'The Invention of Air' by Steven Johnson
BOOK REVIEW
A story of science, faith, revolution and the birth of America
Although it centers on the life of Joseph Priestley, the 18th century English chemist and clergyman, Steven Johnson's "The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America" is far from a conventional biography. It is the story of Priestley's ideas -- who inspired them, whom they influenced and how they came to be.
"The Invention of Air" deals with revolution: Priestley's discovery that different gases make up Earth's atmosphere was as radical in its time as Copernicus' sun-centered solar system was in his.
Nor did Priestley confine his iconoclasm to science. His support of the French and American revolutions earned him the name "Gunpowder Joe." In a 1785 sermon, he compared these uprisings to "gunpowder" placed beneath "the old building of error and superstition," which would obliterate both its structure and foundation.
Priestley did not keep his thoughts to himself. He told anybody who would listen -- publishing books and pamphlets to widen his audience. This free flow of information between Priestley and other Enlightenment intellectuals created a petri dish for the incubation of yet more original thought.
"The idea of proprietary secrets, of withholding information for personal gain, was unimaginable in that group," Johnson writes.
Had Priestley been greedy, many things today might be different -- including the soft-drink business. In the 1770s, he discovered carbon dioxide ("mephitic" air, he called it) and invented soda water. But in 1783, Johann Schweppe patented the process, establishing the fizzy-water empire that still bears his name.
Beverages are surprisingly central to Priestley's story -- and to the Enlightenment itself.
In 1765, the 32-year-old Priestley first set foot in the London Coffee House, the informal hangout of the "Honest Whigs," who would initiate the callow clergyman into the cutting-edge mysteries of science. Members of the group included mathematician Richard Price as well as Benjamin Franklin, "the world's most celebrated electrician," who would become a lifelong friend.
The Honest Whigs were wired before wired was fashionable. Not only were their laboratories rigged for electrical experiments, but their brains were also juiced on java, which had replaced alcohol as England's daytime drug of choice. "Create enough caffeine abusers in your society and you'll be statistically more likely to launch an Age of Reason," Johnson dryly notes.
