Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have found the history of British science to be one of the best ways to study the intellectual history of the 19th century. This book, which focuses upon the period between Captain Cook's first voyage in 1768 and Darwin's Beagle journey in 1831,takes the story of British science back a bit earlier, and explains some of the important precursor developments to the later dazzling Victorian period. If that was all it did, that would be plenty for the author has written a fine scientific history. But the book is far richer than even this accomplishment for it seeks to establish ties between science and the British Romantics, surprisingly demonstrating that not only did Romantic poets and painters not run away from science, some of them embraced and even engaged in it. Along the way, the profession of scientific researcher emerged as well as some of our basic ideas about scientific progress.

The narrative is built around a series of significant individuals, for whom the author creates scientific biographies. The first is Joseph Banks (1743-1820) who became the godfather of British science during this period from his post as President of the Royal Society. One of the major sciences that underwent development during this period was astronomy; several chapters are devoted to the pathbreaking work of William Herschel (who discovered Uranus) and his sister Carolyn who pioneered new developments and telescopic designs. In the process their work turned the attention of artists to the skies and the evolutin of universe. A chapter catches the excitement of early balloonists and the Romantic wake they left behind as they explored the skies. Exploration was anordsother feature of the period, and was encouraged by Banks who had been on Cook's first voyage to the South Pacific. Mungo Park (1771-1806) anchors a chapter on this, and his tragic disappearance (as well as many other African explorers) reminds us how overwhelming a challenge African exploration presented during this period. Chemistry was another of the major sciences that took off during this period, as demonstrated in the fascinating activities of Humphry Davy (1778-1829), who pioneered in studying gases, electro-chemical analysis, agricultural chemistry, and became a great popularizer of scientific developments. The author frequently links up scientific developments with poetry, with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and Tennyson all making appearances, some supportive others not, and with painters whose portrayals of balloons and scientific breakthroughs conveyed the excitement of the period. Davy himself wrote poetry which he recorded in his lab books along with experimental data.

Many of these scientific developments seemed to challenge traditional religious views and raised new philosophical issues. I found the discussion of "Dr Frankenstein and the Soul" highly interesting. The "Vitalism debate" of 1816-22 centered on the issue of whether there was a life force at work, despite scientific scepticism. Naturphilosohie, a form of scientific mysticism, arose to challenge materialistic interpretations of life. The author does a fine job in explaining how Mary Shelley's novel pictured scientists as being potentially dangerous and raised fundamental issues about the human soul. By the 1830's the British Association for the Advancement of Science is launched and we are on the cusp of the "golden age of Victorian science."

The author seems equally at home in science or poetry and art, having written extensively on Coleridge. The book includes a large number of breathtaking color plates which help the reader grasp what the narrative is discussing. The research is impeccable, with 27 pages of notes, a 12-page cast list of mini-biographies of anyone mentioned in the text, and an 11-page bibliography broken down by topic. Poetry is not my thing. Nonetheless, i found this book to be incredibly rich in ideas and perceptive analysis. A rare bird to be sure.

This is a marvelous book, depicting an era where scientific work was far different than it is now. One did not need years of training or huge government investment to make a major discovery back then, but rather hard work and ingenuity. As an example, an amateur like William Hershel, a composer and instrument-maker could become the greatest astronomer of his generation. What's more, the discoveries were intelligible to all educated men of the time and could affect the arts, as we see from scientific comments of writers such as Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley. Who would ever have known that the author of the RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER also coined the word "psychosomatic" and may have coined the word "scientist"? The writer of this book did.

I loved this book. For me it captured some sense of the transition from "natural philosophy" (thinking about and speculating about nature) to science (making careful observations and weaving those observations into theories of nature). I loved how Richard Holmes brought some of the people involved in this transition to life. The role of Joseph Banks, the relationship between William and Caroline and John Herschel and many, many more delightful insights into the people who influenced the transition to scientific thought.

Here's a quote from John Herschel in the book that to me captures some of the sense of the Age of Wonder:

"To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling...A mind that has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man finding:

Tongues in trees - books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones - and good in everything

Where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders."

I know we all have our particular tastes, but this was for me the best book I've read - on any topic.

I always feel bad when I disagree with those glowing reviews. But in this case, it's warranted.

This is a fine book, well worth reading. It just isn't that groundbreaking, or novel. It does not come close to paying off the elegant title.

Holmes may be an expert on Romantic era poetry, and he has obviously learned a lot about the lives of Banks, Faraday, et al. But he falls short, far short of linking the philosophy of the Romantics to the science of the day. There is no consideration of the "beauty and terror of science." A few pages are given over to Mary W. Shelley's creation of Frankenstein's monster, but no connection is forged between the piece of fiction and the terror of science.

All that being said, I am glad I read it, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading superficial biographies of great minds.

Brilliant job--a great topic, excellent writing, everything you want in a book. Don't be set off by the length. It is an easy read.

I am fascinated by the history of science and technology. This book is a must for those interested in a broad overview of the time period covered. Davy, those wonderful and crazy fellows with air balloons, the voyages to the Pacific to explore....and so on. A real delight is how the author eemplifies what CP Snow alluded to as two cultures---science and the humanities. In this book they find one another. There's even some hints of sex...scientists and sex--what a tease!

