The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science

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The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 3,048 ratings · 455 reviews

‘“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 w...more

Paperback, 554 pages

Published by HarperCollins Publishers (first published October 1st 2008)

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Jul 11, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Bill Bryson, this is how you do it, sir.

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Jane Austen

Shelves: 2010, in-by-of-england, non-fiction, reviewed, history, boston-janeites, overshare, jane-austen-made-me-do-it

I struggled with this book. I started it in March and finished it last night. I wasn't going to pick it back up, actually. It had been so interesting when I started but a hundred pages in I realized it wasn't going to be the book I had expected. Then something happened recently and I had to come back to it. It was suddenly important in my life again -

Background, About Me

I work in the software industry. I work for one of those big companies that even my mother has heard of (although, disclaimer,...more

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Aug 03, 2009 Tyler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, favorites

I was a little upset at this book for having to end. Holmes writes with a palpable compassion for his subjects. The book's major players are so fully animated that I couldn't help but feel a sadness at parting with these historical figures, most of whom I had never heard of before and all of whom, of course, had been dead for more than a century before I was born. I think that the way Holmes structured the book, with the same kind of intricate plot architecture as a good 19th century novel, real...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, brit-lit, history

I think the time has come for me to admit that I am either not going to finish this, or at least that I will finish it in very slow chunks over a much longer period than I had planned.

Holmes' book purports to put forth a unifying thesis about how science influenced the Romantic generation. All the new discoveries in science are meant to have communicated to this generation endless new possibilities, which goes a long way to explaining the reputation this bunch has gone down with for credulity, e...more I think the time has come for me to admit that I am either not going to finish this, or at least that I will finish it in very slow chunks over a much longer period than I had planned.

Holmes' book purports to put forth a unifying thesis about how science influenced the Romantic generation. All the new discoveries in science are meant to have communicated to this generation endless new possibilities, which goes a long way to explaining the reputation this bunch has gone down with for credulity, extremes of emotion, hilarious mistakes, and pose-striking. And Holmes is sure to talk about this towards the end of each chapter, with several paragraphs detailing the interests that the famous poets, writers and political leaders of this generation took in science, how imagery inspired by astrological discoveries or explores' voyages could be found in the public imagination.

But the bulk of the book is the story of the individual scientists. We get mini-biographies and blow-by-blow recountings of the processes and thinking that lead to each scientists' discovery, as well as entertaining bons mots and anecdotes to keep the good times rolling on the way. Unfortunately, however, this ends up making the unifying theme seem rather forced. To be honest, this felt like a pile of research notes reworked into pleasing long essay form for appearance in high-brow periodicals. It reads like a survey of the most exciting things going on in science in the period, chosen for the outsize personalities behind them as much as concrete achievements they put forth. Therefore the thesis that prefaces the book seems forced by the book format, rather than an organic result of research. I've seen this particular academic disease once too often. In order to sell books and create interest, somebody somewhere along the line wants to create the sense that this book is making a grand statement rather than simply being honest about it was.

It doesn't prove much to me. Well, other than that the English ruling class was small-everybody could introduce you to everybody- and poets looking for radical causes and inspiration are going to embrace radical things they read about. And it doesn't need to. It is a series of individual tales of scientific adventures and individuals that are mostly well told, in that Oxbridge old boy sort of way that I happen to find charming. I'm not sure why we needed to tack on Byron and Shelley at the end of the chapters, other than to give this book the broadest possible appeal to people interested in this period. But honestly, these people are interesting enough on their own without them. If the tales sometimes veer off into salacious side stories and irrelevant personality examinations, well, I never oppose books that counteract the idea that history is dry and boring. If nothing else, Holmes gets that part right, which is why I will probably return to finish it in bits and pieces later.(less)

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May 04, 2013 Roxanne Russell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: humanities, non-fiction, science, all-time-favs

Humanists who are fascinated by science but not scientists will love this book. Holmes has that rare talent of being both fastidious and passionate about his subjects. He makes every exploration, every night of star-gazing, every laborious act of tool-building and every failed or successful experiment, a love story.
This book came along at a great time for me. I'm a humanist who's been seeking more practical applications for my passions for years, and I find inspiration here. Holmes weaves the li...more

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Nov 29, 2009 Aminatou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is EXACTLY how human history and the exciting spirit of scientific discovery should be conveyed to us- as something important, vital, and inspiring.

In assessing the quality of mind that poets and scientists of the Romantic generation had in common, Holmes stresses moral hope for human betterment. Coleridge was convinced that science was imbued with “the passion of Hope,” and was thus “poetical.” Holmes finds in Davy’s rapid and systematic invention of a safety lamp for English miners, one t...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Douglas Dalrymple rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Imagination, as well as reason, is necessary to perfection in the philosophic [i.e. scientific] mind. A rapidity of combination, a power of perceiving analogies, and of comparing them by facts, is the creative source of discovery.

~ Humphry Davy

The progress of science is to destroy Wonder...

