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A World On Fire: A Heretic, An Aristocrat and the Race to Discover Oxygen
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A World On Fire: A Heretic, An Aristocrat and the Race to Discover Oxygen Hardcover - 2005

by Jackson, Joe

  • Used
  • near fine
  • Hardcover
  • first

In the final decades of the 1700s, as the threat of revolution began to dim the radiance of the Enlightenment, two brilliant scientists simultaneously achieved a breakthrough that would alter the course of human thought and history: they discovered oxygen. The humble English dissenter Joseph Priestley and the French aristocrat Antoine Lavoisier were unlikely competitors, but their fierce rivalry to solve the 'riddle of air' became a kind of eighteenth-century space race, a contest made all the more exciting by the tumult of their time.

In A World on Fire, acclaimed writer Joe Jackson brings to life the seismic intellectual and political shifts that ushered in modern science. Set against the conflagrations of the American Revolution, the storming of the Bastille, and the Reign of Terror, Jackson's narrative deftly weaves together biography and history, scientific passion and political will. With their discoveries inside the laboratory paving the way for the identification of the elements as well as modern atomic physics and the tragedy of their downfalls, Priestley and Lavoisier epitomize the plight of the scientist in the modern age. With A World on Fire, Jackson has transformed their story into a spellbinding work of narrative nonfiction.

Description

New York, New York, U. S. A.: Viking Penguin, 2005. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. Near Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First Edition (Number Line With The One Present). Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The Book Is Bound Within Boards With Black Paper Over One Quarter Burgundy. Gilt Lettering And Rule On The Front And Spine. Rem. Mk. On The Lower Page Edges And A Hint Of Tanning To The Page Edges.
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Details

  • Title A World On Fire: A Heretic, An Aristocrat and the Race to Discover Oxygen
  • Author Jackson, Joe
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition 1st Edition 1st Printing
  • Condition Used - Near Fine
  • Pages 414
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Viking Penguin, New York, New York, U. S. A.
  • Date 2005
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 042410
  • ISBN 9780670034345 / 0670034347
  • Weight 1.41 lbs (0.64 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.16 x 6.4 x 1.43 in (23.27 x 16.26 x 3.63 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2004065103
  • Dewey Decimal Code 546.721

Summary

Like Charles Seife's Zero and Dava Sobel's Longitude, this passionate intellectual history is the story of the intersection of science and the human, in this case the rivals who discovered oxygen in the late 1700s. That breakthrough changed the world as radically as those of Newton and Darwin but was at first eclipsed by revolution and reaction. In chronicling the triumph and ruin of the English freethinker Joseph Priestley and the French nobleman Antoine Lavoisier-the former exiled, the latter executed on the guillotine-A World on Fire illustrates the perilous place of science in an age of unreason.

First line

A GOOD MEAL CHANGES EVERYTHING.

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