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Harvard Book Store is excited to welcome STEVEN JOHNSON, best-selling author of The Ghost Map, to discuss his newest book The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America.
In The Invention of Air Johnson tells the story of Joseph Priestley, an eighteenth-century radical thinker who played pivotal roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the discovery of oxygen, the founding of the Unitarian Church, and the intellectual development of the United States.
In the 1780s, Priestley had established himself in his native England as a brilliant scientist, a prominent minister, and an outspoken advocate of the American Revolution, who had sustained long correspondences with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Ultimately, his radicalism made his life politically uncomfortable, and he fled to the nascent United States. Here, he was able to build conceptual bridges linking the scientific, political, and religious impulses that governed his life. And through his close relationships with the Founding Fathers—Jefferson credited Priestley as the man who prevented him from abandoning Christianity—he exerted profound if little-known influence on the shape and course of our history.
"The Invention of Air succeeds like a shot of the purest oxygen." —Simon Winchester (The Man Who Loved China)
CONTACT:
General Info:
617.661.1515
Media:
617.661.1424 ex.1
Email:
Event Information
DATE:
Thursday, January 8th
TIME:
7:00 PM
LOCATION:
Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge
TICKETS:
This event is free; no tickets are required
Steven Johnson is the author of the acclaimed bestsellers The Ghost Map, Everything Bad Is Good for You, and Mind Wide Open, as well as Emergence and Interface Culture. Mr. Johnson is also the cofounder of several influential websites, including FEED, Plastic, and outside.in. He lives with his wife and sons in Brooklyn.