~ Thomas Carlyle

To what degree are the aims of science aligned with those of art? When and why did they begin to diverge? These are some of the more fascinating questions explored in this wonderful book, a mas...more Imagination, as well as reason, is necessary to perfection in the philosophic [i.e. scientific] mind. A rapidity of combination, a power of perceiving analogies, and of comparing them by facts, is the creative source of discovery.

~ Humphry Davy

The progress of science is to destroy Wonder...

~ Thomas Carlyle

To what degree are the aims of science aligned with those of art? When and why did they begin to diverge? These are some of the more fascinating questions explored in this wonderful book, a masterpiece of narrative history and biography. Richard Holmes returns us to the era of “romantic science,” when scientists were still “philosophers” and philosophers were artists, when discoveries were made (according to the myth) by flashes of insight and obscure inspiration, and when the possibility of scientific horror first began to suggest itself.

We start in 1769 with the young Joseph Banks in Tahiti, there in the capacity of gentleman naturalist assigned to Cook’s expedition to observe the transit of Venus. With his treasury of journals, specimens, and anthropological observations, he returns (just barely) to England and moves from notable disillusionment to notable accomplishment. As vigorous, long-lived president of the Royal Society, Banks becomes the patron spirit of the age, and the rest of the book.

In addition to Banks, Holmes spends a lot of his time with William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus; with his sister Caroline; with Mungo Park in Africa; and with Humphry Davy, who does for the science of chemistry what the Herschels do for astronomy. We’re also given glimpses of George III, Linnaeus, Benjamin Franklin, Erasmus Darwin, a whole host of balloonists, Dr Johnson, Horace Walpole, Gilbert White, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy and Mary Shelley, and – as the new scientific generation comes into its own – Michael Faraday, John Herschel, and the young Charles Darwin.

I’m not a specialist or historian of the period, but I loved every page of this book, and I learned something on every page. Richard Holmes has given us a gift, a history that all of us – especially those of us in the western world – are deeply invested in, whether we know it or not. Like a more beneficent, more successful Dr Frankenstein, he knits together a lost era, but reanimates it so convincingly and compellingly that its questioning spirit, its anxieties, and its sense of wonder become our own again.
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May 25, 2012 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: any reader

Recommended to Elaine by: nobody. I saw it on a list of library books

Shelves: ebooks

Wow! I finished this yesterday, and I'm still reeling. Who knew that Balloonists soaring across the skies fomented the French Revolution? Or that poets like Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth--all the Romantic greats--thought they were akin to the great scientists of the age, and the scientists themselves were poets. Actually, scientist was not yet a word when Herschel was exploding European mindsets with his discoveries of the infinity of the stars. Discoverers like Herschel, Faraday, Davy,...more Wow! I finished this yesterday, and I'm still reeling. Who knew that Balloonists soaring across the skies fomented the French Revolution? Or that poets like Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth--all the Romantic greats--thought they were akin to the great scientists of the age, and the scientists themselves were poets. Actually, scientist was not yet a word when Herschel was exploding European mindsets with his discoveries of the infinity of the stars. Discoverers like Herschel, Faraday, Davy, and their contemporaries were thought of as philosophers or clergymen or physicians. Yet the foundations of modern science like impartial observations, inductive reasoning, avoiding conclusions based upon what God supposedly set up, blind studies, all had their origins in the Age of Romanticism.

Science was not yet compartmentalized, nor was it separate from what we today lump together as "the Humanities," as if uncovering the laws of nature and the cosmos itself were not human endeavors.

Holmes includes in his history poems about scientic discoveries by poets still revered today, as well as poems by the great innovators like Joseph Banks and Humphrey Davy. Banks, who went to Tahiti in the late 18th century, a Briton of the ruling class, went native. The descriptions of him doing the Tahitian version of "dirty dancing" are so vivid I could see them as in a movie. Did I mention that he, in effect, founded anthroplology?

Women? Well, as usual, they were either witty and beautiful, like Lady Davy, or serious and knowledgeable while enabling their menfolk to sweep the skies, like Caroline Herschel. There seems to have been an unwritten law that spinsters lived only to serve. Caroline Herschel was a faithful dog to her famous brother, but, on her own, she, too, discovered comets. Like a talking dog, she was a curiosity in society, a woman who actually innovated. Oh, her brother did manage to get a lifetime Royal stipend for her stargazing, making her the first female in England to get a salary Her brother arranged for this stipend when he finally got married, and his wife didn't want Caroline hanging around the the house.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Holmes certainly doesn't put it in these terms. He is way too polite. For instance, although he chronicles Davy's arrogance (my term) and his damaging treatment of his faithful protoge and lab assistant, Holmes is careful not to come right out and say that he was a nasty man. Part of Holmes's genius as a historian is his ability to portray people objectively, but give the reader enough to form his or her opinion. What he does is to objectively state what Davy, for instance, did, and how his peers felt about Davy's heading the Royal Society.

