Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution

by Madison Smartt Bell

"Fresh…solid…full of suspense and intrigue." ― Publishers Weekly Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative reads like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry―a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin―also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.

Genres: Science, History, Biography, Chemistry, Nonfiction, History Of Science, France

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Madison Smartt Bell is a critically acclaimed writer of more than a dozen novels and story collections, as well as numerous essays and reviews for publications such as Harper’s and the New York Times Book Review. His books have been finalists for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, among other honors. Bell has also taught at distinguished creative writing programs including the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Johns Hopkins, and Goucher College. His work is notable for its sweeping historical and philosophical scope matched with a remarkable sensitivity to the individual voices of characters on the margins of society.

Reviews

[Jorge Zuluaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Que buen libro! De todo mi gusto.

Había deseado siempre acercarme a la vida se Antoine Lavoisier y hoy creo que no hay mejor manera que hacerlo con este libro corto, muy bien escrito y que se concentra en los años claves en los que Lavoisier revoluciono para siempre la historia de las ciencias.

El libro también funciona como una introducción sucinta –pero muy práctica– a la Revolución Francesa y a los convulsos años del terror que le siguieron y en el que (spoiler alert) terminó perdiendo la cabeza el protagonista de esta historia.

Aquí en GoodReads, “Lavoisier en el año uno de la revolución” tiene extrañamente una valoración mucho menor de la que merece. Creo que quienes le han dado calificaciones bajitas o bien no entendieron completamente la profundidad e importancia del libro o lo leyeron esperando otra cosa.

Aunque me gusto que el autor intenta hacer justicia a la gran Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, primero nombrándola repetidamente –aunque es difícil obviar su presencia– pero segundo, y más importante, resaltando sus atributos y logros como científica, como intelectual, como artista. Aun así, me parece que al autor le falto hacer una reflexión más profunda de la razón por la que seguimos pensando que Marie-Anne solo fue una amanuense, una ilustradora de la obra de Antoine. Incluso llega a dar eco a expresiones sexistas de algunos contemporáneos.

Para quienes, como yo, son amantes de la historia de la ciencia, este librito es definitivamente una lectura obligada.

[Noah Goats · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this biography focusing on Lavoisier’s work and his judicial murder during The Reign of Terror.

Sometime when I was a kid I was taught that the air is mostly made up of nitrogen and oxygen, and that oxygen is the ingredient in the air that facilitates fire and keeps us alive when we breath. I always took this tiny bit of information for granted, but reading this book gave me an appreciation for the struggle that went into figuring out what oxygen is. And that’s just one element. When you look at the periodic table you are looking at an awe inspiring document that required years and years of work from some of the smartest people to live over the past couple hundred years. Lavoisier not only “discovered” oxygen, but he did a lot of the work in laying the foundations of modern chemistry.

You have to sympathize with the Jacobins for wanting to cut the heads off their tax collectors (Lavoisier was part of the General Farm, old France’s version of the IRS) especially when you consider the monstrous injustice of the Ancien Régime’s tax policies, but just because you WANT to do something doesn’t mean that you should. Lavoisier deserved better.

This is a solidly written book about scientific triumph and political tragedy.

[Matthias · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fictionalist Smartt Bell has written not so much a biography (he is a sense a strict behaviorist, presenting little of the scientist's inner life) or intellectual history (though there are some aspects of that) as a morality tale in which Lavosier's eminent reasonableness, exactitude, and genius square off against the forces of madness - an hagiography of a martyr for good sense. Bell joins scientific and political evil in the villainous figure of Marat who, bitter that Lavosier has exposed his quackery, hounds him in the press and stirs up the formless "the mob" against him. If Lavosier himself has any crimes to speak of, it is only in being too charitable (in both senses) and too endearingly socially oblivious, unaware that his public generosity might be seen by the public as condescending in the same way that he remains unaware of his wife's (and otherwise also heroic sidekick's) infidelity.

Since I am no expert in the relevant subject matter, I can make no judgment on how factually accurate the book is in its particulars; since my political sympathies are other than Bell's, who approvingly cites Charles Murray on the sources of public evil, I might not unjustly be charged with bias of my own. And Bell is not an inadept storyteller. So you may well enjoy it where I did not.

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a concise biography of Antoine Lavoisier, the 18th-century French chemist who is credited with overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and creating a new chemical terminology that is still in use by chemists today. Bell traces both that scientific revolution and the French Revolution that followed it. Lavoisier had amassed a personal fortune by buying into the privatized French tax system, which eventually placed him on the wrong side of the Revolution and at the foot of the guillotine.

This is fairly short book is an accessible introduction to the Chemical Revolution, but maybe too brief as an introduction to the French Revolution. Bell is an excellent story teller, but the story really founders when he is talking about the scientific process. In addition, he takes some leaps with both the French Revolution and Lavoisier's own motivations. I found it valuable because is shows an important scientist and how his scientific contributions couldn't save him when the Revolution turned to terror. It's worth reading for people interested in the history of science, especially chemistry.

[Wendi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find the Lavoisiers fascinating and always wanted to know more about them. I don't regret reading this one, but I was hoping for more of a personal history.

Probably somebody better versed in the chemistry of all this would give it a higher rating. It isn't a biography, but an account of Lavoisier's scientific life and research, and to some degree of his politics. I realize one cannot tell his story without those things, but there seemed to be some plodding passages.

Lavoisier was a victim of the French Revolution, largely due to the jealousy motivated accusations of Marat, whose chicanery in science was exposed by Lavoisier. Marat resorted to being a radical revolutionary journalist, where his lack of ethics was an advantage.

