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Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World
by Simon WinchesterSHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2018 Bestselling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson.
Exceeding My Brief: Memoirs of a Disobedient Civil Servant
by Barbara HoskingFrom the tragic massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, to signing the Treaty of Rome when Britain entered the Common Market, Barbara Hosking was there.This is the story of a Cornish scholarship girl with no contacts who ended up in the corridors of power. It is also the very personal story of her struggle with her sexuality as a bewildered teenager, and as a young woman in the 1950s, a time when being gay could mean social ostracism.Born during the General Strike in 1926, Barbara Hosking worked her way through London’s typing pools in the 1950s to executive posts in the Labour Party, then to No. 10 as a press officer to Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. Between working on a copper mine in the African bush, pioneering British breakfast television and negotiating the complexities of government, hers has been a life of breadth and bravery. Looking back at the age of ninety-one, this is Barbara Hosking’s unheard-of account of the innermost workings of politics and the media amid the turbulence of twentieth-century Britain.
The Excellent Mrs Fry: Unlikely Heroine
by Anne IsbaElizabeth Fry, the great Quaker prison reformer of the nineteenth century, was just thirty two years old when she first entered the notorious women's gaol at Newgate. She was the mother of eight children and would go on to have three more. Yet, despite the demands of family, she would devote the rest of her life - over three more decades - to the welfare of female prisoners and convicts bound for Australia.When her efforts at last helped achieve changes to British law, Fry turned her attention to winning the hearts and minds of the great and good on continental Europe. She treated all people as equals, prisoners and princes alike. But her quiet dignity and magical voice hid a steely determination to do good wherever she perceived need. Her philanthropy extended to hospitals, schools, workhouses, asylums, orphanages and refuges; and she pioneered nursing training in Britain.Fry was the first woman in the country to bring private good works into the public domain, but at considerable to cost to her family and her own health.
Excellent Things in Women: A Memoir of Postcolonial Pakistan (Chicago Shorts)
by Sara Suleri GoodyearSometimes, only the most heartbreaking memories possess the capacity—in their elegiac immediacy—to take our breath away. With Excellent Things in Women, Sara Suleri offers the reader a delicately wrought memoir of life in postcolonial Pakistan. Suleri intertwines the violent history of Pakistan's independence with her own intimate experiences—relating the tumult of growing up female during a time of fierce change in the Middle East in the 1960s and ’70s. In the two selections presented here, “Excellent Things in Women” and “Meatless Days,” we watch as Suleri re-encounters the relationships that inform her voyage from adolescence to womanhood—with her Welsh mother; her Pakistani father, prominent political journalist Z. A. Suleri; and her tenacious grandmother, Dadi, along with her five siblings—as she comes to terms with the difficulties of growing up and her own complicated passage to the West.
Exclusive!: The Last Days Of Fleet Street - My Part In Its Downfall
by Maurice ChittendenOn a hot, sunny day last August, the final newspaper still working from an office on London’s Fleet Street called ‘stop the press’ and closed its doors for the final time. Thirteen days later it was the turn of award-winning journalist Maurice Chittenden to make his excuses and leave. He was fired from The Sunday Time after a Fleet Street career lasting almost forty years, one that saw him working for a trio of legendary Murdoch editors: Andrew Neil, Kelvin Mackenzie and Derek Jameson.In a rip-roaring trip through his career, he tells how he was involved (accidentally, of course) in the first ever telephone bugging of a member of the Royal Family twenty years before such skulduggery was even thought possible, helped solve the murder of schoolgirl Caroline Dickinson and was credited with bringing down a Tory government.He arrived too late to save his boss the embarrassment of the Hitler diaries, but he exposed the supposed Jack the Ripper confessions and Roswell alien autopsy film as fakes.He sparked a diplomatic incident when he was thrown into jail in Borneo over a lobster. One of the last surviving combatants in The Battle of Wapping, in which an attack on his car led to a police cavalry charge and a bloody riot, he is the most by-lined reporter in The Sunday Times history with up to seven by-lines a week.His career mirrored the rise and fall of Fleet Street and he freely admits that his own excesses played a part in its downfall. The Fleet Street he remembers with fondness no longer exists. But its reputation as the ‘Street of Shame’ survives in the name of the column in Private Eye which afforded him the plaudit of ‘the legendary Maurice Chittenden’ in its report of his professional demise.
