The Invention of Air

by Steven Johnson

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.

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion, Politics, American History

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 26, 2008

About the author

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of twelve books, including Enemy of All Mankind, Farsighted, Wonderland, How We Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad Is Good for You.
He's the host of the podcast American Innovations, and the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. Johnson lives in Marin County, California, and Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and three sons.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have liked this to have been a much better book. There were parts of it where it showed promise – but those parts were swamped in what was mostly ‘junk polymathism’. That is a new phrase I’ve made up – I think it might even prove handy. I am going to use it as a way to describe someone who has decided to refer to multiple disciplines, but not really use them in a way that shines new light on either the topic at hand or on the discipline referred to. Worst of all was the fact that when he referred to some subjects (Kuhn and Hegel in particular) his knowledge of the topics was so superficial that it was hard not to wonder why he bothered explaining them, when he might have seemed more intelligent if he had just kept to the topic at hand. I mean, why bother to give a description of Hegelian Dialectics if all you are going to say is ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’?

There were bits of this book that I quite liked, despite them being hidden under a mountain of junk. And those were the bits where he discusses how Priestley came to find out (if not actually ‘discover’) oxygen. This book really could have done with a good editor. I think that unless you are a particularly good story teller – and this guy just isn’t – I think the best policy is to tell the story in chronological order. In fact, this is good advice even if you are a great writer. Life has a way of ordering things sequentially that makes sense. If you are going to mess around with that, it is probably best that you have a very good reason. Not that he played around with time too much, but I would bet this guy can’t tell a good joke. I would bet he gives the punchline away before he is half way through.

The point is that there were bits of this I really liked. Here is a guy who leaves England because he is too radical to remain there and is welcomed to the newly formed United States as the friend of two early Presidents and also Benjamin Franklin. This is an Age of Enlightenment hero – the guy who discovered Oxygen, no less – and yet. And yet…

Bad writing really does get in the way of even the best of stories and I felt some of his ‘asides’ to discuss paradigm shifts, ecosystems and such stuff were so cursory as to take away from the book, rather than add to it. He discusses the ‘great man of history’ idea and comes to something like the same conclusion as Gladwell in Outliers, if not as extreme a version as Gladwell (and extremely right, I think). But this is uninspired and uninspiring. Yes, I can see why it was put into the book, one would need to explain why Priestley made quite so many momentous discoveries – but what we are left with here is so bland and so opinionated that it adds nothing to the book.

Right, the good bits.

The best of this was the discussion of how he worked out how ‘bad air’ became ‘good air’ again. I have often wondered how they worked out that plants had something to do with putting oxygen back into air. It is a bit like how they worked out that plants feed on sun-light – you do have to wonder how anyone would think to test such an idea.

Priestley was exactly the sort of guy who would come up with an experiment to test that sort of thing. If you were to make up a story as a just so story called How Some Guy in a Powdered Wig Discovered the Secret of Breathing – you might think he had already guessed that plants somehow made oxygen and so tried to think up experiments to prove just that. That is not what happened.

If PETA had been around in the 18th century there is little doubt that they would have been picketing Priestley’s house. Just before he left England his house was burnt to the ground – the standard version is that this was due to conservatives in England who objected to his rationalist, republican views. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day a letter turns up proving it was an organisation called ‘people for the ethical treatment of mice’ that did the deed.

But a man can only torture so many mice to death before his attention turns to killing other of God’s creatures.

I ought to do this in order. Priestly worked out that if you put a mouse in a glass container and put this container upside down in some water so that air could not get in, the glass of the glass container made a wonderful means to let you watch the mouse slowly expire. You may not think this is very entertaining, but you do have to remember they didn’t have television at the time.

Anyway, he had lots of data on how long it took your average mouse to die when left in the chamber with very little air. So, he started killing off other creatures and measuring how long they would take to die.

Then he had a brilliant idea. Since there was no challenge in killing animals anymore – now he wanted to see how long it would take to kill plants. So, he rushed out to the garden and got himself some mint. He popped this into the machine and much to his disappointment the mint seemed to go on living, even in the worst of air, air already breathed up by an ex-mouse. After a week or so he decided to pop a mouse back into the glass and was surprised to find that it didn’t die straight away (as it ought to have given there should have been no oxygen left in there). Somehow the plant had replaced all of the oxygen in the container.

