one level, it is simply an enchanting group biography of the great British discoverers Joseph Banks, Humphrey Davy, and William Herschel, and their relationships with the likes of Keats, Coleridge, Byron and the Shelleys. At another, Holmes's book is a persuasive plea to heal the pointless breach between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities. Reading it made we want to do college over, this time as a history of science major.” –Slate, Best Books of 2009
"What's superlative about "The Age of Wonder" is that Holmes, author of vivid biographies of Shelley and Coleridge, takes the air out of the terms "subjectivity" and "objectivity" and reveals the ways in which the artists were as enveloped in science as the men and women in the labs around them. In a harmony of scientific and artistic sensibilities, he shows, the Romantics tapped the marvels of nature and sounded the infinite benefits of science. It's a song, if we can hear it, that can transform us today." —Salon
"For Holmes to bring those people back to life is a great achievement…this is the finest history of science book I've come across." —Physics Today
"The opening words of Richard Holmes's "The Age of Wonder" couldn't be calmer, but the charge embedded within them ignited an era that merits his soaring title. It was a singular time, and this is a singular book." —CNNmoney.com
"What Holmes has given us with this account of the Romantic scientists is, curiously enough, a thrilling new way to interpret the poets of the era. To bring new light to such a widely read group–and from the angle least expected, that of rigorous scientific study–is Holmes's considerable gift." —Poetry Foundation
"It was a singular time, and this is a singular book." —Fortune Magazine
"[An] amazingly ambitious, buoyant new fusion of history, art, science, philosophy, and biography . . . . Holmes's excitement at fusing long-familiar events and personages into something startlingly new is not unlike the exuberance of the age that animates his groundbreaking book."
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"The Romantics gave us many of our notions of how science is done, which makes the subject of this book—even leaving aside the brilliance with which much of it is told—significant beyond its importance as intellectual history." –American Scholar
"I've been fascinated by a new book, The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes. He talks about how scientists and poets were very much aligned in the Age of Enlightenment, around 1800. Coleridge, Byron and Shelley were all interested in scientific progress. What was discovered, whether in labs or in the cliffs of Tahiti, excited and inspired everyone. I was gripped by that, because it comes at a time when Harvard and other universities are starting to question why different university departments should feel so separate when the purpose of a university is supposedly to bring all the sciences and humanities together." –Yo-Yo Ma
Praise from the United Kingdom for The Age of Wonder
"Holmes suffuses his book with the joy, hope, and wonder of the revolutionary era. Reading it is like a holiday in a sunny landscape, full of fascinating bypaths that lead to unexpected vistas."
—The Sunday Times
"Gives us . . . a new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigoration, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful."
—The Guardian
"Romanticism and Science are justly reunited in Holmes's new book . . . A revelation . . . Thrilling."
—The Independent
"Exhilarating . . . Instructive and delightful . . . Finely observed . . . Generous and hugely enjoyable."
—The Daily Telegraph
"Fascinating . . . This beautifully crafted book deserves all the praise it will undoubtedly attract. Well-researched and vividly written, The Age of Wonder will fascinate scientists and poets alike."
—The Literary Review
"In this big two-hearted river of a book, the twin energies of scientific curiosity and poetic invention pulsate on every page."
—The New York Times Book Review
"The Age of Wonder is the long-awaited fermentation of the author's knowledge of the Romantic poets and his lifelong fascination with science."
—The Economist
"Holmes, the biographer of Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley, has a firm grip on science in "The Age of Wonder" and a fluency in drawing the connections to literature and religion." --Chemical and Engineering News
"Gives us . . . a new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigorating, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful."
