Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820Science as Public Culture joins a growing number of recent studies examining science as a practical activity in specific social settings. Professor Golinski considers the development of chemistry in Britain in the period 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 such as William Cullen, Joseph Black, Joseph Priestly, Thomas Beddoes, and Humphry Davy are interpreted in a new 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 relations 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. |
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Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820 Jan Golinski No preview available - 1999 |
Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820 Jan Golinski No preview available - 1992 |
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accepted Accum alkali analytical Annals of Science apparatus asserted Beddoes Beddoes's Birmingham British Burke Cambridge career century chemical analysis chemistry chemists chlorine claims context course Cullen Dalton Davy's demonstrations discipline discourse doctrine Edinburgh eighteenth eighteenth-century electricity Enlightenment Erasmus Darwin Essay established eudiometrical experimental experiments facts fixed air galvanic gases Henry History of Science Humphry Davy Institution instrument James John Joseph Black Joseph Priestley Kames Kirwan knowledge laboratory Lavoisier Lavoisier's lectures Literary London Lunar Society Manchester McKie ment method mineralogy moral muriatic acid Murray natural philosophy Nicholson Nicholson's Journal nitrous air nitrous oxide Observations oxygen phenomena Philosophical Society phlogiston phlogiston theory physician pneumatic pneumatic medicine political practice practitioners produced public audience public science published replication rhetorical Robinson Royal Society scientific Scottish Scottish Enlightenment social specialist techniques theory Thomas Thomas Beddoes Thomson tion vols voltaic pile Watt William wrote