Not that it was called oxygen at the time, of course. Later when he was able to do experiments that produced oxygen he found that ‘god’s air’, the stuff that is all around us, could actually be improved on – something that must have challenged his religious sensibilities. Not only could oxygen enriched air keep the mouse alive for longer, but it made candles burn for longer too. This was actually the source of his error about oxygen, which he confused with the mythical fluid substance that allowed things to burn - phlogiston. He was nearly right, but others around him were more so.

Like I said, this could and should have been a much better book and would have been if he was more interested in telling the story of the life of Priestley, rather than the author showing himself off as a bit of a polymath.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short book is partly a biography of Joseph Priestley, a prolific and divisive 18th century figure who made influential discoveries in science (including discovering that plants replace carbon dioxide with oxygen, though he didn’t put it in quite those terms), helped found the Unitarian church, and was a bit of a political firebrand. Priestley’s life and work are interesting subjects, and with his eternal optimism, chaotic experimental procedures and determination to keep nothing – whether scientific discovery or radical religious opinion – to himself, he’s certainly a colorful figure. But this book is less impressive: there’s a little biography, a little science, a little religion, a little history, and it doesn’t add up to more than the sum of its parts. The author has a tendency to pontificate on subjects that seemed much more profound to him than they were to me, like connections between the location of coal deposits and Priestley’s life’s trajectory. But with generous margins and spacing, it’s a quick read, and I learned a bit from it even though I didn’t love it.

EDIT: For those interested in Priestley and the history of chemistry, I would recommend A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen over this one.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Johnson, author of the excellent "The Ghost Map", here takes on the life of Joseph Priestley. The best parts of this book are where he confines himself to the task at hand, and gives us details of that life. Priestley was a fascinating character, a brilliant chemist and one of the most influential scientists of his age. He was also a practicing clergyman, whose nonconformist views ultimately provoked such a storm in England that he had to flee to America with his family. He was friends with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; as a consequence of these friendships, he was to have substantial influence on the development of political thought in the fledgling democracy. Priestley wasn't brilliant all the time, of course - there was his notorious attachment to the phlogiston theory, as well as an unhealthy obsession with the Book of Revelation in the final years of his life. So the details of Priestley's life certainly provide more than adequate material for an interesting account.

Indeed, the book is at its most interesting when Johnson confines himself to filling in the biographical record. In particular, his account of the early work (discovery of what would later be termed Coulomb’s Law, publication of the ‘History of Electricity’, invention of soda water) and the two experiments which established Priestley's reputation (the work showing that plants synthesize oxygen, his later ‘discovery’ of oxygen) is excellent.

Unfortunately, Johnson then seems to lose his moorings a bit. Understandably, he wants to put Priestley’s scientific contributions in historical perspective. But this leads him to include what can only be called bloviation – ponderous, pseudo-profound musings about paradigm shifts, regrettable metaphors about the nature of scientific progress down the ages, and sentences like these:


In the next decade, the three paths would combine to form a mighty highway, one that would ultimately drive Priestley all the way to the New World.

Seeing human history as a series of intensifying energy flows is one way around the classic opposition between the Great Men and Collectivist visions of history.

What is the internal chemistry of a mob? Tellingly, mob behavior inevitably gravitates toward displays of intense energy transfer: the collective strength of a hundred enraged men pulling a building apart and unleashing the destructive, oxidizing force of combustion.

Where are the editors when you need them? Seriously, dude, ease off on the goddamned chemistry metaphors, wouldja? They make you seem like a moron, which you’re not.

For a prolonged stretch in its middle third, the book ceases to be mainly about Priestley, degenerating instead into a kind of “look at me, I’m Steven Johnson, see how clever I am” morass. This is unfortunate, because even the most pedestrian of Priestley’s biographical details would be more interesting than Johnson’s views on the nature of scientific progress, which seemed to me to be short on content, long on pomposity. (This actually surprised me, because I’ve heard him interviewed on the radio and he seemed quite sensible and unpretentious).