This is a 600 page book. To illustrate its sweep and scope would make a review of far greater length and breadth than appropriate for Goodreads. Unless you hate history and biography, and only read torrid romances or improbable action novels, this is a wonderful, engrossing read.

One caveat: in a book this long with portrayals of so many people, an eBook is more than helpful. If someone appears on a page, and you don't recall who it is, you touch his or her name, and, on the Nook Tablets, up pops "Find." You touch it, and it gives you every sentence in the book with that person's name. "Oh, that person!" This has the added benefit of helping you remember events better. The repetition alone aids long term memory . But then again, I'm an old lady. Maybe you don't need such jogs to recall what Holmes wrote so winningly of.(less)

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Oct 28, 2009 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: blinded-me-with-science, non-fiction, history

There's nothing like reading a book about really smart and energetic people back in ye olden days to make you feel like a lazy piece of crap. I'm sitting here in front of a magic box where I could type in the words 'Hubble telescope' in an image search and instantly see pictures of distant planets and galaxies but it seems like too much effort. William Herschel had to invent his own telescopes just to get a decent view of the moon. I'm sure Sir William would like nothing better than to crawl out...more There's nothing like reading a book about really smart and energetic people back in ye olden days to make you feel like a lazy piece of crap. I'm sitting here in front of a magic box where I could type in the words 'Hubble telescope' in an image search and instantly see pictures of distant planets and galaxies but it seems like too much effort. William Herschel had to invent his own telescopes just to get a decent view of the moon. I'm sure Sir William would like nothing better than to crawl out of his grave and beat me senseless.

Just as the title promises, the book explores the scientific revolution that occurred from the late 1700s through the early 1800s by focusing on several key figures and examining the impact their work had in science and on the Romantic movement going on at the same time.

There's some really interesting people and stories in this book that show how wild and wide open the different sciences were at this time. A gentleman like Joseph Banks could sail with Captain Cook to Tahiti, collect a wealth of data, and have a pretty good time in the process. (Apparently in the 18th century, what happened in Tahiti, stayed in Tahiti.)

Banks went home to England where he served for decades as the president of the Royal Society and championed guys like Herschel, who was a German immigrant and a professional musician who taught himself astronomy and came up with telescopes superior to anything else at the time. In addition to discovering Uranus (stop snickering in the back), he made numerous other discoveries. His sister worked as his assistant and was an accomplished astronomer in her own right. Humphry Davy was another person with little scientific education who started doing experiments with gas, primarily huffing nitrous oxide, and went on to become one of the pioneers in the field of chemistry.

Crazy balloonists kill themselves in the earliest flights. Bold African explorers vanish into the uncharted regions never to be heard from again. Periodic clashes about faith versus science make everyone uneasy and political. Some of the Romantic writers embrace the bold advances and some mock or fear them. Rivals clash over ideas and credit, and eventually a split among the English researchers leads to the invention of the word 'scientist'.

There's a lot of ground covered here, and the first half of the book flew by with the tales of Banks in Tahiti and his career afterwards, along with the story of Herschel and his sister, Mungo Park and his exploration of Africa, and the daredevil balloonists. However, the book gets bogged down with more philosphy and poetry in the second half once Humphry Davey and his chemistry revolution is introduced.

The author does a nice job of conveying how utterly amazing it must have been to be one of these curious people at this time just as new technology was leading to whole new realms of study, but he also doesn't make excuses for some of the imperalism, racism, or sexism that was inherent to the people and time.

Interesting read, but the second half was a bit of a struggle.(less)

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Dec 21, 2012 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Age of Wonder is a delightful evocation of the 'birth' of British science and it's key players. Joseph Banks in Paradise, Herschel Among the Stars and Davy on the Gas are just some of the author's playful chapter headings, but this is anything but light stuff.

Weaving together the fascinating biographies of Banks (botanist extraordinaire from Cook's voyage to the Pacific in 1767-9 and hub of British scientific patronage for 40 years), William Herschel (the astronomer who discovered the nebula...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Frank Stein rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was the first book assigned for my new semester, which means I'm going back to reading school stuff round the clock again, but luckily this first one was a great one. It's really a combined biography of Joseph Banks (President of the Royal Society for the Advancement of Science, explorer of Tahiti), William Herschel (discovered Uranus), and Humphrey Davy (experimented with nitrous oxide, and also became President of Royal Society), along with a couple of other secondary stories. The best is...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Moonglum rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-of-science, history

I adored this book. It is filled with great mini-biographies-- I especially liked the parts of William and Caroline Hershel (I knew nothing about Caroline before reading this). But to me one of the most relevant things about the book is that one of the things its about is the creation of the genre of science fiction. There is a chapter about Frankenstein, which is often thought of as the first real science fiction novel, but also it lets you see that the western European world is, even 200 years...more

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Jul 13, 2010 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, 5-star

A beautiful and sympathetic account of the great age of British science, through which Holmes proves yet again that he is our foremost chronicler of the Romantic Age. His deft handling the scientific discoveries that made these men and women - the Herschels (William, Caroline, and John), Joseph Banks, Michael Farady, Humphry Davy, et al - so important is admirable, of course, but more impressive is his ability to marshal an enormous amount of research into a coherent, pleasurable narrative. A ma...more

