An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment

by Patricia Fara

Overview

An Entertainment for Angels, rather than for Men, one observer called electricity, and it proved to be the most significant scientific discovery of the Enlightenment. Lecturers attracted huge audiences who marveled at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers, and electrified boys. Flamboyant experimenters made chains of soldiers leap into the air, while wealthy women titillated their admirers with a sensational electric kiss. Optimists predicted that this strange power of nature would cure illnesses, improve crop production, even bring the dead back to life. An Entertainment for Angels tells the story of how electricity charged the eighteenth-century imagination. With contemporary illustrations and engaging prose, Patricia Fara vividly portrays the struggles to understand the unusual and exciting effects that electrical experiments were producing.

One of the heroes of the story is Benjamin Franklin, renowned on both sides of the Atlantic as an expert on electricity, who introduced lightning rods to protect tall buildings, pioneered techniques to treat paralyzed patients, and developed one of the most successful explanations of this mysterious phenomenon. Others include Luigi Galvani, whose electrical research on frogs and animals makes for grisly reading but led to the discovery of direct current electricity; and Alessandro Volta, who—with Napoleon's enthusiastic support—became one of Europe's leading scientific practitioners and invented the world's first battery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231131483
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2003
Series:	Revolutions in Science
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	3.75(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patricia Fara is a Fellow of Clare College at the University of Cambridge. Her most recent book is Newton: The Making of Genius.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction
Illuminations: The Light of Reason
Interpretations
Electricity and Enlightenment
Shocking Inventions: Instruments
Robert Boyle and the Air-pump
Francis Hauksbee and the Electrical Machine
Stephen Gray and the Charity Boy
Pieter van Musschenbroek and the Leyden Jar
Lightning Cures: Applications
Benjamin Franklin
Knobs or Points?
The Business of Medicine
Therapeutic Shocks
Sparks of Imagination: Theories
Problems
Fluids and Atmospheres
Theological Aethers
Measurement and Mathematics
The Flow of Life: Current Electricity
Henry Cavendish and the Torpedo
Luigi Galvani and his Frogs
Alessandro Volta and his Pile
Resuscitation
Further Reading
Notes

Editorial Reviews

Myths of the modern era rarely withstand inspection, and Benjamin Franklin's supposed discovery of electricity via the famed kite experiment is no exception... Fara's concise history reveals how complicated and groping scientific progress has been.

Booklist

History of science writer Fara tells the story of how new discoveries in electricity helped spark the imagination of Enlightenment inventors.... Well illustrated; numerous references. Recommended [for] general readers.

Choice

Fara's writing talents shine in her original and sparkling approach to eighteenth century electricity.

ISIS - Marjorie C. Malley

Fara entertainingly describes how experimenters caught the public imagination.... Combines telling anecdote with wise commentary.

Times Higher Education Supplement

Neat and stylish.

The Guardian

Myths of the modern era rarely withstand inspection, and Benjamin Franklin's supposed discovery of electricity via the famed kite experiment is no exception... Fara's concise history reveals how complicated and groping scientific progress has been.

Booklist

Fara entertainingly describes how experimenters caught the public imagination.... Combines telling anecdote with wise commentary.

Time Magazines Higher Education Supplement

Fara's writing talents shine in her original and sparkling approach to eighteenth century electricity.

— Marjorie C. Malley

ISIS