—The Guardian
"The most flat-out fascinating book so far this year…. Holmes' account of experimental science at the end of 1700s is beyond riveting."–Lev Grossman, Time Magazine
"Holmes is certainly the man to undertake this intellectual salvage operation…Ambitious…Eloquent." –Wall Street Journal
"Holmes pursues his many-chambered nautilus of a tale with energy and great rigor, unearthing many lives and assembling remnant shards of biography, history, science, and literary criticism." —Christian Science Monitor
“Rich in human foibles and thrills…” –Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Richard Holmes—who is almost unfairly gifted both as a writer of living, luminous prose and as a tireless researcher—braids Herschel's story together with a dozen others to create the most joyful, exciting book of the year.” –Time Magazine, “The Top 10 Everything of 2009”
“If, like me, you didn't study much science after high school, this absorbing narrative will make you appreciate the gravity of your mistake. At one level, it is simply an enchanting group biography of the great British discoverers Joseph Banks, Humphrey Davy, and William Herschel, and their relationships with the likes of Keats, Coleridge, Byron and the Shelleys. At another, Holmes's book is a persuasive plea to heal the pointless breach between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities. Reading it made we want to do college over, this time as a history of science major.” –Slate, Best Books of 2009
"What's superlative about "The Age of Wonder" is that Holmes, author of vivid biographies of Shelley and Coleridge, takes the air out of the terms "subjectivity" and "objectivity" and reveals the ways in which the artists were as enveloped in science as the men and women in the labs around them. In a harmony of scientific and artistic sensibilities, he shows, the Romantics tapped the marvels of nature and sounded the infinite benefits of science. It's a song, if we can hear it, that can transform us today." —Salon
"For Holmes to bring those people back to life is a great achievement…this is the finest history of science book I've come across." —Physics Today
"The opening words of Richard Holmes's "The Age of Wonder" couldn't be calmer, but the charge embedded within them ignited an era that merits his soaring title. It was a singular time, and this is a singular book." —CNNmoney.com
"What Holmes has given us with this account of the Romantic scientists is, curiously enough, a thrilling new way to interpret the poets of the era. To bring new light to such a widely read group–and from the angle least expected, that of rigorous scientific study–is Holmes's considerable gift." —Poetry Foundation
"It was a singular time, and this is a singular book." —Fortune Magazine
"[An] amazingly ambitious, buoyant new fusion of history, art, science, philosophy, and biography . . . . Holmes's excitement at fusing long-familiar events and personages into something startlingly new is not unlike the exuberance of the age that animates his groundbreaking book."
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"The Romantics gave us many of our notions of how science is done, which makes the subject of this book—even leaving aside the brilliance with which much of it is told—significant beyond its importance as intellectual history." –American Scholar
"I've been fascinated by a new book, The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes. He talks about how scientists and poets were very much aligned in the Age of Enlightenment, around 1800. Coleridge, Byron and Shelley were all interested in scientific progress. What was discovered, whether in labs or in the cliffs of Tahiti, excited and inspired everyone. I was gripped by that, because it comes at a time when Harvard and other universities are starting to question why different university departments should feel so separate when the purpose of a university is supposedly to bring all the sciences and humanities together." –Yo-Yo Ma
Praise from the United Kingdom for The Age of Wonder
"Holmes suffuses his book with the joy, hope, and wonder of the revolutionary era. Reading it is like a holiday in a sunny landscape, full of fascinating bypaths that lead to unexpected vistas."
—The Sunday Times
"Gives us . . . a new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigoration, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful."
—The Guardian
"Romanticism and Science are justly reunited in Holmes's new book . . . A revelation . . . Thrilling."
—The Independent
"Exhilarating . . . Instructive and delightful . . . Finely observed . . . Generous and hugely enjoyable."
—The Daily Telegraph
"Fascinating . . . This beautifully crafted book deserves all the praise it will undoubtedly attract. Well-researched and vividly written, The Age of Wonder will fascinate scientists and poets alike."
—The Literary Review
Kurzbeschreibung
A riveting history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science.
When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook on his first Endeavour voyage in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes’s original evocation of what truly emerges as an Age of Wonder.
Brilliantly conceived as a relay of scientific stories, The Age of Wonder investigates the earliest ideas of deep time and space, and the explorers of “dynamic science,” of an infinite, mysterious Nature waiting to be discovered. Three lives dominate the book: William Herschel and his sister Caroline, whose dedication to the study of the stars forever changed the public conception of the solar system, the Milky Way, and the meaning of the universe; and Humphry Davy, who, with only a grammar school education stunned the scientific community with his near-suicidal gas experiments that led to the invention of the miners’ lamp and established British chemistry as the leading professional science in Europe. This age of exploration extended to great writers and poets as well as scientists, all creators relishing in moments of high exhilaration, boundary-pushing and discovery.
Holmes’s extraordinary evocation of this age of wonder shows how great ideas and experiments—both successes and failures—were born of singular and often lonely dedication, and how religious faith and scientific truth collide. He has written a book breathtaking in its originality, its storytelling energy, and its intellectual significance.
