What do you think?
Rate this book
The Prometheans: John Martin and the generation that stole the future
The fascinating story of four maverick siblings is interwoven with a magisterial and multi-faceted account of the industrial, political, and artistic ferment of early 19th-century Britain The richly varied lives of the Martin brothers reflected the many upheavals of Britain in the age of Industrial Revolution. Low-born and largely unschooled, they were part of a new generation of artists, scientists, and inventors who witnessed the creation of the modern world. William, the eldest, was an eccentric inventor; Richard fought in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo; Jonathan, a hellfire preacher tormented by madness; while John the youngest single-handedly invented, mastered, and exhausted an entire genre of painting, the apocalyptic sublime, while playing host to the foremost writers, scientists, and thinkers of his day. This narrative centers on a generation of inventors, artists, and radical intellectuals (including the chemist Humphry Davy, the engineer George Stephenson, the social reformer Robert Owen, and the poet Shelley), and for Max Adams, the shared inspiration that binds this generation together is the cult of Prometheus, the titan of ancient Greek mythology who became a potent symbol of political and personal liberation from the mid-18th century onwards. Whether writing about Davy’s invention of the miner’s safety lamp, the scandalous private life of the Prince Regent, the death of Shelley or J.M.W. Turner’s use of color, Adams’s narrative is pacy; characterful; and rich in anecdote, quotation, and memorable character sketch. Like John Martin himself, he has created a sprawling and brightly colored canvas on an epic scale.
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 5, 2009
3 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Max Adams
14 books187 followersI am an archaeologist, woodsman and traveller. I live in the North-east of England where I write about landscape and history. My next non-fiction work, to be published in Autumn 2017, is called Alfred's Britain - a history and archaeology of the British Isles in the Viking Age. The King in the North has been a non-fiction bestseller since its publication. In the Land of Giants, my latest non-fiction book, is a series of journeys, mostly on foot, through Dark Age landscapes.
In May 2016 I published my first novel, The Ambulist.
In May 2016 I published my first novel, The Ambulist.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 14, 2026
A spirited blast through the greatest minds of the Industrial Revolution, expanded to include them as the Prometheans of the title alongside the likes of Shelley (both), Byron, Turner, and John Martin.
Martin is best known as the painter of the apocalyptic sublime - The Great Day of His Wrath is the stand-out example, and the book would have been foolish not to use it on the front cover. The Prometheans, Max Adams postulates, were those who seized science and the arts by the scruff of the neck and professionalised them. They did not delineate between science and art (John Martin, for example, was just as interested in improving the quality of water in London and even dreamed up a scheme for a circular railway around London - utter madness, obviously), but they paved the way for their successors to become even greater. They seized control of information from the censorious government of the time (see: Henry Brougham's Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge); they invented safety maps and wrote poetry, although possibly not at the exact same time.
Given the focus of the text on the back of the book I had hoped for a more art-focused history: although Martin does remain a constant presence throughout the book, like his own paintings he becomes only one detail amongst many as his generation sparks a catalyst for changes throughout society. A fine overview, I think, but you may have to go elsewhere to explore the staggering apocalypses of John Martin the painter. If you ever get the chance to see The Great Day of His Wrath in person, I recommend you drop everything and go.
Martin is best known as the painter of the apocalyptic sublime - The Great Day of His Wrath is the stand-out example, and the book would have been foolish not to use it on the front cover. The Prometheans, Max Adams postulates, were those who seized science and the arts by the scruff of the neck and professionalised them. They did not delineate between science and art (John Martin, for example, was just as interested in improving the quality of water in London and even dreamed up a scheme for a circular railway around London - utter madness, obviously), but they paved the way for their successors to become even greater. They seized control of information from the censorious government of the time (see: Henry Brougham's Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge); they invented safety maps and wrote poetry, although possibly not at the exact same time.
Given the focus of the text on the back of the book I had hoped for a more art-focused history: although Martin does remain a constant presence throughout the book, like his own paintings he becomes only one detail amongst many as his generation sparks a catalyst for changes throughout society. A fine overview, I think, but you may have to go elsewhere to explore the staggering apocalypses of John Martin the painter. If you ever get the chance to see The Great Day of His Wrath in person, I recommend you drop everything and go.
December 5, 2012
I bought this book because I was wanting a book about John Martin and this was described as a social history of the early 19th century reflected through the lives of the Martin brothers. What this actually was was a very ecclectic history book, which occasionally mentioned the Martins, but one that I still found interesting. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who wasn't familiar with the period, Adams jumped around so much from topic to topic and person to person that I think it would have been very confusing for a reader unfamiliar with the time. Then again, anyone who was familiar with the time would probably find little new here. As someone who studied it years ago though it was a great refresher of the people and the issues of the period. It covered inventions, politics, social and economic history. I was a little disappointed how little there was about Martin within this book. Though I did learn some interesting things I found myself wanting to learn a lot more. What was also interesting was the accounts of his mad brother, (whose autobiography was quoted liberally - as is availble on google books). While not quite what I was hoping for I did enjoy this book as a popular history book of the period. I'm not sure if Adams' thesis of the promethean myth as the central focus for the movers and idealists of this time period holds up, but it was an interesting device for bringing together all the people he wished to talk about. But despite all this I found myself enjoying it nonetheless.
