The best books on enlightenment science

Patricia Fara Author Of Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career
By Patricia Fara

Who am I?

I’m an Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and I’ve written several popular books as well as featuring in TV/radio programmes such as In Our Time and Start the Week (BBC). I love the challenge of explaining to general audiences why the history of science is such an exciting and important subject – far more difficult than writing an academic paper. I believe that studying the past is crucial for understanding how we’ve reached the present – and the whole point of doing that is to improve the future. My underlying preoccupations involve exploring how and why western science has developed over the last few centuries to become the dominant (and male-dominated) culture throughout the world.

I wrote...

Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career

By Patricia Fara

Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career

What is my book about?

The story of Isaac Newton's decades in London as an ambitious cosmopolitan gentleman, President of London's Royal Society, Master of the Mint, and investor in the slave trade. Isaac Newton is celebrated throughout the world as a great scientific genius who conceived the theory of gravity. But in his early fifties, he abandoned his life as a reclusive university scholar to spend three decades in London, a long period of metropolitan activity that is often overlooked. Enmeshed in Enlightenment politics and social affairs, Newton participated in the linked spheres of early science and imperialist capitalism. Instead of the quiet cloisters and dark libraries of Cambridge's all-male world, he now moved in fashionable London society, which was characterized by patronage relationships, sexual intrigues, and ruthless ambition.


When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

The Books I Picked & Why

Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum

By James Delbourgo

Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum

Why this book?

James Delbourgo’s book shows that history matters. As the founder of London’s British Museum, Sir Hans Sloane has always played an important part in displaying our national heritage, and Delbourgo’s book explores the wondrousness of the artifacts he amassed from all over the world. But it also reveals how his wealth, fame, and success depended on the international trade in enslaved peoples during the eighteenth century. Sloane’s statue has not been destroyed, but it no longer stands prominently in the Museum’s entrance hall. Like Delbourgo, I believe we need to examine and confront the deeds of previous generations, and his book appeared while I was grappling with similar dilemmas about Sloane’s predecessor as President of the Royal Society, Sir Isaac Newton.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

The Lunar Men: A Story of Science, Art, Invention and Passion

By Jenny Uglow

The Lunar Men: A Story of Science, Art, Invention and Passion

Why this book?

In her innovative Lunar Men, Jenny Uglow demonstrated the value of collective biography and the significance of collaborative activity in scientific research. Her characters are not lone heroes set above common humanity, but instead are real-life people whose ambitions and setbacks, joys and griefs, loves and enmities, political affiliations, and religious rivalries are brought gloriously alive through her empathetic use of hand-written letters and manuscripts. Unusually, wives and daughters feature as crucial actors in her stories of the interlinked Midlands families who drove Britain’s industrial progress.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Bodies Politic: Disease, Death, and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900

By Roy Porter

Bodies Politic: Disease, Death, and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900

Why this book?

After I decided to include this old favourite of mine, I discovered to my great delight that Bodies Politic is about to be reissued in paperback. Roy Porter was the most prolific, fluent and insightful academic I have ever been privileged to know, and decades ago, his lectures inspired me to recognise how much fun historical research can be. In my own work, I have focused strongly on images – not only in textbooks, but also in journals, art galleries and albums. As Porter expertly discusses, studying caricatures is immensely enjoyable but also invaluable for uncovering concealed controversies, which provide crucial indicators of what people really thought.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

The Mind Has No Sex?: Women in the Origins of Modern Science

By Londa Schiebinger

The Mind Has No Sex?: Women in the Origins of Modern Science

Why this book?

Now over thirty years old, The Mind has no Sex? remains unsurpassed as a lucid, lively introduction to the status, activities and importance of women during the Enlightenment period. Its ironic title stems from the Cartesian belief that mind and body are separate, which implies – in principle, at least – that women are just as clever as men. But as Londa Schiebinger illustrates with copious examples and illustrations, equality was not even an aspiration, let alone a reality.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity

By Marcello Pera

The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity

Why this book?

Electricity was by far the most popular science of the Enlightenment – ‘an Entertainment for Angels’, as one fictional young woman enthused. Marcello Pera’s slim book is delightfully written, but also philosophically profound. It surveys with great humour the diverse array of electrical devices, tricks and performances that were created as money-spinners in Europe’s rapidly commercialising society. But it also picks apart the confrontation between electricity’s two Italian figureheads: Luigi Galvani (who made frogs’ legs twitch) and Alessandro Volta (the Napoleonic devotee who introduced current electricity). These debates were not only about who was right, but also about how to win over converts and eliminate the opposition.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Random Book Lists

The Best Books On Living Within Limits

Giorgos Kallis Author Of Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care Giorgos Kallis

The Best Books About The Making Of A Movie

Chris Nashawaty Author Of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story Chris Nashawaty

The Best Books On Marcus Aurelius

John Sellars Author Of Marcus Aurelius John Sellars

The best books on lesser-known figures in the American Revolution and early years

Tom Shachtman Author Of The Founding Fortunes: How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution Tom Shachtman