Fortunately, things get back on track (more or less) for the remaining third of the book, describing the rising tide of violence that forced the Priestleys to flee to America and the scientist’s final years in Pennsylvania.

Despite the misgivings expressed above, I really enjoyed this book, and have no hesitation in recommending it. But I do hope that Steven Johnson gets himself a better editor on his next project.

(I've put this on my "terrific" shelf for now, despite reservations about Johnson's style, because Priestley's life was genuinely fascinating)

[Cherisa B · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intersectional review of biography, cultural upheaval, technical progress, faith, friendship, politics, industry and leisure. Johnson weaves a tapestry from what might seem like disconnected threads into whole cloth. At a time when not one thing was changing but many, and people were faced with shifting ground, not knowing what to trust in multiple spheres, we get thoughtful sketches about science and faith, individuals and groups, open scientific sharing and technical nationalism, industrial progress and agrarian backlash. A thoughtful read with what feels like a fair assessment of Joseph Priestly, Benjamin Franklin, and the Ages of Revolution and Scientific Discovery.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Invention of Air has a catchy title, but its subtitle better describes the book itself: A story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America. Steven Johnson uses Joseph Priestley as a touchstone for a much larger argument about the relationship among science, religion, and politics and the effects this had on the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Priestley's role in isolating oxygen and his interactions with Antoine Lavoisier make an appearance in the early half of the book. For the most part, however, this book is not so much a biography of Joseph Priestley as it is an attempt to combat the anti-intellectualism, anti-science atmosphere now insinuating itself into American society, and particularly American politics. As he confesses in his Author's Note, which precedes the book itself, Johnson is concerned by the way we view science as something relegated to a domain of professionals rather than intrinsic to humanity, saying:

If there is an overarching moral to this story, it is that vital fields of intellectual achievement cannot be cordoned off from one another and relegated to the specialists, that politics can and should be usefully informed by the insights of science.

I can get behind this theme. Canada, like the United States, is struggling with the role of science in informing politics and political decisions, albeit in not quite the same rhetorical, polarized fashion happening south of our border. I am quite aware that, despite their hyperbole, the Tea Party does not speak for the majority of Americans, and that most Americans are sensible people with a varying degree of respect for the sciences. I am lucky enough to have met American friends on Goodreads and elsewhere online who fall into this category. I cringe, though, when I read newspaper articles and blog posts written by people who view science as a threat to their religion or, more basically, their way of life. I feel sorry for those people, and I kind of worry about America's future. So if Johnson wants to fight this by writing a book (which strikes me as an oddly intellectual way to fight anti-intellectualism, but whatever), more power to him.

Johnson's thesis also agrees with sentiments I've developed over the past few years, sentiments particularly influenced by a Philosophy of Science course. He draws upon Thomas Kuhn, of course, and discusses Priestley's discoveries in hindsight as a type of paradigm shift. In particular, as a writer he has to praise Priestley's choice to tell the story of the discovery of electricity, to be the first person to tell science through the lens of narrative rather than as a logical discourse. I have to agree; both forms have their uses, but I particularly like reading books like The Invention of Air because they are exciting and entertaining as well as educational. I'm fascinated by the history of science, as well as its philosophy. I like learning about the circumstances and coincidences that surround discoveries—for example, Priestley began investigating air because he temporarily lived behind a brewery and noticed that their vats emitted "fixed air" (carbon dioxide). From here, Johnson launches into a description of how, through trial and error more than any real hypothesis, Priestley manages to deduce that there is a component of air essential to respiration, that plants somehow produce or replenish it, and that it is combustible. (Unfortunately, Priestley would continue to subscribe to the theory of phlogiston until his death, even though it was discredited long before he died.)