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Jun 01, 2013 Andrew Christ rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I forgot about this book until I saw it again here. My father sent this book to me a few years ago. I enjoyed learning about the various people, scientists as well as non-scientists. I like that Holmes gives so much detail about, for instance, the grinding of the mirror for the telescope. And how it was paid for. For me, the book would be just as enjoyable if it was a collection of anecdotes and free of any speculation as to whether or how the literature and paintings of the time may or may not...more

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May 21, 2013 Tina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Heard it as an audiobook during rides in my car. I would find myself sitting in my parked car after a car ride to simply keep on listening to the story.

This incredible book about the people who pioneered the scientific inventions of Britain between the time of Newton and Darwin is much more than a simple book about science. It covers people whose names sounded vaguely familiar to me, like Sir Humphry Davy and William Herschel, to complete strangers like Sir Joseph Banks and Mungo Park. What I a...more Heard it as an audiobook during rides in my car. I would find myself sitting in my parked car after a car ride to simply keep on listening to the story.

This incredible book about the people who pioneered the scientific inventions of Britain between the time of Newton and Darwin is much more than a simple book about science. It covers people whose names sounded vaguely familiar to me, like Sir Humphry Davy and William Herschel, to complete strangers like Sir Joseph Banks and Mungo Park. What I appreciated the most was the breadth and extensive background and details it gave into the entire era of British history, into the relationships between the various characters (specifically between the brother-sister team of William and Caroline Herschel), and into the fads and drive behind what moves people to do what they do (Davy's love of fame and his ill-fated marriage). For example, the author would remind us the differences between our times and those of that era. Among others, what were the prospects of Caroline Herschel, a female without dowry? Or the dangers and hardships of traveling? Most striking to me of all was the interest common people had in scientific talks (called natural philosophy at this time) and their willingness to sit in cramped, hot room to listen. I can't imagine anyone watching the latest movie in an un-airconditionned theater. We've really grown to value comfort as a people.

Literature and poetry plays a large role in this book, with frequent allusions the writers and poets known as the Romantics: Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and the link between science and art is never more beautifully made than in Mary Shelley's character: the nameless, monstrous invention of Dr. Frankenstein, brought to life by electricity, as people believed might truly happy back in those times, when the theory of Vitalism was still under debate.

This is one of the most enjoyable books I've listened/read this year, and I strongly recommend anyone interested in either Britain from 1750-1830, in scientific inventions and they change society, or in simply how people live: their mistakes and their successes, their motivations and their desires.(less)

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Mar 13, 2013 Holmes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have nothing but praise for The Age of Wonder. The Romantic Period was indeed an age of wonder, and this book wonderfully and masterfully brings the period back to life. Unlike most books on romantic history (which often examine the artistic and literary movements), biographer Richard Holmes focuses on the public and private lives of major scientists like William Herschel and Humphry Davy. But instead of portraying individual stories, he weaves them all into a bigger narrative, allowing the re...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Ralph Hermansen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stimulating Travels in Time

The name of the book is, "The Age of Wonder" and the author is Richard Holmes. I have always had a keen interest in science and the life stories of scientists. Moreover, I have long thought that there was something magical about the middle of the 19th century. It seemed to me that it was then, that scientific accomplishments had blossomed like an apple orchard in spring. This was the age of discovery with men like: Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, James Clerk Maxwell, Emi...more Stimulating Travels in Time

The name of the book is, "The Age of Wonder" and the author is Richard Holmes. I have always had a keen interest in science and the life stories of scientists. Moreover, I have long thought that there was something magical about the middle of the 19th century. It seemed to me that it was then, that scientific accomplishments had blossomed like an apple orchard in spring. This was the age of discovery with men like: Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, James Clerk Maxwell, Emil Fischer, Thomas Edison, and Charles Darwin. I had not given much thought to the forefathers of these men. This book filled in that time gap for me and I am richer for the journey.

Holmes takes the reader back to the late 1700s and early 1800s as if one were transported by a time machine that focused on the lives of British scientists of that era. Three names will be unforgettable to the reader and they are: Joseph Banks, William Herschel, and Humphry Davy. The book starts out in 1769 with Joseph Banks setting foot on the island of Tahiti on an expedition under the leadership of James Cook. The observations made by Banks of the Tahitian people would make him famous. He attended their ceremonies, slept in their huts, ate their food, recorded their customs, and learned their language. His adventures read more like a fascinating novel than a historical story. The reader is in Tahiti with Joseph Banks living those adventures. After returning to England, his career skyrockets and he is ultimately honored by being elected president of the Royal Society 1778. From that post, he will help promote the careers of other promising British scientists, whom we shall meet.

