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

List Price: £25.00

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Used Price: £16.13
Collectible Price: £34.99
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780007149520
ISBN: 0007149522
Label: HarperPress
Manufacturer: HarperPress
Number Of Pages: 380
Publication Date: October 01, 2008
Publisher: HarperPress
Studio: HarperPress
Sales Rank: 259

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A truly compelling history of science in the Enlightenment
I'm not a scientist. I have only a passing interest in the history of science. However, I'm c250 pages in and I am gripped. Holmes has the narrative skill of a great novelist, conjuring worlds and characters out of what could have so easily have been dry facts. Starting with Joseph Banks' experiences in Tahiti (he travelled as part of Cook's expedition), Holmes takes the reader into the mindset of the European encountering new, unknown worlds. In particular - in this case - their complex responses to the Tahitians' more open attitudes towards sex and sexuality. And that is one of the greatest strengths of the book. Whether it's dealing with Herschel and the discovery or Uranus or Davy and his lamp, The Age of Wonder is as much about the late ... Read More:

Rating:

- A fascinating read
Given this book as a birthday present I started to read it as I had half an hour to kill and was immediately gripped. This is a wonderfully written and thoroughly interesting collection of stories, anecdotes and brief biographies woven together with skill and care. I have learned a lot whilst reading this book and enjoyed myself in the process, I heartily recommend it.

Rating:

- Comments by Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'.
This reviewer found this work to be an altogether fascinating book, scanning and encompassing a myriad of topics and even ideas "heterogeneously yoked by violence together", cemented through the sheer quality and vivacity of the author's writing merits.

Holmes has been described as 'a literary traveller'. Best known for a number of important works on the topic of War, Wellington et al, The Age of Wonder is a different case altogether. To risk being oversimplistic, and depending on one's own standpoint, it deals with the the embracing of scientific principles by the Romantics or, for some, nearer to Johnson's definition, the collision of the two value systems and a resultant synthesis of sorts.

Like the Romantic poets ... Read More:

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