The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science

To read it is to read the opening of the human mind. A must have for any library.

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.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Delightful, Informative and Entertaining Reading

Only about half way through, I find "The Age of Wonder..." to be a very good book. Filled with facts and dates, it should be dry reading; instead, Holmes has written a wonderfully entertaining book about the Romantic Age of Discovery and those who made it so.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

One of my favorite books in the last 5 years!

This book is wonderful - the writing is clear and concise, the different stories unique and thrilling. Rarely have I enjoyed a book as much as this. Although it is primarily about science, the way the author weaves the romantic era writers into the story is one of the reasons this book is so very special.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that has even the slightest interest in science and the history of science.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Spectacular combination of science and poetry

This highly interesting and well written study of nineteenth century scientific geniuses and their personalities is a compelling book to read.
The author uses personal letters and diaries in combination with contemporary events to show the often real poetic nature of the scientists studied. The work is based on Joseph Bank and British, German, and French scientific discoveries to the exclusion of most others.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A Wonderful Book

Imagine a time when great poets wrote of great new findings of science and when scientists wrote poetry about how they poked and prodded the earth and the sky to reveal a great new world. Sound like some futuristic dream? It's not.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, The Age of Romanticism, there was no boundary between science and poetry. Poets felt that they, like scientists were serious observers and seekers of truth. The scientists, educated to understand poetry and to value the classics. agreed.

The book starts with Joseph Banks sailing with Captain Cook to Tahiti, where, in effect, he founded anthropology, then goes on to the amazing star gazing of William Herschel and his sister. Then comes the saga of Humphrey Davy. The book is 600 pages long, but kept me enthralled to the end.

Because there are so many names of people and places, with long spaces between their mention, it's best to read on an eBook, so when a name appears you can tap it, then select Find and a popup box appears, listing every sentence with that name. You quickly recall the person or place and go on your merry name

Fascinating, richly detailed, elegantly written

Anyone who has read the works of the English Romantics but who is not familiar with what the world of science was up to in the late 18th and early 19th centuries will be ebgrossed by Holmes' book. As it turns out, the C. P. Snow-ian Two Cultures had yet to make their distinction, one from the other: poets and "natural philosophers" wielded many of the same mental processes, and Holmes shows us, in richly drawn portraits of Banks, Harvey, Faraday, Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Erasmus Darwin,and the mighty Herschels, what an electric time the intellect was having across the span of a couple of generations.
This reader's only regret, and a sign of our present times: reading this as an ebook meant not being able to flip back and forth between notes and text, and chapters. So frustrating!!

Great book

Excellent book. What great insight into the body knowledge we call science. Individuals that give this a low rating are defiinitely limited in their cognitive ability. Reading this gives a wonderful window into the development of the discipline we call science.

A great read

This book is extremely engaging, especially so for someone who considers themselves to be science-iliterate as I do. It will make a great gift book for those with a budding interest in the history of science.

horrible

This book is possibly the most boring book I have ever read. I had to pay $40 for it for a class and it has been the worst $40 I have ever spent. I love to read, but I had to force myself to sit down and read this book so that I could complete the coursework required. If you are wanting to find a book to read for enjoyment, stay far away from this book.

It could have been an Interesting book but...

Boring. Barely keeps the reader's attention. Interesting discoveries and events are buried in minutia and the book is filled with names of people no one will ever remember. Snipets of book reviews on the book's jacket are either very misleading or taken completely out of context.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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