Lavoisier In The Year One: The Birth Of A New Science In An Age Of Revolution (Great Discoveries) [Hardcover]

Madison Smartt Bell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Great Discoveries | Publication Date: June 13, 2005

ANTOINE LAVOISIER--who lived at the zenith of the Enlightenment and died at the hands of the Revolution--was himself a revolutionary. Closely followed by the burgeoning international scientific community, he competed with the best minds of his time of be the first to explain how chemical processes really work. Aided by a large fortune and his accomplished wife, he employed the most ingenious and expensive technology of his time in a series of innovative experiments that forever buried medieval alchemy and established a chemical language still in use today. Yet his personal triumph was short-lived, and the glory his achievement brought France could not protect him from the ravages of the Terror. Madison Smartt Bell, building on his celebrated trilogy about the eighteenth-century Haitian uprisings, dramatically re-creates this turbulent era of reason and revolution, and the works of a man who so thoroughly exemplified its spirit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Bell (The Stone That the Builder Refused, etc.) knows a good story when he sees it: the life of French scientist Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) is full of suspense and intrigue set against a backdrop of war and revolution. Lavoisier, best known for having "discovered" oxygen, was arguably one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the Enlightenment, helping to lay the foundation for our modern understanding of chemistry. He was also a wise investor, amassing a substantial personal fortune by buying into the privatized French tax system—which eventually placed him on the wrong side of the French Revolution and at the foot of the guillotine. This account works best as the story of a well-intentioned and honorable man caught up in events beyond the comprehension of his formidable intellect, and Bell uses his novelistic skills in the service of narrative and character to keep Lavoisier's story fresh. When Bell detours into the history of chemistry, the writing drags. This solid if uneven book will appeal most to readers interested in the vibrant life and tragic death of a key figure in the history of science. 8 illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The dramatic story of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-94) is a tale of revolution, the perfect subject for Bell, author of a trilogy of powerful novels about the Haitian revolution. Bell's classy and instructive contribution to the superb Great Discoveries series portrays a visionary who freed chemistry from its alchemical roots, helped establish the practice of systematic experimentation, and isolated and named oxygen. These -paradigm-altering feats were made possible by the fortune Lavoisier accrued as a tax collector and used to build uniquely precise laboratory equipment, but triumph was followed by catastrophe as his governmental appointment made him an enemy of the people once the French Revolution was under way. Writing with equal panache about scientific breakthroughs and social upheaval, Bell shares his fascination with how Lavoisier launched a "chemical revolution" as his enemy, the "firebrand journalist and provocateur" Jean-Paul Marat, plotted his downfall. Bell portrays Lavoisier and his gifted wife with admiration and empathy as he reflects on the tragic irony of how a brilliant scientist devoted to reason was executed in a maelstrom of rage and madness. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 214 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (June 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393051552
• ISBN-13: 978-0393051551
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When revolutions collide, July 31, 2005

By 

Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lavoisier In The Year One: The Birth Of A New Science In An Age Of Revolution (Great Discoveries) (Hardcover)

3 ½ stars.

The Englishman Edmund Burke, one of the most outspoken critics of the French Revolution, once said that in revolutionary France "learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude." The death by guillotine of Antoine Lavoisier, one of the founders of modern chemistry, during the revolution's Reign of Terror speaks to Burke's pessimistic prophecy. Lavoisier and his fate is the subject of Madison Smart Bell's compact (186 pages) but informed, "Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution." Despite some flaws I think the book is worth reading.

The first three quarters of the book is a straight forward, condensed biography of Lavoisier. Although brought up in a comfortable environment Lavoisier managed to accumulate great wealth in a very short period of time. Although a student of law, Lavoisier developed a great interest in science and thereafter dedicated his life to his business activities and to expanding his knowledge of the physical world. He quickly focused his greatest efforts and achieved astonishing results in the realm of what we now know as chemistry. In particular, after repeated experiments with equipment he largely designed and built, Lavoisier identified the element of oxygen, which he identified as le principe oxygine. Perhaps more importantly he developed methods for scientific investigation and a particular, methodological language for describing the results of the elements he identified. This language, or nomenclature, was set out in the first periodic table, or Table of Chemical Nomenclature as it was then known.

