Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution (Great Discoveries) - Softcover

Bell, Madison Smartt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393328546 ISBN 13: 9780393328547

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006

Synopsis

"Fresh...solid...full of suspense and intrigue." ―Publishers Weekly

Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative reads like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry―a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin―also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.

About this title

About the Author:

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of seventeen novels, his most recent being Behind the Moon. He teaches at Goucher College and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

From Booklist:

The dramatic story of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-94) is a tale of revolution, the perfect subject for Bell, author of a trilogy of powerful novels about the Haitian revolution. Bell's classy and instructive contribution to the superb Great Discoveries series portrays a visionary who freed chemistry from its alchemical roots, helped establish the practice of systematic experimentation, and isolated and named oxygen. These -paradigm-altering feats were made possible by the fortune Lavoisier accrued as a tax collector and used to build uniquely precise laboratory equipment, but triumph was followed by catastrophe as his governmental appointment made him an enemy of the people once the French Revolution was under way. Writing with equal panache about scientific breakthroughs and social upheaval, Bell shares his fascination with how Lavoisier launched a "chemical revolution" as his enemy, the "firebrand journalist and provocateur" Jean-Paul Marat, plotted his downfall. Bell portrays Lavoisier and his gifted wife with admiration and empathy as he reflects on the tragic irony of how a brilliant scientist devoted to reason was executed in a maelstrom of rage and madness. Donna Seaman
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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0393328546
• ISBN 13: 9780393328547
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256