William Herschel only rated a few paragraphs in my high school science books. However, the complete story of this man and his dedicated sister, Caroline, are awe-inspiring. Most people know that William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus 1781. There was so much more to the man and his accomplishments and contributions to astronomy. Originally a musician, Herschel felt himself drawn to the world of astronomy and learned to make the best telescopes in the world. With this advantage in instrumentation, and a disciplined, dedicated approach to observation and record keeping, he made enormous advances to the science. As an example of Herschel's insight, I had long believed that the fuzzy nebula were first identified as galaxies by Hubble in the 20th century. Yet here is Herschel reaching the same conclusion a century earlier. Herschel was a brilliant pioneer and he deserves the recognition. Holmes makes you feel as though you were there and has you experience the joys and disappointments of this man's life. Caroline's story is no less exciting.

No less stimulating is the story of Humphry Davy. His scientific advances are in the field of chemistry, which was in its early stages of discovery in the early 1800s. Most people associate his name with the invention of the safety lamp, which changed the mining industry from one of immense danger due to explosive gases to one of much greater safety. However, there is a lot more to Davy's story. He made great contributions to the science of gases and their application to human medicine. Again the author makes you feel like a fly on the wall, experiencing life at that time.
Besides these three individuals, Holmes tells the stories of other British scientists as well. Moreover, the stories blend together so that one comes away with a feeling of community and nationalistic pride (I felt myself identifying with the British). It was another time and another place, with different opportunities and different human goals. I realize that if I had actually made that time travel trip, I would have great difficulty understanding the English language of that time. Holmes is my translator, putting the words into sentences that make sense today.

I really loved the author's style of writing and looked in the front of the book to see what other books he had written. He had done such an excellent job of historical research, organization, and presentation of the material, that I assumed he had done other books on the history of science. Instead, what I learned was that his area of specialty was poetry. And so you will see segments of poems in this book and a greater influence of poetry on these scientists in the latter chapters.

I really enjoyed this book and found it to be delightful to read throughout most of it. Thus, I highly recommend it to you and hope that you find it as enjoyable as I did.

Ralph Hermansen, September 22, 2012 (less)

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Dec 26, 2012 Jeff rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not as interesting as the reviews led me to believe it would be. There were interesting parts, like Herschel's astronomy (as well as his sister's fascinating contributions) and Joseph Banks' trip to Tahiti, but it seems like the author, merely to up the page count, added less interesting stories, like ballooning (which, the book itself admits, had little scientific, military, or economic impact) or Humphrey Davy (whose contribution to chemistry was not as significant or interesting as many other...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Leigh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the best books I've read in recent years - and one that will be in my personal pantheon of biography. While Richard Holmes' prior work has concentrated on the Romantic Poets and Coleridge in particular, he has now turned his attention to a marvelous era when art inspired science, and vice versa. Through a very readable and vivid narrative his book centers around 4 biographies: that of the botanist Joseph Banks, who was so motivated to sail with Captain Cook to Tahiti; the Herschels Willam...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Deanne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a wonderful book about a world perched on the brink of the modern age of science, a book about passion and perseverance. It opens with the tale of Robert Banks'sea journey (upon his return he goes on become Britain's scientist-in-residence,for the next 30 or so years, thus placing his authoritative stamp upon scientific endeavors for the rest of the 19th century). Banks' transformation as a result of "going native" in the South Seas is a tale of high adventure - he accompanied Captain Co...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Eppursimuov3 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was an age when men braved wind and waves, diseases and 'savages', to discover new worlds; when men and women both worked day and night, so that they could be the first to see what no one else had seen before; when they would put their own lives on the line, so that they could experience new sensations. It was a time when no dichotomies existed between science, philosophy and the arts; when science inspired poetry, and scientists were also philosphers and artists; it was an Age of Wonder – th...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Bart Thanhauser rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an account of a period of time in English science that Holmes names The Age of Wonder. It can be loosely pegged to the late 18th and early 19th century.

This book is much more than a recap, a chronological march around the discoveries of that time. It is a profile of a few fascinating individuals in science (Joseph Banks, William Herschel, Humphrey Davies, and some others). It is a portrait of an incredibly dynamic period in science, when much of the unknown world became both less and mo...more This is an account of a period of time in English science that Holmes names The Age of Wonder. It can be loosely pegged to the late 18th and early 19th century.

This book is much more than a recap, a chronological march around the discoveries of that time. It is a profile of a few fascinating individuals in science (Joseph Banks, William Herschel, Humphrey Davies, and some others). It is a portrait of an incredibly dynamic period in science, when much of the unknown world became both less and more known. And it is a book about the role of science and the scientist in society and how the two were formed during this period.

At its best moments this book was able to instill the "wonder" of science in me. At its lesser moments it moved a bit slowly and described inventions, personal lives, and quotations of scientists and poets that were not wonder-inspiring. And at times its thesis became tangled and unclear.

In his writing, Holmes mixes science, history and literature. He mixes in poems and quotes, from then and now showing how the literary romanticism of the time spread to science. Age of Wonder almost reads like a journal--a mending of quotes and thoughts. This approach gives a sense of intimacy, a feeling of entering Holmes' mind and looking at what he finds beautiful and connected in the world.