I don't want to let my enthusiasm for Johnson's aims colour my evaluation of the book too much. As much as I like what Johnson tries to do, the result feels haphazard. The book begins with Priestley's voyage on the Samson to the United States; then it hops back to the young Joseph Priestley joining the Honest Whigs in London and works its way forward roughly chronologically to where the book begins. This should have worked fine, but Johnson spends far too much time talking about what we are about to learn. Every time the name Benjamin Frankling or Thomas Jefferson came out, Johnson could not help but remind us about Priestley's influence on these men. I get it, but could we please get on with Priestley's experiments in his lab?

I also wish we could have learned more about Priestley's life in general, particularly his relationship with Antoine Lavoisier. Johnson mentions, in passing, how Priestley met Lavoisier and influenced him, how Priestley found an improved formula for gunpowder and accidentally shared it with a French spy, who in turn shared it with the head of France's gunpowder committee—yes, Lavoisier. (Sometimes life is a lot better than fiction, eh?) Johnson mentions a lot, in passing, but it's frustrating because most of what we learn is bereft of details. He only occasionally deigns to go deeper into the story, as was the case with Priestley's isolation of oxygen, preferring mostly to skim along the surface. This is a short book, and it feels like a short book.

Mostly well-written but sometimes extremely frustrating, The Invention of Air discusses science and religion in the context of the founding of the United States, and it does so in a genuinely interesting way. Johnson is on the right track with a lot of his arguments and with the perspective he brings to subjects like the Founding Fathers; this book is quite original, just very brief. Joseph Priestley sounds like a fascinating fellow. I just wish I had learned more about him.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnson is an interesting author. On the surface, he's straight-up science history, but he often takes extended detours into the philosophy of science and politics. Some people might find this unexpected, but I really like it because the questions that he grapples with are ones that I've also thought long and hard about, and his approach to thinking about these issues are so closely aligned with my own.

The book explores some very interesting topics, not least of which is in his "intermezzo" chapter about the Carboniferous Period and the reason for the spike and then stabilization of atmospheric oxygen. He goes well beyond the basic story you can read about elsewhere - that plant life exploded about 300 years ago and spit tons of oxygen into the atmosphere - everyone knows that - but he explains why it happens and why then.

The ending chapter also really strong. It's about Priestley's relationship with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and it's really interesting. He does a really good job explaining how Priestley's science and politics went hand-in-hand.

He also has an interesting Kuhnian spin throughout. Johnson's philosophical approach really works in this one much better than in The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World because it's that much more consistant.

You also find in this book many of the seeds of the ideas he talks about in Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation. This book can be taken as a sort of case-study of that book, as well as Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

I highly recommend this one if you not only like science and history but like to think deeply about the ideas behind those.

[Jack Cheng]

Johnson has good ideas but I don't find him the most fluid author. He's got a great subject in Joseph Priestly, who helped determine the existence of oxygen and the fact that plants create an atmosphere that can sustain a flame (or the life of a mouse). Priestly was also a radical Unitarian minister who wrote treatises outlining all the magical accretions that he thought undermined a purer Christian faith, and was a bit too enthusiastic about the French Revolution (this last part got him driven out of England by a mob, and the crown). Friends with Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, creator of carbonated water -- quite a resume.

Johnson does not write a strict biography, but rather uses Priestly as a case study of how ideas and revolutions in science happen, what are the necessary frameworks and the character of inventors.

The writing feels padded out, though, with lots of "... and that would lead to a greater crisis, as we shall soon see..." as well as some goofy "meditations" on how oxygen (which Priestly is credited with discovering) was produced by plants, which then became coal, and drove the industrial revolution in England, and gave Priestly the leisure time and the rich friends to support his research! Wow! It's like oxygen discovered itself! But guess what? That was a whole chapter, instead of a footnote!

There are 100 great pages in here, but other parts of it feels like it was written as a term paper.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph Priestly did not 'invent' air. Rather, he was instrumental in discovering it. Let alone Joseph's influence on America as a newly born country's political, scientific and faith culture. Regardless, I find this book very well written, and a personal epiphony discovering my family is related to him.

Steve Johnson's writing style is easy to read, entertaining and informing.

[Moira]

Shit, is this a book ABOUT PHLOGISTON? I became OBSESSED with that stuff at SJC, I must have this soonest immediately.