October 24, 2018
Sensational primer for the arts/science explosion of the late 18th/early 19th centuries, tied very convincingly to the cult of Prometheus. Covers similar territory to Richard Holmes'terrific Age of Wonder, but with 'The Prometheans' centering on John Martin (the creator, master, and exhauster of his own genre of painting: The Apocalyptic Sublime). Adams somehow pulls this off; brilliant stuff.
March 10, 2017
Couldn't finish. Started four times and this last made it to p. 73 before calling it. It's not so much because of the scattered narrative (although there was that), but it just didn't work. Obvious things are spelled out, if oddly ("Alexander Hamilton, a colourful journalist, lawyer and soldier") but things like phlogiston aren't. (And it's kind of important, going from the subtle fluid model to understanding elemental chemistry.) I'm not sure of the intended audience, but apparently lawyer-history of science geek isn't it.
June 17, 2012
The Prometheans were the generation born between 1770 and 1790 whose genius changed the country. Adams tells the story of the period through the lives of the painter John Martin and his brothers. The format gives shape to the period, and he shows how progress in science was linked to social upheaval. Adams is an extremely able writer and historian, and this is my kind of book. Excellent.
May 7, 2022
Mostly historical journalism lacking real analysis, centred on the Martin brothers but touching upon disparate movers and shakers over several generations straining to link them through the Promethean myth. You get a mention if at some point you could possibly have had Promethean brand matches in your pocket.
January 8, 2017
Abandoned on page 25 of 300. Jumped about too much and required more knowledge of the period than I had.
September 15, 2020
Very eclectic review of a loosely connected group of significant, influential intellectuals in Britain in the early 19th Century. Features a cast of fascinating characters from Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday to Joseph Turner and Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. The central character is the apocalyptic painter John Martin, who has been much scorned by the art establishment but turns out to have been a well-connected and commercially successful artist in his own lifetime.
This is very engagingly and skillfully written. The author, I believe, usually specialises in early medieval Britain but his erudition and research seem excellent.
I'm not sure I entirely buy the central premise strongly linking all these characters (not a consciously constituted grouping, as the author himself points out) to the inspirational figure of Prometheus in particular - all of them would have been familiar with the myth I suppose, but it doesn't seem that there is very strong evidence in all cases of the explicit intellectual and moral filiation that is implied in the author's thesis.
I was also slightly disappointed that despite the author's clear fondness for John Martin's extraordinary canvases, he feels obliged to repeatedly put down the painter's technique and general artistic competence in comparison with his contemporaries (and not only with Turner, an acknowledged genius, but also such comparative journeymen as Benjamin Haydon). This is unfair, comes across as a craven concession to the academic snobbishness of the intervening two centuries, and feels slightly out of tune in the early 21st Century when Martin is, at long last, being re-evaluated by art critics and the general public.
This is very engagingly and skillfully written. The author, I believe, usually specialises in early medieval Britain but his erudition and research seem excellent.
I'm not sure I entirely buy the central premise strongly linking all these characters (not a consciously constituted grouping, as the author himself points out) to the inspirational figure of Prometheus in particular - all of them would have been familiar with the myth I suppose, but it doesn't seem that there is very strong evidence in all cases of the explicit intellectual and moral filiation that is implied in the author's thesis.
I was also slightly disappointed that despite the author's clear fondness for John Martin's extraordinary canvases, he feels obliged to repeatedly put down the painter's technique and general artistic competence in comparison with his contemporaries (and not only with Turner, an acknowledged genius, but also such comparative journeymen as Benjamin Haydon). This is unfair, comes across as a craven concession to the academic snobbishness of the intervening two centuries, and feels slightly out of tune in the early 21st Century when Martin is, at long last, being re-evaluated by art critics and the general public.
February 26, 2024
excellent book
some of the two star reviewers here really wanted a different book, sometimes don't judge a book by its cover is not the best advice, the cover of my copy told me what to expect
But i always have little niggles , in the highly unlikely event that someone reading my review is thinking of writing let me say , if you are going to mention thermodynamics in passing ask a thermodynamicist to read those bits, Rumfords work pertains to the mechanical equivalent of heat, hot to latent heat ( that would be Black, in Scotland) and the note on stirling engines is such a mangled mess it really would have been better to have said nothing
We all have our little hobby horses and i know it would not be poss to squeze all the interesting stuff into a small book but i think Cochrane deserved more than " a disaffected naval. . . ."
he was against corruption so made enemies, he was elected by westminster a constituency proudly unbuyable, and he damn nearly precipitated a violent civil war, before he was made to realise he could not defend his friends house with arms and barrells of gunpowder
some of the two star reviewers here really wanted a different book, sometimes don't judge a book by its cover is not the best advice, the cover of my copy told me what to expect
But i always have little niggles , in the highly unlikely event that someone reading my review is thinking of writing let me say , if you are going to mention thermodynamics in passing ask a thermodynamicist to read those bits, Rumfords work pertains to the mechanical equivalent of heat, hot to latent heat ( that would be Black, in Scotland) and the note on stirling engines is such a mangled mess it really would have been better to have said nothing
We all have our little hobby horses and i know it would not be poss to squeze all the interesting stuff into a small book but i think Cochrane deserved more than " a disaffected naval. . . ."
he was against corruption so made enemies, he was elected by westminster a constituency proudly unbuyable, and he damn nearly precipitated a violent civil war, before he was made to realise he could not defend his friends house with arms and barrells of gunpowder
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews