Science as Public Culture
Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820

Examines the development of chemistry in Britain 1760–1820 and relates it to civic life.

Jan Golinski (Author)

9780521659529, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 June 1999

358 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 2.7 cm, 0.54 kg

"...an important contribution to our understanding of how science functions as a part of society." Hugh L. Guilderson, Journal of Social History

Science as Public Culture joins a growing number of studies examining science as a practical activity in specific social settings. Jan Golinski considers the development of chemistry in Britain from 1760 to 1820, and relates it to the rise and subsequent eclipse of forms of civic life characteristic of the European Enlightenment. Within this framework the careers of prominent chemists like William Cullen, Joseph Black, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Beddoes, and Humphry Davy are interpreted in a different light. The major discoveries of the time, including nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and the electrical decomposition of water, are set against the background of alternative ways of constructing science as a public enterprise. The book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the relationship between scientific activity and processes of social and political change in a period of great transformations in chemistry and in the conditions of public life.

Acknowledgments
List of illustrations
1. Introduction: science as public culture
2. 'The study of a gentlemen': chemistry as a public science in the Scottish Enlightenment
3. Joseph Priestley and the English Enlightement
4. Airs and their uses
5. The coming of the chemical revolution
6. 'Dr Beddoes's Breath': nitrous oxide and the culmination of Enlightenment medical chemistry
7. Humphry Davy: the public face of genius
8. Analysis, education and the chemical community
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]