[Elaine Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely review of the life of a (relatively) obscure scientist/philosopher, and the times when science, politics, and religion were much more intercommunicative spheres than they are now. IOW, this guy invented soda water, founded Unitarianism, and corresponded with Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. Plus interesting digressions into the geohistory of coal!

Johnson makes a fascinating argument for an ecosystem metaphor of human history & civilization throughout, as well, and I think it serves in moving through the different scales of change addressed in the book. At what point is history influenced by individual quirks, broad social movements, accidents of geology, etc., etc., and this allows for all those levels to be in operation at once.

Plus the thing that I find I like about all of Johnson's work is his (innate?) sense of optimism. Something of the Enlightenment spirit seems to motivate him, and perhaps a belief in the better angels of our nature. (I saw him at SXSWi '09 and was struck by his optimism in an area where most others are pretty damn gloomy.) In any case, for me it makes his writing a genuine pleasure to read. This book was no exception.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is ostensibly a biography of Joseph Priestley, one of the central figures in the eighteenth century movement known as the Enlightenment, which included fundamental changes in science, politics, and religion. And Priestly was involved in all aspects of those changes. It is a fascinating, well-written book, a short quick read. I like Johnson's style, but not everyone does. He frequently strays from the strict subject of Priestley's life to discuss more general topics like the need for intellectual networks such as those enjoyed by Priestley in today's world, and comparing the coffeehouse scholarly gatherings of the 1780s to the internet of today. I enjoy those digressions. My one complaint about the book is that it seemed a little light on the actual details of Priestley's life. But on the whole I enjoyed and would strongly recommend this book.

[Dauphne · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The classic case study for the concept of a paradigm shift is the Compernican revolution in astronomy, but in actual fact, the first extended story that Kuhn tells in 'The Structure of Scientific Revoutions' is the paradigm shift in chemistry that took place in the 1770s, led by the revolutionary science of Joseph Priestly."

Are you freaking kidding me? Who read that sentence and remembered what the first half of it was by the time they got to the end?

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

INTERESTING AND ENLIGHTENING.

"…the ideal of Enlightenment science had instilled in them a set of shared political values, a belief that reason would ultimately triumph over fanaticism and frenzy.”
–page 24

(I wonder how that worked out for them.)

‘The Invention of Air: An Experiment, a Journey, a New Country and the Amazing force of Scientific Discovery,’ by Steven Johnson is an entertaining, very interesting and enlightening tale of science, religion and politics. It is the story of Joseph Priestly, eighteenth-century, English clergyman, dabbler in science and, at various times, a close personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

This story offers very interesting perspective on the timelessness of science and religion and the transitory nature of politics; not to mention of early American history and the impact of Enlightenment science.

Recommendation: A great read for all interested in science, religion and history; especially high school age readers interested in science.


[nook eRead #29:] Adobe Digital Edition (ePub), 369 pages: on loan from the Los Angeles County Public Library at http://overdrive.colapublib.org/482D7...

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only a biographical work about Joseph Priestley, but a great read about how scientific thought and innovation happens - the unpredictable mix of creativity, conversations with others, just plain accidents and coincidences, patience, and risk-taking.

[Daniel Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph Priestly was a controversial religious and political figure that left England for America seeking religious freedom, only to feel threatened by the ill advised Alien and Sedition Act signed by John Adams. He had many American friendships including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, but not so much with Adams. After an initial welcoming, Adams grew standoffish. Priestly’s genius in chemistry led to perhaps his greatest discovery of oxygen and its manufacture by plants and trees. His scientific work was disrupted when he left England and settled in rural PA. He made other scientific discoveries as well. He was recognized as an intellectual here and was offered a position at the University of Pennsylvania as chair of the chemistry department, but again, opted for a rural life. Others picked up where he left off in discovery of nature.

[Tom N · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers the life and career of Joseph Priestly--the radical 18th century scientist, theologian, and politician--who discovered oxygen, and founded the Unitarian Church--as well as being a close friend of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. His controversial viewpoints caused him to flee Europe and to eventually settle in central Pennsylvania--at a time when the American colonies were seeking their independence from Great Britain. Historically enlightening, and at times theologically and scientifically complex, this book reveals the thoughts of one of the greatest thinkers of his day.