When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook on his first Endeavour voyage in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes’s original evocation of what truly emerges as an Age of Wonder.
Brilliantly conceived as a relay of scientific stories, The Age of Wonder investigates the earliest ideas of deep time and space, and the explorers of “dynamic science,” of an infinite, mysterious Nature waiting to be discovered. Three lives dominate the book: William Herschel and his sister Caroline, whose dedication to the study of the stars forever changed the public conception of the solar system, the Milky Way, and the meaning of the universe; and Humphry Davy, who, with only a grammar school education stunned the scientific community with his near-suicidal gas experiments that led to the invention of the miners’ lamp and established British chemistry as the leading professional science in Europe. This age of exploration extended to great writers and poets as well as scientists, all creators relishing in moments of high exhilaration, boundary-pushing and discovery.
Holmes’s extraordinary evocation of this age of wonder shows how great ideas and experiments—both successes and failures—were born of singular and often lonely dedication, and how religious faith and scientific truth collide. He has written a book breathtaking in its originality, its storytelling energy, and its intellectual significance.
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Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Stichwortverzeichnis
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Stichwortverzeichnis
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Format:Taschenbuch|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
Ein begesiterndes Sachbuch von einem offensichtlich begeisterten Autor! In "The Age of Wonder" verwebt Richard Holmes auf lebendige Weise die englische Wissenschaftsgeschichte mit der Literaturgeschichte der Jahre 1780-1830, einer Epoche, die man gerne unter dem Stichwort "Romantik" zusammenfasst. Das Buch ist zurecht preisgekrönt!
Gemeinhin möchte man glauben, die Dichter der romantischen Epoche hätten nur wenig mit dem wissenschaftlichen und technischen Fortschritt ihrer Zeit zu tun gehabt, ja, sie hätten sich vielmehr geradezu besorgt gegen die Erforschung (und Entzauberung) der Welt zur Wehr gesetzt und sich in eine Idealwelt von natürlichem Leben und ländlicher Einsamkeit geflüchtet. Doch Richard Holmes zeigt auf, dass die Beziehungen zwischen Wissenschaft und romantischer Geisteshaltung komplexer waren als die Geschichte von John Keats' Kritik an der Newtonschen Zerstörung des Regenbogens: Er stellt heraus, dass die zweite naturwissenschaftliche Revolution, die Ende des 18. Jahrunderts begann und bis weit in das 19. Jahrhundert andauerte, geradezu aus dem Geist der Romantik enststand: Die romantische Lust am nutzenenthobenen Staunen über die Wunder der Natur sei es gewesen, die viele Wissenschaftler der Zeit zu ihren Etdeckungen angespornt habe. Die Idee vom großen wissenschaftlichen Genie, das in einem einzigartigen Heureka-Moment der mysteriösen Natur ihre Geheimnisse entlockt, die Vorstellung vom einsamen Forschungsreisenden in der Fremde, das Konzept einer nicht mehr elitären, sondern popularisierten Wissenschaft - alle diese Markenzeichen moderner Wissenschaft(smythen) stammen aus der Zeit der Romantik und haben die Wissenschaftsgeschichte seither geprägt.
Als Cicerone auf dem Durchgang durch die romantische Epoche hat Richard Holmes Sir Joseph Banks ausgewählt, den Präsidenten der ehrwürdigen Royal Society, der sich um 1800 als einer der größten Wissenschaftspatrone Englands hervortat. Mit ihm als Zentralgestalt folgt Holmes den Schicksalen solch verschiedener Wissenschaftspersönlichkeiten wie dem Astronomen Wilhelm Herschel und seiner Schwester Caroline, dem Chemiker (Sir) Humphry Davy und seinem ausgenutzten 'Zögling' Michael Faraday, dem Afrika-Reisenden Mungo Park etc. etc.