The revolutionary nature of Lavoisier's work is set out well by Bell. Bell discusses alchemy, the voodoo like practice that tried to convert base elements to gold, as a forerunner of chemistry. By the 18th century alchemy was beginning to evolve. It lost some of its mystical nature. Some historians of science refer to the period leading up to Lavoisier as "chymistry". Lavoisier was the bridge that turned chymistry into chemistry. Bell spends a good deal of time, to good effect, describing how Lavoisier applied to the more rigorous principles of mathematics to his own efforts.

Bell also does a good job in setting out the importance of Lavoisier's focus on addressing narrow questions rather than seeking to find a universal solution for the world and its constituent parts. Bell describes Isaac Newton and Newton's view that the laws of Newtonian physics were originally god-given. Newton saw himself as a discoverer of divine properties installed by god in the natural world. This was dramatically different from Lavoisier's approach and Bell concludes thusly: "Lavoisier, though impressed by Newton and influenced by the logical rigor of Newtonian physics, would begin to deconstruct this holistic vision of the universe by concentrating much more narrowly on its component parts."

The remainder of the book describes Lavoisier's ultimately unsuccessful efforts to navigate safely through the dangerous political currents that made up the French Revolution. Lavoisier welcomed the Revolution but who hoped that it would end in a political system similar to that established by the young United States. But his wealth and standing as an intellectual ultimately brought him down once the Reign of Terror took hold. The great irony of Lavoisier's life and death may be seen in the symbolism of his death. Here was someone whose experiments showed that flames burned brighter when fed oxygen and who died when the oxygen feeding the French Revolution created flames of terror that consumed all those who got in its way.

Unfortunately, the two sections of the book do not seem to mesh as well as they could have. This latter section seems a bit too separate and distinct from the scientific and biographic discussion that preceded it. In other words, I found the bright line between the two sections a bit jarring. For me, the sections on Lavoisier's scientific life and his creation of a language that facilitated scientific advancement were the highlights. The discussion on the Reign of Terror and Lavoisier's demise seemed a bit rushed and disjointed. Hence, I would actually give this book 3 and ½ stars rather than four if the rating system permitted it. Nevertheless, I found the book enlightening and entertaining.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Chemical Revolution, August 24, 2005

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lavoisier In The Year One: The Birth Of A New Science In An Age Of Revolution (Great Discoveries) (Hardcover)

There was the French Revolution in the eighteenth century, but there was an even greater and more far-reaching revolution in France at the time. It was a chemical revolution, an abandonment of ancient ideas about the material around and in us, and an adoption of the products of experiment and rationality. The greatest of the revolutionaries in chemistry was Antoine Lavoisier, whose story has been told many times before. It is brightly summarized within W. W. Norton's valuable "Great Discoveries" series by Madison Smartt Bell in _Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution_ (Atlas Books). Bell is usually a novelist, not a biographer, and he knows how to tell a good story. The title is an exaggeration, as it only concentrates on events around "Year One" of the French Revolutionary Calendar which started at the establishment of the French Republic in 1793. The important accomplishments of Lavoisier's life, and the stupid blood festival that put an end to it, are thus highlighted in a useful and accessible biography.

Lavoisier was born into a prosperous bourgeois family in 1743, and gained his fortune as a private investor working as a tax collector for the government. His wealth enabled him to practice his passion, science. Perhaps more than anyone else, Lavoisier pulled scientific chemistry out of the ancient and respected practice of alchemy. He also dethroned the well-accepted theory that burning represented the release of a peculiar element called phlogiston. He also quite spectacularly decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen, and recomposed it again from the two gases. The importance of such a literally elemental deconstruction cannot be overstated; water was everywhere, and had been thought of since Aristotle as one of the four basic elements. But deposing the old chemistry did not come only scientifically. It was a political and rhetorical effort. Scientists before Lavoisier had isolated "eminently breathable air," but Lavoisier called it oxygen and further built a new system of chemical nomenclature. For instance, calcium nitrate by its very name reveals that it has more oxygen in it than calcium nitrite. It is the same nomenclature that we use today. Lavoisier's new chemistry was intensely resisted, with phlogiston fans finding new and convoluted ways that their element accomplished everything. His new nomenclature, however, was useful and was an irresistible aid to teaching. Once chemists came to Lavoisier's terms, they had to start accepting his theories.

