Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution (Great Discoveries) (Paperback)

Edmund Burke, an outspoken critic of the French Revolution, once said that in revolutionary France "learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude." The death by guillotine of Antoine Lavoisier, one of the founders of modern chemistry, during the revolution's Reign of Terror speaks to Burke's pessimistic prophecy. Lavoisier and his fate is the subject of Madison Smart Bell's compact (186 pages) but informed, "Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution." Despite some flaws I think the book is worth reading.

The first three quarters of the book is a straight forward, condensed biography of Lavoisier. Although brought up in a comfortable environment Lavoisier managed to accumulate great wealth in a very short period of time. Although a student of law, Lavoisier developed a great interest in science and thereafter dedicated his life to his business activities and to expanding his knowledge of the physical world. He quickly focused his greatest efforts and achieved astonishing results in the realm of what we now know as chemistry. In particular, after repeated experiments with equipment he largely designed and built, Lavoisier identified the element of oxygen, which he identified as le principe oxygine. Perhaps more importantly he developed methods for scientific investigation and a particular, methodological language for describing the results of the elements he identified. This language, or nomenclature, was set out in the first periodic table, or Table of Chemical Nomenclature as it was then known.

The revolutionary nature of Lavoisier's work is set out well by Bell. Bell discusses alchemy, the voodoo like practice that tried to convert base elements to gold, as a forerunner of chemistry. By the 18th century alchemy was beginning to evolve. It lost some of its mystical nature. Some historians of science refer to the period leading up to Lavoisier as "chymistry". Lavoisier was the bridge that turned chymistry into chemistry. Bell spends a good deal of time, to good effect, describing how Lavoisier applied to the more rigorous principles of mathematics to his own efforts.

Bell also does a good job in setting out the importance of Lavoisier's focus on addressing narrow questions rather than seeking to find a universal solution for the world and its constituent parts. Bell describes Isaac Newton and Newton's view that the laws of Newtonian physics were originally god-given. Newton saw himself as a discoverer of divine properties installed by god in the natural world. This was dramatically different from Lavoisier's approach and Bell concludes thusly: "Lavoisier, though impressed by Newton and influenced by the logical rigor of Newtonian physics, would begin to deconstruct this holistic vision of the universe by concentrating much more narrowly on its component parts."

The remainder of the book describes Lavoisier's ultimately unsuccessful efforts to navigate safely through the dangerous political currents that made up the French Revolution. Lavoisier welcomed the Revolution but who hoped that it would end in a political system similar to that established by the young United States. But his wealth and standing as an intellectual ultimately brought him down once the Reign of Terror took hold. The great irony of Lavoisier's life and death may be seen in the symbolism of his death. Here was someone whose experiments showed that flames burned brighter when fed oxygen and who died when the oxygen feeding the French Revolution created flames of terror that consumed all those who got in its way.

Unfortunately, the two sections of the book do not seem to mesh as well as they could have. This latter section seems a bit too separate and distinct from the scientific and biographic discussion that preceded it. In other words, I found the bright line between the two sections a bit jarring. For me, the sections on Lavoisier's scientific life and his creation of a language that facilitated scientific advancement were the highlights. The discussion on the Reign of Terror and Lavoisier's demise seemed a bit rushed and disjointed. Hence, I would actually give this book 3 and ½ stars rather than four if the rating system permitted it. Nevertheless, I found the book enlightening and entertaining.