The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America
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Bestselling author Steven Johnson recounts in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America s Founding Fathers.The Invention of Air is a book of world-changing ideas wrapped around a compelling narrative, a story of genius and violence and friendship in the midst of sweeping historical change that provokes us to recast our understanding of the Founding Fathers.It is the story of Joseph Priestley scientist and theologian, protégé of Benjamin Franklin, friend of Thomas Jefferson an eighteenth-century radical thinker who played pivotal roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the discovery of oxygen, the founding of the Unitarian Church, and the intellectual development of the United States. And it is a story that only Steven Johnson, acclaimed juggler of disciplines and provocative ideas, can do justice to.In the 1780s, Priestley had established himself in his native... The Barnes & Noble Review Thomas Carlyle's dictum that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men" would be more serviceable, though less aphoristic, if adjusted to: "history is sometimes best recounted through the biographies of great people." The lives of Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Priestley are perfect cases in point; to describe them is to describe the tumultuous and world-changing second half of the 18th century. This is not just because of the role these men played -- Franklin more directly than Priestley -- in the American and French revolutions and their aftermath, but because of their involvement in the scientific and intellectual advances of the time, Priestley more directly than Franklin. Because both the politics and the science to which they contributed were elements in the larger story of the Enlightenment, the lives of these men are especially interesting and iconic.