An Exclusive Love: A Memoir
by Anthea Bell Johanna AdorjánOne Sunday morning in October, István and his wife Vera start their day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room. That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in their bed and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they could not accept the words 'until death do us part'. While sifting through the fragments of the family history in an attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their granddaughter Johanna Adorján imagines their final day. Amid the family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape from Hungary during the uprising of 1956.
Exe Men: The Extraordinary Rise of Exeter Chiefs
by Robert Kitson Lynn McConnell‘A beautifully-written, amusing and insightful book that gets to the very heart of Exeter Chiefs – a rugby club with one of the most remarkable stories in British sport. Rob Kitson’s Exe Men is the best rugby book I’ve read in years’ – Donald McRae, twice winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year‘Forensic, funny, captivating, a story told with relish as well as insight’ – Mick Cleary, The Telegraph‘No Exeter fan should be without this book, nor any sports fan who loves a fairy tale grounded in professionalism. Splendid stuff’ – Stuart Barnes, The Times‘Exeter Chiefs – the community club that grew into a European giant. This is how they did it. A quite brilliant combination of great story and great storyteller’ – Tom English, BBC Sport‘Beautifully told, this is a rare insight into the remarkable rise of the Chiefs, from their homespun roots to the pinnacle of European rugby – surely one of the most heart-warming tales in all of British sport’ – Alastair Eykyn, BT Sport‘Punchy and penetrative, Rob Kitson has done justice to one of sport’s greatest stories. If you don’t already love Exeter, you will now’ – Alan Pearey, Rugby World‘captures the establishment of the culture and some of the key moments in the rise of the Chiefs. So much more than a rugby book and full of genuinely funny anecdotes, this is a read for anyone interested in building a winning team’ – Chris Bentley, Express and Echo, ExeterAmong the best stories in modern British team sport has been the rise of Exeter Chiefs. How, exactly, did an unfashionable rugby team from Devon emerge from obscurity to become the double champions of England and Europe? What makes them tick? What are their secrets? Exe Men is a compelling story of regional pride, fierce rural identity, larger-than-life local heroes, remarkable characters, epic resilience, big city snobbery, geographical separation, steepling ambition and personal sacrifice which will strike a chord with anyone who enjoys a classic underdog story. This is not any old rugby book, it is the inside story of Exeter’s incredible journey from the edge of nowhere to the summit of the English and European club game.
The Exegesis of Philip K Dick
by Philip K. DickBased on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine. Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this will be the definitive presentation of Dick's brilliant, and epic, final work. In The Exegesis, Dick documents his eight-year attempt to fathom what he called "2-3-74", a postmodern visionary experience of the entire universe "transformed into information". In entries that sometimes ran to hundreds of pages, Dick tried to write his way into the heart of a cosmic mystery that tested his powers of imagination and invention to the limit, adding to, revising, and discarding theory after theory, mixing in dreams and visionary experiences as they occurred, and pulling it all together in three late novels known as the VALIS trilogy. In this abridgment, Jackson and Lethem serve as guides, taking the reader through the Exegesis and establishing connections with moments in Dick's life and work.
Exile on Front Street: My Life as a Hells Angel
by George ChristieSo many days I felt like a god, drunk with freedom and power, riding a motorcycle I’d crafted with my own two hands with that winged skull on my back. George Christie was president of the notorious Ventura charter of the Hells Angels for three decades. While Sonny Barger was the club’s reckless leader, George was the negotiator, the spokesman. In Exile on Front Street he takes us on an action-packed ride through his years as a Hells Angel, from the bloody brawl that started the war with the Mongols to learning that a contract had been taken out on him by the head of the Outlaws. He describes the brotherhood and the betrayals, being targeted by the Feds and his stretches in prison. He also reveals how the club changed, why he decided to leave for the sake of his family and how the leadership turned on him. Now Christie has decided to set the record straight in this hard-hitting account of what it means to be a Hells Angel through good times and bad.
