The Invention of Air: An experiment, a journey, a new country and the amazing force of scientific discovery - Softcover

Steven Johnson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141044357 ISBN 13: 9780141044354

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), remembered in Britain for radical politics and theology as well as his discovery of oxygen, spent his last decade in the United States, where his camaraderie with Franklin and Jefferson helped build the new country and establish transatlantic cooperation. In this 'biography of one man's ideas' Johnson reflects on a thinker who epitomized the creative power that comes from crossing intellectual boundaries.

About this title

Review:

A shot of the purest oxygen (Simon Winchester)

It fizzes (John Gapper FT)

Entertaining ... clear-sighted and intelligent (The New Yorker)

[Johnson is] an infectiously exciting writer ... The Invention of Air is delightful to read (Salon)

Packed with excellent stuff (Russell Davies)

Johnson paints Priestley not as a man of the past but precisely the sort of figure the world needs more than ever (New York Post)

About the Author:

Steven Johnson is the author of the acclaimed books Everything Bad is Good for You (described as a 'must read' by Mark Thompson, head of the BBC), The Ghost Map, Mind Wide Open, Emergence and Interface Culture. His writing appeared in the Guardian, the New Yorker, Nation and Harper's, as well as the op-ed pages of The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He is also the co-creator of several influential web sites: FEED, Plastic, and Outside.in. He has degrees in Semiotics and English Literature from Brown and Columbia Universities. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three sons.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141044357
• ISBN 13: 9780141044354
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276