A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen

It would be hard to maintain that Truth is Stranger than Fiction in this era of millennial fundamentalism, creation "science", free-market anarcho-capitalism, neo-conservatism, and related fantasies. So let's just say that Truth is More Fun than Fiction. A World on Fire is a fun book to read, a double biography of Joseph Priestley (the heretic) and Antoine Lavoisier (the aristocrat,though he wasn't born one), within a framework of cultural history. Only the smallest knowledge of science is required of the reader, though a modicum of "recognition knowledge" of events in the 18th C will ease the reading. Is it arrogant of me to suppose that for many people the "outcome" of the narrative will be as much a mystery as that of any Dan Brown novel? So I suggest reading it on those terms, not thinking of it as an intellectual duty as some other reviewers have. There is a subtext, nonetheless, of intellectual inquiry into the question of how science functions within its historical/cultural paradigm. The author, Joe Jackson, makes frequent references to the modern philosopher Thomas Kuhn, and the whole book may be taken as a manifestation of Kuhn's ideas in literary form. Priestley is a figure who keeps popping up in studies of the ideological roots of the American Revolution, also. This book will be of great interest to serious students of US history as much as to readers like me who relish the history of science. Priestley was a veritable archetypical "liberal" - humane, optimistic about human nature, of extreme probity, indifferent to pomp and power. In the 1790s, he became "the enemy" to two segments of the English populace, the Tories and the exploited, misguided poor. The Tory demagogues, exemplified by Edmund Burke, fanned the flames of mob violence against the liberals, identifying their natural philosophy (i.e. science) with irrelegious impiety and lack of patriotism. Gentle well-meaning Priestley became the most demonized man in England, until a mob burned his house, including all his laboratory, books, and research, as well as other houses of people associated with him. Burke continued to denounce him even after he went into hiding and exile, effectively issuing a Tory fatwah for his death. I've always my doubts about Eddie Burke - just another hate-and-fear conservative ranting against sympathies he didn't feel and ideas he didn't grasp.

This is simply one of the best books I have ever read; it deserves to be a best seller. Mr.Jackson has meticulously researched this fascinating story, then presented it in a manner and style that make it eminently readable. I am here today to buy copies for all of my friends- something I have never felt compelled to do before. My advice to prospective purchasers: buy it/read it. You will not be disappointed.

It's been a long while since I've read a book on the history of science apart from mathematics. Since many scientific breakthroughs cannot be fully appreciated unless they are firmly grounded in the time and place from which they arose, a good book of this kind must impart a sense of history as successfully as it details the science. Joe Jackson does so, almost to a fault, in this excellent book. The late 18th century saw the breakup of many ancien regimes - witness the French Revolution that claimed the life of Antoine Lavoisier, one of the two main characters in this story - and the "four-element" matrix through which physical scientists had interpreted matter for almost two millennia was not the least of the citadels to crumble. Joseph Priestley, an English chemist and co-founder of Unitarianism, and Lavoisier, an aristocrat with a natural gift for theorizing, led the "race to discover oxygen," or, more properly, to isolate and recognize it as an entity in and of itself - what we now think of as an "element." Ironically, it was Priestley, so willing to break with traditional views on the contentious religious questions of the day, who proved less able to adapt to the "New Chemistry," leaving the field clear for Lavoisier - thanks, in part, to some information provided by Priestley during a dinner described in the book's introduction - to claim the lion's share of laurels as the chemist who initiated the science's modern era. Both men came to rather unfortunate ends - Priestley in exile in America after the French Revolution made his radical ideas suspect, Lavoisier on the guillotine during the insanity of the "Terror" - adding a bit of extra drama to a fascinating scientific tale. Jackson spends rather more time on Priestley - no real surprise, as Priestley's was the more eventful life - but he keeps the twin narratives moving smoothly, and, despite an occasional tendency to overwrite and over-digress, he does a fine job in depicting the world in which these two great scientists operated. Anyone interested in the history of science or chemistry in general should greatly enjoy this book.

I'm a professional chemist with a long interest in the history of science, including the history of chemistry. I've studied the history of the "chemical revolution" brought about by Lavoisier, Priestley, and others, and have read some of the original works. Even though I know much of the scientific history, this book really brings to life the two protagonists, the Englishman Priestley and the Frenchman Lavoisier, in a way no other book does, including some recent ones that are selling much better. Not only the characters, but their environments, the places and time in which they lived. I'm in the middle of the book and enjoying every word of it. I heartily recommend this book if you're interested in the breakthrough in chemistry that took place in the late eighteenth century, interested in the lives of two of the leading protagonists, or even just interested in the social history of the time. It's a darn good read!

I want to give this book a quick thumb's up because nobody has reviewed it yet, and it does not seem to be selling well. I bought this book at the same time as "Descartes Secret Notebooks," and I have to say "World on Fire" is far superior to that more successful book about Descartes. Joe Jackson really demonstrates what the history of science can and should do. I know much more about oxygen now than I did before I read this book. It is interesting to learn how these early scientists performed their experiments, and important to remember how difficult it must have been to recognize that common everyday substances such as Air and Water were compound substances rather that unified elements. Also, the lives of these two scientists (Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier) in the late 18th century "Age of Revolution" is fascinating. At times I was annoyed by Jackson's slightly bombastic writing style, but that is a small quibble. Mostly I want other people to discover this wonderful book.