Science during this "Romantic" period was a term wider than it is today. Science was exploration, botany, geology, mathematics, metaphysics, religion, literature and much more. And it is this mixture across seemingly different fields, and the journey to both define and advance the field that is so interesting. The relationship between poetry and science is a pillar in the book. Holmes describes the relationships between the leading poets and leading scientists of the time and seems to suggest that there has always been a close, or at least unique relationship between the two professions.

What unites the two is a sense of wonder. In Holmes' account, the "great" scientists and poets are the people able to sustain a sense of childhood wonder into their adulthood. They are able to meld a boundless fascination and curiosity with the world with the power and advantages that adulthood brings. At times this sense of wonder leads to horrible myopic decisions and some laughably dumb theories. The biographies Holmes details makes this point clear (one of the greatest Astronomers to ever live, William Herschel thought that the moon was inhabited). Sure, we are all mixed bags. But what sustains and advances, and ultimately made this period a watershed moment for science, is this wonder. The wonder of the scientific giants and the wonder they were able to create in the public. Holmes' achievement is instilling some of this in the book.(less)

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May 15, 2011 Benjaminxjackson rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is sort of a Plutarch's Lives of British Scientists in the late 1700s and early 1800s. This is both a good an bad thing, because Holmes gives sketches of a number of scientists and talks about a broad range of experiments and fields. He also introduces some of the human element of science and the relationship some scientists had with poets like Byron and Shelly.

That said, this book have easily been three or four books about different people. As I read the book, I kept looking for anch...more

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May 03, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an amazing book. It doesn't have as much to do with literary Romanticism as I had originally hoped, but by the end of the first chapter I didn't care. Holmes is an excellent writer, and he makes the excitement and amazement of the scientists and explorers he profiles live. I think my favorite sections are the ones that deal with Joseph Banks, who went on a scientific voyage to Tahiti as a young man and, despite a successful career as a botanist in England, mentor to many younger scientis...more

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Apr 14, 2011 Mike Hankins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The title for this book caught my eye, but it was the subtitle that made me really want to spend my money on it. The subtitle reads: "How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science," and that sums up the themes of the book fairly well. Here we have the story of the Enlightenment, demonstrating a time in history where science had the power to move people emotionally the way that the arts did -- in fact, the arts and the sciences were at this time very intertwined. A sense...more The title for this book caught my eye, but it was the subtitle that made me really want to spend my money on it. The subtitle reads: "How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science," and that sums up the themes of the book fairly well. Here we have the story of the Enlightenment, demonstrating a time in history where science had the power to move people emotionally the way that the arts did -- in fact, the arts and the sciences were at this time very intertwined. A sense of awe and wonder permeated the new discoveries of science, and one could indeed become intensely emotional about scientific endeavors.

Holmes tells this story in a wonderful way, mostly a series of shot biographies of the major players in the era, gradually moving forward in time, showing where these great lives overlapped and how they effected each other. We begin with Joseph Banks, the famed botanist who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage. Banks proved to be an important leading figure throughout the course of the book. He always sought out and encouraged new, young scientists (or, as they were still called then, natural philosophers) and can be said to have spurred on many incredible advances in a variety of fields.

We also follow the lives of William Herschel, the astronomer who discovered Uranus, as well as built the largest and most complex telescopes of the day, allowing him to catalog new nebula and comets. He also introduced many groundbreaking concepts such as the temporal effect of astronomy, or "looking back in time," as well as the sheer size, scope, and possible age of the universe.

We spend some time on the invention of the Hot Air Balloon, which allowed air travel for the first time, and we learn of Mungo Park's infamous journeys into the African continent.

We also are introduced to Humphrey Davy, the man who made Chemistry into a viable, real science, via his experiments with gases and respiration. He also pioneered many practical applications of his work, showing how science could apply directly to real-world problems.

Holmes also dips heavily into the connection between science and literature, taking time to explore Coleridge, Keats, Lord Byron, Mary Shelly, and others who were deeply effected by the scientific discoveries of the day, and many of whom were close friends with the scientists in question.

My favorite chapter by far was titled "Frankenstein and the Soul," detailing side by side the conception of Shelly's famous novel with the raging debate about the soul which, at the time, was taking the world by storm. The implications of the scientific discoveries of the time were somewhat damaging to the strict religious views that dominated the period. In particular, the question of what a person's soul was, or whether souls were real at all was one that reached a fever pitch, and the literary figures of the day were included in these fierce debates. The fact that many of these debates still rage today makes this aspect of the story fascinating and incredibly relevant.

All of this is told in an exciting narrative fashion, and although each chapter focuses well on a single character, or aspect of the period, the others are referenced throughout. By the end of the book we are left with a stunning picture of the intertwining lives of all these fascinating characters, how they influenced each other, and pushed one another forward. The "cast" pages at the back of the book are handy, and full of great information about all the major and minor players that continually pop up throughout the story.

