Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, 3 April 2009
I was given this as a Christmas present. Richard Holmes crafts a fascinating story that brings fully to life the period covered (late 18th and early 19th centuries). I was hooked from the first page as the exploits, discoveries and tribulations of Joseph Banks, William and Caroline Herschel, Mungo Park, Humphry Davy and a cast of other leading 'scientists' were woven together in a wonderful tapestry (no pun intended). Richard Holmes' prose is fluent and captivating. This is one book that really lives up to the blurb on the cover. Read it!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A magnificent read, 29 Mar 2009
There are plenty books written on modern science, exploration (geographical and scientific), fledgling scientific breakthroughs, romantic poetry, human psychology and biographies of major scientific protagonists (with all their vanities and petty jealousies, as well as their soft, fuzzy side) - but all this in ONE book? It's a masterpiece, beautifully written, wittily observed and carefully footnoted. Every page a delight.
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73 of 91 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comments by Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'., 4 Dec 2008
This reviewer found this work to be an altogether fascinating book, scanning and encompassing a myriad of topics and even ideas "heterogeneously yoked by violence together", cemented through the sheer quality and vivacity of the author's writing merits.
Holmes has been described as 'a literary traveller'. To risk being oversimplistic, and depending on one's own standpoint, this work deals with the the embracing of scientific principles by the Romantics or, for some, nearer to Johnson's definition, the collision of the two value systems and a resultant synthesis of sorts.
Like the Romantic poets themselves, the author also presents scientific research as comprising of a world of opportunities, as a type of challenging, new expedition. Holmes draws attention to William Wordsworth's depiction of Isaac Newton as a lonesome explorer and, indeed, Holmes goes actually on to label two huge expeditions as sorts of watermarks. viz. Captain James Cook's first encircling of the world, between 1768 and 1771, and Charles Darwin's celebrated voyage and research conducted on the Beagle, between 1831 and 1836.
These selections concentrate Holmes attention on what is chronicled elsewhere as having been an intensely noteworthy span of some 60 years when science became practised by 'professionals, not merely by rich, at ease 'amateurs' who happened to have the luxury of time at their disposal. Detailed examples from the book could fill the space and time available for this review and many more. The book is quite compendious in its stated field of interest but indulges in the study of particular subjects (human and topical ones) to ensure its depth.
Of course, the impact of science in the Victorian age (and beyond) has many more facets to it that one volume could ever hope to encompass. The impact of science upon faith, for example, especially upon Christian Faith, is a subject still yearning for greater definition and delineation.
The 550+, information and anecdote clad, pages to be found within 'The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science' by Richard Holmes, come strongly commended by this reviewer. It does 'all that it says on the cover' and far, far more besides. Richard Holmes has never written better and, if you've enjoyed his previous works, you'll find this an absorbing read.
Michael Calum Jacques (author of 1st Century Radical)
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