Exiled from Jerusalem: The Diaries of Hussein Fakhri al-Khalidi
by Rafiq HusseiniThe diaries of Dr Hussein Fakhri al-Khalidi offer a unique insight to the peculiarities of colonialism that have shaped Palestinian history. Elected mayor of Jerusalem – his city of birth – in 1935, the physician played a leading role in the Palestinian Rebellion of the next year, with profound consequences for the future of Palestinian resistance and British colonial rule. One of many Palestinian leaders deported as a result of the uprising, it was in British-imposed exile in the Seychelles Islands that al-Khalidi began his diaries. Written with equal attention to lively personal encounters and ongoing political upheavals, entries in the diaries cover his sudden arrest and deportation by the colonial authorities, the fifteen months of exile on the tropical island, and his subsequent return to political activity in London then Beirut. The diaries provide a historical and personal lens into Palestinian political life in the late 1930s, a period critical to understanding the catastrophic 1948 exodus and dispossession of the Palestinian people. With an introduction by Rashid Khalidi the publication of these diaries offers a wealth of primary material and a perspective on the struggle against colonialism that will be of great value to anyone interested in the Palestinian predicament, past and present.
Exiled from Jerusalem: The Diaries of Hussein Fakhri al-Khalidi
The diaries of Dr Hussein Fakhri al-Khalidi offer a unique insight to the peculiarities of colonialism that have shaped Palestinian history. Elected mayor of Jerusalem – his city of birth – in 1935, the physician played a leading role in the Palestinian Rebellion of the next year, with profound consequences for the future of Palestinian resistance and British colonial rule. One of many Palestinian leaders deported as a result of the uprising, it was in British-imposed exile in the Seychelles Islands that al-Khalidi began his diaries. Written with equal attention to lively personal encounters and ongoing political upheavals, entries in the diaries cover his sudden arrest and deportation by the colonial authorities, the fifteen months of exile on the tropical island, and his subsequent return to political activity in London then Beirut. The diaries provide a historical and personal lens into Palestinian political life in the late 1930s, a period critical to understanding the catastrophic 1948 exodus and dispossession of the Palestinian people. With an introduction by Rashid Khalidi the publication of these diaries offers a wealth of primary material and a perspective on the struggle against colonialism that will be of great value to anyone interested in the Palestinian predicament, past and present.
The Exile's Song: Edmond Dédé and the Unfinished Revolutions of the Atlantic World
by Sally McKeeThe extraordinary story of African American composer Edmond Dédé, raised in antebellum New Orleans, and his remarkable career in France In 1855, Edmond Dédé, a free black composer from New Orleans, emigrated to Paris. There he trained with France’s best classical musicians and went on to spend thirty-six years in Bordeaux leading the city’s most popular orchestras. How did this African American, raised in the biggest slave market in the United States, come to compose ballets for one of the best theaters outside of Paris and gain recognition as one of Bordeaux’s most popular orchestra leaders? Beginning with his birth in antebellum New Orleans in 1827 and ending with his death in Paris in 1901, Sally McKee vividly recounts the life of this extraordinary man. From the Crescent City to the City of Light and on to the raucous music halls of Bordeaux, this intimate narrative history brings to life the lost world of exiles and travelers in a rapidly modernizing world that threatened to leave the most vulnerable behind.
The Existential Englishman: Paris Among the Artists
by Michael PeppiattA love letter to Paris and a memoir of a life spent at its bohemian heart, rich with adventures, misadventures and the beauty of one of the most enduringly romantic cities in the worldThe Existential Englishman is both a memoir and an intimate portrait of Paris – a city that can enchant, exhilarate and exasperate in equal measure. As Peppiatt remarks: 'You reflect and become the city just as the city reflects and becomes you'. This, then, is one man's not uncritical love letter to Paris. Intensely personal, candid and entertaining, The Existential Englishman chronicles Peppiatt's relationship with Paris in a series of vignettes structured around the half-dozen addresses he called home as a plucky young art critic. Having survived the tumultuous riots of 1968, Peppiatt traces his precarious progress from junior editor to magazine publisher, recalling encounters with a host of figures at the heart of Parisian artistic life – from Sartre, Beckett and Cartier-Bresson to Serge Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve. Peppiatt also takes us into the secret places that fascinate him most in this ancient capital, where memories are etched into every magnificent palace and humble cobblestone. On the historic streets of Paris, where all life is on show and every human drama played out, Michael Peppiatt is the wittiest and wickedest of observers, capturing the essence of the city and its glittering cultural achievements.