Perhaps most important, though, is the sense that this book leaves you with. Far from being simply a story about scientists, it is a passionate story about science, what it is, and what it means, and how wonderful and magical it can be. At the end of the day, this book reminds you of that sense of wonder, that magical sense of awe that often feels lost in the modern world. Holmes is not content to merely educate, he attempts to truly inspire, and--for me at least--succeeds brilliantly.

Holmes' advocation at the end of the book for a new type of science education--one where science is taught in a historical and biographical context--is a great footnote for the book, leaving us inspired about the wonder of science, and challenged to go and do something with it.(less)

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Nov 26, 2010 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What an incredible book! Holmes is a biographer and the book is more like a biography, or several biographies, than a science book - as it should be.

Isaac Newton died in 1727 and Darwin didn’t make his voyage until 1831. Science was not dead between those years. Holmes uses those years to identify the years of what he calls the age of Romantic science - the Age of Wonder.

The big names were Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphrey Davy. Banks explored and wrote about Tahiti, Herschel, with h...more What an incredible book! Holmes is a biographer and the book is more like a biography, or several biographies, than a science book - as it should be.

Isaac Newton died in 1727 and Darwin didn’t make his voyage until 1831. Science was not dead between those years. Holmes uses those years to identify the years of what he calls the age of Romantic science - the Age of Wonder.

The big names were Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphrey Davy. Banks explored and wrote about Tahiti, Herschel, with his sister Caroline, studied the stars and Davy was a chemist. These men of science were also men of the arts, Herschel being a musician and Davy a poet.

Scientists (and that word was not used yet) n the days of the great men were described as loners who had moments of “aha!” The book shows this is not totally the case, there was much collaboration going on. And what with the advent of electricity and a free press, the common man was interested and often involved.

Holmes’ account reads like a novel -or maybe several novels. The narrative is told like an adventure story (which much of it is) with a bit of foreshadowing, tension, character analysis and so on.

The chapters include the stories of Joseph Banks’ adventures in Tahiti, William Herschel and Caroline Herschel, the one-mistake sport of balloonists and what they learned, Mongo Park in Africa, Humphrey Davy’s chemical experiments and Mary Shelley’s indictment of science (Frankenstein).
It strikes me that we have these kinds of people today to and maybe we always have. During the space age we had science fiction. In the computer age we have geek love and William Gibson. These are artists who find inspiration from the science of the day. We'll see if Holmes makes this point.

Meanwhile the stories are told in a pretty straightforward fashion although two of them, the chapters on ballooning and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein are respectively funny and chilling. I'd be really hard pressed to say which of the sections I enjoyed most - they’re all delicious.

My only criticism of the book might be the length - were all those poems by Davy necessary?
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Oct 08, 2010 Charles Matthews rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One book leads to another. When I finished Being Shelley, I took this one down from the shelf and added it to my to-be-read stack. And when I read Mason & Dixon I was all the more convinced that I should read it. Both of those books are rooted in the material covered by Holmes's: the scientific discoveries of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Half a century ago, the physicist and novelist C.P. Snow stirred up talk with an essay called "The Two Cultures," in which he lamente...more One book leads to another. When I finished Being Shelley, I took this one down from the shelf and added it to my to-be-read stack. And when I read Mason & Dixon I was all the more convinced that I should read it. Both of those books are rooted in the material covered by Holmes's: the scientific discoveries of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Half a century ago, the physicist and novelist C.P. Snow stirred up talk with an essay called "The Two Cultures," in which he lamented the ignorance of "literary intellectuals" with regard to science. He claimed that when he asked literati to state the second law of thermodynamics, he was met with blank stares and hostility. "Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'" I suppose it's owing to Snow's little dig that I know the second law is the one about entropy, though if you asked me to explain it further I'd be at a loss.

The point is that Holmes's book revived my awareness of that old gap -- though how significant the gap really is may still be open to question. I happen to know an awful lot about Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. But if you had asked me a couple of weeks ago about their contemporaries, Joseph Banks, William Herschel, and Humphry Davy, I would have drawn blanks. Especially about Banks, but even though I must have read the footnote to Keats's "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer" that explains the poem's allusion to Herschel's discovery of the planet Uranus, I probably wouldn't have thought about it. As for Davy, the only thing that would have come to mind was the old clerihew: "Sir Humphry Davy / Abominated gravy." And even then I wouldn't have come up with the next two lines: "He lived in the odium / Of having discovered sodium."