[Betsy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable and interesting story at the intersection of three areas of innovation of one man--Joseph Priestly. The emphasis was on Science, political theory, and religion, in that order. His innovations and wide-openness about his thoughts got him driven out of England to the fledgling USA. There he had remarkable friendships with Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Jefferson, having met them previously in England. (I am not sure he ever met Adams in England, and his friendship with him became contentious in this country.)
I was sure I had learned in seminary that he founded the first Unitarian church in the US that went by that name, but that is not mentioned here, and a Unitarian historical dictionary at hand does not back that up. Despite that fall off a short pedestal, I came to admire Priestly more, and really enjoyed this book!

[Fernando del Alamo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro dedicado a la vida y obra de Joseph Priestley, el clérigo que descubrió el oxígeno. Aparte de ser un competente científico también estuvo metido en política. El libro narra las peripecias que tuvo que pasar, sobre todo, por meterse en política. Recordad que por aquella época Lavoisier fue llevado a la guillotina, así que fácil no debía ser la cosa.

A quien gusten las biografías de científicos.

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the history of Joseph Paisley who was an important figure during the time that the United States was beginning. This is a good book that tells the story of a very smart man in an important time.

[K. Lincoln · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a non-academic, this book was at times a bit dense on the intersections of the history of natural philosphy, politics, and religion at the dawn of the United States' creation, but presented such an interesting picture of Joseph Priestley that I found myself being swept along with the historic events.

Joseph Priestley is the real focus of the book-- not only the experiments with glass domes and mint where a real concept of the gasses making up "air" started to be divined, but also his mistaken obsession with how air combustion (phlogiston), his peculiar openess and willingness to share experiments and results-- even with French rival Lavoisier-- his Unitarian religious leanings that lead to various political issues, and lastly, his relationship with American intellectual luminaries Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.

The author paints a picture of a man who influences the political and scientific landscape so greatly (but is also a product of them) because he was so singular:
"Here was a man at the very front lines of scientific achievement who was simultaneously a practicing minister and theologian-- and who was by the end of the 1770s, well on his way to becoming one of the most politically charged figures of his time. He was an empiricist driven by a deep and abiding belief in God, who was simultaneously a revolutionary of the first order. "

Reading it in the midst of the 2016 presidential primaries, with deeply religious Republican candidates, global warming controversies sparking "scientific" debate, as well as political unrest in many parts of the world, one can't help but be fascinated by a man who could be so unabashedly consumed by science at the same time as holding illogical worldviews-- kind of like some of the political figures today.

A worthwhile read for American history buffs as well as a look at the life of how an intellectually rigorous and theological scientist can hold contradictory ideas.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my readings in the history of science and of religious controversy I was familiar with Priestley's significance before reading this book, but Johnson succeeds marvelously in delineating Priestley's importance to not just his own historical era, but in the grander scheme of intellectual and cultural history leading up to our present. Johnson's best chapters are the most sweeping, such as the discussion in the Intermezzo of the interrelatedness of the Carboniferous Age, Priestley's residence in the north of England, and his chemical experiments leading to his famous discoveries (and incidental inventions -- soda water!).

Johnson's prose is very easy-going, which I appreciate as a often-harried reader. It did seem to me that Johnson made a conscious or unconscious identification with Priestley himself -- most clearly in emphasizing his wide-ranging interests (much like the variety of topics covered in Johnson's own oeuvre) and in praising him for the project they share, the popularization of science.

At times I grew a bit skeptical of Johnson's claims for the centrality of Priestley, and in general I thought the book too short to do full credit to the historical context. The section on Priestley's role in the Jefferson and Adams correspondence is one example where I felt we got only a mere taste rather than a full meal. (Other reviewers have likened the book to a long magazine article.) So maybe more of a 4.5 than 5 stars from me, but I'll give it the bump to 5 because I appreciate the spirit of the book in promoting the central importance of science (and indeed, of broad-minded thinking in general) to civic and political discourse. I hope the book is widely read for that reason.

