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An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment
(Revolutions in Science)
by
An Entertainment for Angels, rather than for Men, one observer called electricity, and it proved to be the most significant scientific discovery of the Enlightenment. Lecturers attracted huge audiences who marveled at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers, and electrified boys. Flamboyant experimenters made chains of soldiers leap into the air, while wea
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Hardcover, 192 pages
Published
October 1st 2003
by Columbia University Press
(first published January 10th 1998)
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My partner recently introduced me to the phrase "Dead Historical Boyfriend" and boy does this author have one. Benjamin Franklin was no doubt important in the early days of electricity, but not nearly as important as this author would have you believe. I fail to see why everything had to be brought back to him again and again. I learned a few things I didn't already know (not about Franklin, as I have read his autobiography), so the book succeeded in that regard, but I would have liked a more ba
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A bit wide-eyed, this brief description of the Enlightenment's process of understanding electricity includes just enough tech talk to make the concepts understandable, without shocking the reader with math or jargon. As magicians are well aware (at least those who read the history of magic) 18th century performers often included electrical demonstrations in their programs, as soon as new discoveries were published. Fara discusses several of those demonstrators, including some who went on to cont
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The author illustrates the role of politics, prior knowledge (theoretical commitments), and serendipity in the development of ideas about electricity from about 1700 to 1800, mostly in Europe, but also in the US/colonies. The book makes connections between development of technology and development of ideas and how the two are often linked and often distinct. I also how the competitive nature of science is highlighted between scientists and between nations.
An Entertainment for Angels is a bit of a cheat. It looks like a full account of electricity in the enlightenment age but if you look carefully, the text is a little larger and spaced out than usual and the pages are on thicker paper, almost as if the book is a shorter one trying to look like a larger one.
So, it’s not as deep an experience as could be hoped for but it is an enjoyable romp through several decades of electrical history, with a particular emphasis on the showmanship of early electr ...more
So, it’s not as deep an experience as could be hoped for but it is an enjoyable romp through several decades of electrical history, with a particular emphasis on the showmanship of early electr ...more
Jan 18, 2009
Sky
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
intelligent people who want pleasant leisure reading
+Patricia does a great job creating an insightful, entertaining and easy to read series of chapters. She effectively hones in on the various occurrences involving the scientific evolution of the discovery of electricity in the 18th century. I would happily recommend it.
-The book seems to end abruptly.
-The book seems to end abruptly.
Unlike most history of science books, this one is enough to make one laugh aloud. Science at one point was an entertainment opportunity, where people hired folks to perform experiments. My favorite was the electrical boys, with Mesmer ranking a close second.
Fun history of electricity.
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Patricia Fara is a historian of science at the University of Cambridge. She is a graduate of the University of Oxford and did her PhD at the University of London. She is a former Fellow of Darwin College and is currently a Fellow of Clare College where she is Senior Tutor and Tutor for graduate students. Fara is also a research associate and lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of
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Revolutions in Science
(10 books)
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