false<![CDATA[The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science]]>43715075‘“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” Wordsworth recalled, thinking of the fall of the Bastille in 1789. But Richard Holmes's exuberant group biography celebrates the scientific revolution that preceded and outsoared the political one, changing life, the universe and everything in the last decades of the 18th century... 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. He believes that we must engage the minds of young people with science by writing about it in a new way, entering imaginatively into the biographies of individual scientists and showing what makes them just as creative as poets, painters and musicians. <i>The Age of Wonder</i> is offered, with due modesty, as a model, and it succeeds inspiringly’
<i>-- John Carey, Sunday Times</i>
‘<i>The Age of Wonder</i> 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’
<i>-- Jenny Uglow, Guardian</i>
‘vividly conveys the compelling fusion of art and science in the 18th century ... this is a book to linger over, to savour the tantalising details of the minor figures ... <i>The Age of Wonder</i> allows readers to recapture the combined thrill of emerging scientific order and imaginative creativity’
<i>-- Lisa Jardine, Financial Times</i>
‘If ever there was an argument for a biographical analysis of complex scientific and technological history, this is it ... well paced and rich in detail ... Heartbreaking accounts of hope and fears, ambitions and disappointments dance along the pages. Even the choice of pictures gives us new insights into old favourites ... There is no dry page in this visceral, spirited and sexy account’
<i>-- The Times</i>
‘Richard Holmes's stellar collective biography ... gives a gripping account of the scientific research that inspired a sense of wonder in poets and experimenters alike ... fascinating ... this beautifully crafted book deserves all the praise it will undoubtedly attract. Well-researched and vividly written <i>The Age of Wonder</i> will fascinate scientists and poets alike’
<i>-- Literary Review</i>
‘Holmes triumphantly shows the Romantic age was one of symbiosis rather than opposition...no biographer is better than Holmes at evoking the thrill of the chase ... elegant ... fascinating ... entrancing’
<i>-- Sunday Telegraph</i>
‘Exhilarating...instructive and delightful...finely observed...generous and hugely enjoyable’
<i>-- Daily Telegraph</i>
‘Romanticism and Science are justly reunited in Richard Holmes's new book....a revelation....thrilling’
<i>-- Independent</i>44195181102008The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Sciencetotal:72|5:28|4:27|3:12|2:3|1:2|722926003533falsefalseTue Oct 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009Thu Jul 30 06:51:19 -0700 2009Wed Oct 28 05:50:06 -0700 2009
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Age of Wonder, a synthesis of history, science, philosophy, and biography, as ""intoxicating,"" ""gripping,"" and ""juicy."" Rather than a dry account of scientific advances, the book offers lively, compelling portra...more...]]>
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30falsefalseFri Nov 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009Thu Jul 30 06:49:38 -0700 2009Fri Nov 06 05:19:08 -0800 2009 The book is worth reading, but the title is a bit pretentious and a misnomer.
Those expecting a treatment of Romantic philosophy, and it s evolution into the Victorian era will be disappointed.
Those ...more...]]>
30falsefalseSat Aug 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009Thu Jul 09 16:38:38 -0700 2009Fri Sep 25 18:11:57 -0700 2009 Holmes ties the Romantic poets to Victorian science; so we get a little Coleridge, a ...more...]]>
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Leviathan Or The Whale, but it must be very good to have beaten Richard Holmes's book for the Samuel Johnson Prize, for this is so engaging that it almost reads like fiction.
Of course, it isn't fiction: it seems that Holmes has done a considerable amount of research. It is...more...]]>
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Reviewed at The Economist, The New York Times, and interview with the author on NPR Science Fridays.
"Darkness", by George Gordon, Lord Byron:
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal spa...
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