A history of science from the late 1700s to early 1800s, when most science was lumped together under philosophy (one of the discussions towards the end is what to call people who do this kind of research - the term scientist is proposed like artist although some objections arose that it was too much like atheist). Focuses primarily on Banks, Herschel and Davy with others along the way. Fascinating commentary on women in science, romantic poets (scientists were often also poets and vice versa), the effect of science on religion. Well worth reading.

Easily the best book about the second scientific revolution that I've ever read.

A lovely book. Well written and for the most part interesting.

As with any volume which seeks to cover so wide a province as 'science' as well as poetry and, to a lesser extent, wider social change, there are peaks and troughs when it comes to holding the reader's interest. The first chapter on Banks journey to Tahiti is wonderful, as is that framed around Mary Shelley's creation of Dr Frankenstein and his Monster. Likewise the chapters which narrate William Herschel's, and his often overlooked sister Caroline's, mapping of the cosmos are also of immense interest.

Of less interest are the two chapters given over to Humphrey Davy and his lamp. Davy is a prig and his wife, who is simultaneously tedious and preferable to her husband, plays too great a role in narrative. That said these passages are well written and entertaining and any lack of appreciation is probably down to my being unable to muster as great an enthusiasm for advances in chemistry as I can for physics and explorers being washed up on paradisiacal Pacific islands (let's charitably call this anthropology).

Fortunately I think you could just about get away with reading those chapters which interest you and skipping past the rest.

There are themes which run through the book, one of which is Joseph Banks, who, upon returning from his transoceanic jaunt founded the Royal Society. Indeed once Banks dies the book loses its way. The last chapter feels like a recitation of the exploits of sons of greater sires of whom only Faraday and Darwin, who has a walk on part, will be familiar to the layman. (I had heard of Babbage but for the life of me I couldn't tell you why).

Ultimately the story Holmes is telling is the death of the Renaissance Man. When Banks set out for the Pacific his qualifications for the task were keenness and an ability to pay his way. At his death a large part of the membership of the Royal Society were gentlemen amateurs of no training, many of whom never contributed a scientific paper. Twenty years later the idea of a fellow closer to Bertie Wooster than to Francis Crick being able to make a mark on the scientific landscape is laughable.

The age of the poet engage and musing over scientific advance was also coming to and end. Wordsworth, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley and Coleridge are not insignificant figures in this story. No scientist was present when the challenge was set to write a ghost story that night on the shores of Lake Geneva; a challenge which led to the creation of Frankenstein. Yet by 1834 Percy Shelley, Byron and Coleridge would be dead. They would not be replaced. After Davy no major scientist wrote and published books of verse. The age of the scientist had begun.

Its a picture of three scientists, thats it. I did not get convinced about the over arching argument.
There is a lot of scene building about each scientist and the book which is not going towards making the point.

Stylistically the book is written with a lot of flourish, the flourish distracts from the point. There is a lot of detail that is unneeded.

Skip reading this book, read the three scientists wikipedia pages instead.

Could also have been edited to an essay.

This is a fantastic book. Full of research and feeling. The only reason I didn’t give five stars is because I wondered if it could have been a bit shorter.

4.5/5

Of all the books I added back in the day in an attempt to straddle between my (then) career of science and my (continuing) devotion to literature, this has been the most successful of the bunch. It's not the easiest read by far when it comes to the fields of literature, history, and science, and I do have to wonder whether the reprieve that the small typeface granted to my wrist was worth the strain put on my eyes. However, what Holmes achieves is, for me, the optimal mix between fact, context, theory, and, something that so little tried and so often go amiss when it is indeed attempted, compassion. What I mean by that last is the kind of authorial viewpoint that is so often shunted towards feminism, post-colonialism, or any sort of field of thought that takes into account the power structures impacting all sorts of publication and goes out of its way to qualify, rehabilitate, and revive. Thus the especial points paid to the self-governance and cultural relativism of the indigenous peoples of Tahiti, the inclusion of women in the scientific field in all their strictured accomplishments, and all in all a focus on science that reflects on the uneven playing fields of times past and chooses as a result to lift up a holistic story that could have so easily been just another white boy wonderland. Of course, this made the ridiculously ableist and, quite frankly cuntish choice Holmes made in referring to Stephen Hawking as a "gargoyle" in a footnote a breadth from the end all the more grievously disappointing, as while there were certainly errors in editing that didn't quite rid of the text of repetitions or faulty organization, none of them straight up smacked of maliciousness.

Such is the reason for taking off a half star, but after being born aloft on a tale of glorious thought that really did prove worthy of being an "age of wonder," I did ultimately settle on leaving this five star rating as is. For while there is much one can say about how much kyriarchical British imperialism played a role in these seeming Renaissance polymaths who never needed to earn their bred or do their laundry, this text does capture that lovely interplay between the literary and the scientific that the most powerful of today's civilizations have suppressed due to how fiscally unrewarding such values are. The solution is not to bring back the genocidal think tanks of yore, but to ask our selves the question of, what do we wish to leave behind when the our sun finally dies and leaves our earth a pebble flung out spinning from the inexorable hand of time? Will it be trains of thought carefully sundered from one another and put to work for some arbitrarily designated and hoarded away profit? Or will it be incontrovertible proof that humanity was more than the sum of its intellectual parts?

2/5stars

read for class - boring, kinda sexist, not worth the trudging read

Interesting subject matter, but perhaps a bit more dense than my poor brain wants to deal with so soon after graduating. Recovery is a long, hard road. I'm sticking it out though, for the greater good.

Excellent book from a very British Perspective on the birth and glory years of the Royal Society, and the small number of men (and woman) who managed to capture the magic of science while finally grounding it in observational rigor.

The Age of Wonder sounded the final death knell to the mystical sciences that had proceeded from the earliest civilizations up to that point, punctuated intermittently by luminaries like Galileo. Science finally became "scientific", not a branch of natural philosophy, and the volume of observations, discoveries, and inventions is staggering.

An easy read, with great characters, it does bog in the end. Having met the primary characters, we simply watch them grow old and inflexible, and the thrill of their first discoveries does not evolve into a passion for the new generation. You can skip the last 100 pages with little loss.

A historical book about science, it was hard to get trough sometimes, it was beautifully researched, I liked it, but failed to ignite my own wonder. Highly educative, mildly entertaining, I can appreciate how well researched it was, but not the overhype that the New York Times made about this book.