Dabei zeichnet er ein buntes Panoramabild von früher Wissenschaftsbegeisterung gleichermaßen wie von Wissenschaftsskepsis. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt des Buches liegt auf der Interaktion der Wissenschaftler mit den Dichtern der Epoche sowie auf den dichterischen Reaktionen in Sachen naturwissenschaftlich-technischer Fortschritt. Samuel Taylor Colerdige, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley und John Keats kommen beinahe bei jedem behandelten Thema zu Wort - seien es Lachgasversuche, das erste Massenspektakel Ballonfahrt, die Entdeckung der Meterologie oder, ganz allgemein, die Schattenseiten der Wissenschaft. An zahlreichen Stellen werden die Folgen weltverändernder Entdeckungen (wie die der Unendlichkeit des Universums) auf die religiöse Mentalität der Menschen behandelt; ein ganzes Kapitel ist der Vitalismus-Debatte und Mary Shelleys "Frankenstein" gewidmet, einem Roman, der die Grenzen wissenschaftlichen Strebens aufzeigte und das Genre der Science-Fiction begründete...
In seiner Ausführlichkeit lässt das Buch keine Fragen offen und lädt doch zur Weiterlektüre ein, schon alleine einmal deswegen, weil es in einem spannenden Ausblick auf die viktorianische Wissenschaftsgeschichte und auf die Konflikte endet, die rund um Charles Darwins Evolutionstheorie in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts ausgetragen wurden. Vor allem aber lässt Richard Holmes' Behandlung des Stoffes den Leser bewegt zurück. Denn durch seine Verwebung von naturwissenschaftlicher und literarischer Weltdeutung hat er ebenso auf die Gefahren wie auf die Schönheiten der wissenschaftlichen Forschung hingewiesen und dabei klar gemacht, dass gerade auch im Beginn der naturwissenschaftlichen Entzauberung der Welt ein neuer Zauber lag: Das Newtonsche Prisma gab dem Regenbogen nur eine neue Dimension des Staunens...
Gemeinhin möchte man glauben, die Dichter der romantischen Epoche hätten nur wenig mit dem wissenschaftlichen und technischen Fortschritt ihrer Zeit zu tun gehabt, ja, sie hätten sich vielmehr geradezu besorgt gegen die Erforschung (und Entzauberung) der Welt zur Wehr gesetzt und sich in eine Idealwelt von natürlichem Leben und ländlicher Einsamkeit geflüchtet. Doch Richard Holmes zeigt auf, dass die Beziehungen zwischen Wissenschaft und romantischer Geisteshaltung komplexer waren als die Geschichte von John Keats' Kritik an der Newtonschen Zerstörung des Regenbogens: Er stellt heraus, dass die zweite naturwissenschaftliche Revolution, die Ende des 18. Jahrunderts begann und bis weit in das 19. Jahrhundert andauerte, geradezu aus dem Geist der Romantik enststand: Die romantische Lust am nutzenenthobenen Staunen über die Wunder der Natur sei es gewesen, die viele Wissenschaftler der Zeit zu ihren Etdeckungen angespornt habe. Die Idee vom großen wissenschaftlichen Genie, das in einem einzigartigen Heureka-Moment der mysteriösen Natur ihre Geheimnisse entlockt, die Vorstellung vom einsamen Forschungsreisenden in der Fremde, das Konzept einer nicht mehr elitären, sondern popularisierten Wissenschaft - alle diese Markenzeichen moderner Wissenschaft(smythen) stammen aus der Zeit der Romantik und haben die Wissenschaftsgeschichte seither geprägt.
Als Cicerone auf dem Durchgang durch die romantische Epoche hat Richard Holmes Sir Joseph Banks ausgewählt, den Präsidenten der ehrwürdigen Royal Society, der sich um 1800 als einer der größten Wissenschaftspatrone Englands hervortat. Mit ihm als Zentralgestalt folgt Holmes den Schicksalen solch verschiedener Wissenschaftspersönlichkeiten wie dem Astronomen Wilhelm Herschel und seiner Schwester Caroline, dem Chemiker (Sir) Humphry Davy und seinem ausgenutzten 'Zögling' Michael Faraday, dem Afrika-Reisenden Mungo Park etc. etc.
Dabei zeichnet er ein buntes Panoramabild von früher Wissenschaftsbegeisterung gleichermaßen wie von Wissenschaftsskepsis. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt des Buches liegt auf der Interaktion der Wissenschaftler mit den Dichtern der Epoche sowie auf den dichterischen Reaktionen in Sachen naturwissenschaftlich-technischer Fortschritt. Samuel Taylor Colerdige, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley und John Keats kommen beinahe bei jedem behandelten Thema zu Wort - seien es Lachgasversuche, das erste Massenspektakel Ballonfahrt, die Entdeckung der Meterologie oder, ganz allgemein, die Schattenseiten der Wissenschaft. An zahlreichen Stellen werden die Folgen weltverändernder Entdeckungen (wie die der Unendlichkeit des Universums) auf die religiöse Mentalität der Menschen behandelt; ein ganzes Kapitel ist der Vitalismus-Debatte und Mary Shelleys "Frankenstein" gewidmet, einem Roman, der die Grenzen wissenschaftlichen Strebens aufzeigte und das Genre der Science-Fiction begründete...