I may not have crossed Snow's culture gap yet, but Holmes's fine book has helped me start building the bridge. It's surprisingly readable, perhaps because Holmes lards it with anecdotes. Perhaps too many anecdotes: I still don't know the point of putting so much emphasis on Davy's relationship to the "maid of Illyria," Josephine Dettela. There's an imbalance between the forays into the private lives of Banks, Herschel, Davy et al. and the explanation of the significance of their works. And I'm still not entirely clear on what the phrase "Romantic science" is supposed to mean. But I much appreciated Holmes's efforts to tie the work of the scientists (a word, incidentally, that wasn't coined until 1833, another gee-whiz nugget from this book) to the work of the poets. And some of the selections from Davy's own poems are quite impressive. (less)

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Sep 11, 2010 Jrobertus rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book describes the science and times the Romantic age. The first wave of modern science, Newton, Descartes, Huygens, are gone. A second wave of institutionalized science begins and its power to explain and reveal the world captivates Europe. The book begins with the south sea explorer Joseph Banks and how he fostered British science through the Royal Society. We also see the German/British astronomer WIlliam Herschel (builder of the 40' telescope and discoverer of Uranus) and his brilliant...more

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Apr 04, 2010 Donna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: readers of narrative science, British history, and science popularizers such as Stephen Jay Gould

Shelves: nonfiction

I don't like science and haven't truly studied lab science since high school chemistry. This book, however, captured my imagination. Studying the history of science...learning along with each man and woman as they make a scientific breakthrough...is more easily grasped than needing to know the mathematics of full scientific inquiry.

This book focuses on British science beginning with Joseph Banks' voyage with Captain Cook on the Endeavour (1768) through Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle (1831...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-mathematics

This is a great book covering the romantic generation of scientists. It focuses primarily on three main scientists from England; Sir Joseph Banks and his intrepid adventures in Otahite; Sir William Herschel, German astronomer, discoverer of Uranus and other notable sidereal bodies; and lastly, Sir Humphry Davy, discoverer of the effects of Nitrous Oxide and its recreational uses, famous chemist and inventor of the famed Davy Safety Lamp.

While some instantly recognizable names from history are me...more

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Jul 28, 2009 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Holmes, Richard. THE AGE OF WONDER: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. (2009). *****. This masterfully written book is really about the history of science – primarily that in England – in the years between 1760 and 1830. These were years of great discoveries and great men. What promoted the exploration of natural phenomena was the organization and development of the Royal Society. The history of this society and its members is really at the heart of this tre...more Holmes, Richard. THE AGE OF WONDER: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. (2009). *****. This masterfully written book is really about the history of science – primarily that in England – in the years between 1760 and 1830. These were years of great discoveries and great men. What promoted the exploration of natural phenomena was the organization and development of the Royal Society. The history of this society and its members is really at the heart of this treatise. This well-researched work focuses primarily on three scientists of the time, although there is a chapter on Mongo Parks and a chapter on ballooning that don’t really seem to fit in. These scientists were Sir Joseph Banks, William Herschel, and Humphry Davy. The lives and works of these three were filled with marvelous discoveries, and, significant missteps. Banks’ claim to fame came after his voyage with Captain Cook, and his investigation and cataloging of the natural flora and fauna of the South Pacific islands – particularly those of Tahiti. In addition to his long list of discoveries added to our knowledge of natural history, Banks also provided a comprehensive description of the natives and their customs. His lectures on his return to England sparked the great surge in investigatory travel that ultimately led to a young man named Charles Darwin. Herschel was a pre-eminent astronomer of his day. His development of much-improved reflector telescopes allowed him to see objects in the universe that were never seen before. On top of this, he was a relentless observer and vigorously wrote down his sightings night by night. His sister worked with him on his studies and was to become a famed astronomer in her own right. He is credited with the discovery of the planet Uranus and cataloging over 2,000 new nebulae. There are also planetary moons and asteroids to his credit. Davy was a maverick scientist and tended to be more of an applied science person than the other two. His early work, however, was confined to the study of gases. One of his discoveries was the gas nitrous oxide, which he and his friends had great fun with in his laboratory. Unfortunately, he missed the fact that the gas was also a potential anesthetic and could have early on revolutionized surgical treatment in the days where the best surgeon was the fastest surgeon. He later worked on a series of ‘inventions’ that addressed practical problems. The most famous of these is, of course, the miners’ lamp. In addition to these scientists, there is a full gallery of their friends and associates, among whom there are many familiar names and faces. This was also a period where science and literature heavily influenced each other, and where poets, especially, took up arms in defense of new discoveries. In all, this is a terrific book; well researched and well written. Highly recommended.(less)

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About Richard Holmes

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Biographer Richard Holmes was born in London, England on 5 November 1945 and educated at Downside School and Churchill College, Cambridge. His first book, Shelley:The Pursuit, was published in 1974 and won a Somerset Maugham Award. The first volume of his biography of the po...more

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“Physical vision - one might say scientific vision - brings about a metaphysical shift in the observer's view of reality as a whole. The geography of the earth, or the structure of the solar system, are in an instant utterly changed, and forever. The explorer, the scientific observer, the literary reader, experience the Sublime: a moment of revelation into the idea of the unbounded, the infinite.” — 2 people liked it

“The celebrated Parisian doctor Professor Xavier Bichat developed a fully materialist theory of the human body and mind in his lectures Physiological Researches on Life and Death, translated into English in 1816. Bichat defined life bleakly as ‘the sum of the functions by which death is resisted” — 2 people liked it

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