Joseph Priestly, Radical Thinker offers a unique look into the achievements of this scientific giant, whose work helped provide the foundation for chemistry research. The book is the catalog that accompanies an exhibit of historical images and artifacts that commemorated the 200th anniversary of the death of Priestly and includes essays by historian Robert Anderson and Marjorie Gapp, curator of art and images at Chemical Heritage Foundation. Gapp and Mary Ellen Bowden, with Lisa Rosner, also examine the historical significance of the many objects and artifacts found in this fascinating collection.
Bestselling author Johnson recounts the story of Joseph Priestley--scientist and theologian, protege of Benjamin Franklin--an 18th-century radical thinker who played pivotal roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the founding of the Unitarian Church, and the intellectual development of the U.S.
Joseph Priestley, the eighteenth-century scientist who discovered oxygen, was one of the most remarkable thinkers of his time. This collection of essays by a team of experts covers the full range of his work in the fields of education, politics, philosophy, and theology, and firmly re-establishes him as a major intellectual figure.
Joseph Priestley (1733&–1804) is one of the major figures of the English Enlightenment. A contemporary and friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, he exceeded even these polymaths in the breadth of his curiosity and learning. Yet no one has attempted an all-inclusive biography of Priestley, probably because he was simply too many persons for anyone easily to comprehend in a single study. Robert Schofield has devoted a lifetime of scholarship to this task. The result is a magisterial book, covering the life and works of Priestley during the critical first forty years of his life. Although Priestley is best known as a chemist, this book is considerably more than a study in the history of science. As any good biographer must, Schofield has thoroughly studied the many activities in which Priestley was engaged. Among them are theology, electricity, chemistry, politics, English grammar, rhetoric, and educational philosophy. Schofield situates Priestley, the provincial dissenter, within the social, political, and intellectual contexts of his day and examines all the works Priestley wrote and published during this period. Schofield singles out the first forty years of Priestley's life because these were the years of preparation and trial during which Priestley qualified for the achievements that were to make him famous. The discovery of oxygen, the defenses of Unitarianism, and the political liberalism that characterize the mature Priestley&—all are foreshadowed in the young Priestley. A brief epilogue looks ahead to the next thirty years when Priestley was forced out of England and settled in Pennsylvania, the subject of Schofield's next book. But this volume stands alone as the definitive study of the making of Joseph Priestley.
This unique multidisciplinary study views Jesus as one of the most central figures in history with a wide-ranging impact on society, literature, art, and philosophy. Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture distills 2,000 years of thinking about Jesus into two intriguing volumes. In more than 200 A–Z entries, internationally recognized scholars summarize views of Jesus from the Gospel writers to contemporary theologians. Not only does the book explore Christian liturgy and worship—including the long-lasting 4th- and 5th-century schisms over whether Jesus is human or divine—but it examines the position of Jesus in the traditions of other world religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. Even outside religion, little has been untouched by Jesus's influence. Jesus affected social and political theory in his time and continues to do so today. The encyclopedia also explores his changing image in art, sculpture, music, and literature, pulling disparate fields of study into one powerful resource. Scholars, students of theology and world religions, and other interested readers will all welcome this unique resource.
This collection of essays studies the expression and diffusion of radical ideas in Britain from the period of the English Revolution in the mid-seventeenth century to the Romantic Revolution in the early nineteenth century. The essays included in the volume explore the modes of articulation and dissemination of radical ideas in the period by focusing on actors ('radical voices') and a variety of written texts and cultural practices ('radical ways'), ranging from fiction, correspondence, pamphlets and newspapers to petitions presented to Parliament and toasts raised in public. They analyse the way these media interacted with their political, religious, social and literary context. This volume provides an interdisciplinary outlook on the study of early modern radicalism,with contributions from literary scholars and historians, and uses case studies as insights into the global picture of radical ideas. It will be of interest to students of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature and history.
