Book 53: "The Lunar Men" by Jenny Uglow
Saturday, December 17th, 2011 18:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeDarwin's support of Beddoes and work on Zoonomia let him envisage the improvement of society through medicine, rather than politics. Most of his work was serious; some of it was fun, like his correspondence with Tom Wedgewood on making an air bed. ('He thinks feathers always stink', Darwin told Watt with amusement, 'and wishes to rest on clouds, like the Gods and Goddesses, which you see sprawling on ceilings.')
The second half of the eighteenth century was a ferment of invention and the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group whose members were mostly Midlands and Lowland Scots, was in the thick of it. Members included engineers, manufacturers, potters, chemists and doctors, but their scientific and entrepreneurial interests were varied and overlapping. They competed and collaborated, and urged each other onwards. They went into business together, their sons and daughters married each other, and their friendships were lifelong, excepting the relationship between William Withering and Erasmus Darwin, which was irreparably damaged by accusations of plagiarism.
A well-written and engrossing tale, of pumping engines, porcelain and patent infringements, canals, caves and chemistry, mining, manufacturing and minting, botanical taxonomy and balloons.
The second half of the eighteenth century was a ferment of invention and the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group whose members were mostly Midlands and Lowland Scots, was in the thick of it. Members included engineers, manufacturers, potters, chemists and doctors, but their scientific and entrepreneurial interests were varied and overlapping. They competed and collaborated, and urged each other onwards. They went into business together, their sons and daughters married each other, and their friendships were lifelong, excepting the relationship between William Withering and Erasmus Darwin, which was irreparably damaged by accusations of plagiarism.
A well-written and engrossing tale, of pumping engines, porcelain and patent infringements, canals, caves and chemistry, mining, manufacturing and minting, botanical taxonomy and balloons.