Existentialism and Excess: The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
by Gary CoxJean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and Excess covers all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life.Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself.
Existentialism and Excess: The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
by Gary CoxJean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and Excess covers all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life.Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself.
Exit Berlin: How One Woman Saved Her Family from Nazi Germany
by Charlotte R. BonelliJust a week after the Kristallnacht terror in 1938, young Luzie Hatch, a German Jew, fled Berlin to resettle in New York. Her rescuer was an American-born cousin and industrialist, Arnold Hatch. Arnold spoke no German, so Luzie quickly became translator, intermediary, and advocate for family left behind. Soon an unending stream of desperate requests from German relatives made their way to Arnold’s desk. Luzie Hatch had faithfully preserved her letters both to and from far-flung relatives during the World War II era as well as copies of letters written on their behalf. This extraordinary collection, now housed at the American Jewish Committee Archives, serves as the framework for Exit Berlin. Charlotte R. Bonelli offers a vantage point rich with historical context, from biographical information about the correspondents to background on U.S. immigration laws, conditions at the Vichy internment camps, refuge in Shanghai, and many other topics, thus transforming the letters into a riveting narrative. Arnold’s letters reveal an unfamiliar side of Holocaust history. His are the responses of an “average” American Jew, struggling to keep his own business afloat while also assisting dozens of relatives trapped abroad—most of whom he had never met and whose deathly situation he could not fully comprehend. This book contributes importantly to historical understanding while also uncovering the dramatic story of one besieged family confronting unimaginable evil.
Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars
by Nick Duerden'Exit Stage Left is the book I've long wanted to read about the PTSD-like after-effects of pop stardom - and Nick Duerden is the perfect writer for the job. The pop star's bittersweet lot - the mass adoration that comes with pop stardom, followed by the bathetic comedown of what inevitably follows - is represented with flair and empathy.' - Pete Paphides, author of Broken Greek'Tragedy, genius, addiction and inspiration: Exit Stage Left is a comprehensive tour through all the ways life can go wrong post-fame (and the few ways it can go right). Funny, poignant and often inspirational.' - Mat Osman 'Duerden finds fascinating layers of humanity, pathos, humour and wisdom in equal measure. A brilliant book, for artists and fans alike.' - Frank Turner'Fame is the brightest candle, but in this brilliant collection of interviews, Nick Duerden answers the question: what does a candle do after it's burned out?' - David Quantick The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?This is the world the pop star is required to inhabit. It's invariably eventful. We know all about them when they're at the top of their game, of course, but they tend to reveal far more of their true selves once they've peaked, and are on their way down. This is the point at which they are at their most heroic, because they don't give up. They keep on striving, keep making music, and refuse simply to ebb away. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed. But all of them, in their own individual ways, still dare to dream.Exit Stage Left features tales of drug addiction, bankruptcy, depression and divorce, but also of optimism, a genuine love of the craft, humility and hope. This is a candid, laugh-out-loud and occasionally shocking look at what happens when the brightest stars fall back down to earth.Featuring brand new interviews with the likes of: Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Wendy James, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, and Justin Hawkins.
Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars
by Peter GodwinPeter’s mother is dying. Born in England and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned living room of his sister’s London apartment, her accent having overnight become posher than the Queen’s. Unsentimental, fiercely stubborn and at times hilarious, she finally drops her guard, losing all fear of conflict to become the family provocateur.While confronting the revelations of what his family was – and wasn’t – and the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, Peter also mourns the ending of his long marriage. At this point of rupture and healing, Peter reflects on his family’s legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home.In Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars, Peter Godwin considers, with both tenderness and candour, the life of émigrés, exiles and refugees, and grieves the many losses that make life both magnificent and unbearable. He brings us into the spaces which make us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.
Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism
by Clara Claiborne ParkExiting Nirvana details Clara Claiborne Park's continuing efforts to have her daughter Jessy 'exit Nirvana,' develop as an artist, and connect with our world.
Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism
by Clara Claiborne ParkExiting Nirvana details Clara Claiborne Park's continuing efforts to have her daughter Jessy 'exit Nirvana,' develop as an artist, and connect with our world.