I wish Bell was a more engaging story-teller, and I wish he didn't sometimes attempt to make up for the pedestrian writing with baseless speculation that doesn't even fit with the story or facts he has shared already.

Example (and spoiler): several years into their childless marriage, madame Lavoisier entered an extramarital affair. This was common, even expected at the time, but she was so discreet nobody ever suspected. There was not even a whisper of gossip. It was revealed many years later, and after her death, through the letters of the other man (the French chemist who does the Terrors and founded what became DuPont industries). Here when describing the famous portrait of the Lavoisiers by David, Bell wonders if we see a note of suspicion in Lavoisier's eyes. Of course we do not. There was a bit too much of this, 'he probably wished...' 'did they wonder....'. 'did he do this because...' kind of baseless guessing which is supposed to make a story more interesting. But the material is engaging enough if in the hands of a skillful storyteller.
It is a common modern failing, but that doesn't make me love it better.

Conclusion:. If you already are fascinated by Lavoisier, you will probably like this book well enough, as I did. If he is unknown to you, I am sorry. Go thump your science and history teachers for failing to teach you this, and look for a better book.

[rumbledethumps · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really disjointed and jarringly edited in some places. Went from "this happened, then this happened, then this happened" type of history, and would then make a sudden jump to another event without any real transition. Don't know if this was the writer or the editor, but it doesn't really matter. I need to look elsewhere for a biography of Lavoisier.

(Also, one of my pet peeves: there were sections/poems in the original French, with no translation into English.)

[Jorge Mola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me escuché el audiolibro narrado por Arthur Morey y fue muy desesperante. Su acento, su pronunciación, su estilo de lectura, todo fue muy molesto.
Adicionalmente, creo que al saber tan poco, previamente, sobre Lavoisier no pude empatizar ni sentirme interesado por lo que estaba escuchando en cuanto a su vida en general. Los apartados sobre sus descubrimientos y aportes a la química como ciencia si me interesaron mucho.
Creo que es un personaje indispensable para la historia de la cienciat. Me gustó mucho saber de él. Pero mentiría si dijera que esperaba poder terminar este audiolibro rápido.
Quizás pongo en evidencia mi falta de cultura en temas de química, pero no pude hacer clic con este lirbo.

[Shawn Dvorak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a full biography of the great French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, but instead focuses on his tragic and largely unintentional entanglement in the French Revolution. Like many scientific and cultural leaders on the day, Lavoisier's prominence in French society was his downfall, as the revolution devolved into mob rule. Smartt Bell does a nice job covering Lavoisier's scientific works in addition to detailing his political and commercial activities in the years prior to the revolution that spelled his doom

[Shelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for a biography of Lavoisier's life set against the backdrop of the French Revolution.
This was more of a documentation of the changes in Chemistry. The book Mystery of the Periodic Table handled that material better.

[David R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lavoisier is an interesting figure during both the scientific Enlightenment and the French Revolution, but Bell doesn't quite pull off a compelling story.

[Edney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosto muito de ler sobre a história da Ciência e biografias de cientistas, neste livro encontrei ambos. Lavoisier causou uma Revoluçao na Química de sua época.

[wes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Father of Chemistry, Discoverer of Oxygen......fuckin' bourgeoise.

Where's my guillotine..

[Alaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was more about the history of chemistry rather than Lavoisier or the French Revolution

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this quite a bit. There were a couple areas where I felt the narrative fell down. Bell wasn't able to tie together the irony of Lavoisier being guillotined by a movement (the French Revolution) that had some thin tie to rationality, etc. I think he reached to far. Was the Jacobin movement a direct result of the Enlightenment, meh, maybe, but the parts where Bell brings Charles Murray (of Bell Curve infamy) into the equation to point to Newton as being to blame for the revolution seems like a move that would bring into question the rest of Bell's inclusion or exclusions from this book. That alone threw me off during the final stretch of this otherwise good book.

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much technical data about this study versus a study done by some other guy, which led to this discovery, which led to this study ....
Not enough biography or an assessment of where Laviosier fits in to the whole study of chemistry overall. There was some interesting stuff in there, and it made a good book to follow 'The Lost King of France.' But not quite what I was hoping for.

[QOH · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book probably ought to be called "A brief survey of Lavoisier's life, the origins of modern chemistry, the French Revolution, and some interesting scientific rivalries," but that'd be a bit wordy. That just about covers it, though: it's a nice little survey and a quick read.

Some bad copy editing errors (e.g, "Versaille" instead of "Versailles"). Ouch.

[Jrobertus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lavoisier is one of the fathers of modern chemistry. He did pioneering work on the discovery of oxygen, knocked down the phlogistan theory, and modernized chemical nomenclature. He was wealthy and held key posts in the government before losing his head in the Terror. This should be an interesting story, but I found this book pretty dull. Too much trees and not enough forest.

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty disappointing. It's a quick read and a good introduction, but it mostly falls flat. I like the structure separating the scientific and political dimensions of the story, but that is the extent of my appreciation. I imagine that the point of the Great Discovery series is to enliven science writing. This reads like a book report.

[Topher · Rating 1 out of 5]

As much as I respect what he did, I couldn't help but wish he had been guillotined earlier in the year as I read this book. I finished it because it was a quick read at least.

[Claire S]

Hmmm.. should atleast skim this year while my daughter is taking Chemistry.

[Robert Giambo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy, readable history of the chemist of Lavoiser and his death during the French Revolution.