In seiner Ausführlichkeit lässt das Buch keine Fragen offen und lädt doch zur Weiterlektüre ein, schon alleine einmal deswegen, weil es in einem spannenden Ausblick auf die viktorianische Wissenschaftsgeschichte und auf die Konflikte endet, die rund um Charles Darwins Evolutionstheorie in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts ausgetragen wurden. Vor allem aber lässt Richard Holmes' Behandlung des Stoffes den Leser bewegt zurück. Denn durch seine Verwebung von naturwissenschaftlicher und literarischer Weltdeutung hat er ebenso auf die Gefahren wie auf die Schönheiten der wissenschaftlichen Forschung hingewiesen und dabei klar gemacht, dass gerade auch im Beginn der naturwissenschaftlichen Entzauberung der Welt ein neuer Zauber lag: Das Newtonsche Prisma gab dem Regenbogen nur eine neue Dimension des Staunens...
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und zwar in Hinblick auf die Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaften. In klarer Analyse und sehr lesbar (oft sogar spannend!) wird die Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaften in der Romantik geschildert und die Zusammenhänge dieser Zeit mit dieser Entwicklung.
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Just Before the Golden Age of Victorian Science
8. September 2009
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
I have found the history of British science to be one of the best ways to study the intellectual history of the 19th century. This book, which focuses upon the period between Captain Cook's first voyage in 1768 and Darwin's Beagle journey in 1831,takes the story of British science back a bit earlier, and explains some of the important precursor developments to the later dazzling Victorian period. If that was all it did, that would be plenty for the author has written a fine scientific history. But the book is far richer than even this accomplishment for it seeks to establish ties between science and the British Romantics, surprisingly demonstrating that not only did Romantic poets and painters not run away from science, some of them embraced and even engaged in it. Along the way, the profession of scientific researcher emerged as well as some of our basic ideas about scientific progress.
The narrative is built around a series of significant individuals, for whom the author creates scientific biographies. The first is Joseph Banks (1743-1820) who became the godfather of British science during this period from his post as President of the Royal Society. One of the major sciences that underwent development during this period was astronomy; several chapters are devoted to the pathbreaking work of William Herschel (who discovered Uranus) and his sister Carolyn who pioneered new developments and telescopic designs. In the process their work turned the attention of artists to the skies and the evolutin of universe. A chapter catches the excitement of early balloonists and the Romantic wake they left behind as they explored the skies. Exploration was anordsother feature of the period, and was encouraged by Banks who had been on Cook's first voyage to the South Pacific. Mungo Park (1771-1806) anchors a chapter on this, and his tragic disappearance (as well as many other African explorers) reminds us how overwhelming a challenge African exploration presented during this period. Chemistry was another of the major sciences that took off during this period, as demonstrated in the fascinating activities of Humphry Davy (1778-1829), who pioneered in studying gases, electro-chemical analysis, agricultural chemistry, and became a great popularizer of scientific developments. The author frequently links up scientific developments with poetry, with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and Tennyson all making appearances, some supportive others not, and with painters whose portrayals of balloons and scientific breakthroughs conveyed the excitement of the period. Davy himself wrote poetry which he recorded in his lab books along with experimental data.
Many of these scientific developments seemed to challenge traditional religious views and raised new philosophical issues. I found the discussion of "Dr Frankenstein and the Soul" highly interesting. The "Vitalism debate" of 1816-22 centered on the issue of whether there was a life force at work, despite scientific scepticism. Naturphilosohie, a form of scientific mysticism, arose to challenge materialistic interpretations of life. The author does a fine job in explaining how Mary Shelley's novel pictured scientists as being potentially dangerous and raised fundamental issues about the human soul. By the 1830's the British Association for the Advancement of Science is launched and we are on the cusp of the "golden age of Victorian science."
