The Enlightened Joseph Priestley

The Enlightened Joseph Priestley
Author: Robert E. Schofield
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2015-10-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0271075570
GET BOOK

In The Enlightened Joseph Priestley Robert Schofield completes his two-volume biography of one of the great figures of the English Enlightenment. The first volume, published in 1997, covered the first forty years of Joseph Priestley’s life in England. In this second volume, Schofield surveys the mature years of Priestley, including the achievements that were to make him famous—the discovery of oxygen, the defenses of Unitarianism, and the political liberalism that characterized his later life. He also recounts Priestley’s flight to Pennsylvania in 1794 and the final years of his life spent along the Susquehanna in Northumberland. Together, the two volumes will stand as the standard biography of Priestley for years to come. Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), a contemporary and friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, exceeded even these polymaths in the breadth of his curiosity and learning. Yet Priestley is often portrayed in negative terms, as a restless intellect, incapable of confining himself to any single task, without force or originality, and marked by hasty and superficial thought. In The Enlightened Joseph Priestley, he emerges as a man who was more than a lucky empiricist in science, more than a naive political liberal, more than an exhaustive compiler of superficial evidence in militant support of Unitarianism. In fact, he was learned in an extraordinary variety of subjects, from grammar, education, aesthetics, metaphysics, politics, and theology to natural philosophy. Priestley was, in fact, a man of the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley

The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley
Author: Robert E. Schofield
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780271025100
GET BOOK

Joseph Priestley (1733&–1804) is one of the major figures of the English Enlightenment. A contemporary and friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, he exceeded even these polymaths in the breadth of his curiosity and learning. Yet no one has attempted an all-inclusive biography of Priestley, probably because he was simply too many persons for anyone easily to comprehend in a single study. Robert Schofield has devoted a lifetime of scholarship to this task. The result is a magisterial book, covering the life and works of Priestley during the critical first forty years of his life. Although Priestley is best known as a chemist, this book is considerably more than a study in the history of science. As any good biographer must, Schofield has thoroughly studied the many activities in which Priestley was engaged. Among them are theology, electricity, chemistry, politics, English grammar, rhetoric, and educational philosophy. Schofield situates Priestley, the provincial dissenter, within the social, political, and intellectual contexts of his day and examines all the works Priestley wrote and published during this period. Schofield singles out the first forty years of Priestley's life because these were the years of preparation and trial during which Priestley qualified for the achievements that were to make him famous. The discovery of oxygen, the defenses of Unitarianism, and the political liberalism that characterize the mature Priestley&—all are foreshadowed in the young Priestley. A brief epilogue looks ahead to the next thirty years when Priestley was forced out of England and settled in Pennsylvania, the subject of Schofield's next book. But this volume stands alone as the definitive study of the making of Joseph Priestley.

Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 532
Release: 1840
Genre: Encyclopedias and dictionaries
ISBN:
GET BOOK

V.1-20 are, like missing vols. 21-26, also freely available online at the the China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL), & can be accessed with the following individual urls: http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv1 Note: Click to view v.1 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv2 Note: Click to view v.2 via CADAL http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv3 Note: Click to view v.3 via CADAL http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv4 Note: Click to view v.4 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv5 Note: Click to view v.5 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv6 Note: Click to view v.6 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv7 Note: Click to view v.7 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv8 Note: Click to view v.8 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv9 Note: Click to view v.9 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv10 Note: Click to view v.10 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv11 Note: Click to view v.11 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv12 Note: Click to view v.12 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv13 Note: Click to view v.13 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv14 Note: Click to view v.14 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv15 Note: Click to view v.15 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv16 Note: Click to view v.16 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv17 Note: Click to view v.17 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv18 Note: Click to view v.18 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv19 Note: Click to view v.19 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv20 Note: Click to view v.20 via CADAL.