[Jrobertus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a fascinating read. It centers on Joseph Priestly, the late 18th century scientist, philosopher, and religious dissenter. Priestly was an ordained minister who engaged in scientific studies of electricity and the chemistry of gases (hence the title). He invented soda water, and is credited with the discovery of oxygen, although that is a complex story, made clear by the book. Priestly was involved with some wonderful learned sociecities, like the Royal Society and the Honest Whigs. He was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin when he lived in London. Priestly did have some scientific shortcomings, like his adherence to the phlogiston theory, and had a lively competition with Lavoisier. Priestly became a scientific rationalist that led him to religious dissention. He became a Unitarian, and wrote many sermons consistent with the Age of Reason. He, and many of his friends were sympathetic to the French Revolution, at least in principle, because they were philosophically committed to the notion of reason and human improvement which would necessarily sweet away some older institutions. None the less, his religion and politics led to mob violence against him, burning his home, destroying his laboratory and forcing him to flee to America. He became friends first with John Adams, and later with Jefferson, and tended to gravitate toward the latter. It is interesting to note that in their famous exchange of letters, Jefferson and Adams mention George Washington five times, and :Priestly 50 times. Priestly really condensed the great arguments of our democracy around him, and is an unsung hero of our foundation.

[Todd Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could write my own review, but there is really no reason to when the New York Times has so effectively captured my thoughts about The Invention of Air .
The review can be seen here.

Johnson uses the life story of Joseph Priestly (18th century scientist and one of the discoverers of oxygen) as a means to illustrate connections between the disparate fields of energy, religion, the French and American revolutions, the scientific method and the ways in which paradigm shifts occur (among a host of other diverse and unrelated topics). It’s a shame he didn’t stick to the history of Priestly, since this is by far the most interesting part of the story.

Instead, Johnson provides a snippet of Priestly’s life, then uses it as a launching pad to expound upon an unrelated (and more often than not, uninteresting) topic. In addition to being forced, these digressions are, as the Times points out …. “annoying”, and “a kind of book-length game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in which everything that ever was and ever will be is linked to everything else.”

That about nails it.

Also, the book is rather boring.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph Priestly will forever be remembered as the man who discovered and isolated oxygen. It turns out that he was not the first to do so, but the first to recognize the importance of his discovery and to publish his results. He was not the one who named the substance either, but still, he gets the credit. However, his greatest achievement, scientifically, took another two hundred years for anyone to fully appreciate. His discovery that plants refreshed the air and kept an animal alive long beyond when it would have expired in a closed system without plants has led to the science of ecosystems, the study of the inter-relatedness of all living creatures on the earth. Yet, he is largely unrecognized for this. He was a true amateur scientist, a theologian of some repute, and great liberal thinker who had a hand in the formation of the ideas upon which the United States was founded. As a friend and confidant of Benjamin Franklin, and later of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Priestly had great influence upon those gentlemen and their radical ideas. This book gives one a brief overview of how that all came about and proved to be a fascinating read, as well. And this from one who does not normally read a lot of history, but the science is what attracted me.

[Eileen Daly-Boas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't a biography of Joseph Priestley, and it isn't a full historical summary of England and the beginning of America. It's not a scientific monograph, and in some ways, it's not history of science, either. But it is a good, sweeping tale that includes everything from dinosaurs and gigantic dragonflies to the French revolution and the Alien and Sedition Act in the United States. If you read this as something it's not, you won't like it. If you think that Johnson is only promoting the view of science with a long lens, you're wrong there too. He's given a good overview of how one man can be a good starting place for looking backwards and forwards at science, politics and religion. If you ever liked the tv show, "Connections with James Burke," then you'll like this book. If you're an expert in science, religion or politics, you probably will think he's skimmed over things too quickly.
I liked this book, knowing almost nothing of Priestley, and only a little more about Franklin, Lavoisier, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. There's a nice section on the importance of coffee and coffee shops in Europe, and that makes me want to go back and read David Liss' The Coffee Trader. That's a great novel, by the way.