Just as important as its relevancy is the writing. This is a gifted author. His writing flows effortless, it is punctuated with pithy observations (e.g., the author must have had a great time visiting the homes and neighborhoods of many of the main characters--how poignant that most are still there but not even celebrated for what happened there).

The book made me wish that we might still have individual greatness in the sciences, that we had something akin to a singular scientific academy like the one that existed in those days. Perhaps a hundred years from now humans will be able to recognize, like this author, the important social, literary, and scientific currents that flow through today. I hope so.

What's Romantic science? Fear not, there's no discussion of the particularity, it's just science.
Richard Holmes is a celebrated biographer of the romantic poets. Here he turns his attention to the scientific geniuses of the age. Beautifully written as ever, it is only when you finish the book that you'll start to have doubts.
Was Astronomer Royal Maskelyne as fluffy a bunny as here he appears? (in Dava Sobel's viewLongitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time he was the very picture of the selfish machiavellian bureaucrat)
Why is there a long chapter on (mostly French) ballooning which even Holmes (nice pun) describes as "something of a scientific cul-de-sac"?
Why is Shelley so prominent? He never met any of the principals of this book (Banks, Herschel, Davy).
Is the selection of scientific geniuses a bit skewed? Nothing about medicine, little about geology, metallurgy, biology - and as for practical progress based on science like manufacturing and engineering, forget about it.
Do Davy's poems merit pages and pages? Might we not appreciate some laboratory notes?
The illustrations are nice, but why so many poets, especially the standard views of them?
This book on reflection seems to be a bit of a grab bag of discards from the author's researches in the romantic age. To be fair, Holmes has mastered the science as it appeared then. He could probably even explain the nuances of the phlogiston / oxygen debate. But he has not written a comprehensive history of Romantic science. He has written well, though. You'll enjoy this book.

Like the polymath intellectuals of the times, The Age of Wonder reaches across multiple themes and disciplines, combining biography with the history of science, literature and even social change. Holmes' biographical accounts carry the reader through the book, each figure serving as a new torchbearer in the progression of science in the age--and each figure also bringing new questions as that same science slowly reveals a universe far vaster and stranger than the easily defined world of the old philosophy. The Age of Wonder is a book about discovery, both exciting and frightening--discovery that removes surety as much as it offers hope. To read it is to read the opening of the human mind, and to be called again to look at the world with wonder.

I am Scott C. Waring, author of novels George's Pond & West's Time Machine.
West's Time Machine
George's Pond: Created in the Beloved Tradition of Charlotte's Web

The Romantic era is indeed an age of wonder, when science was fun and close to punk rock. Holmes' 500 page account brings all these stories of discovery to life with sweet details. It does not take a historian or a scholar of Romanticism to see the beauty of this book and the message it conveys. Through a series of connected biographical accounts, or what the author calls "a relay race of scientific stories," readers are taken on a kaleidoscope tour of one breakthrough after another. There are more to the era than such household names as Newton and Descartes.

I won't repeat what the other commenters have noted here, but will add that if you don't approach this book with false expectations, then it can be read with good results. Aside from a few editorial errors (typos with dates, etc.), it is very well written and I found it difficult to put down after becoming immersed in the story. For a topic with the potential for being dry and technical, it's remarkable how the author has been able to masterfully weave such an engrossing narrative. For this I think it has earned its somewhat deceptive and overly inflated title.

In order to achieve a readable narrative, there are long sections of the book devoted to general biographical material. If the reader relaxes his/her expectations, this material is fun and interesting to read. The most important theme of the book--how Romantic values influenced the course of scientific endeavor between 1770 and 1830--is woven in and around the descriptive narrative. This could have been developed more fully, but considering that science is not the author's background I think he did an admirable job of bringing together such disparate themes as he did. When one considers how he handles Herschel's contributions to astronomy within the context of Romantic values, it's really quite remarkable what he has been able to accomplish.

This being said, one should not read this as a substantial text in the history of science without understanding its context or in reading other texts that are more formally histories of science. As a specialist in the history of science, I found the author skirted around important scientific topics, and gave short-shrift--to the point of distortion--of other issues or problems in the history of ethnography, astronomy, and other topics handled here. This gave me pause on occasion, but not enough for me to question the integrity of the book itself.

All in all a highly recommended and fascinating treatment of the material.

This book was not quite what I expected but I misunderstood the title when I bought it. I was expecting a history of scientific discovery of the late 1700s and early 1800s and how society reacted to these discoveries. I found the initial chapters on Joseph Banks, William Herschel, Caroline Herschel, and others to be fascinating. Richard Holmes explained the advances made by these scientists in a very clear and compelling manner. It is these chapters that resulted in the rating that I gave this book. However, when Holmes reached the discussion of Humphry Davy the story broke down for me. Holmes used more direct quotes here than elsewhere in the book and began a more earnest discussion of how the Romantic poets reacted to science, but not how the general population reacted. There was so much discussion of the poets that any thread of scientific discovery disappeared. I stayed with the book until the chapter on soul when I gave up. There just was not enough on science. It is possible that later chapters returned to a more science-oriented theme and perhaps one day I will revisit the book. However, I have read books that have veered away from where I thought that they were going, but nonetheless found them interesting, but not so this book. Perhaps it is my ignorance about the Romantic Age and its poets which I gladly confess, but I cannot recommend this book to anyone who is not well-versed in the poetry of this age.