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A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders : Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America / James Delbourgo.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2006]Copyright date: 2006Description: 1 online resource (384 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674271999
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 303.48/3097309033
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
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
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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674271999

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

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)