Some of Lavoisier's previous scientific work endangered him after the Revolution. The Jacobin firebrand Jean-Paul Marat denounced him in 1791 because twelve years before, Lavoisier had discredited Marat as having a charlatan's views of science. Lavoisier had served on the famous committee (alongside his friend Benjamin Franklin) that showed that Mesmerism was bunk, although it had been supported by Marat and by another future member of the Jacobin government Jacques-Pierre Brissot. Brissot went on to champion the abolishment of the national academies of the arts and sciences, insisting that they were elitist and tyrannical. Lavoisier did have a magnificent scientific record, but in gaining it he had made enemies. It was his involvement in the tax system that was his undoing, even though he had been scrupulously fair and honest in his public responsibilities. It may be apocryphal that at his kangaroo court someone said, "The Revolution has no need for scientists," but the outcome once he had been arrested was never in doubt. He was guillotined along with 27 other tax assessors in 1794, facing death with good cheer; he wrote, "The events in which I find myself enveloped will probably spare me the inconveniences of old age." Bell's book rightly concentrates on the scientific accomplishments and explains the way that many of Lavoisier's experiments were performed. It serves well as a reminder of how little we knew of our material world just a couple of centuries ago. It must make us appreciate anew the famous remark of one of Lavoisier's colleagues: "It took them no more than a moment to make that head fall and a hundred years may not be enough to produce another one like it."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Revolutionizing Chemistry In a Time of Revolution, August 30, 2007

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lavoisier In The Year One: The Birth Of A New Science In An Age Of Revolution (Great Discoveries) (Hardcover)

Antoine Lavoisier, a meticulous laboratory chemist, was one of three European chemists credited with the discovry of oxygen; however, he is remembered even more for developing an effective language for chemistry itself. Unfortunately, Lavoisier is also known for his tragic death by guillotine.

Many accounts of the early years of chemistry are at best confusing, some even bewildering, largely because alchemy's secrets (in many cases poorly understood to begin with) were disguised and obfuscated by codes, ciphers, arcane terms, and even literary metaphors. Despite this inherent difficulty, Madison Smartt Bell's examination of the formative years of modern chemistry is surprisingly clear and lucid. Lavoisier in Year One will appeal to a wide audience.

The young Lavoisier learned in university classes that the presence of phlogiston (the 'matter of fire') in a substance was responsible for the combustibility of that substance. Charcoal, wood, and sulfur burned readily because they contained significant phlogiston.

The process of smelting ores was described as the transfer of phlogiston from charcoal to the ore; the ores absorbed the phlogiston, thereby becoming refined metals. In calcinations (now call oxidation) metals were heated and transformed back into ores, thereby releasing their phlogiston.

Obviously, one serious drawback to this widely accepted explanation was that phlogiston had never been observed in the laboratory.

For years Lavoisier directed his efforts toward understanding the essence of fire and the nature of air. He compiled a detailed account of all earlier research on on free air and 'fixed air' (carbon dioxide) by French, English, German, and other European scientists. He carefully repeated earlier experiments, using state of the art scientific instrumentation, some that he devised himself.

There is disagreement on whether the discovery of oxygen should be attributed to France (Lavoisier's eminently breathable air), England (Joseph Priestly's dephlogisticated air), or Sweden (Carl Wilhelm Scheele's fire air). The basic problem is that Lavoisier, Priestly, and Scheele were slow to understand exactly what they had discovered.

Finally, in a paper to the French Academy of Sciences in 1777, Lavoisier stated: "I shall henceforward designate dephlogisticated air or eminently breathable air ...by that of le principe oxygine." With this new term 'oxygen', Lavoisier clearly won the nomenclature battle.

But even more importantly, in his later years Lavoisier brought forth an entirely new language for naming substances. This new lexicon would no longer employ arbitrary names, but use terms which expressed chemical relationships.

For example, from the name alone a student of chemistry can immediately recognize that calcium nitrate is a product that has a higher oxygen content than calcium nitrite. This language for naming substances encapsulated the results of laboratory measurements. Lavoisier indeed changed the face of chemistry.

Bell's historical account of Lavoisier is equally a story of a revolution gone awry, a tale of terror and senseless executions.

The French Revolution envisioned fundamental changes to all aspects of society. Some innovations, such as the metric system survived, while others have been forgotten.

A new calendar divided each month into ten three-day cycles, and each day into ten periods of 100 minutes. Each minute consisted of 100 seconds. The French Revolutionary calendar began year one on September 22, 1792, the day on which the French Republic was formally established. Lavoisier's encounter with the French Revolution's dread Committee of Public Safety was in Year One.

Lavoisier in the Year One is a good addition to the Great Discoveries Series. It is among my favorites.

I also recommend Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (by Rebecca Goldstein), and Einstein's Cosmos: How Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (by Michio Kaku), and Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe (by George Johnson).