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The age of wonder how the romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science

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The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired b...

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Main Author: Holmes, Richard, 1945-
Format: Downloads eBook Books eBook
Language:English
Published: 2009.
Subjects:
Discoveries in science > History.
Electronic books.
Online Access:Go to Downloadable eBook Here.
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Summary:The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery--astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical--swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science--an era whose consequences are with us still. BONUS MATERIAL: This ebook edition includes an excerpt from Richard Holmes's Falling Upwards.
Physical Description:1 online resource
Format:Requires OverDrive Read (file size: N/A KB) or Adobe Digital Editions (file size: 9627 KB) or Kobo app or compatible Kobo device (file size: N/A KB) or Amazon Kindle (file size: N/A KB).
ISBN:9780307378323
Author Notes:Richard Holmes is the author of Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer; Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage; Shelley: The Pursuit; Coleridge: Early Visions, 1772-1804; and Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834, which was a 1999 New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice and a National Book Critics Circle Awards finalist. He lives in England.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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