An Entertainment for Angels by Patricia Fara, Icon Books, 拢9.99, ISBN
1840463481
IN 1993 the Science Museum in London swept away its electricity gallery to
make room for one about modern medicine. The change confirmed electricity鈥檚
present lowly status: available to most, interesting to few. But it was not
always thus: during the Age of Enlightenment (roughly 1730 to 1790) electricity
was the hottest of hot topics.
Patricia Fara鈥檚 An Entertainment for Angels vividly captures the
ferment created by the new science. Laboratories and salons echoed to the
crackle of sparks and the shrieks of the shocked. Wild prophecies were made
about electricity鈥檚 future鈥攎ost of which have come true. Electrical
phenomena were seen as a key to nature, perhaps to life itself. Everyone knew
they were on to something big.
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Fara deftly shows how the new knowledge emerged from a rich mix of improved
technology, medical quackery, Continental theorising, religious doubt and
scientific rivalry. Like any good historian, though, she rarely describes the
past in terms of the present, so don鈥檛 expect technical explanations in modern
language.
With or without the technicalities, there is no mistaking the fascination,
fear, hyperbole and doubt that surrounded electricity in the Age of Reason. As
we enter the Age of Genetics, you could do worse than read this short but expert
guide to a strangely parallel world.