The Invention of Air
  • Published: 29 October 2009
  • ISBN: 9780141044910
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176

The Invention of Air

An experiment, a journey, a new country and the amazing force of scientific discovery

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From the bestselling author of Everything Bad is Good For You

In 1794, Joseph Priestley - amateur scientist, ordained minister and radical thinker - set sail for America to escape persecution. Stephen Johnson tells his incredible story: the discovery of oxygen, the invention of a science, the founding of a church, and, with the great minds of his time, the development of the United States itself. But Priestley's revolutionary ideas put him in terrible danger.

Johnson uses the progress of Priestley and his colleagues not merely to describe the wonder of discovery, but to show us how we have come to understand the world, how far we have travelled with the power of human enquiry - and how one man's curiosity can help build an entire country.
  • Published: 29 October 2009
  • ISBN: 9780141044910
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176
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About the authors

Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of thirteen books, including Where Good Ideas Come From, Farsighted, and The Ghost Map. He's the host and cocreator of the Emmy-winning PBS/BBC series How We Got to Now, and the host of the podcast American Innovations. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Marin County, California, with his wife and three sons.

Praise for The Invention of Air

A shot of the purest oxygen

Simon Winchester

It fizzes

John Gapper

Entertaining ... clear-sighted and intelligent

The New Yorker

[Johnson is] an infectiously exciting writer ... The Invention of Air is delightful to read

Salon

Packed with excellent stuff

Russell Davies

Johnson paints Priestley not as a man of the past but precisely the sort of figure the world needs more than ever

New York Post