The author seems equally at home in science or poetry and art, having written extensively on Coleridge. The book includes a large number of breathtaking color plates which help the reader grasp what the narrative is discussing. The research is impeccable, with 27 pages of notes, a 12-page cast list of mini-biographies of anyone mentioned in the text, and an 11-page bibliography broken down by topic. Poetry is not my thing. Nonetheless, i found this book to be incredibly rich in ideas and perceptive analysis. A rare bird to be sure.
The narrative is built around a series of significant individuals, for whom the author creates scientific biographies. The first is Joseph Banks (1743-1820) who became the godfather of British science during this period from his post as President of the Royal Society. One of the major sciences that underwent development during this period was astronomy; several chapters are devoted to the pathbreaking work of William Herschel (who discovered Uranus) and his sister Carolyn who pioneered new developments and telescopic designs. In the process their work turned the attention of artists to the skies and the evolutin of universe. A chapter catches the excitement of early balloonists and the Romantic wake they left behind as they explored the skies. Exploration was anordsother feature of the period, and was encouraged by Banks who had been on Cook's first voyage to the South Pacific. Mungo Park (1771-1806) anchors a chapter on this, and his tragic disappearance (as well as many other African explorers) reminds us how overwhelming a challenge African exploration presented during this period. Chemistry was another of the major sciences that took off during this period, as demonstrated in the fascinating activities of Humphry Davy (1778-1829), who pioneered in studying gases, electro-chemical analysis, agricultural chemistry, and became a great popularizer of scientific developments. The author frequently links up scientific developments with poetry, with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and Tennyson all making appearances, some supportive others not, and with painters whose portrayals of balloons and scientific breakthroughs conveyed the excitement of the period. Davy himself wrote poetry which he recorded in his lab books along with experimental data.
Many of these scientific developments seemed to challenge traditional religious views and raised new philosophical issues. I found the discussion of "Dr Frankenstein and the Soul" highly interesting. The "Vitalism debate" of 1816-22 centered on the issue of whether there was a life force at work, despite scientific scepticism. Naturphilosohie, a form of scientific mysticism, arose to challenge materialistic interpretations of life. The author does a fine job in explaining how Mary Shelley's novel pictured scientists as being potentially dangerous and raised fundamental issues about the human soul. By the 1830's the British Association for the Advancement of Science is launched and we are on the cusp of the "golden age of Victorian science."
The author seems equally at home in science or poetry and art, having written extensively on Coleridge. The book includes a large number of breathtaking color plates which help the reader grasp what the narrative is discussing. The research is impeccable, with 27 pages of notes, a 12-page cast list of mini-biographies of anyone mentioned in the text, and an 11-page bibliography broken down by topic. Poetry is not my thing. Nonetheless, i found this book to be incredibly rich in ideas and perceptive analysis. A rare bird to be sure.
31 von 34 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Wonderful Age of Wonder
6. August 2009
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
This is a marvelous book, depicting an era where scientific work was far different than it is now. One did not need years of training or huge government investment to make a major discovery back then, but rather hard work and ingenuity. As an example, an amateur like William Hershel, a composer and instrument-maker could become the greatest astronomer of his generation. What's more, the discoveries were intelligible to all educated men of the time and could affect the arts, as we see from scientific comments of writers such as Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley. Who would ever have known that the author of the RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER also coined the word "psychosomatic" and may have coined the word "scientist"? The writer of this book did.
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Chronicling the transition from natural philosophy to science
28. November 2009
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
I loved this book. For me it captured some sense of the transition from "natural philosophy" (thinking about and speculating about nature) to science (making careful observations and weaving those observations into theories of nature). I loved how Richard Holmes brought some of the people involved in this transition to life. The role of Joseph Banks, the relationship between William and Caroline and John Herschel and many, many more delightful insights into the people who influenced the transition to scientific thought.
Here's a quote from John Herschel in the book that to me captures some of the sense of the Age of Wonder:
"To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling...A mind that has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man finding:
Tongues in trees - books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones - and good in everything
Where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders."
I know we all have our particular tastes, but this was for me the best book I've read - on any topic.
Here's a quote from John Herschel in the book that to me captures some of the sense of the Age of Wonder:
"To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling...A mind that has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man finding:
Tongues in trees - books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones - and good in everything
Where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders."
I know we all have our particular tastes, but this was for me the best book I've read - on any topic.
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