Pure Intelligence : The Life of William Hyde Wollaston - Melvyn C. Usselman

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Pure Intelligence

The Life of William Hyde Wollaston

By: Melvyn C. Usselman

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Hardcover | 21 May 2015 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
424 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.35 x 1.6 x 0.3

Hardcover

$100.75

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William Hyde Wollaston was born into a large, religious, and scientifically informed family in 1766 and died sixty-two years later as one of the Western world's most highly regarded scientists. With encouragement from his well-connected father, he studied medicine at Cambridge, and began practicing as a physician in the provinces before moving his practice to London in 1797, arriving in the capital about the same time as his illustrious colleagues Humphry Davy and Thomas Young. After a few years in London, Wollaston abandoned the vocation he had come to dislike and bravely set out to make his living as a chemical entrepreneur, while pursuing his intellectual interests in a wide range of contemporary scientific subjects. He, Davy, and Young were to become Britain's leading scientific practitioners in the first third of the nineteenth century, and their deaths within a six month time span were seen by many as the end of a glorious period of British supremacy in science. In contrast to his two more famous colleagues, Wollaston's life was not recorded for posterity in a contemporary biography, and his many remarkable scientific, commercial, instrumental, and institutional achievements have fallen into obscurity as a result. This biography is the first book-length study of Wollaston, his science, and the environment in which he thrived.

Industry Reviews

"Portraying the extraordinary polymath Wollaston both in detail and in the round, this elegantly written work is a major contribution to understanding early nineteenth-century British science. Usselman exhibits quiet mastery of the diverse fields in which Wollaston labored, fitting his subject into the science, the technology, and the political and economic life of his day. His work says much about themes of great current historical interest, including the relationships of science to artisanal crafts, invention, and enterprise. Pure Intelligence is both an intellectual tour de force and a pleasure to read." (Alan Rocke, Case Western Reserve University)

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