A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders : Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America / James Delbourgo.
2006
E162
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Details
Title
A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders : Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America / James Delbourgo.
Author
Delbourgo, James, author.
ISBN
9780674271999
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2006]
Copyright
©2006
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (384 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/9780674271999 doi
Call Number
E162
Dewey Decimal Classification
303.48/3097309033
Summary
Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod is the founding fable of American science, but Franklin was only one of many early Americans fascinated by electricity. As a dramatically new physical experience, electricity amazed those who dared to tame the lightning and set it coursing through their own bodies. Thanks to its technological and medical utility, but also its surprising ability to defy rational experimental mastery, electricity was a powerful experience of enlightenment, at once social, intellectual, and spiritual. In this compelling book, James Delbourgo moves beyond Franklin to trace the path of electricity through early American culture, exploring how the relationship between human, natural, and divine powers was understood in the eighteenth century. By examining the lives and visions of natural philosophers, spectacular showmen, religious preachers, and medical therapists, he shows how electrical experiences of wonder, terror, and awe were connected to a broad array of cultural concerns that defined the American Enlightenment. The history of lightning rods, electrical demonstrations, electric eels, and medical electricity reveals how early American science, medicine, and technology were shaped by a culture of commercial performance, evangelical religion, and republican politics from mid-century to the early republic. The first book to situate early American experimental science in the context of a transatlantic public sphere, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders offers a captivating view of the origins of American science and the cultural meaning of the American Enlightenment. In a story of shocks and sparks from New England to the Caribbean, Delbourgo brilliantly illuminates a revolutionary New World of wonder.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)
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Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Seizing the Lightning
1 Atlantic Circuits
2 Lightning Rods and the Direction of Nature
3 Wonderful Recreations
4 Electrical Politics and Political Electricity
5 How to Handle an Electric Eel
6 Electrical Humanitarianism
7 Electricity as Common Sense
Conclusion: What Is American Enlightenment?
Notes
Illustration Sources
Acknowledgments
Index
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Seizing the Lightning
1 Atlantic Circuits
2 Lightning Rods and the Direction of Nature
3 Wonderful Recreations
4 Electrical Politics and Political Electricity
5 How to Handle an Electric Eel
6 Electrical Humanitarianism
7 Electricity as Common Sense
Conclusion: What Is American Enlightenment?
Notes
Illustration Sources
Acknowledgments
Index