Draw the Lighting Down

by Schiffer, Michael Brian

• ISBN13: 9780520238022
• ISBN10: 0520238028
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Most of us know--at least we've heard--that Benjamin Franklin conducted some kind of electrical experiment with a kite. What few of us realize--and what this book makes powerfully clear--is that Franklin played a major role in laying the foundations of modern electrical science and technology. This fast-paced book, rich with historical details and anecdotes, brings to life Franklin, the large international network of scientists and inventors in which he played a key role, and their amazing inventions. We learn what these early electrical devices--from lights and motors to musical and medical instruments--looked like, how they worked, and what their utilitarian and symbolic meanings were for those who invented and used them. Against the fascinating panorama of life in the eighteenth century, Michael Brian Schiffer tells the story of the very beginnings of our modern electrical world. The earliest electrical technologies were conceived in the laboratory apparatus of physicists; because of their surprising and diverse effects, however, these technologies rapidly made their way into many other communities and activities. Schiffer conducts us from community to community, showing how these technologies worked as they were put to use in public lectures, revolutionary experiments in chemistry and biology, and medical therapy. This story brings to light the arcane and long-forgotten inventions that made way for many modern technologies--including lightning rods (Franklin's invention), cardiac stimulation, xerography, and the internal combustion engine--and richly conveys the complex relationships among science, technology, and culture.

Author Biography

Michael Brian Schiffer is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.

Table of Contents

Age of Enlightenment

Preface

List of Figures

The Franklin Phenomenon

In the Beginning

A Coming of Age

Going Public

Power to the People

Life and Death

First, Do No Harm

An Electrical World

Property Protectors

A New Alchemy

Visionary Inventors

Technology Transfer: A Behavioral Framework

Notes

References Cited

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.