[Meri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph Priestly is not widely recognized, but may as well have been a (British) founding father. A product of a remarkable age, Priestly produced a string of innovations in science, religion, and politics. He was eventually exiled from England for his agnostic views, but he died a respected man in a young United States.

In this book, Johnson has taken an interesting figure and turned him into a metaphor for explosions of progress (like the Age of Enlightenment) and how seemingly separate disciplines can all advance rapidly at once. He talks about change and how we must be prepared to redefine our values, practices, or even definitions of reality to truly move forward as a society. Though the New York Times gripes that this is clearly not a biography, I won't fault Johnson for his digressions into the history of ideas, coffeehouse culture, and the connection between the fossil fuels that facilitate the destruction of our ecosystem and the discovery of said ecosystem thanks to the leisure time afforded us by fossil fuels. After all, if anything is to be learned from Priestly's practice of experimenting aimlessly, sometimes it helps not to follow a plan.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnson did an excellent job of putting a life and a time period into interwoven context. By modern standards, Priestley would be considered a "talented amateur" in the field of science, basically flinging experiments at a subject until it yielded results. His willingness to experiment with politics and religion as well got him into remarkable amounts of trouble, including a literal mob with torches coming to destroy his home.
My only minor quibbles were that several of his actual discoveries were barely mentioned, and the author made no effort to reconcile his seemingly conflicting religious, scientific and political beliefs and thought processes. How could the same man be one of the founders of rational Unitarianism and also believe in a literal interpretation of the book of Revelations? Why did he refuse to give up on the "phlogiston" theories that made him a scientific dinosaur? How could he fail to see the excesses of the French Revolution, especially after the death of his peer Lavoisier at their hands? These questions are not answered by this book, which is a shame.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating, and more technical/scientific/philosophical than books I've grown used to reading. Provides a decent mental workout of following the arguments he makes, but not difficult at all. It's interesting to hear Priestley's experiments explained, but I was expecting him to have a little more influence on American Founding Fathers. Definitely interesting he had influence at all, but the contact was essentially a bunch of letters between him and Franklin, and a few between him and Jefferson. After the blurb talked it up so much, Johnson almost skips past it. Interesting to hear of his ideas about Christianity, which truly seems to have helped berth the Jefferson Bible. He definitely got stuck on this stupid theory of "phlogiston" which I think is totally silly and possesses an absurd name.

I don't often read biographies, but this made me glad I watched HBO's John Adams, and made me want to read a good biography about Ben Franklin (and not Priestley)! The book wandered a bit, but I'm glad he did his research and wrote about religion and progressive politics.

[Kirsti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once upon a time there was a guy named Joseph Priestley who was the first person (or one of the first people) to isolate oxygen. He was pals with Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier, John Adams (who compared him to Socrates), and Thomas Jefferson. He was a founder of the Unitarian movement. He wrote many works of philosophy and helped found utilitarianism. And he invented soda water.

This guy, an Englishman, was pro-American Revolution, pro-French Revolution, and antimonarchist. He believed in God but insisted that Jesus was not divine and that most of Christianity was fake paganism. A mob burned his house down.

Like all the Steven Johnson books I've read, this is supposed to be about one thing (Joseph Priestley, cholera, neuroscience, ants, video games) but is really about the spread of ideas. Although this is my least favorite book of his, it's still good.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Priestley the eclectic, connected, open-source kitchen-sink hacker should've been the perfect subject for a Steven Johnson biography. Unfortunately this seems to have backfired, resulting in a scrappy scattergun collection of chapters, at once too brief and too loose, veering often into shallow hagiography (not just of Priestley but e.g. in a digression that felt especially cut&pasted from something else, of Thomas Kuhn), ending abruptly on a screechy-preachy (and I'm the choir!) 'Hear Ye, America' about Science and Faith and Politics, when Johnson's strengths have always lain, for me, on the lowercase, revisionist, complexifying side.
Enough sparkling passages and brilliantly communicated ideas to still rate a 3, and send me haring off in search of a good biography of Mary Priestley.