Science in the enlightenment : an encyclopedia

The first introductory A-Z resource on the dynamic achievements in science from the late 1600s to 1820, including the great minds and science's new cultural role.

Among the Enlightenment's many nifty discoveries and inventions were electricity and bifocals from Benjamin Franklin, and many chemical elements and the oil-burning lamp, courtesy of Humphry Davy.

It was an age of brilliant and eccentric personages, including Linnaeus, whose system of classification led him to identify the rhinoceros as a rodent, and Combustion expert Antoine Lavoisier, who lost his head during the Terror.

Though a time of amazing scientific change, science is an often-neglected facet of the Enlightenment.

Now, Science in the Enlightenment redresses the balance by covering all the major scientific developments in the period between Newton's discoveries in the late 1600s to the early 1800s of Faraday and Cuvier.

Over 200 A-Z entries explore a range of disciplines, including astronomy and medicine, scientists, such as Humphry Davy and Benjamin Franklin, associations, like the Royal Society and the American Philosophical Society, and instruments, such as the telescope and calorimeter. Emphasis is placed on the role of women and the globalization and popularization of science, and proper attention is given to the shifts in the world view brought about by Newtonian physics, Lavoisier's "chemical revolution", and universal systems of botanical and zoological classification.

Moreover, the social impact of science is explored, as well as the way in which the work of scientists influenced the thinking of philosophers such as Voltaire and Diderot, and the writers and artists of the Romantic Movement.