The Exmoor Files: How I Lost A Husband And Found Rural Bliss
by Liz JonesMoving from Islington to Exmoor; one small step for mankind but a very large one for MAIL ON SUNDAY columnist Liz Jones.Liz Jones lived the perfect urban life. The immaculate Georgian townhouse in a leafy London square. The glamorous career. The Italian wardrobe stuffed with designer bags and shoes. The much younger novelist husband. But then it all goes horribly wrong. She discovers her husband has been having numerous affairs (with women who are younger, dimmer, slimmer) and realises that her pursuit of perfection has never made her happy, and probably never will. And so she decides to start all over again, burying herself alive in the middle of the bleak, unforgiving wilderness that is Exmoor National Park. She buys a wreck of a farmhouse, with an original stable block, 46 acres, an ancient wood and a lake. She rescues a nervous and abused but breathtakingly beautiful racehorse and hopes to live out the rural dream. The reality, of course, is much, much harder. THE EXMOOR FILES is a funny, honest, often brutal real-life account of what it is like to start all over again in an alien environment. It is about discovering that you cannot find peace just by moving somewhere peaceful. It is about mourning for a relationship and letting go of the life you thought you deserved.
EXO: K-Pop Superstars
by Adrian BesleyA K-pop band like no other, EXO have been dominating charts and stealing hearts since they debuted in 2012. For the first time, this unofficial biography will tell their extraordinary story. Extensively researched, this book weaves in the backstories of each of the nine individual members with the story of the band as a whole, as well as detailing the support from their incredible fanbase, EXO-L. As any EXO-L knows, EXO come from an alien planet and possess superpowers – not hard to believe when you see how talented they are! They record their songs in Korean, Mandarin and Japanese, they have millions of fans all over the world, their music videos clock up hundreds of millions of views, and a captivated global audience watched this Korean-Chinese band close the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. No wonder Dazed magazine called them the ‘biggest Korean boyband in the world’.Featuring biographies of each of the nine current members – Suho, Xiumin, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai and Sehun – as well as previous members Luhan, Kris and Tao, and taking an in-depth look at what makes them stand out from the K-pop crowd, this accessible and upbeat book is a must for all fans of one of the biggest bands on the planet.
Experience: A Memoir (Folio Ser. #Vol. 30702)
by Martin AmisIn this remarkable work of autobiography, the son of the great comic novelist Kingsley Amis explores his relationship with his father and writes about the various crises of Kingsley's life, including the final one of his death. Amis also reflects on the life and legacy of his cousin, Lucy Partington, who disappeared without trace in 1973 and was exhumed twenty years later from the basement of Frederick West, one of Britain's most prolific serial murderers.
The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis)
by Jan GolinskiWhat did it mean to be a scientist before the profession itself existed? Jan Golinski finds an answer in the remarkable career of Humphry Davy, the foremost chemist of his day and one of the most distinguished British men of science of the nineteenth century. Originally a country boy from a modest background, Davy was propelled by his scientific accomplishments to a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. An enigmatic figure to his contemporaries, Davy has continued to elude the efforts of biographers to classify him: poet, friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth, author of travel narratives and a book on fishing, chemist and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. What are we to make of such a man? In The Experimental Self, Golinski argues that Davy’s life is best understood as a prolonged process of self-experimentation. He follows Davy from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experiment through his self-fashioning as a man of science in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today. What emerges is a portrait of Davy as a creative fashioner of his own identity through a lifelong series of experiments in selfhood.
The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis)
by Jan GolinskiWhat did it mean to be a scientist before the profession itself existed? Jan Golinski finds an answer in the remarkable career of Humphry Davy, the foremost chemist of his day and one of the most distinguished British men of science of the nineteenth century. Originally a country boy from a modest background, Davy was propelled by his scientific accomplishments to a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. An enigmatic figure to his contemporaries, Davy has continued to elude the efforts of biographers to classify him: poet, friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth, author of travel narratives and a book on fishing, chemist and inventor of the miners’ safety lamp. What are we to make of such a man? In The Experimental Self, Golinski argues that Davy’s life is best understood as a prolonged process of self-experimentation. He follows Davy from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experiment through his self-fashioning as a man of science in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today. What emerges is a portrait of Davy as a creative fashioner of his own identity through a lifelong series of experiments in selfhood.